Next Level Pros - #32: Failure to $243M a Year: My Founder Story With Dawn Dahlby

Starting point is 00:00:00 You got educated by being around people that you looked up to and they were your mentors and you learned from them how to really grow, invest and scale companies. Exactly. I'm a huge believer in education, not traditional education. I'm a huge believer in like, I got to go and learn as much as possible. Today, I am lucky enough to have Mr. Chris Lee with us today. And I absolutely hate reading a bio. And so I want Chris to tell us exactly who he is and what he does for a living.

Starting point is 00:00:38 So Chris, welcome to Live Wealthy Podcast. And tell us a little bit about who you are. You know, whenever I introduce myself, it really depends who's asking. And, you know, if it's somebody locally, I'm just like, you know, I'm unemployed. Kind of try to get by with a hobby farm, you know, that type of thing. But so I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've started many, many businesses throughout my life, some successful, some not. Most importantly, a family man. I have a wife, five kids. My oldest is 17 or almost 17. She's a junior in high school and my youngest is five. So those are where I like to

Starting point is 00:01:27 spend as much time as possible. So I try to buy back as much time as I possibly can through leverage, through employees, through partnerships, through investments, whatever it may be. But in my professional career, I've experienced two nine-figure exits, both in the solar space. I coach and consult. I also help partner and scale businesses. I run a company called The Founder Project in which we partner and scale and we invest funds into different businesses and we teach them the secrets. It's me and my team that actually scaled my first business to nine figures out of my garage. We did that in five and a half years with 1,300 employees. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows like that.

Starting point is 00:02:20 Those are the highlights. I've had a lot of lowlights in my career, filed bankruptcy, what was it, 12 years ago, had less than $1,000 in my bank account, had cars repoed right out of my driveway. I'm a college dropout. Yes. A little of it all. But you know what? We got to go through some of that pain to get to the level that you're at, right?

Starting point is 00:02:43 Because that's what motivates you to really do what you do and have the success that you've had since that pain, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. By the way, I just want to say, I love the fact that you, you talked about buying back your time, being a father, a husband, like having, you said five kids? Yeah, that's right. Okay. Five kids, multiple businesses. Like you can, you literally are using your business to buy back time. And I love that because as a wealth advisor myself, I'm always like your biggest commodity is time and money. And as we age, Chris, I think I'm a little bit older than you because I'm now an empty nester. As of two days ago, uh, 18 and 19 year old daughters, they just went to college.

Starting point is 00:03:30 Um, so I'm sitting here with just my husband and we're like, oh my gosh, what are we going to do this weekend? Like, oh, we like we're freaking out, but, but I, but as we age, it's really about time and money and it's balancing the two. And what's the most important thing to you? And we all need money and we love money, but because it, it helps us solve problems and buy back our time. So I love the fact that you said that. And thank you for sharing, you know, being an entrepreneur, which my audience, you know, I have a lot of entrepreneurs, small business owners, network marketers that are really growing their business. And like myself, who's an entrepreneur and been in the

Starting point is 00:04:10 business for the last 24 years and, um, want to take that business to the next level. And you have the expertise. So you're, you're a investment in growth expert in, you know, built a business in your garage, which I love. So you bootstrap it, you can figure it out, right? You don't need the fancy whatever, but if you have enough pain in your life and want to take your life to the next level, you absolutely can. And I love the fact, by the way, that you're a college dropout. I'm like one that says, even to my daughters, they just went to college. I'm like, you know, go there to mature up a little bit and to figure out what life's really about, but you can still be successful without a college

Starting point is 00:04:50 degree. Absolutely. Absolutely. I, in fact, I think most people don't need a college degree and the only reason, so, yeah, and you may disagree with this, but that's okay. But I think the only, the only reason you go to college is if you want, if you go and start a career and you realize that in order for me to achieve X in this career, I need to go to college. I think, I think most kids go to college to try to figure out what they want to do. College is the worst place to figure out where you want to do, like go and actually work in a space, mentor under somebody, figure out, is this the career line of the career path that I want to take? I mean, there's so many artists that are stuck being dentists and so many, you know, people that would have made great lawyers that are working blue collar jobs. And it's just like, I think

Starting point is 00:05:35 the saddest thing in the world is not finding what you were put on this earth to do. Correct. A hundred percent agree. That's my message. Live wealthy. You know, me helping millionaires build multimillion dollar portfolios. And I've been doing that for years. I found that like you got to align your money to your purpose and your vision and really understanding who you are and what you were called by God to do on this planet. Now, do we need doctors? Yes. Do I have a daughter that's going to, you know, study biology because that's her lane? She thinks it's her lane right now. And, you know, and so we do need that, but I'm, I hated college with a passion. I got a degree.

Starting point is 00:06:17 I made up my degree in, um, you could, I went to the university of Minnesota just to get a degree because I was the only one in my family that had, that was going to have a college degree. But you know, I made up my degree. It was like, it was called the bachelor's of individual studies. Like I'm using 0% of that degree. Um, however, there is a part where like I have an 18 and 19 year old where they don't know exactly what lane they want to be in. And it's an expensive trying to figure it out. But if they don't graduate, I'm okay with that too. As long as they are, like you said, they're aligned to their purpose and they're building their network and their net worth in alignment with who they really are. And that's the key. So you, let's get back to Chris. You have found your, how did you originally find

Starting point is 00:07:08 your lane, not going to college and like figuring it out? How did you learn what your purpose was? Well, I mean, let me tell you first, I did go to college. I went to a lot of college. Okay. I have, I have 165 credits. In fact, Like I should have a bachelor's degree. I should have those type of things. And initially, my whole drive was to go and be a doctor. I grew up in a home that we didn't have a lot of money. My dad was a school teacher. My mom was a stay-at-home mom with seven kids.

Starting point is 00:07:40 And so, you know, my dad, the most he ever made in while I was at home was like 60 or $65,000. And, and so my mom, she came from a complete, my dad kind of came from a white trash home. And so like him, he was like kind of the pinnacle of their family. He had, he had gone and gone to college and done all these things. And, and then my mom, she came from a very completely different type of family. Her dad was a doctor from the East Coast, from the Washington, D.C. area. And so for me growing up, my mom taught me how to dream. My dad taught me how to work. And, you know, in my mind, the only way that you made a lot of money was if you were a doctor, right?

Starting point is 00:08:22 That was the one example in my life that made sense. And so everything, every choice that I made as a young kid was, how do I become a doctor the fastest way possible? And so my junior and senior year, I did what's called a running start where I went to college instead of high school school and graduated with the equivalent of a associate's degree. And, you know, I had started working at age nine and was providing what the rule in our house was provide for everything but underwear and food on the table at age 12. And so, you know, I was I was doing everything that I knew to make money. But most of it was just training time for money. I didn't I didn't understand anything else. Right. Like I just had all kinds of different jobs. I I drove tractors for farmers. I I delivered oil. I worked at a pizza place. I delivered newspapers every single morning. I woke up from age 9 to 18 every morning at 430, 365 days a year to go and make anywhere from $1 to $5 a day. an advertisement at this local community college that I was attending as a senior in high school. And I saw an advertisement that said, make $13 an hour guaranteed or $13 an appointment guaranteed.

Starting point is 00:09:52 And it was a little advertisement for Cutco and going selling knives. And decided to, you know, I'd always had the gift of gab and the ability to connect with people. So I decided to go and sell some knives on the side. And before you knew it, I was walking indoors and walking out with a check of $1,500 and taking close to 50% of that. And I was like, man, this is like more money than I make in a month. And I could do it in an hour. And so that's where I was introduced to sales. And then I went on a mission for my church. I served a two-year mission in Oklahoma, learned Spanish and Marshallese, actually. I speak three languages. And after I came home, I married my high school sweetheart at the age of 21 and started going started to continue down that path

Starting point is 00:10:46 of becoming a doctor and while while at college I saw an opportunity to be able to work during summers doing sales and not have to work as a married person during the school year and like for me that was very appealing so I went out and I started knocking doors and selling different products. And so I went door to door for many years. And that's where I really learned to grind, learned how to sell, learned the hustle, learned marketing, sales, presentations, everything. And my second summer doing that in a three-month period, I made $105,000. Wow. And I'm like, there's something to this, right? Like this whole sales thing is pretty cool.

Starting point is 00:11:29 And I'm going down this path of becoming a doctor, and I'm going to go to school for the next 10 years with fellowships and all these different things. And I'm just like, you know, the average family practitioner makes $120,000 a year, and the average like outside, like a specialist is like 250. And I'm going to go in $300,000 in debt, 10 years of no income, opportunity sunk cost. And I'm just like, do I want to do this? And finally, I had a professor that really changed my life and uh what what he said he said he said you can save more

Starting point is 00:12:07 lives by running a successful business than you can ever be in a doctor and uh that for whatever reason that that that hit that hit me pretty hard and and uh because you know i wanted to make a lot of money but i wanted to help people and uh, that was like, why being a medical doctor just appealed to me so much. Um, but, but like he, he really opened up like the vision that like, man, I can, I can change and impact so many lives if, if I go and run a successful business and I can make a buttload of money and I can do it without investing in the next 10 years of college, uh, or at school. And school. And so that's what I decided to do at age 24. I dropped out of my senior year of college. I was taking the MCAT and decided that it wasn't for me anymore. I started my first business and thought I could go and take on the world.

Starting point is 00:13:14 And two years later, so I raised money from the only people that I knew that had any type of money, my father-in-law. He was a successful dairy farmer. I got him as an investor. He put a million bucks into my business. And I got my dad, who was a school teacher, once again, he put half of his life savings into my business. And that was in 2008. Oh, we already know where this is going, right? 2008. 2008.

Starting point is 00:13:51 And I was just young, hungry and stupid and just blind to all the macroeconomics of everything that was happening around me. And just I was on fire because I thought I knew everything and could go. Like up until that point, everything that I put my effort into, I've been massively successful. Right. Relationships, investing, business, like everything. And so going to launch a business, try scaling way too fast. And in 2010, we're in extreme trouble. Can't make payroll. I'm floating payroll on credit cards.

Starting point is 00:14:28 I'm going to a buddy that can process my credit card, and he's giving me the cash back, less fees. I'm doing everything to protect my credit, to protect the people that I built this business for. And to my dismay, it just wasn't possible. And I had two business partners that completely bailed on me during this time and weren't willing to grind with me. And eventually it just came to the point where I started getting phone calls from creditors.

Starting point is 00:14:56 My bookkeeper was embezzling money and wasn't paying our bills and just all kinds of craziness. And so Januaryuary 2011 i filed bankruptcy for 2.2 million had my car repaid out of my my driveway had uh you know and and i had to have some really really really sad conversations like going and talking to my father-in-law and be like i lost it's gone and uh and i really have no idea how i'm gonna pay back i know i will pay you back i have no idea how i'm gonna pay you back um and uh yeah so that was that was a tough time but the the coolest thing i learned during that during that experience was that like most of us as

Starting point is 00:15:38 entrepreneurs as people that are going and trying to take risk and facing our fears, we create this big monster of what failure is going to look like. And we think it's just going to be, you know, I'm going to be living in my in-laws' basement. I'm going to be doing this, that, or the other, whatever, right? And the thing I realized, like, even though it was like the worst moment of my life, it really wasn't that bad. Like, you know, I still had my faith in God. I still had my family. I still had all the skills that I had built up't that bad. Like, you know, I still had my faith in God. I still had my family.

Starting point is 00:16:05 I still had all the skills that I had built up until that point. I didn't lose any of that. And so I knew exactly what mistakes I had made up until that point, and I knew exactly how to fix it. I just couldn't in the moment. I didn't have the money to fix it, right? And so, you know, glory to the United States government that allows us to,

Starting point is 00:16:25 to be able to start from a clean slate. And, uh, you know, I apologize to my creditors and everything else, but man, it was, it was where we were at. And so, you know, going, going through that started from the bottom and, and just immediately launched another business. And I, you know, during that time I had a lot of people begging me, go back to school, go get a real job, go, go be a doctor, go do the safe route. And, you know, I contemplated that for a minute, but, but I knew that like, that would be such a waste of the effort that I had put into it at this moment. Like I'd spent all this money and other people's money to learn this lesson. And if I just go back and, and crawl into the safe zone, like, man, it's all for naught. And so immediately started launching businesses.

Starting point is 00:17:10 And I tried everything, like everything. Like I'm talking flipping cars, like buying wrecked cars, fixing them, flipping them. Same with houses. I owned beehives and cattle. I started a coupon book. I did medical pendants. I had an alarm company. I invested in a pest control company. I started a search engine optimization business. I consulted, I coached. I did it all because I needed to figure out, like, I needed to open up as many doors and find which one had the right path. And so, you know, I spent the next few years doing that.

Starting point is 00:17:50 And I had some successes and, you know, sold off a couple companies for minimal. But then I realized I don't know how to scale. I don't know. I don't really know business. I'm a great salesperson. I'm a great salesperson. I'm a great value creator. I know how to like identify opportunity, but I have no idea how to operate and scale a business. And so I, uh, I spent between 2012, um, middle of 2012 to, uh, end of 2016, I went and did, uh,

Starting point is 00:18:23 what I, what I call a education, where I went and I, I figured out who the best people were to work for that I wanted to mentor under. And I worked my way into their organizations and worked my way up the ladder to be able to mentor underneath them. And, you know, most of it was in the door to door space in which I ran big door to door companies and different things like that. And I would go and I was making a half a million dollars a year. It was, it was fantastic. It was, it was a good way to rebound from bankruptcy. Um, you know, my credit was still shot. So I was having to like pay, pay for like, cause nobody would sell me a

Starting point is 00:19:02 house. I had to rent and I have to pay 12 months in advance because my credit was so bad, you know, like just all kinds of stuff. Um, but yeah, I, I learned so much and I, over those four and a half years, I experienced two different IPOs. Um, and I was, I was very close to like one, one of them was, you know, the night before I was on the phone with the CEO, um, when we were going public and the other one, I was, you know, the night before I was on the phone with the CEO when we were going public. And the other one, I was on Wall Street the day that we went public. And I just had a phenomenal experience of like learning how to scale and build businesses under incredible mentors. And that happened.

Starting point is 00:19:41 I mean, the real success has happened in the last seven years for you. Yeah. Right? Yeah. I mean, all my true, true, true financial success has been in the last six years. Okay. I mean, up until then, I'd make good money, and I invested some money and whatnot, but it wasn't like, oh, Chris is killing it. Like, I had a nice house, I had a nice nice car, had a few things, but it wasn't like Chris is the guy I want to be like, right? Right, right. So you did. So let's take a step

Starting point is 00:20:11 back. You did go and get educated just in a different way. You got educated by being around people that you looked up to and they were your mentors and you learned from them how to really grow, invest and scale companies. Exactly. I'm a huge believer in education, not traditional education. I'm a huge believer in like, I got to go and learn as much as possible. You know, I've done all the unconventional education routes. I've read a ton of books, paid for tons of seminars, coaching, consulting, masterminds, like everything. Like I am dedicated to spending as much of my money as possible on personal development. Like, uh, like I'm, I'm, uh, over a million bucks, uh, in, into masterminds and coaches, uh, at, at this point. And, uh, so it's because I understand that like real education is everything that I need mentors, like not these sages that went to college, got a doctorate and come back and teach us.

Starting point is 00:21:15 Like I'm talking about I'm talking about people that have actually done it. Yes, that that rolled up their sleeves and got dirty and know how to do the work. I 100% agree with you on that. And yeah, so maybe you've spent a million dollars in the right education, but look at what it's done for you financially with how you're spending your time, which that's what we started with. So let me ask you, because this is so interesting to me, and I couldn't agree with you more on all of this.

Starting point is 00:21:47 Let me ask you. So, I mean, there's been a lot of highs. There's been a few lows, but you needed the lows to get to the highs. Like what with you being able to take, I mean, these like when you're're talking about the, the beehive business and the flip the cars and like all of the things, like nobody really wants to do that. Right. So you, you, you actually did the things that nobody wanted to do just to make some money to prove that you can do it. And you got mentored like now you've been able to scale and exit, you know, businesses. I mean, we're talking nine figures plus. So what have you found with,

Starting point is 00:22:27 like from your failure originally in 2010 to being able to not have these failures? Like what was, what are these, like maybe one or two critical elements that you recognize in businesses that you needed to get educated on and to be able to turn these businesses so they did go bankrupt, but they actually were able to scale into this nine figure plus opportunities. Like what are the critical elements that you found? I mean, there's so many things that I've learned. I think one of the most important things for any business owner is to be transparent. We lack a ton of transparency in the business world.

Starting point is 00:23:17 A lot of times owners and executive teams or whatnot, they kind of hide behind the scenes of what actually is happening with the business. And their employees just have no idea what's going on. And transparency is the number one factor in a great culture, right? Like, like really getting your people to buy into everything that is actually happening. Like, so when my first business failed, nobody knew it was failing, right? Like I was covering that crap up as much as possible. Like I was still, I was living this lie. I was living this lie that I was successful, that everything was going. And it wasn't really until like the doors closed and my car was repoed that it was like, boom, what? Wait, like how did Chris go from running this really successful business to nothing? Versus like getting the buy-in from your people that like, hey, we're in tough times.

Starting point is 00:24:03 We're struggling. We need you to come in. And so, you know, building a culture of team was probably one of the biggest things that I learned from Todd Peterson. Todd Peterson was the CEO and founder of Vivint. He founded two different companies and went public. One had a $10 billion valuation, the other one like a $4 billion valuation. And I had the opportunity to work with him and work for him closely, and he's become a friend of mine.

Starting point is 00:24:33 But Todd, during the 08 crash, he could not afford to make payroll. Like there was a time that there was – so in the summer sales industry, they have what's called a back-end check. You work during the summer and you have this big back-end check, all your cancellations of whatever you sold that comes in February. And he couldn't make that check. And so he got up in front of everybody and told everybody what was going on. He said, look, we're struggling right now. We're not able to raise money from banks. They're calling our loans due. They're doing this, that, and the other. And he said, I believe that we are going to go and accomplish X, but I want to give you an opportunity to invest your back-end check into equity in the business. And then he laid out the plan of how they were going to get through and how to make it through these difficulties.

Starting point is 00:25:34 And you know what? The majority of his people, they sacrificed their back-end check in exchange for stock in the business. And this was like millions and millions and millions of dollars. And because of that, they made it through. And because of that, every single person that invested their money made 10 to 20 times what they put into it. Like it was such an example. That didn't happen while I was there.

Starting point is 00:26:03 It actually happened before I worked at Vivint. And for me, but that was just such an example. That didn't happen while I was there. It actually happened before I worked at Vivint. And for me, but that was just such an example of like, man, that is how you run a business. And you're going to be willing to be transparent. And the one thing I've learned in life is like, own your weaknesses, own your strengths. Tell people how to work with your weaknesses. Don't try fixing your weaknesses. Like, don't, like, i think it's such a bad guru thing like hey let's turn your weaknesses strengths don't take your strengths and make them stronger

Starting point is 00:26:31 absolutely and outshine your weaknesses but tell people this is how you work with me this is how you like and the same thing goes for a business right like this is, if you do not have a point of truth that you can operate from, meaning this is what we struggle with. This is where we're screwing up. This is where we got this, that, and the other. You can't change, right? Like if you're living like, oh, it's perfect. The KPIs are on point, this, that, or the other, like you can't make change off of that. And so that's one way that I've always built culture in my, in my businesses is like, look, I don't expect perfection. I expect excellence and excellence is the pursuit of perfection. Like screw up, mess up, be weak. I don't care as long as you're truthful about it. And we have a point in which we can improve. And so like, those are like some of the, the,

Starting point is 00:27:24 the main things in like just building culture, building core values, building missions, like getting people excited, bought in, sharing in equity with your people and truly sharing, because there's one, there's two things that people will bleed for within any organization. One is culture. And two is a piece of the upside. If you can figure out how to get those two things to anybody within your organization, you'll be able to build a 1300 person organization like I did. Totally agree with you. As a business owner myself for 24 years, the same thing. I started getting really good employees when I put in the core values of the company and always transparent with the

Starting point is 00:28:05 numbers and also being able to, like, I let my team, my staff have what we call live wealthy schedule where I give them autonomy. Like I'm about results. I'm about, again, we're all, I make mistakes all day long. So does all the employees. And it's like being comfortable, right. Admitting those mistakes, but then also letting them have like, letting them be adults and letting them own a portion of their schedule and their business and their results. And when you give ownership and it's not this mommy and daddy at the CEO level and everyone's kid, you know, are the children.

Starting point is 00:28:41 It's like, no, we're all working. You know, this, this organization chart isn't linear. It's not vertical, right? It's a circle. And we all are working for the same goal. So I, I, I love the fact that you shared that. And I also love the fact that you shared with the strengths because I'm a hundred percent on board with that too. It's a, it's get better with your strengths and understand your weakness. Understand. Cause we all have them. We all have them. And when you're able to admit them, your self-esteem grows and you also know that you have to hire around those weaknesses, right? Because we're all not good at everything.

Starting point is 00:29:15 So like you, Chris, I'm a, I don't know if you've ever done the strengths finder. I'm a woo. I love winning people over like you you're in sales, right? And we love, we love serving. You got emotional when you talked about being able to serve others. And I couldn't be more in alignment with that. Um, so my question is for you, because I'm so into like all of the things you're saying, like a spiritual connection, first and foremost, you're a family guy. I'm a family mom. Like having God first, your family second, and then wanting to financially succeed. I mean, that's my version of living wealthy too.

Starting point is 00:29:52 It's like we need the financial success because it opens up opportunity to serve more, right? Because we only need to be, you and I only need to be served by money to a certain level. After that, it's not about us anymore, but we still have this drive to continue to grow and grow and grow. It's because we want to serve others with our message and our purpose. Um, so with that said, like you, you talked about the company culture, you talked about the being transparent, but also with the strengths of you being in sales and really it's not selling, it's serving at the end of the day. Do you find that most companies are broken? Like when you bring on a company, like you're an investor, right? You're you hire company, you hire people

Starting point is 00:30:38 like you could hire, I could hire you to take over my business and scale it. So with that said, do you believe that in order to get to that next level of scalability, it really comes down to sales, right? Doesn't it always come down to sales and marketing? That is at the core for sure. Marketing, most people suck at marketing, right? Like most people have outsourced their marketing and tried to get somebody else to do it. Like, uh, the, the one thing I love to share about marketing is marketing is the baby maker of your business and you would never outsource your baby making, would you? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:31:16 Ooh, I've never heard it like that, but okay. Okay. Yeah. You make baby, baby makings internally and you understand that, right? Hey, by the way, just wait, wait a second. I outsourced my baby making. I had to go through in vitro for my first child. So we insourced it the second time. But it's not outsourced, right? Like you're using, you're using, you're using your stuff. You're using everything else, right? Like you may have gotten some enhancements, you're using your stuff. You're using everything else, right? Like you may have gotten some enhancements, but you bring up a great point. Just like marketing. Like it's okay to get enhancements, coaching, right?

Starting point is 00:31:52 Like have someone team up with you, do things like that. But the fact of the matter is, is most business owners do not understand marketing and they refuse to get educated in it, right? Like that is the number one. And I'm not talking sales. I'm in it, right? Like that is the number one. And I'm not talking sales. I'm talking marketing, right? Like getting people in your door to see your product. Sales is presenting and closing, right?

Starting point is 00:32:13 Like those are two completely different things. And until you can understand marketing, you cannot scale your business, right? And then it's sales, right? Now I got people in the door. How do I capture these people, right? And then it's sales, right? Now I got people in the door. How do I capture these people, right? Whether it's online sales funnels or whatever it may be over the phone, in person, retail, whatever. You got that. But then the next step is actually understanding your KPIs. Most people don't know their numbers. Most people don't know their gross profit margins.

Starting point is 00:32:44 Most people don't know their fixed expenses. They don't know their gross profit margins. Most people don't know their fixed expenses. They're living on a cash basis. They're living like, OK, I have enough money in my bank account. I can spend X amount of dollars or invest or whatever. Like that is not that is not a way to live. You need to understand your KPIs on a daily level. Key performance indicators is what I'm talking about. Yes.

Starting point is 00:33:03 Daily level, weekly, monthly, quarterly. You got to have goals. You got to have ways to measure it. Meetings set up in order to be able to analyze it. You got to bring in outside consultants, coaches that are going to help you get this kind of crap. And like, that's why my business right now is so successful is because people don't understand these things. And I can come in and me and my team, we can teach it. We can also help the tech. We can do all these different things, but like,

Starting point is 00:33:31 but at the core of it, it's, it's those it's sales and marketing and KPIs. Like if you can, if you can get that stuff dialed in, you can, you can typically scale, but with the caveat is you got to have a good culture and people got to be behind. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And people do miss, miss that as well. But whenever I have people come to me, um, you know, I'm a wealth advisor, right? So we're, we're solving their money problems. It's either an income problem, it's the wrong investment problem, or it's the wrong tax problem because they're,

Starting point is 00:34:05 they're paying too much in taxes. Like it's a puzzle, right? And, and a lot of times it's an income problem and the income problem always is a sales and marketing and marketing first, right? Like I love to serve and sell. I love people, but I've always had a marketing problem myself. It's like, I have purchased businesses. I have purchased exiting and financial advisors that are exiting the business because I like, like that's the way I can buy in clients and bring them in and I can buy a hundred clients and have, and start serving them and they stick and they stay because we do, we do transparent work. Um, but it's really about that marketing. So you're so that's why I wanted to ask you that because it's so, so important. Um, figuring out

Starting point is 00:34:52 the marketing piece, which we, most of us don't do by the way, my youngest daughter is studying marketing in college and it's really inexpensive, but it's probably from the wrong people. Right. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, okay. You and I will talk after, um, right. Um, but yes, a hundred percent agree. Marketing, marketing, marketing. So, so Chris, let's go back to this. Um, or let's move forward to this. You are an entrepreneur. You're grow. It's all about growth and moving the needle the most. So what are you looking for? So our listeners know, and I can understand. What type of businesses are you looking to invest in, to scale, to exit as well? Tell us about that so we really understand how to help you or get you in front of the right type of businesses as well. Tell us about that. So we really understand what you, how, how to help you or get

Starting point is 00:35:45 you in front of the right type of businesses as well. Yeah. Yeah. My buy box or investment box is, is two to 10 million in, uh, in revenue and, uh, that, that have healthy cashflow margins, like cash, not just EBITDA, not ad backs, right? Like, but at the end of the day, the, the, the company is producing cash. If, if I have a company that's in that range, I can scale that thing to nine figures in less than two years. Like that's, that's the, that's the craziness. And so like my, what we do is like such a no brainer for anybody that's just kind of stuck in that range because regardless, regardless of what you're doing, like, I don't, I don't care if you're selling beehives. I don't care if you do solar wealth management, anything, all businesses struggle with the same things,

Starting point is 00:36:40 right? Like, and all business is essentially the same at the end of the day. I know how to come in and scale. Like I've, I went in and helped a company that did baby moccasins. I helped them, I helped them scale to $30 million a year before they were making a thousand bucks a month. Like, like that, that was several years ago, but like, like that is obviously not what my experience is in, but all business is the same. And so, yeah, that's the buy box. That's the focus. If you're not currently at that number, we're actually about to launch a weekly coaching where you can get on a weekly, uh, zoom call with me and my team,

Starting point is 00:37:27 um, and, and a bunch of other things. It's called a founder acceleration. And, uh, we would, uh, would love to, to have you be a part of that group. It's 500 bucks a month, but definitely worth it. If you're below that $2 million in revenue mark and you're wanting to scale up and you're wanting to learn from the best, because the number one, when my life changed, like up until 2016, I had spent $1,000 here, $1,000 there, done the books and everything like that. But then I started to get serious and I started buying programs and I started spending $50,000, $100,000 on coaches and $10,000 to $30,000 on masterminds. When I got around people that were doing bigger and better things, it just leveled up my thinking and leveled up my action taking.

Starting point is 00:38:11 And that's when things really changed. And so if you're wanting to get any value from me, that's how you get in my ecosystem. I hold high-end masterminds. I do all different kinds of cool, fun things. But yeah, that's where we're at. Oh, I love that. You're speaking my language, Chris. And where can the listeners find you? So easiest place, I'm at ChrisLeeQB, like quarterback, on all social, Instagram, Facebook. I post a lot of just novels on Facebook and then just fun things on

Starting point is 00:38:48 Instagram. A lot of highlights from my show. If you're not subscribed to, so I run a podcast and I interview super high level people, guys that have experienced nine, 10, 11 figure exits. It's called The Founder Podcast. I'm on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, YouTube has my smallest following. Um, but yeah, I'm like number 50th on all of, uh, all business podcasts on, on Apple. Um, but, uh, but yeah, that's, that's where you can get, I typically drop two episodes a week. So if you want to listen in and just get some free value, that's, that's the spot to get some free value. I love it. And let me just say again, it's not necessarily your followers or how popular you are on the social platforms.

Starting point is 00:39:34 It's really about doing the right work to have the right type of wealth come in so you can live a wealthy life. So Chris, thank you. You're welcome.

Next Level Pros - #32: Failure to $243M a Year: My Founder Story With Dawn Dahlby

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