Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Diversify to Maximize Opportunities with Chris Hansen - a Think Billions Experience Guest

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

In today’s episode, The Radcast is on the road at “The Castle” in Palm Desert California, the home of Billion Dollar Brand builder Howard Panes as part of the Think Billions Experience series.Ryan welcomes Chris Hansen, the Founder of Takeavaycay.com and Chief Marketing Officer of the Genesis Reference Laboratories to The Radcast show. Ryan talks with Chris about his amazing journey in creating his big break in starting diverse businesses and how he’s helped make people feel good and look great, and by leveraging  a big opportunity from the pandemic.Key points from this episode:Chris and his partners took a chance and bought a bankrupted lab in Tampa and it paid off big. (01:50)He has been working to diversify his business ventures by adding new fields of expertise. He branched into CBD wellness space and built Takeavaycay.com - an online resource for physicians looking at alternative medicines other than medication or surgery. In addition, he built a medical aesthetics studio called The Refinery in Florida. He also built a boating business, and an animal cremation business and ashes turned into lab grown diamonds. Lastly, a Jewelry line. (04:01)Chris shares his reasons and strategies behind going wide first instead of going deep in building new companies one after the other successfully. (11:30)Chris shares his biggest learning in his entrepreneurial journey. (15:50)And more…This episode is packed with great advice and we know you will get a ton of value from the Think Billions Experience Guest lineup. The Think Billions Experience was developed by Howard Panes who assembled a group of the most notable multi-million and billion-dollar brand builders in the business, making the Think Billions Experience one of the highest net worth events of 2022. Learn more about future events at https://events.thinkbillions.com/ or follow Howard on Instagram - https://instagram.com/howardpanesTo keep up with Chris, follow him on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-hansen-00242682/ or Instagram - https://instagram.com/chrisbrobyhansenIf you enjoyed this episode of The Radcast, Like, Share, and leave us a review! If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

The hardest part of ending is starting again. You're listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. We're still here at the Think Billions event. My man Chris Hansen is joining me.

Serial entrepreneur. He's a pretty fucking good dude, if you ask me. Good to have you, Chris. Appreciate that. Thanks for having me, Ryan. Yeah, man. It's fun. This setting, man. And I keep telling this for people when we're talking on this show here at this event. You got to watch this episode. Sometimes, you know, you can get away with just listening, but you got to see this background. No, it was unbelievable. Your show's great normally, but this is a whole nother energy and vibe we're putting out. I know I can't recreate this vibe in the studio now, but I look forward to

chopping up with you. Thanks. Shout out to Howie P for doing a great bit here at Howie P. Howie P. Yeah. Unbelievable castle. He was't kidding, was he? Oh, no, no. I feel like I'm in Morocco right now. I know. And I like it. Yes, I get used to this. Getting a little spoiled. But Chris, man, I know you got your hands in a ton of things.

I always like to highlight interesting people here on the show and talk about entrepreneurial journeys. Absolutely. There's a lot of interest out there in that, and I know our audience digs hearing people's stories and how they got started. And you've got your hands in so many things. You know, I know we've got some, if you're watching any of the videos, we've got some samples on the table.

We'll get to that. Absolutely. But, Chris, let's just, I know we could talk like anyone about, for an hour, probably about somebody's background. Let's give everybody the CliffsNot notes version of uh your background yeah so uh so i live in tampa you know where my main business is located down in florida i've got a medical testing laboratory it's called genesis reference labs so me and my partners you know we all met as sales guys for a real big corporate medical company out in Houston, actually. And, you know, we always had that itch to kind of break off on our own. So in 2018,

we had, you know, put some money to the side, started saving together, and we bought a lab out of bankruptcy in 2018 down in Orlando. Obviously, we didn't know COVID was going to happen. You know, the world was shocked just as we were. Really good for us. We were, you know, scaling, growing, building our business, you know, doing what we could do. And then COVID hit and we really went all in on that. It was really make or break for us. But we just said, this is it.

Let's throw everything we've got at it we're either gonna blow it up or bust it out and uh go big or go home go big or go home man yeah so we went all in on it and uh and it was really good for us you know we were happy that we could we could help in that time obviously um but it was wild but it was it was a journey it was wild, but it was a journey. It was long days, long nights, you know, making international phone calls all hours of the day, trying to get supplies. It was just, it was chaotic, but that was really our big come up, you know.

Like I said, we had pushed years before that. We'd been in the business, but we caught our big break. You know, we've been together about eight years now. So it was great for us. So after that, we've got a great executive team, great management team. We really scaled the business. We started with seven employees. We've got 127 employees now. Solid team, good people, hardworking people. How many locations? So we've got three locations. We have a lab, the main lab's in Orlando. We've got one in Texas, and we've got one in Colorado.

So we got the right team in place, which kind of freed up my schedule. My partners let me off my leash, per se. And they said, let's go diversify into some other things. And I've always been you know kind of curious always looking for the next big thing so we branched out into you know we just opened a medical aesthetic studio down in Clearwater Florida called the Refinery so anyone down in Clearwater get your Botox or some laser treatments come on down and then we branched into the CBD wellness space.

So we've got this company, Vacay. Vacay.usa on Instagram. You can find us. Takeavacay.com. There you go. Takeavacay.com. Yep. I like it.

V-A-Y-C-A-Y. Okay. And the vision behind that was, you know, we work with physicians all over the country. CBD obviously gained a lot of popularity, but there was still a lot of doctors not really educated on it or unsure about it. So I saw it as an opportunity to kind of educate our doctors, give them something else they can provide their patients with in the practice. provide their patients within the practice. Also an emerging industry where I really wanted to try to bring like a whole wellness supplement line into it with incorporating, you know, natural herbs,

ashwagandha, lemon balm, chamomile. We're not just focused on the cannabinoids. You know, I think there's a future and alternative, right? Medicine, holistics. I think people are a lot more open to that now. And then we also are in the boating business. So we run boat charters. I mean, we're covering the gambit here, brother.

Hey, you are the serial entrepreneur. Trying to, gotta be diversified nowadays. Yeah, you are, man. Yeah, all right. So, uh. Boat charters down in Florida. Yeah yeah so down in sarasota sarasota and annamaria island so anyone down there i've never spent he's a nice nice area oh beautiful siesta key you ever heard of it yeah i've heard of that i've never been yeah uh beautiful it's

been rated number one beach years years years the sand. The sand looks like flour. It's beautiful. I'll look for the invite. I know. I know Greenville's pretty, but, you know. We don't have any white sand. No, you got the lake life. Come on down. Yeah, I'll show the boat down. Get some sun and salt. You're welcome anytime. Come on down. So we run, you know, day charters, fishing charters stuff like that um you know that's it's a

cool business you know great perk of it obviously go out on your boats um and then the newest thing that we we branched into is actually the animal cremation business real curveball there yeah uh so you know my partners approached me with that and I was like sure guys it's a little weird because we're all dog lovers you know but you know there's a need there for that so really our goal there was to try to make a little bit more humane so we've got the crematory and then we also have a plot of land where you can you know we'll plant a tree in memory of your animal nice and then we're incorporating a plot of land where you can, you know, we'll plant a tree in memory of your animal. Nice.

And then we're incorporating that into a dog park, so you can, you know, go, you know, pay your respects to maybe your old furry friend, and bring your new pup out for a play date, whatnot. So riding off the crematory, we got into the lab-grown diamond space, which, so that company is MyLegacyDiamonds.com. We just launched that. And the concept there is we can take, you know, the ashes of your animal or even loved one and infuse that into a lab-grown diamond.

Love it. Yeah, man, it's wild. We can even take the hair of your kid or your grandmother there doesn't need to be death involved it can be a living memorial diamond yeah it's not all doom and gloom over here you know diamonds are forever diamonds are forever that's what i say i go you know what your dna is in that stone if if earth disappears tomorrow you'll be floating in space and you still exist somewhere out there. Your DNA is still floating around.

So that's been going real well. You know, it's definitely a niche business. It's something different. Typically, the response I get from people is a little bit of, you know, shock. But they're like, you know what? I got my dog's ashes at my house. I don't do that. Yeah.

So, yeah, man, and now we're branching into, we've got a jewelry line we're coming out with called Diabri Diamonds, and that's going to be your standard, you know, engagement rings, tennis bracelets, and really the goal there is, you know, the diamond business has been, know very controlled yeah you could call it a monopoly yeah for a long long time dirty even very dirty business i you know if you've

never seen it i recommend everyone watch blood diamond the irony of clarity with diamonds and how dirty the industry is yeah it's an industry that it needed to be shaken up a bit and that's what we're trying to do. You know, I think nowadays people are a lot more conscious with their purchasing and the type of things that they're gonna invest their money in and they believe in. So you know, if we can provide a equal or superior product that you can feel good about, you know, a lab-grown diamond, you've got none of the environmental impact of the mining, which is horrible for the earth. You have none of this, unfortunately, child slavery that goes on

from the mining of these diamonds, where the people that are doing the most work to benefit off these, excuse me, doing the most work are not benefiting off of it. They're living in poverty, barely getting by. So, you know, if we can do something that makes people feel good, look good, it's a win-win. And obviously the price point, too, is a lot more appealing. It's about a third of the price of a natural earth diamond.

But if you look at it on a molecular level, there's no difference. Yeah. They have names. Don't they have names don't have like different names for those kind of manufactured diamonds diamonds are they just branded names like are they like someone's coming up with brand names for different ones but i think i've heard of a couple of them i can't recall what they're called you know so there are there are some large companies okay you know that sell and honestly but it's not so there's not a manufactured diamond it's just called a manufactured diamond right there's not like a or lab grown yeah there's

no universal name for it other than no it's made no yeah no i wish there was yeah well hey that's what we need to work on you know we're gonna talk about yeah yeah yeah you're you're my marketing guy here right i believe me I want something sexier than lab grown. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think it was wishful thinking. I was trying to manifest that someone had done this because I think we got to do it. I think you're on point, which proves that we need something else because it's not sexy. It's not doing justice to it.

No, lab grown is like, eh. It sounds interesting, but it kind of cheapens it a little bit. Unnecessarily. I agree. When everything you described that's so true with the mindset today with sustainability and wanting to do right and like all that's right, lab drug. No. You call it a conflict-free, conflict-free diamond. Yes.

Conscious, conscious diamond, you know. We'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get the juices flowing. So, okay, I want to give some value to people listening. You guys are obviously, and I think I know the answer because we've talked about it, but for our audience, you're going wide instead of deep on one or two things.

I mean, you guys in theory because i imagine you could have gone deeper on one or two of the things you named right but y'all are starting new ones on top of new ones when you you obviously are being successful in each one of those but what's the strategy there we're big believers in diversification you know I think times are different than they used to be yeah I think growing up you're told you get a 401k you get a good safe corporate job with a big-name company and I think maybe for you know my parents generation that worked but I don't think that that going forward is going to get you the life that most people want yeah um you know so i think and i also look at you know i remember 2008 and seeing my own

you know my my parents are business owners they're in the furniture business um and i saw 2008 and the real estate crash and how it affected their business. And I think that really instilled in me, you know, I remember, you know, my mom cutting coupons and whatnot. And, you know, it's not like I ever starved or anything like that, but I saw the emotional distress. And that, I think, just really impacted me. I don't ever want to be in this position. I don't ever want to have to rely on other people to a degree. I don't ever want to have to rely on other people to degree. Yeah, but also, you know, I want businesses that Regardless if we're in a booming economy or a bust economy

Some were bringing in cash flow, you know, which is why I always loved medicine. I wanted to be a doctor Chemistry I didn't speak that language yeah uh so you know quickly we did myself out of that process and you know the next best thing was all right well being medical sales um so you know luckily you know met a great mentor he gave me a shot with with his lab that i worked for at the time um and i always knew medicine you know it was hammered into me i feel like when i was young you know doctor or lawyer people always gonna get divorced they're always needing to see a doctor so I always knew health care was a solid choice you know and with our success you know you you get afforded the ability to to kind of pursue the things that you're passionate about and you want

to do so you know growing up in Florida my partners and I were always on the water, wakeboarding, fishing, surfing, whatever it might be. So, you know, when the opportunity kind of presented itself, you know, with the boating business, you know, it was a no brainer. We knew that we all love this. So inevitably it's going to work. You know, we're passionate about this. It's part of our lifestyle. So, you know we're passionate about this it's part of our lifestyle so you know however you know i get that that's going to be up and down yeah you know that that is not an economy safe business right by anyone when it's booming it's booming yeah and i i you know i know you're a boat owner yourself um what were you talking about earlier what was the the acronym you used for boat oh yeah break out another thousand yeah yeah no doubt it's not the cost of the boat it's kind of like howie p's house here

right it's expensive purchase yeah it's the but it's the maintenance the gift that keeps on giving yeah it keeps on giving so you know um but yeah man i i think it's also just having a wide interest i i'm curious i like to learn um you know i certainly didn't ever think i'd be in the diamond business if you would ask me two years ago um but i see that that is that not only is that something i'm i'm intrigued by and obviously there's massive value but that was something i really did see like this is an industry that hasn't hasn't been shaken up like this needs a change and i think you know we're at a point in time where people are ready to receive that change people are open to it um so some of it is just timing you know and just culture where uh you know you kind of just sit

back and watch and observe and you can kind of see where at least I do this you see little snapshots of where things are going if you're really paying attention and observant to it uh talk what's the hardest part about being an entrepreneur for you or like what what's give us let's give some value again like you know I'm sure I mean you know we're both entrepreneurs I mean we could you know everybody takes their lashes but like what's either like the biggest thing you've learned like the overarching that surprised you or you know this uh what comes to mind that's a great question i mean like is it i mean are you do you or do you struggle with looking back?

Are you always focused forward? I'm pretty forward thinking. Yeah. Seems that way. I mean, obviously, you know, like you said, you take a few licks along the way. Yeah. There's certain things that no matter how much you study,

prepare for, you know, shit's gonna happen. Yeah. You're gonna take some hits um so i think the ability to be flexible and not let that break you it's really it's a it's a battle with yourself um obviously i've got a great team you know my partners and i were we're like brothers you know the they're they're my best friends and my partners i trust them um and we're all we're like brothers you know the they're they're my best friends and my partners I trust them um and we're all we're all different we each have our own different genius you know yeah if it comes to bookkeeping and finance I'm not your guy if it comes to ops and having to kind of lay down the law not really my thing either you know yeah um so we've got a good balance but I think the hardest part is balance

in general of life you know taking time to still take a step back enjoy life it's easy to say oh I'll go on a vacation or something I'll keep putting it off like it's really difficult when you're in it you're so driven to get to your goal and everyone says don't be in a rush to get to the finish line enjoy the journey yeah and i'm now looking back on you know our different projects it was the most fun and when you're in the trenches man yeah like when you look back at that it's just like dude how the hell did we get here you know like it's uh but that's the beauty of it you know it's um that's what keeps you going to those moments where you look back and you're like it's uh but that's the beauty of it you know it's um that's what keeps you going to

those moments where you look back and you're like damn dude like how do we make that happen we push to do this so um but it's just finding that balance in life you know at times staying motivated um but you just keep trucking you know and and I'm a firm believer that things work out how they should. You know, God has been good to me as long as I keep pushing and putting the action and doing the right thing. It's like no matter what trials, tribulations, I look back, I've always made it through. So I remind myself that all the time. Yeah.

I don't think people reflect on that enough, you know, like the blessing of getting on the other side of things. And, like, you know, it's not that we take it for granted. Not everyone takes it for granted, but I don't know that we get still in the moment and, like, appreciate it. You're right. And it's a terrible thing that we don't do that more. Man, I agree 100%.

And I feel like because, you you know I go through ups and downs all the time you know and uh you know it's actually I've gotten more into you know meditation and really trying to do other things lately I've been big on these Nordic saunas the ice plunges and the sauna stuff just trying to kind of settle my mind look for look for clarity look for the answers within instead of constantly asking opinions like most times if you sit and let yourself just kind of process solutions will come to you or at least some clarity yes and i'm a big believer in in my gut my intuition um but i've got to be tapped in to to really trust that you know i've got to take a step back but when i those moments i'm stressing i gotta remind myself and it was actually a even a couple weeks ago and i don't even know what i was stressed about right like you said and when

you're in it you're like oh god man yeah and then charged up and you know you know exactly why and the next day you know oh i'm good but you don't take the time to think well i was feeling like this and now i'm fine and then when that next situation happens you don't think well i made it through that one so i'll be good on this so it's a work it's really a um a mental battle more than anything yeah uh as we close out here chris there's there's this spirit about you that's just really calming and very is that nature or nurtured have you always been that way or have you become this way because there's just kind of this really good spirit about you you know I guess the energy I

appreciate that yeah it's like just like I don't know I I want to say it's always been there, but I didn't realize it. Yeah. You know, obviously looking back, I remember like in seventh grade, my teacher picked me to go to some leadership camp. And it was things like that that in the time, like, oh, cool, going to this thing, whatever, go hang out with the guys. But I look, when I really think back i'm like all right it seems to me that there was things people noticed in me before i noticed in myself

yeah um but i'm i'm a firm believer in energy and positivity and and it's funny you say that because it really i you know when i was working corporate it's you don't get that feedback people people are you know they're when they're coaching you they're going by a guideline almost it's you don't get that feedback people people are you know they're when they're coaching you they're going by a guideline almost it's less feel it's structured like this is how we train our people but i've realized the more i've interacted with more entrepreneurs you know that's important people pick up on that and i think when you get to the point where you can choose who you want to work with that's huge i believe in that too is i if if i have a good energy from you or a good vibe i love that yeah that to me is something deeper that can't

be explained and that tells me all right this person's someone that i want to yeah continue to i'm interested i want to learn more about yeah i talk to a lot of people and i don't say that to every person i appreciate it yeah man it's definitely your uh one of your strengths thank you cool man chris everybody keep up with you as we close out here i know you mentioned a couple but let's uh plug in all of it yeah um you know genesis reference labs is the medical lab so if you're a doctor or uh you know looking for some good lab testing look us up um vacay.usa take a vacay.com go get yourself some sleep gummies some some delta 8 cbg gummies and uh and be on the lookout in the next couple months for diabri diamonds if you need an engaging ring for your girl we got you covered

there we go yeah chris really enjoyed it Look forward to getting to know you better and making some hay with some diamonds. Absolutely. Hey guys, you know where to find me. I'm at Ryan Offern on all the platforms. You can find us at theradcast.com. Search for Chris Hansen. You'll find all the highlight clips from today from beautiful Palm Desert. We'll see you next time on the Radcast.