The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Path to Ultimate Success: Becoming a Millionaire with Ron Douglas of Mentoring Giants

Starting point is 00:00:00 You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

Starting point is 00:00:42 There you go. Welcome, my ladies and gentlemen, my family, my Chris Fosho family, the family that loves you but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as your mother-in-law. She never liked you anyway, and she wanted her daughter to marry the other guy. What are you going to do? So, guys, welcome to the big show. As always, we bring you the latest authors, the Pulitzer Prize winners, presidential advisors. We actually have one later today. All the, what is it, governors, congressmen, you know, you name it.

Starting point is 00:01:09 These folks have been on the show, and they bring to you a lifetime of knowledge that they disperse to you. And we call it the Chris Voss Show Glow. Stories of the life. And as we always say, stories are the owner's manual to life. We have another gentleman on today, and he is going to be talking to you about how to become ultimately successful. Make your first million. And it all comes down to working with Ron Douglas, the million dollar mentor as he's built. He's on a mission to create 1,000 millionaires. Ron is the CEO of Mentoring Giants. He's on a mission to help 100 entrepreneurs reach

Starting point is 00:01:46 their first 1 million. So you too could be part of that. With over 40 plus successful exec exits, his passion lies in guiding others to succeed. He helps people whose revenue is stagnant, struggle to scale their business, overwhelmed in constant competition or companion. Overwhelmed is a constant companion. I'm not reading that right, okay? I'm trying to flip that in the third person. You lack or if people lack a clear roadmap. At Mentoring Giants, they leverage the real-world experience and insights from Discovery Channel's blue-collar backers to transform these challenges

Starting point is 00:02:23 into tangible results. They cater to founders, entrepreneurs, and CEOs with R's of 10,000 or above. Is that MMRs? MRRs. There we go. Which sets them apart, only being a mentoring platform led by a CEO with 40-plus successful business exits, awarded with industry recognition and awards. Welcome to the show, Ron.

Starting point is 00:02:46 How are you? Good, good. How are you doing, bud? Good, good, good, good. So give us your.com. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Mentoringgiants.com is probably the easiest place to find us. We're updating the website actually today as we speak.

Starting point is 00:03:00 But yeah, anybody that listens to this, it'll be Mentoring Giants. Awesome sauce. Awesome sauce. Awesome sauce. And then tell us about the Discovery Channel connection with Blue Collar Backers. Yeah, yeah. So a couple of years back, I did a show on Discovery Channel called Blue Collar Backers and got to go and help a lot of small businesses. And honestly, that's the reason Mentoring Giants got launched was because I had so many

Starting point is 00:03:22 people reaching out to me after the show. I had no idea that I was going to get bombarded with that many people requesting help on businesses. And so I launched Mentoring Giants. You struck a vein. There you go. So give us a 30,000 overview of what you guys do, in your words, at Mentoring Giants.

Starting point is 00:03:39 You know, I sat back and I started realizing that just about everybody that I've ever met has the skill sets already in place right now to be a millionaire. And they just don't have the puzzle pieces put in the right spots. And so, you know, I mean, I can literally take somebody that mops floors in a school and teach them how to start a cleaning company and create a million dollar business in a short time. So, I mean, it doesn't matter what you're doing. I've realized just a lot of entrepreneurs out there just struggling or running in circles. And it's just a couple of small pieces that just need to be moved and everybody can create a million dollar company. There you go you know i i i've seen that happen where i've been trying to get a business to work and sometimes new startups

Starting point is 00:04:30 sometimes it's the throes of recession and and it won't work and you keep moving those pieces around and suddenly it's just like a light switch goes on you know you're like there's money coming in this crap's working what the hell who you know it's kind of like what we used to say when you play golf and you hit a you hit a perfect ball you're like remember what you did wrong whatever that was somebody push a button or something but no usually you kind of know what it is you flip you flip a switch and like all of a sudden the machine turns on you're like oh yeah you'll know there you go. You'll know the second it happens. Give us a little bit more of your hero's journey.

Starting point is 00:05:08 How did you grow up? How did you get the entrepreneurial bug? And tell us a little bit about some of these exits and stuff that you did. Okay. Yeah. I'm the furthest from an entrepreneur you could possibly be. My dad was in the military for 22 years. And I was surrounded by military guys you know career

Starting point is 00:05:25 career military and you know everybody was you know join the army join the army do your 20 you know do this do that and I just I just didn't I just didn't mesh with that and I could not figure out I didn't meet my first entrepreneur until I was oh geez like 23 um and I didn't even know what an entrepreneur was didn't know how to spell the word. I mean, honestly, I didn't know anything. I was, at the time, I had, at 18, I broke my back and was paralyzed from the waist down. I had to learn to walk again. Oh, really?

Starting point is 00:06:00 Yeah, it was tough. By 19, I was fully recovered. Wow. And, uh, yeah, yeah, it was tough. By 19, I was fully recovered, fully recovered. And I was, I was, you know, lifting and exercising and trying to prove that I could do what I could do before. And, um, still the military didn't want me, uh, because I had broken my back. So I joined the prison system and I was a Texas prison guard. There you go. I was going to ask you which side of the prison system you joined.

Starting point is 00:06:26 You've got to be careful when you say that. Yeah, right? I've got to be careful, yeah. So, yeah, I was a prison guard in Texas at 19, and by 20 I was on the riot team, and by 21 I was training and head of the riot team. Holy crap. And, yeah, that was interesting times.

Starting point is 00:06:46 And I worked death row, actually, in Huntsville, Texas. I worked at several of the Supermax prisons in Texas. All the Supermax prisons that got opened up in the late 90s, I was there and opened them all up. Those are wild. Yeah, that was a little wild time. Yeah, it was actually a mistake that you know that uh that i even learned what an entrepreneur was i my i was short on money and my dad you know was always into classic cars and

Starting point is 00:07:16 always taught us how to work on cars and on the way to work one day i was looking there was a wrecking yard and i'd always pass this wrecking yard on my on my way to work And and I was broke I needed money and we didn't have enough money to make it to the other month Holy and I pulled in there and I told the guy I said, hey man I said I see you got a wrecking yard. I said, do you you need any work, you know workers I said You know, I'd love to help out or do what I can and he's like, yeah I paid daily and day labor and you can come out here tomorrow start tomorrow said perfect i'll be here tomorrow so i started cutting old gas tanks out of cars that were getting crushed oh really in texas like 110 degrees

Starting point is 00:07:57 sucked yeah yeah were you doing that as a spare time job on top of your prison? Yeah. Yeah. I did it on my days off. Yeah. So in the prison, we worked four days on, four days off, 12-hour shifts. So on my four days off, I worked at the wrecking yard. There you go.

Starting point is 00:08:17 And man, this is the first time I ever met an entrepreneur. And I was like, man, this guy owns the whole wrecking yard. He owns his house. He owns his house he owns the shop and i i finally just asked him i said hey man how do i do this and uh he you know we went to lunch we sat down talked about it and he showed me how to start flipping cars you know we were buying you know some of these cars were too nice to crush and i would take them and i'd get them running again and i'd take them over to the prison I would take them and I'd get them hunting again.

Starting point is 00:08:45 I'd take them over to the prison while I was working and park them in the parking lot out there with a for sale sign in them. I started selling them. Before I knew it, I had 20, 30 cars out and sold. Half of them I'm owner financing and taking payments on. I had a regular little small business going outside the prison and out in the parking lot and i finally said why once i learned i could make my own money without a boss you know i always thought you know hey you need a job you need money go get a job you know yeah yeah and and once i learned that i didn't need a job i didn't need a boss in order

Starting point is 00:09:22 to make money and that was it i was. I was gone. Off to the races. Wow. You know, basically, it's that old saying, necessity is the mother of all invention. Absolutely. So I met my first entrepreneur at 23. Started my own business

Starting point is 00:09:40 at 24. Made my first million by 26. There you go. 26? Yeah yeah in the old brick and mortar world and the brick and mortar world back you know even i was i was bleeding into the internet yeah back when i'd take a picture of a classic car and i'd send it to somebody take them 30 minutes for it to download you know and so uh but yeah i was uh i started out you know flipping cars and then before i knew it i was i mean i was shipping classic cars all over the world i was shipping them to australia new zealand denmark yeah yeah so i was buying up classic cars

Starting point is 00:10:19 all over texas and shipping them everywhere you know i'd ship them to New York and Minnesota. But it was a pendulum swing, right? So I went from not knowing how to be an entrepreneur to that's all I did 24-7 and dating their costume in my marriage. So I had to slow down and get more tactical about how I did things so that it didn't cost me so much time. And so I started focusing on that and learned to bring the pendulum in the middle and get a better work-life balance and i anyway long story short i sold that company and i i moved on to other other businesses and and um you know i've had you know once i it's so funny because once once you learn how to do it you can spot problems with other businesses and yeah and i was actually you know there was another accident

Starting point is 00:11:24 guys like i'm to sell this business. And I was looking at it. I could see all the problems with the business. And I was like, man, I'll buy it. So I bought this business and built it up, turned it around. I was like, hey, this is kind of like flipping cars. Just flip businesses.

Starting point is 00:11:39 Yeah, just flip businesses instead. So I was like, man, this is a lot easier than flipping cars. So, you know, I just started doing that. And before I knew it, I had had 40 businesses under my belt. Wow. That's awesome, man. And so were you just flipping small businesses locally and people for sale?

Starting point is 00:11:59 Yeah, you know, I'd buy a cleaning company or I'd buy a landscape company or, you know, things that were in trouble, you know, I'd buy a cleaning company or I'd buy a landscape company or things that were in trouble, I'd buy them. I bought a greenhouse company. So sometimes it just depends on the company. But like that greenhouse company, I bought that and he was out of, I don't remember, Kentucky or something. And I bought that company and shipped it over to Colorado and built it up to you know when I bought it he was he wasn't doing very very well because he was he couldn't figure out the shipping that's the problem and and you can't ship you know how do you ship

Starting point is 00:12:36 a green how right it's true I broke him down into kits and put him on pallets and figured out the shipping prior and and that was all the solving it needed that was just that that was the only thing it needed instantly we went to over you know we went to six figures a month out of that thing and and it was just man we were just going to town and then it went to seven figures a month and it was like okay so and then i once i get things figured out drives my wife nuts once i get things figured out, it drives my wife nuts. Once I get things figured out and it's smooth operating, I get bored. You get bored. I sold it, yeah.

Starting point is 00:13:09 At least you keep the wife. My problem is the reason I've been single all my life is I get bored. So variety is the spice of life, ladies and gentlemen. I took it to heart. No, that's really interesting. We used to do a thing we found after we assembled a lot of companies and we were still bored and and so we would run an ad in the paper saying we loan money to entrepreneurs in trouble and then we get the applications and we just cherry pick stuff you know there'd be so much stuff that i learned this i learned how to do it from basically

Starting point is 00:13:41 commercial real estate guys and they would they would show me how there was you know there was a lot of businesses that were asset rich but cash poor and you know because they they spent all their money and their model still wasn't working or maybe it stopped working yeah it was interesting to go into them and then you know some guys you know they just they just won't let go they're like that they're like that like that raccoon and where the red fern grows where they will not let that shiny tin piece go until they die You know, they just won't let go. They're like that raccoon in Where the Red Fern Grows, where they will not let that shiny tin piece go until they die. That's right.

Starting point is 00:14:10 I love that movie. Yeah, that's a great movie. It helped me save a lot of money on a lawsuit one time. Just that book. But that's a great way to do it. So now you've converted your services to where you're helping other people and you coach them. Tell us how that works.

Starting point is 00:14:25 Well, because like you just mentioned, it's exactly what you just mentioned. You know, guys that don't want to let go, right? And so we, you know, I build everything to sell. And so I teach, that's what I teach. I teach everybody else to, you know, do the same thing, right? And so if you're the keystone of your business, if you're the, you know, if you're the thing that keeps your business together, then you don't have a business. You've got a job. That's true.

Starting point is 00:14:51 That's true. No one's going to buy you because they can't buy you out. You're the lynchpin. Exactly. I was just talking with one of my clients this morning about this. It's like, oh, you know, you know you're in trouble when all you're doing is bragging about what you bring to the table because it's like, if you're that great

Starting point is 00:15:12 and nobody else can do what you do, then how are we going to sell this business? You know what I mean? We've had a number of people on the show. I had to change his thinking. Yeah. We've had a number of people on the show that teach about exiting

Starting point is 00:15:27 and how to prepare your business at the very beginning. It's funny. One thing I did find was I'd go look at a business and I'd go walk through the business and stuff. We'd already gotten the paperwork and the books and stuff. It was just wild.

Starting point is 00:15:44 If you called up somebody and said, hey, can we see your P&Ls? They'd be like, fuck you. That's proprietary information. But when they were in trouble, man, they needed loan money. They'd tell us everything we needed to know about running their business. And so we already had the P&Ls, and we'd already kind of know what's going on. We'd have a sniff of it. Then they'd go to the office and find that half the family works there.

Starting point is 00:16:06 And, you know, half the family's robbing them blind and not doing anything, taking paychecks. And, you know, so then I'd make them an offer. But usually nine times out of ten, I don't know about you, but we'd have to make them a walking offer. So it was either one of two things. It was either like you're three months from bankruptcy and you're just not realizing it. And three to six months, whatever, from bankruptcy, you just don't realize that your model's all fucked up. Here's what we're going to do. We'll take over your business, save your credit, save your life, save probably your marriage.

Starting point is 00:16:39 But you're going to have to go back to McDonald's or wherever the fuck you came from. Or sometimes it was to give them some walking money if they had some valuable assets and stuff. You know, here's 10 grand. Take a hike. We'll save your shit. Because there's a benefit to saving your credit and your marriage and, I don't know, and everything else that you put into a business. I mean, you crash a business, you know, you're going to hurt your credit.

Starting point is 00:17:02 So good luck with that. And there are just some people, they're just not at your credit. So good luck with that. And, and there are just some people, they're just not at the point where they can be self-employed. I think, I think you're right. Everyone does have the puzzle pieces, but I think there's some people that they need to develop the, the mindset a little bit more, uh, to get into it. But what was funny about it all is, is, is a lot of times the trip would be they're like well chris is interested in it there must be gold here somewhere in this mine right and and i and i you know and i explained to him we have an empire of companies so we're gonna roll it into something you know sometimes

Starting point is 00:17:38 we it was just like taking their business you know we owned a mortgage company you know just rolling in so then we just needed their furniture for expansions and so they would be like yeah there must be gold here i just got to figure out where chris thinks it is you know and so i give him a first rider refusal contract you know give him 10 bucks or whatever and i say look i'm going to give you a first right refusal which means i means you have to call me when you want to sell this company first. But here's the true thing. Don't call me a week before fucking bankruptcy. Don't call me a week before bankruptcy. You got to do this now or in the next month

Starting point is 00:18:14 or two weeks or something. You can't be fucking around. And they always ask too. They're always like, are you going to fire my family? Yeah. Fire you? Fire your family? I know exactly the fucking problem that's right here right now and you know i and i tell her i'd be like you're the problem so you have to go can i stay on no no you you're just you're just a lead way and not and and i'm gonna probably change your whole dream around so you're not gonna like it

Starting point is 00:18:42 anyway but you're not gonna get it you know i'm gonna you're messing with my thing you're you don't have a thing it's bankrupt so you know they always call me week before bankruptcy i'm going to the bankruptcy court do you want to still buy them my business always oh they always did yeah yeah i i don't understand why they wait that long but yeah they always do always do. The one thing I did learn, though, was that by getting a business, a good deal on a business, opened up that entire industry sometimes. Because sometimes you can leverage that. You buy one landscaping business and there's four in town, you go, hmm. And so you leverage that and you go buy the other two or three before you know it you you own the whole landscaping industry and you know in the

Starting point is 00:19:31 town and you can you can leverage it pretty well and so a lot of times i did that you know where i would buy one and then i started looking at others in that same industry before i knew it i was owning three or four yeah once you can dial in the perfect combination. When people reach out to you, you're on a mission now to make all these millionaires. When people reach out to you, how do they onboard with you?

Starting point is 00:19:55 How do they handshake with you? How do they find out if they're a fit for both you and them? We sit down and we do about an hour discussion. We have a discussion on it. I really wanted to understand where they're coming from and whether they're teachable

Starting point is 00:20:10 or not. That's the big thing. See, that's what separates those other guys who won't give it up. Exactly. They've got to be teachable. They've got to come and say, I'll do whatever you say. Not to that point, but something like that, along those lines.

Starting point is 00:20:27 And if they start acting like that and they're teachable, because there's a lot of people out there that got a good business. Let's say you're making $150,000. And when I say a million dollars and create millionaires, I'm talking about real millionaires, not on paper. I'm talking about a million dollars in the bank account. Not, not this nonsense where, yeah, I've got a million dollar business, but I'm only, you know, I'm only making 40,000 a year. No, no, no, no, we're done with that nonsense. So, uh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:01 So there's a lot of people out there that are making six figures, $100,000, $150,000, $200,000, $250,000, but they can't figure out how to actually make a million. And they're close. And so it's just moving a couple of those puzzle pieces and getting those guys in place. And once they realize it, and a lot of times getting it out of their own head, and once they realize that,

Starting point is 00:21:23 yeah, you can take their business to multi-million, multimillion dollars and, you know, which means, you know, million dollar take-homes then at that point. And so that, that, that's a life changer, man. Because once, in my opinion, once you break the million dollar mark and you're actually making a million dollars, you have a million dollars in the bank, you, you can, you're smart enough at that point. You can leverage, you can move things around. You can, you, you can, you're smart enough at that point. You can leverage, you can move things around. You can, you can make big moves at that point and you're capable. Yeah. It gives you options. You're capable of handling it from there.

Starting point is 00:21:55 So my goal is to get people that are making six figures up to seven, seven, eight figures. So that's a, that's the net out of their business. It's not the revenue. Yeah. Yeah. I'm talking to that. Yeah. Yeah. Not, of their business it's not the revenue yeah yeah i'm talking about that yeah yeah not yeah no i'm uh yeah anybody can make a million dollar business in three months but yeah but i see that all the time with coaches that are like i make a million dollar business and you're like you're like but how much do you net like right yeah i mean yeah a million dollar revenue sure yeah go for it but i mean for all i know you're upside down, a million dollar revenue. Sure. Yeah. Go for it. But I mean, for all I know, you're upside down half a million.

Starting point is 00:22:30 We see that. You can see that with publicly traded stocks. How those work. So, yeah, it's always funny how that rolls. So did they work with you like on an hour by hour basis? Do you have like a coach? Yeah, we've got a coaching program. It's usually about six months honestly i

Starting point is 00:22:45 don't i if you can't figure it out in six months then you ain't gonna figure it out so yeah i'm not one of those coaches that wants you on and wants you forever um you know if you can't if you can't learn it six months we're out so we get in there i teach you for six months i do one-on-one for one month and then it's it's pretty much five months with the group coaching and online but after that you should have it dialed in um most guys have it in three months uh and they're in a cable when they're off and running at that point sometimes it's just moving a few things around like you said it really is yep yep and it and the lights just go on man it's just it's just funny as it's funny as crap and sometimes you've been looking at the whole time going should i turn that dial like not that wasn't it good let's turn these other ones and

Starting point is 00:23:36 then this hey you're well we turned all the other dials this is the one left i can turn that up and sometimes it's just belief, honestly. I mean, you know, they're in a small town and every other, I don't know, dry cleaner in town is making six figures, so they don't think they can make seven figures. And then once you show them the business model where you can make seven figures, they're going, oh, I'm just going to do this and this, and I can do it to seven figures.

Starting point is 00:24:03 Yes. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it's just like simple innovation sometimes. Yeah, I took a laundry mat. The guy owned a laundry mat, and I took him to a million dollars in 30 days. It literally changed it, because he was doing like $300,000 a year.

Starting point is 00:24:23 But he had all these machines, and they're shut down in the middle of the night you know and i was like man hire a crew and before he knew it he was he was washing sheets for hotels and cloth tables for restaurants and all this stuff at night and then he lived in a in a town that had a huge RV parks in the summer. And so he did delivery. And he started driving around RV parks with a bunch of retirees and doing laundry service, pickup and drop-off laundry services. I mean, he had tripled his business in like 30 days. Wow.

Starting point is 00:25:04 That's simple and that easy. That's just amazing. Yeah, it's that easy sometimes. So give us your final pitch as we go out to consumers so they can pick it up. What's the minimum they need to be at again? I mean, if you're making $100,000 a year, that's a good start. From $100,000, I can get you to $1 million probably within six months. Wow. Within reason. But I mean, within,000, I can get you to $1 million probably within six months. Wow.

Starting point is 00:25:26 Within a year, you'll get to there, but six months of training and you'll have it. You'll be dialed in and you're well on your way. And then the beauty of it is they get your training, so they're going to kind of learn how to fix and repair all these businesses that you've been in that you've exited and stuff. Yep. Like I said, I've done it 40 times in every industry you can think of. So, I mean, from blue-collar businesses to online businesses

Starting point is 00:25:52 to just about everything else. So, I mean, if I can do it, anybody can do it. So, I mean, it's really not that hard. It's really just getting systems in place. I like how simple you make it. Thank you very much, Ron, for coming on the show. I mean, it really is because once you understand the basic mechanics of business, it's there. So thank you very much, Ron, for coming on the show.

Starting point is 00:26:13 We appreciate you coming on. You bet. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. There you go. And continued success in creating 1,000 millionaires. So book a call with Ron Douglas there. Give us your.com, Ron, before we go out.

Starting point is 00:26:28 MentoringGiant.com, all one word. There we go. Thanks so much for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, 4ChessCrispFoss, LinkedIn.com, 4ChessCrispFoss, YouTube.com, 4ChessCrispFoss. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter and the 130,000 LinkedIn group over there.

Starting point is 00:26:43 Also go to, I think, ChrisFoss1 on TikTok. I think we covered that. Thanks for tuning in over there. Also go to, I think Chris was one on TikTok. I think we covered that. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time. And that should have.

The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Path to Ultimate Success: Becoming a Millionaire with Ron Douglas of Mentoring Giants

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