Founder's Story - Buying a Business Today at Zero Down | Ep. 38 with Roland Frasier

Episode Date: October 27, 2020

Roland Frasier Co-founder and/or principal of 5 different Inc. Magazine fastest growing companies (e-commerce, e-learning, SaaS + real estate).Serial entrepreneur who built or sold 24 businesses with adjusted sales ranging from $3 million to just under $4 billion. Currently CEO of All Channels Media, LLC, and principal in Scalable.co, DigitalMarketer.com, Traffic & Conversion Summit, Praxio.com, TruConversion.com, War Room Mastermind, Fully Accountable, Everbowl Restaurants, Big Block Realty, Scribe Publishing and Real Estate Worldwide. Today he discusses how to buy a business with no money down and why this is the best time to do so. Visit here to check out his course that Kate took and has said it changed her life, showing you exactly what to do. Today's episode is sponsored by Anchor. Make sure to check out Anchor.fm and see why we love to use them as our podcast hosting. Please rate, review, subscribe, and share with a friend who will be inspired. Visit KateHancock.com for insights into guests and future episodes. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ibhshow/supportOur Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Inspired by Her, the podcast that will give you the inspiration, motivation and tips for success from some of the top executives, CEOs and influencers from around the globe. With your host, serial entrepreneur and named one of the most influential Filipina in the world, Kate Hancock. Hi everyone, this is Kate and today I have the amazing Roland Fraser. What's happening? Yep, I'm honored for you to be here. Everyone, yes, Roland is a co-founder and principal of five different magazine fastest growing companies including e-commerce, e-learning, I'm part of his mastermind group, which is amazing. I can't wait to talk about it. SaaS and real estate. Now he is a serial entrepreneur who built or sold 24 businesses with adjusted sales ranging from 3 million to just

under 4 billion. Now, Roland, how did you do all that? Well, I basically just really love business, and I've been very much a student of it my entire life. I've surrounded myself with always the smartest, most successful folks that I can find that also share my values. And then I just, you know, I just don't let anything stop me from moving forward. I'm always, I'm never, I'm always happy, but never satisfied. So always looking for what is the next place to go. And I think that everything I'm doing now is going to be gone in five years. So I need to be replacing everything and finding the new things. So that helps. Wow. Wow. Now, can you tell me what was your first deal? I mean, how did you get into businesses? Tell me your story. It was a long, long time ago. I started doing magic shows for people and then, uh, got into probably playing music was my first

real business. Um, I, uh, I played keyboards in bands from about age 15 to 42. So I was, uh, I ended up like kind of, I was the guy that formed the band and then found the jobs usually a couple of times that other people did it. And then I ended up buying all the equipment, so I ran sound and lights. I bought a PA and lights for my band and then ended up renting those out to other people, and I would run sound for them. And so that's probably the first thing that was truly a money-making business that I did. Well, now, does any of your family, like entrepreneur, your parents, where'd you get that from? Yeah, my father is, to this day, a tax attorney. He worked for the

Internal Revenue Service for several years, but while he was going through law school, and then worked as a trial attorney or as an attorney for the IRS for several years, and then went out on his own. So he, he has been a, uh, an entrepreneur in the legal space for years. And because he does tax law, his client base is very entrepreneurial. And so I got to see as a kid, all these people that were, you know, running, uh, racehorses or owned gold mines or, you know, had this software or something like that. And it was just always

fascinating to me that, that these people were doing that. He was also a real estate investor. So I watched him, you know, buying and selling real estate. And so I was exposed to it both from him and all of his clients and just was like, this is absolutely what I want to do. Wow. Wow. Wow. So how did you make your first million? Um, it was my first, probably was in real estate. Um, and then, uh, and then business quick, pretty quickly after that. Um, I, I would say, yeah, real estate was the first, was the first place because, uh, I got my real estate license when I was 18. And then, uh, 19, I got my insurance license, 20, I got my securities estate license when I was 18 and then 19, I got my insurance license 20, I got my securities license.

So I was doing real estate syndications and things like that, that neighborhoods buying land and developing it, putting in water and sewer and then getting the zoning changed, building houses, that kind of stuff. Wow. Wow. Well, I know one thing about you cause I've been following your Facebook and I know this is one of your favorite wives. I can recognize the label absolutely yes yes so you have the most amazing

personal brand and your content do you do your content daily I do yes okay and you advise to the morning brew that that I I subscribe that was really awesome it's a great newsletter yeah we're we have one we're we're doing multiple newsletters now and that's really our our gold standard model so we've launched one called dm insider we have one called scalable newsletter now that we just launched last week and um and we've got two or three more that are coming but i think those guys not only do they do a great job but also it's very very interesting to read i think now how did you get involved with digital marketer and how how does that how did that happen digital marketer i um i

was looking for uh to to know more about online i had several online properties uh very very early on and um i had a deal with uh with compu serve and a deal with america online so that gives you an idea of how long ago it was but um so i was always looking for marketing information online and I found, I found Ryan Dice. It was pre digital marketer. It was, he had some kind of like monthly thing that he was doing and occasionally an email I got on his email list. And then I think it was maybe 2008 that he launched his first product with Perry Belcher and it was Perry was Mr. X. And it was called was Mr. X and it was called Wholesale Traffic System and it was about using Google ads and AdWords and I bought that and was was like

this is great and then I found out that they were going to have this live event called Traffic and Conversion Summit and so I was like awesome I'm I'm in and I went and it was just the best event I'd ever been to. I loved how absolutely practical it was. It was people that were actually doing things. They didn't sell anything. It was all just great content. And that was very unusual, especially then because most events that you would go to, they would just, everybody would talk, but they wouldn't teach you anything. They just sell you things and never give you actionable information. And this was completely different. And the people were obviously doing things and the crowd that was there was amazing. There's only a few hundred people. And I ended up, they offered a thing

called the war room, which I did not join. And then I regretted it for the next several months until the second traffic conversion summit came. And then I went and I joined, I was able to get to know them better. And ultimately, I helped them out on several things, because I my background is an attorney and accounting and all those things, like kind of what we call the real business world. And, and so I would help them with things I did never ask for anything in return, when the opportunity came when one of their an equity opening came to be an equal partner with them they both said you know hey would you like to do this and i said yes and so i did wow wow wow now can you tell me about the epic accelerator like i'm part of that that i have to say that's the best mastermind i've been telling all my EO friends to join. Well, I appreciate that.

I'm actually telling it for you, but it is literally the most, I mean, I got a lot of it. Like you over deliver. Can you tell me why did you launch this mastermind? Yeah, it's, um, so I have been a passionate acquirer, uh, and seller of businesses for years and years and years. And I have done it through several of the economic downturns seem to be the really amazingly good times to be acquiring businesses. And so I have also had for, you know, 10, 15 years, a whole bunch of people saying,

you really need to show us how to do this stuff that you do buying companies without having to come out of pocket and of any money. And so it just, the planets kind of all aligned. I had been teaching a course that had a very, very tiny sliver of that in it called LEGS, leverage, exit um and i just decided to really focus on the acquisitions part in um november and so in november of 2019 i rewrote a lot of the first part of legs and then i completely rewrote the whole thing in january of this year that basically was, you know, effectively it was about a four day course of stuff. And, um, I taught it in two days, which was crazy because it was just, I couldn't fit it all in. And so, um, we had a, one of those legs events scheduled for the day before. Well, actually

it was the day that they shut everything down in California was we were supposed to teach that course. So I had to, I had to cancel it, send everybody back that had come. And, um, I decided to deliver it online. And, and one of my friends, Pete Vargas told me that he and his, uh, business partner, Pedro Adeo were doing challenges and that they were doing very very well and it really because the feedback from my two-day course was it's so much information it's very overwhelming was if I could teach a bit of it over five days I could really get people an intro into kind of how you know how this stuff works and so I broke the first part of it, identifying companies into a five day challenge. And then on the back end of that, just basically gave everything over

eight weeks that I used to teach in two days, but I never could teach it all in two days. I would be like looking at my slide deck and based on what people said they were interested in, I'd pick what I would cover. So now I can cover the whole thing and teach everything. And plus it gave me more time to, you know, to identify specific, like go back through deals and say, oh, I did this deal this way. So I've expanded from like 59 to 216 different ways to acquire businesses with no money out of pocket and from 27 to 153 ways to find deals. And you know, that like teaching it, talking about it, being very immersed in it these last several months has really helped make it even better. And then every time it gets better, anybody that's been in it before, I give all that

to them too. And so it's, it's just been great. And now we've got software that helps analyze deals and it's so that's, it's just very, very exciting. I'm very passionate about it. It's something I do all the time. You know, I'm constantly working on deals. We're acquiring several companies right now and the beat to be able to teach it and help other people see, you know, how to do the same thing has just been great. And I love getting the feedback. I mean, the people that message you and are like, I just bought this and I just bought that again. I just did a podcast interview right before this. And the guy said, yeah, I did this and I got two companies. I'm just so cool. And there's no there's no limit on it because there's so many businesses that are available to acquire that I don't feel like I'm giving away this, you know, thing I've got to keep to myself. I think the more people that are out there doing it, the better it helps the economy. It helps employees.

It helps the legacy for the people that were out there. And the more of this that we do, the faster we get back to, you know, to a positive growing economy. Yeah. So I have to tell you, I, you know, me and my husband, he, we actually acquired a Facebook group from your class. It was a hundred thousand members for 350 dollars nice and so it was a travel facebook group and we used that to leverage and we actually get a free hotel in aspen for 700 a night so i got it literally for free

right because it's 1400 that is great. That is great. Congratulations. That's really, really cool. Nice. Thank you. Yeah, so I learned it from you. And so our goal is to buy more and to put it together and bundle it to media. Like, I'm so excited. Like, you really help us a lot for, like, switching our brain to, like, I get tempted sometimes to do startup, like no rolling places. I don't do that. Just buy already existing business. Can you tell us more about that?

So much easier, so much faster return on your money and effort, right? Yeah. Yeah. We made, we made all this mistakes and why would you want to do the hard way? Exactly. Exactly. Now, what would be your advice for anyone who's stuck under 2 million revenue and they have nowhere else to go? What business advice would you give? Well, I mean, to grow the company? To grow the company. I think the biggest thing that you see, me and my other business partners talk about this a lot, is that the biggest challenge I think that most businesses have is that they have one product offered one way to one audience through one channel. And so if you can look at expanding any of those things beyond the one times one times one times one, then the multiplier effect is pretty significant. And if you could just find two audiences and you maybe added another product, so you had two products and you were going through two channels, you know, then you're two times two times two

times two, right? So it becomes an exponentially greater expansion of the business exponentially faster if you can do that. So getting past that one, one, one, one, one, you know, is probably the biggest lever mover that I can think of for super, super fast. Wow. Wow. Wow. Now, Roland, what was the most challenging experience that you had to overcome? Most challenging experience. Oh, gosh, I don't know. There's there's always challenges in in every aspect of business. You know, I think that I had I had a business that completely went away and I had to completely reinvent everything after that. That was pretty challenging. I've had, I have, I had probably actually the most challenging thing I could think of was really, I had one of my business partner's father managed money for a bunch of very famous people like the Coors family and those. And he ended up stealing a million dollars from me and 400,000 from his son. And I had to replace that money because it

was client's money that I had to manage. And I had given it to him to manage. And then it was gone. So they were then looking to me saying, well, why did you do that? And I had to come up with a million dollars in about a year to make them happy. And that was really, really hard. Yeah. Yeah. I could imagine. Well now with this COVID-19, what are the category you're looking for to acquire this time? It's pretty much everything that's primarily got, well, everything that has a significant online component. I'm not looking for businesses that have been necessarily particularly hard hit. I'm looking for businesses that the owners don't really want to go through another recession. You know, that they're, they're, they're profitable businesses. They're doing fine. And maybe they, maybe they took a little dip or something because

of this, but they're, they're still making money. And, um, I like SAS businesses quite a bit, software as a service. I like e-commerce businesses that aren't completely dependent on Amazon. Um, I like, uh, real estate right now. I like real estate related businesses. I like manufacturing businesses. I like service businesses. I like especially tax accounting business type services. Those are probably my favorite things right now. I'm trying to think if there's anything else we were in the middle of buying. Yeah, I'd say that like categorically, those are the main things.

Now, can you tell me, you're trying to avoid Amazon. I'm actually one of them. I got shut down. I got 15 million sales and took off my seller's account. So, yes. So, can you tell me why you're trying, you don't want to buy an online business that's relying to Amazon? Well, it's really, that's just a corollary to the bigger rule, which is if you are dependent on another single source for your business,

then that's very dangerous because if something happens to that source, then you're kind of screwed. So I don't like businesses like an Amazon business to me, isn't really a business it's it's, and that's not really probably as fair a statement as, uh, as it should be. But it, to me, that's Amazon's business. Just like if you are 100% reliant on Facebook for your traffic, you don't really have a business. You've got Mark Zuckerberg's business. Like if you've got a Facebook group that's got a whole bunch of people in it and that's the only way you're getting business, they could take that away from you tomorrow. Amazon can decide tomorrow that they want to do Amazon basics in your niche and they don't want you to be a seller or they'll, you know, they'll say like they did during the

COVID thing, we're cutting down all non-essential things. And so, you know, just poof, it goes away. So I don't, that's the challenge with Amazon businesses, which I watch Amazon business. I know, you know, brokers that have gone through the course that sell multimillion dollar businesses that are 5X on EBITDA. And I don't know, I mean, I would never pay that. I'd be hard pressed to pay one because it's all about risk as a buyer, right? As an investor, if you're looking at something that you're going to actually put multiple years of money into, you need to be absolutely sure that it is going to be around for five years. I think Amazon's a truly wild card. That's my biggest challenge. It is.

You don't own the real estate. It's just like teaching the course. I learned the hard way. I wish I learned that way before but to have built up a 15 million dollar business is pretty daggone impressive at the same time just have to do it with with amazon as a champ right yeah yeah so i started with 20 actually buying stuff at costco clearance amazing yeah and so I now I was able to move my money to, to build a resort in the Philippines remotely. So yeah, so one day we will, we'll, we'll talk for deals. Yeah, that is awesome. Thank you. Now, Roland, what's the biggest factor that has helped you to be successful?

I think it is absolute determination to move forward, regardless of fear, threat, you know, adverse conditions, just really, I am always looking to move forward. And I don't care what it takes, I'm going to do whatever it takes to make it happen. So I don't let being not knowing anything about it, not having money, not having knowledge, not having skills, not having connections, I feel like all of those things can be gotten. And so it's just go forward, go forward, go forward, go forward. Always say yes to moving forward. Don't always say yes to every deal, but always say yes to moving forward. Don't let your fear or lack of knowledge, experience, skill, talent stop you. So I'm a perfect example of how with no talent, no skill,

no experience, you can pretty much go do anything you want. Because eventually, if you go in and you do it long enough, and you get with the right people, you will have the talent, skill, experience that you need to do anything. Wow, wow. Now, what is your favorite deal ever? Do you still remember? Like, which one is your favorite deal? I don't have a favorite. I have, you know, the, my favorite deal is always the one I'm working on because that's the one that's got your attention and your focus at that time. And you're applying all your creativity to now. Okay. So you always, you mentioned like you have to, you know, buy a company with at least 10

people. Tell me why is that 10 employees? So that's just me for me. I wouldn't say you always have to. I'd say for me, my preference is to, because I want to have enough depth of employees to be able to find someone who's going to be able to run the company because I'm not interested in running the company. So if you wanted to go in and you were looking to be an owner operator, then it wouldn't really matter how many employees you had. But if you want to scale a business, I want a business that's already pre-scaled to some level. If you've got 10 employees, then there's going to be a system for hiring. There's going to be a system for

managing. There's going to be at least one manager, maybe two. There are going to be a system for hiring. There's going to be a system for managing. There's going to be at least one manager, maybe two, there are going to be people to do the work. So there's enough of a, um, of a personnel, uh, stash of people, you know, cash and people to, uh, to do everything that needs to be done in the business and possibly, or probably actually find the person that will replace the owner that you're buying the business from if they want to exit. So that's, that's why to me, 10 people is kind of my minimum, but you know, that's, that's just a completely

arbitrary rule. So. Yeah. And how do you blend your business life with your private life? Yeah, it's really intertwined. I don't think that one ends where another begins. I try to take time to be away from business and do things, you know, read books that are not business books and do things that are not business-y all the time. But I also happen to really, really love the business stuff, and I find it very interesting, so it crisscrosses throughout. You know, one of my sons works with me. My wife is, you know, my best advisor. The things that I'm reading and doing, I'm just interested in it. So I think the key is that you really have to like what you do. And if you like what you do, then it just doesn't

feel like work. And so then it's not depleting. I guess that's the big thing is I try not to do too many things that I don't enjoy. There are things in business I have to do that I don't particularly like, but I do my best to minimize those things because that gives me the greatest joy. Yeah. And how do you keep yourself inspired and motivated? It's just that I am always aware that I'm not thinking big enough, that I'm capable of much, much more, that there are so many people that have done more than I have, who know more than I know, so many things I want to accomplish, so many people I want to help. All of that keeps me very, very motivated. I'm never shy

on motivation. Wow, wow, wow. That's amazing. Now I've been, do you plan on writing a book at one point? Is that something? I actually, I'm an advisor to a company called Scribe that Tucker Max founded and, and, and a part owner of that business. And that business is writing one of my, is helping me write one of my books. They have of my stuff right now so there is a book um though that i did just write based on the challenge that i did that's on amazon now um and so that's that's out there but uh a more interesting book is coming soon that not that that's not interesting but to me a more diverse book how about that is coming soon yeah now can you name a person who has had tremendous impact on you as a leader as a leader um it's really my business partners i'd say uh i'd say ryan dice and um and richard linder and uh kent clothier, Sam Karamean, Oliver Graff, all the guys that,

Jeff Fenster, all the guys that I, that are leading companies in the way that I believe companies, you know, should be led. And then, you know, I, the standard people, I think Richard Branson is a great leader of his people. And then there's, there's other people who are great entrepreneurs, but aren't to me, great leaders, even though they've led lots of people. So I'd say, I'd say it's, it's really local for me. It's, it's around the people that I'm, that I'm working with and watching how they're building their businesses. Now you're doing so many things. How do you what's your typical day like? Do you have a schedule? Like, how do you do that? Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, I guess it's not it like the things that I do are very diverse, but the types of things that I do are not. So it's, it's just get up, work out at some point during the day that That depends on whether I've got, because I have business partnerships all over the world,

so I have lots of early meetings that I prefer to, like, in the ideal world, it's typically up at about 5, work out from about 6 to 7.30, and then go into the day, and then have lunch with my family, and then work some more until the evening, and then kind of hang out and relax at night. My wife and I will play ping pong, or we'll, you know, watch a movie or something like that, and it's, that's kind of in this world now that we're in. We also, when that's not happening, we're very social, so we go out to dinner almost every night. We travel quite a bit, and then that's, and, and that's been a big change for me because I probably traveled two weeks out of the month on average when, you know, when the world is open. So now it's, it's much more, I sit and watch lots of little people in boxes on my, on my screen most of the day. But it's still the same kind of stuff. It's working on deals, having meetings, helping people. I do consulting on specific deals. So I'll help do that. I have several

companies that I advise or that I'm an owner in that we have conversations with. And then I like to write. So I enjoy reading and writing. And that's kind of the bulk of it. Wow. Wow. And Roland, how do you want to be remembered? I don't care. I don't think about that. Legacy is not important to me like it is to people, because I think that generally the world moves on and forgets us. And it's, it's arrogant to think that you will be remembered terribly long. I would like to have as great an impact as I can on the people around me during my lifetime. And then after that, I would like for them to move on and have other great people impact them. It's, it's the biggest thing is to me to live with no regret is to do it while you're

alive. And the, to me, the best example of that would be like my relationship with my mother. She ended up having dementia for several years and then didn't know who I was and died. But before that happened, that happened, you know, I moved out to California and she was, she was divorced from my father, but she came out here. He did eventually as well. And she lived with me in our guest house. And so we got to, to connect with her for the last part of her life. So I don't have a regret that I wish I had spent more time with her for the last part of her life. So I don't have a regret that I wish I had spent more time with her before she died. I spent more time with her before she died. So I think that's it. It's like, like, I don't want to be remembered so much as I want to impact, affect, positively influence, participate, engage, do while I'm here. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah,

thank you for sharing that. Now, Roland, thank you so much for your time. I know you're such a busy individual. Now, where can they find you? So I am online pretty much everywhere, forward slash Roland Frazier, F-R-A-S-I-E-R, Roland, R-O-L-A-N-D. And there is our Epic Challenge, which is, I think it's at getepichallenge.com. And there is my podcast, which is called Business Lunch, which we have to have you on at some point here in the not too distant future.

And just generally, oh, and rolandfraser.com. So those are my main places. Thank you so much, Roland. generally, oh, and rolandfraser.com. So those are my main, my main places. Thank you so much, Roland. And I appreciate everything that you're sharing to all of us. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me on the show. Bye. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe and visit katehancock.com so you don't miss out on the next episode.