Heroes in Business - Max James, Best Selling Author of "The Harder I Fall the Higher I Bounce", The King of Kiosks. maxjamesauthor.com

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

Tune in as David Cogan sits down with Max James, Best Selling Author, Air Force Academy graduate, pilot, shot down twice in Vietnam to become the original founder and CEO of American Kiosk Management, a billion-dollar global presence in North America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand with 5 million repeat customers, 600 staffed locations, 1000 automated stores, and 54,000 employees, at the Eliances Heroes Show. Reach him at maxjamesauthor.com

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. That's right, and welcome back. Again, always amazed by the incredible feedback from you, the listeners and viewers. I can't tell you how important it is. Please, please continue the feedback we've been getting a lot of feedback from one of the previous interviews I had with the co-founder of LinkedIn so please continue to have that coming and also to make sure that you

go to alliances.com that's e-l-i-a-n-c-s.com the only place where entrepreneurs line And I'm honored here today to have with us Max F. James. He is the author of The Harder I Fall, The Higher I Bounce. He is also the owner of the American Kiosk Management Corporation, a $1.8 billion company. And make sure that you go and get his book, and you can go to maxjamesauthor.com. Well, the banner's below here. Also, you can go to Alliances and find it. Again, that's maxjamesauthor.com. Well, the banner's below here. Also, you can go to

alliances and find it. Again, that's maxjamesauthor.com. So Max, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Proud to be here. Yeah, you have got quite a background. So we're going to try to cover as much as we can in a short period of time. But otherwise, I mean, we'd be due hours just in regards to your background. I want to get started first on this company that you built and the owner of, the American Kiosk Management. I mean, how did you grow it so large? First of all, I guess the main reason that it grew so large, when you have a good product, people like to buy it.

So we had a great product in that company and were successful in marketing that and letting the public know that it was a great product. Secondly, you have to hire the right people. And we had an executive staff that was fantastic at training the field staff. So we had 400 manned locations, primarily in shopping malls. And we had 800 of what they call automated retail, the big vending machines that sold the product. So it was very successful. And we did, in fact, have sales that totaled about $1.8 billion over a few years. Yeah, that's fantastic.

And you, I mean, you started this company, right? I did. You ever look back and go what it was like at the early days? I mean, at what point did you know we've got something here? Because so many companies, you know, start, they believe they're starting it because they believe that's the best thing ever. But at what point were you like, okay, we really have something here? I guess it goes back to the very beginning. The product that we did so well with was not the first product that we took to market, but we learned how to,

I think the big secret or the real skill was how do you manage multiple geographical locations when there's only one, two, or three people operating at that particular location? How do you keep them from stealing? How do you train them right? How do you make sure that they are, in fact, they're working? So we developed that system. When we came up with a second product, it was already well known in the marketplace, but it was only being sold online. And so we convinced the owners that had the product that they would let us try selling it at the retail location.

It turned out that we did not cannibalize their sales. It was a different market. And so the people that would come up to our physical location was a different customer than the one that was buying it online. So it was adding one in one and making making three. Wow. Excellent. Incredible. Incredible. And now you know you've written a book. You're the author of The Harder I Fall, The Higher I Bounce. What was the inspiration? Why write this book? I mean, it takes a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of stress. Yeah, I sold the company in 2017 to Nestle.

And I said, okay, well, you know, we've got a little money now, retirement time. And my wife decided that we were not going to retire. So I said, okay, what are we going to do? And the answer was she wanted to become a full-fledged entrepreneur on her own, which was fine. She's a bit younger than me. So I was talking to Jack Canfield, the best-selling author ever, I suppose, 500 million books. And Jack asked the same question. So what are you going to do? And I said, well, you know, I've been telling these stories about this wildly varied career that I've had, everything from farmer to combat pilot, on and on and on. And people always say, damn, Max, you ought to write a book. So I think Jack said you should write it then. And I wrote it primarily to help entrepreneurs that were having a tough time. Maybe they have fallen. Maybe it's not doing well. Maybe they need more capital,

whatever the problems are. And I did so by telling humorous stories about all my failures. And I think the stories are compelling. They're certainly entertaining and humorous. And in each one of the stories, there's a principle, something I should have done that I didn't or that I did do that I shouldn't have. OK. And so the principles are for the entrepreneurs. But Jack said, no, Max, listen, don't market it just to entrepreneurs. There are lots of life lessons in here that apply to a lot of people. So you've got a great market.

So I took three years and enjoyed reminiscing about particularly all the funny things, but also some that were very important to me about how my dad mentored me. He was a sharecropper. I grew up following two gray mules and all the mentors that I've had and giving them credit. Wow.

And the book, surprise, surprise to me, it turned out to be number one bestseller, Amazon in 31 categories and in four countries. And so people said, well, when are you gonna write the next book? And the answer, David, is never. One is enough. Okay.

Yeah, wow. Well, tell that to Jack, right? I mean, wow. Amazing. That's phenomenal on that. So with, with the writing of the book, you know, a lot of, a lot of thought goes into it, right? A lot of time, a lot of energy in that. Yes. And you met, you mentioned some of the key points of, of, of it. What did you mentioned some of the key points of it. What did you find some of the most challenging parts, though, to write this? I mean, this was your first book and having to combine all your knowledge and put it on paper. Yeah, I guess it was interesting to me. I had a hard time going to the desk, going to the computer and writing.

But once I sat down and started reminiscing and remembering and pulling out the good points, I really enjoyed the writing of the book. But getting back to the computer the next day or the next week for some reason, which I still don't understand, I found difficult. But writing the book, no, it was great to reminisce and to remember all of the funny things that happened along the way and the real challenges and why I was able to meet those challenges. And so that's the part about falling hard. And then how do you bounce back? How do you go from the bottom of the barrel that you or the bottom of the mountain that you've fallen off of? How do you get back on that mountain? Right. So that was what it was about. Yeah. yeah well let's talk about falling down i mean you served in vietnam

during that course you were shot down yeah we had the greatest mission in the world in fact air rescue was the most decorated organization in the Vietnam War. But the mission was to go in when pilots got shot down and try to yank them out of the jungle and get them away from the bad guys that were chasing them. You know, those guys only had three choices. One was terrible. They could have died when they were shot down. Secondly, it was a Hanoi Hilton and becoming a prisoner of war. And the third one was me or a rescue. So we were pretty popular. One of the generals that became very famous, General Robin Hulls, I met him when I was training his pilots on rescue techniques. And he said to me when I came to his base, if one son of a bitch on this base lets you buy a drink,

I want his name. So we were pretty popular bringing pilots home. I loved the mission. The mission was that others may live. And so it was a fantastic mission, and I'm proud to be a part of it. And for our listeners and viewers, if that wasn't enough, it wasn't shot down once, shot down twice. If I was shot down once, I would never even want to go on a plane again, let alone twice being shot down in that. So again, and you're watching, listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure that you go to alliances.com.

That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. The only place where entrepreneurs line. And we have with us again, Max F. James, author of The Harder I Fall, The Higher I Bounce. He's the owner of the American Kiosk Management Corporation, sold at $1.8 billion company. You can reach him at maxjamesauthor.com. Go there to get his book. I'm sure you can find it online at various places. Again, maxjamesauthor.com. You mentioned about your father and that, and, you know, clearly it was instrumental, one of your mentors and that. How did you develop such a close relationship, you know, with him to be a mentor? Because,

you know, a lot of children, a lot of people, you know, believe they know more than their parents, right? At least until they reach a certain age. So how do you think the key was to the type of close relationship that you had with them? I think there are a couple of things here, David. Thanks for asking. My father was undereducated, but a very wise man. He made it to the 10th grade and his dad said, look, you're not doing too well in school. Just drop out, come on back and work with me on the farm. But he did. And just that we were sharecroppers when we first started. And I grew up with him because I worked with him every day that even when I was in school, you come home from school, you change your clothes, you put on your overalls and you go to the field. So I learned a lot by being that close to him so much. My mom died, his wife, when I was 13. And we became even closer then. We

moved off the farm into town. So my dad made huge sacrifices for me so that I could participate in extracurricular activities, sports, basketball, editor of this, that, and the other thing. I learned from him. He was a disciplinarian. And every time he disciplined me, there was a story. There was a principle there that I should pay attention to. He was a huge supporter of everything that I did. And he made huge sacrifices for me. We were very close because of the death of my mom and my finishing up my teenage years and heading off to the Air Force Academy. Excellent. Excellent. All right. I want to do a little snooping, Max. Okay. We're going to snoop in your office right now. You've got a number of different things behind you in the background.

What's the pictures I see, some sculptures and others. What would you say is the most meaningful item to you? Right now, it would be a picture of my mom and dad and pictures of my wife. Those would be the two most meaningful at the moment. From a background perspective, you can see a picture of me as a cadet at the Air Force Academy. I try to remember always the principles and the morals and the character that was developed by going through that four-year process. The other things you see, there's a great big painting by Leroy Neiman of Tiger Woods hitting a golf ball. The American flag is back there. And of course, my book is here.

The harder I fall, the higher I bounce. So golf has been my recreational outlet pastime. I've enjoyed it immensely. Still play at age of 81. So I think the good Lord for the time I've had on the planet. But I would say the military past and what it offered me to allow me to become a good entrepreneur. Excellent. And we've got time for one more question. I think this is important too. What advice do you have for children out there, parents of children that want to make their mark and be successful, even if it was a tenth of percent of successful as you were, both personally, professionally, and being an opportunity to employ so many people and serving our country in that, what kind of secrets would you share with them? You were born on this planet with great talent.

Growing up, the principal thing you can do is discover what talents you have that you enjoy. And you're probably going to go down some roads that you will not make it to the end because you don't like it. You don't have the skill set. So just keep looking for the skill set that you have. And when you discover it, work hard on developing it. And usually, particularly, let's say through the teenage years, the way to do that is to get a doggone good education. Just there'll be some things that you want to enjoy. Maybe you don't like math. Maybe you don't like history. Just punch through the pain, as my dad used to say. Punch through the pain and get all of the education that you possibly can. As you develop your skill sets,

pick the ones that you enjoy the most and then apply that education to those. It takes grit. It takes determination. It takes resilience. And sometimes you're going to have to get over your own stupidity. I can vouch for that.

You're going to make mistakes. Bounce back from the mistakes. Get up and go at it again. But find your talent and the ones that you enjoy applying your skills to. Well said. Well, Max, you have served our country. You've built a company. You've employed many. You're the author of The Harder I Fall, The Higher I Bounce, and certainly about bouncing back. That's a hero. Max F. James, author again of The Harder I Fall, The Higher I Bounce. You can reach him at maxjamesauthor.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. Be good to yourself.