Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - From Pizza Hut Manager to Multi-Billion Dollar CEO with Todd R. Skelton

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

In this episode Shawn French sits down with arguably the most successful entrepreneur he has met in a long time, Todd R. Skelton. Todd has always gone against the grain in his growth as a young man, leader and now a multi-billion dollar CEO. Early on in his adult life he was enrolled into college and worked for Pizza Hut at the same time. After a year into college, Pizza Hut approached him about being their youngest manager in company history. He was all in on this opportunity but there was a catch…They told him that he could not go to college at the same time. His response was unlike most others. Todd immediately agreed and dropped out of the University. He did his best to keep this from his parents by saying he wasn’t attending class because he simply couldn’t find parking. There is a societal narrative that you must go to college to be successful. Todd has proven it a lie…. Listen in for more of this brilliant man’s story and rise to the top. Todd Skelton is a true inspiration and a man of integrity. The world is better everyday because of Todd and his heart. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/shawn-french/message Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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That's right. You know, and they don't have any real skills to pay off that debt and understand how debt works. As we go through my journey, I'll tell you, I didn't finish college, right? And the way that journey worked, and thank God I didn't at the time, imagine both of my parents being school teachers. and I go get this, my first real job was with Pizza Hut as cook. I'm cooking pizzas. They say to me, hey, you're pretty good at that. You know, you want to be a shift manager.

This guy went from a Pizza Hut manager to a multi-billion dollar CEO. I have with me today an icon, a husband, a father, and a car tycoon. Todd Skeleton, welcome to the show, my man. Dude, it sounds so much better when you say it. I love it. That's a great. You wrote it, dude. That's your life.

It's so funny. We always talk about that, though, right? Is that guy talking about me? But yeah, man. So, so happy and grateful to have you on the show today. You know, we've had this schedule for a couple of weeks. And, you know, like, every day I'm looking at my planner, I'm like, is it Wednesday yet? Like, let's go.

Have this guy on. So, man, just, you know, tell the audience a little bit about yourself. Yeah, I think the story really is there's a couple of, pages to the story that are really meaningful to a general listener. And one is, yeah, it's that, it's that giant, you know, from Pizza Hut manager to multi-billion dollar CEO, but it's the pieces obviously in between that matter. And the things that I'm trying to do to give back now, like tutoring kids that are, you know, on their way to college or vocational schools or really whatever is better for them. And that's kind of the key in what we do. And it's the life lessons.

It's interesting. I was thinking this morning. I'm into a lot of audio books now, right? And during my tenure at AutoNation for 27 years as an executive, I could probably count on one hand the amount of books I read. And I don't really know why. I mean, everybody said to be successful, you need to read books. But now as I'm beginning to really get into these books, I'm learning that many of the things that I happen to potentially fall into were the things that got me to the CEO job. and if I can take the stuff that I now know is what worked and teach it to somebody else, because if any one of these turns had gone a different direction, I wouldn't have what I have. I mean, it's just there's, there's, there's not luck.

I'm not going to call it luck. A lot of it's determination and hard work, but there's definitely his timing involved, right? And I wasn't managing that timing. It still worked. You know, I made it through, but I could teach other people how to not have to navigate that by just some simple lessons. It's good stuff, man. I love doing this stuff. I love telling the story.

And I'm glad to do it. No, man, it's great stuff. And like I said, I'm more than happy to have you on here today for you to share a little bit about that. Because, you know, you said something very, very key. You know, everybody, you know, the big story, right, the big hook is Pizza Hut manager to a billion-dollar CEO. Multi-billion-billion-dollar CEO. My bad. But here's the thing.

There's so many different things throughout that journey that happened that no one speaks about, right? And I feel as though there's a lot of things in it, and, you know, social media is bad for this. Everybody talks about I want to get from A to Z as quickly as possible, right? I want to have a seven figure business, an eight figure, nine figure, ten figure, your business. And what I'm hearing you say, there was a lot of things that were involved along the way that no one really knows about. So what I'd like to do right now is I'd like to have you share some of those things, shed some light on some of my listeners, because I feel as those they could really benefit off that.

Yeah, and I think what it does, I think what the story should do is take someone who's in a, let's say, a normal position right now and has a desire to do more, but maybe is doubting themselves and saying, well, you know, you know, yes, a Sean could get to where he got, a Tata, Grant Cardone, we could talk about multiple people, but everybody starts somewhere. Mine was pretty humble. I mean, I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, Metery, to be specific, which is, right outside of New Orleans, right? As a matter of fact, is it interesting as it would be?

I grew up about a mile and a half from Elena Cardone, didn't know her at the time. She didn't know me, but we figured this out six months or so ago after spending time together with the Cardones. And very, very humble. Both of my parents were school teachers, and we lived a lower middle class life.

We didn't necessarily want for anything. We had food. We had all the necessities, but we didn't have anything. extra and my drive was not determined by what my parents did because they were very happy teaching school that would like I would lose my mind doing the same thing repetitively day after day after day right so it doesn't matter your upbringing that isn't key it's what you do with it so I think the start the first lesson is you know if you're the type of person who at 14 or 15 or 16 or

whatever age was out there trying to mow lawns or deliver newspapers or work. They allowed me to work in a restaurant as a busboy when I was 16 in Louisiana at the time. I did that. I rode my moped to work. Probably should have been killed somewhere along the way. I don't know. But all these things happened, worked in a pet shop, got fired from the pet shop because I sold my own aquarium in my own house instead of selling the ladies, you know, Miss Pearson's pet shop aquarium. And, you know, life lessons, things that like, I think.

about it. I go, damn, if that woman hadn't have fired me, I would never have been able to put that together. I'm like, okay, well, that was wrong. I can't do that anymore. I mean, it was working for myself, you know, at the time. I was selling a product. I had my own home. But, but, you know, that's kind of where it starts. And

the real one, when people, when I really dig back is it started when I was 12, 13, 14 years old, and my sister was seven, and I had to babysit her in the summer. And my mom worked because she was a president at the teacher's unit at this time. So she worked through the summer. My dad worked even through the summer of school teachers. And I babysat her and I got

50 cents an hour. So imagine all my friends are out playing baseball, playing basketball, and Todd's got his seven-year-old sister with him. And I'm getting paid 50 cents an hour. And man, I was a laughing stalk of the community. And of course, you can only guess now, Sean, where are all these people that laughed at me? Some of them were living with their parents. Most of them never got out of Louisiana. But that lifeless at that age that my mom did kind of force on me was kind of the beginning, man. That's where it started right there and then entrepreneurial spirit to want to do more. You know, that's amazing you say that. First of all, I want to acknowledge you saw my face light up when you said you were from Louisiana.

I did. Do you know where I play baseball? No way. Not LSU. I sure did. Oh. I sure did. I sure did.

So when you say metery, man, I know all about it. I know all about the culture when you're saying you probably should have been killed along the way. I know what you're talking about. I have context. I spent from 01 to 03 in Louisiana, Baton Rouge, man. My mom lives there now. She's in Baton Rouge now. They follow LSU everywhere.

Ladies basketball, man. Unbelievable. But that's a separate podcast. But so we have some connection there. And it's so funny how small of a world that is that our boy from across the pond in the UK David Angel connected us to do this show. That's right. And I was actually living probably where you were at one time.

Yeah. So it's amazing how the world works that way. You know, but I want to point something out, which is really special because I don't know if, and I don't know if people will catch on to this, right? But you talked about entrepreneurial spirit, right? You got fired at an early age for having that amazing entrepreneurial spirit.

Yeah. And, you know, listen, I'm not here to beat up on corporations, of corporate America, you know, I think corporate America is great, right? But the one thing that corporate America and even small business does is they don't like that entrepreneurial mind. Right. It's like, wait a second, man, because it almost scares them, right?

It's because they don't, I don't think they truly understand people like you and I. They don't. You're like, do you. You're like, wait a second. This person right here wants this fish, wants a fish tank. The fish tank at this pet shop probably isn't what they need. but I have one. Well, you know, worse than that, Sean, she didn't have it.

Like, I would have literally, I knew, I knew right from wrong and she doesn't have the fish tank in stock. And I'm like, they want a 60 gallon saltwater tank. I happen to have one I need to sell. She doesn't have it. Don't know when she can get one. Hey, guys, I have one. And they bought mine. And then they told her and then she fired me.

And she was like my grandmother, right? So she didn't fire me. Like literally, she had tears in her eyes. And when I went home, my mom is like best life lesson you could ever get. Like, congratulations. And I'm like, excuse me? Like, yeah, you needed to be fired. And I applaud her for doing that.

Don't do that again. Okay. Fair enough. It's so funny, like the mindset of society, isn't it? Yep. You put something out there. I don't know if it was today or earlier this week. I engaged on it today.

It was the mindset. set of society and how to be successful. Go to college. Go to school. Right. Getting a job and stay in a job. And you're like, hey, clown. That's not it.

It's not it. It's so funny because like, you know, and I can't remember who I was talking to about this the other day. Oh, I know. It was a headmaster of a private school here in Fort Myers, Florida that I'm going to be doing some speaking for. And, you know, talking to their, uh, it's called leaders of tomorrow or something. Lyft program, whatever it is. And, you know, we started talking about education. And I'm looking, I, handed him my book that I wrote, right, about my journey. I haven't done quite what you've done yet,

but I went from completely broke school teacher to picking multiple, like high six figures within six months in an outside sales career. And I built an amazing corporate sales career out of that. And now I'm helping other people do the same, right? But like, I'm looking around his office. And I'm looking at the certain books he has in there. You know, he's got some Jack Canfield in there. He has some, he has a four agreements in there. He has emotional intelligence 2.0. And I'm like, man, I go, Rick, this really fits.

My book fits into your office. Yeah. Let me tell you something. I believe in traditional education. But I also believe in teaching the soft skills that is really going to propel people in life to be successful. Right. Right. So how about this, Sean?

And how about we retool the existing infrastructure of what college does? And it makes all the sense in the world. Yeah. I mean, listen, I didn't know what an LLC or an S-Corp was, you know, or anything when I was in college. You know, it's probably because I was too busy, you know, doing what I did at LSU. I mean, you're living like a rock star big league at that point. You know, you're not focused on school. No.

You're not, man. It is a world, dude. it is a world that that I can't even believe that exists. But I agree with you. And I think there needs to be dudes like yourself and even myself, heck,

maybe down the road, you and I partner on something like this because it's something that the educational system truly needs. These young adults are getting out of college. They're $100,000 in debt. Or more. And they have no real skills.

Or more. That's right. You know, and they don't have any real skills. to pay off that debt and understand how debt works. No, it's what they know. It's what they know. It's what they've been taught. And that's where, you know, it's a little parody with the, you know, rich dad, poor dad type of thing. But it's true. And look, I guess the real comment in that should have been, you know, college might not be the best option. It could be. And, you know, listen, as we go through my journey, you know, I'll tell you, I didn't finish college, right? And the way that journey worked, and thank God I didn't at the time, imagine both of my parents being school teachers,

and I go get this, my first real job was with Pizza Hut as a cook. I'm cooking pizzas. They say to me, hey, you're pretty good at that. You know, you want to be a shift manager. Oh, okay, I'll be a shift manager. I'm still in high school at the time. Do you want to be an assistant manager? I do want to be an assistant manager.

And I don't remember what the pay was. It didn't really matter. It was a lot for somebody who was like, Peter, you make money. So then it comes time for college, and I go to UNL, University of New Orleans. Sure. And they come to me at within, I remember within the first month of me going to college, they come to me and they go, hey, you're a young dude.

You could be our youngest Pizza Hut manager ever. I said, wow, man, that's cool. Like, great. What's not to like? Let's go. And they said, but you know what? You're going to college. And I said, yeah, great.

I'll do that. They're like, we can't have you do both because, you know, 50 hours a week, 55 hours a week is the requirement in the restaurant business and you can't really do school at the same time. And I had to really think about it for about five seconds. Right. I said, I'll take that. Right. Then I had to figure out how I was going to tell my parents that I wasn't going to school. Now, they didn't figure it out for about 90 days. And what I ultimately told them was I could not find a parking space. Like that was, you can't find a parking space, right? University New Orleans. So, you know, a bunch of crying and gnashing of teeth.

But I was off to the races as a Pizza Hut manager. And I went through that journey and I got myself to a position in my early 20s where I was actually multi-unit supervisor. It was an area manager for Pizza Hut. Again, the youngest in the company's history. And I had 17 restaurants that I'm overseeing. And I was, I don't know, 23, 24 years old, too young to be managing that. And I did that for quite a few years. and here's point number two.

And thank God these people jump into your life. I'm on tour with one of the leading guys in PepsiCo in Pizza Hut. I was like number three in the company. We tour all the restaurants. We have a great day. Chris Woods's name. And he says, I said, hey, man, great day. And I was up for a promotion to a district manager.

Like, I'm going to have the next big job. Right, right. Cool. He says, hey, man, listen, great day. Restaurants are in great shape. people are good, but I just want to throw a little something in your head. I'm not quite sure this job is enough for you. What?

You're like 23, right? You're 23, 24. I was, no, I was a little bit older at that point because I had been an area manager for quite a few years at that point. So I was in the, it was in my late 20s. And I'm like, man, all I know is I want the next job, man. I want the, I want the district manager job, 55, 60 restaurants. And he says that to me.

well oddly enough i was running a an amway organization which again another key point multi-level is not a bad thing you know most people aren't going to make money on it i didn't i had a big group man i was an emerald in mway big money but i didn't make any money right it's supposed to be but i did have life life lessons man listening to tapes reading those books at the time on success and if they can do it i can do it driving home at two three o'clock in the morning after doing meetings in Orlando from from south Florida and two weeks after chris wood says this to me in the car pizza hut comes to me and i think this was kind of where he was going and said we don't want you to do that anymore i said well we don't want to do it anymore so we'll

accept your resignation or you can quit doing that don't want to do that don't want to quit so what are we going to do well ultimately they end up firing me because i said i'm not going to quit doing the amway thing and i was going to go get a lawsuit because you know they can't really do that i didn't do anything wrong. And I got in the car business. And my first month, I made over $6,000, which was double kind of what I was making in that job back in 1993. Right. Yeah. So my lawyer's like, dude, you got nothing. I go, I thank God. I don't, no lawsuit. I'm going to do this gig. And that started a 27 year career with AutoNation. Right. So my dealer was purchased by this conglomerate auto nation, which was started by Wayne Hizingo right after he sold Blockbuster.

And I became one of the first employees of this big auto nation, which is the largest auto retail in the country. And I think the lesson in there, Sean, is I spent all those years going to the next level and the next level and the next level. I started selling cars. It was a sales. I was a finance manager, went from finance manager to sales manager, and I took a pay cut of 50%. 50%. But I knew that if I didn't go to a sales manager job, I'd never get to be a general manager. So I had enough foresight to go, you know what? I'm killed it in finance and asked myself two questions. Can you get to be a general manager as a finance manager? No. Okay. Do you love being a finance manager?

No, I don't love it. I'm in a little box talking to people one on one. I want to leave. I feel like the most hated person in the dealership. Exactly. And like, I was good at it. Dude, I was good. And that's why I made so much money. And they're like, well, pay on the desk because this desk manager is this and it's half. And I said, okay, two years took me to get back to where I was.

But you know what? If I hadn't had done it, I'd be sitting in a finance job. Maybe, who knows, I never would have got there. So that's a life lesson of people is sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards. You just, you got to do it if that's the program. And if you really want what you want. And all I wanted to be was a general manager. That's all I could see.

Let me be a general manager. I got to that job about six or seven or seven years later. And then I became a multi-unit manager with Auto Nation. And I had, again, 17, 18, now car dealerships under my belt. And I did that job for 15 years. And I got a coach because for 17, well, actually, it was 17 years. For 17 years, my boss and I, we're like this.

You didn't like each other. I was assigned to him in this new market president job, and he was my boss in that job as a like a COO. We never got along. Finally, after 15 years of suffering, I said, you know what? I want an executive coach. Here's a life lesson. Everybody needs a coach.

Now, I wanted a coach because I wanted to figure out how to deal with this cat, because I wanted to have a job like his, which were there only two in the company. But the only way I was going to get that is to get along with him. So I get the coach. Coach comes in. They pay this guy like $35,000 to coach me. Can we stop you real quick, please?

Yeah, man, do, please. Because this is something like, this is how long ago? Six, five years ago. Five years ago, fairly recent. So I have this conversation all the time with people that are coming to me. wanting a coach, right? And I, and you touched on this, so I apologize. Don't lose your train.

No, please. All right. And guys and girls that are listening. Like, listen, I, you guys are avid listeners of mine. I appreciate you and I love you so much. When you're going to reach out to somebody who's going to coach you, like an executive coach, like Todd or myself, or David Meltzer or whomever it is, it's exactly, right?

It's going to be an investment. It is going to, I'm throwing up the air quotes if you are not watching this on video. It's going to cost you money. But what you're failing to understand is whatever you're investing in, you have to look at it as an ROI.

If I invest $35,000 into Todd Skelton, how much am I going to make? Right. And oftentimes, and I'm talking to people, and I'll even pitch, you know, I'll tell them about my high ticket program. Ooh, I don't know, man. I don't know.

I don't have money for it. That's exactly why you should do it. Because you don't have the money for it. That's right. So sorry. So, guys, it's going to be an investment. It is.

$35,000 to build a multi-billion dollar CEO position. Sorry, if you told me that if I pay you 35 grand, that I'm going to make a billion dollars, or I'm going to be a multimillionaire, I'm like, that's a trade. Harpy.

It's a huge trade. But remember, I did it, Sean, because I wanted to build to get along with my boss. Yeah. I knew that if I did that, he was going to support me and my promotion to the next level, which again, I was up for, had interviewed for the CEO of the company knew me well. I was top two or three in the company in my position. There were 16 of us in the company, right, of a $22 billion company. So this coach comes in.

He lays everything on the table. He goes, look, the good news is I know your boss because my partner coached him in a similar coaching session. So I know who he is. And I know his personality. And we're going to figure this out, man. We're going to fix this relationship. And remember,

this is stuff that we sign like an NDA on to says that like, they're not going to share our conversations with the company, right? So it's very, very confidential. Great. I feel fully comfortable. So we work through this and we spend days together. And he says, next time that guy sends you an email that you know there's no end to that's going to be positive, send it to me.

Let's work on it. So the first couple emails that came in, the typical email that this guy sent me, which no matter how I responded, he was going to give me this stupid negative response. I sent it over to my coach. We worked on it, the first one for an hour and a half, the second one for an hour, crafted the absolute perfect response for him, his personality. We got the same stupid response. Three months into the program with this coach, the coach calls me and said,

brother, I'm on a six months program with you, but I got some bad news. I said, what's up? He goes, I can't coach you anymore. I said, well, what did I do? He goes, no, no, you're not the problem. It's your boss. Like, you're not an issue. I can't fix it.

I don't, I, yes, I can tweak you 20% because you've got some, some issues, but you're good, man. It's him. So I'm just going to tell the company that we're, we're going to end the relationship right now and be done. And I said, oh, okay. Well, a couple months later, I left. June of 19, 2019, I left because I had an ex-Oautonation executive who had left the company years prior, call me out of the blue and say, hey, man, I got this amazing opportunity for a CEO job up in Boston. Okay.

And I'd like you to be my CEO. And this is the day after I left AutoNation. I get this call. Now, the truth was I was going to take a job in Texas with an upstein car dealership group, replacing a guy by the name of Jim Press, who was like a rock star, ran Toyota for a bunch years. He was the CEO of this CEO of this company, and they didn't work, right? So they want to bring me in. Matt McCarthy wants to bring me in. I'm going to be that guy's replacement. This is a big deal in the auto industry. And it was a safe bet. I looked at Holmes down there. And this guy calls me

and says, hey, man, I want you to be my CEO. My wife says, hey, who was that? I go, nah, never mind. He gave me a pay plan over the phone, Sean. In the, in the, the first five minutes. First, first call. You're his guy. You're his guy. You're my guy. I'll pay you this and this. I'm like, wow, okay. So you don't have to phone tell my wife now. Don't worry about it. Three days later, he calls me back. He goes, he in or you out? I'm like, well, are you serious? He goes, yeah, get up here and meet me. I had almost accepted this job in Texas. So I go up there, I meet him. I'm like, wow, this is cold, man. This is Boston. She's, I took my wife from South Florida to Maryland fraud on nation.

I'm going to go from Maryland to Boston. Good Lord. Story short, we took that job up there. That job was laden with some issues. Our private equity owner was under investigation by the SEC for fraud. He raised $1.8 billion in seven funds, and auto was two of the funds. And we were 62% of the money. And I was going to be the president and CEO of this group.

And my buddy from the ex-executive was the board chair. He was retired. He didn't want to do the CEO job. He had nothing to do with it. He wanted me. So we go up there January 2020, COVID hits. So first, you know, CEO's job is, oh my God, you know, do we have any cash? Fortunately, I had a CFO key point that I had worked with in the past. So I was able to bring him in. So we didn't have to build this cultural relationship. We knew each other. That was helpful. Had a good team of people. They were just misdirected. We got it through COVID. We were crushing the business and February 4th of 2000 and 21. So 13 months into my tenure, I'm at a board meeting. Now picture this. You've got the GPB is the name of the private equity company out of New York,

right? Their folks are lying on this side of the table. My executives are on this side of the table. I'm at the head of the table next to me is supposed to be sitting David Gentilly, who's the principal of GPB, right? The guy who's under investigation. He's going to get out of, he's going to get out of, he's going to settle. He doesn't show up for the board meeting, February 4th. I wait. I start the meeting at 920, 20 minutes late, figuring he'll show up. About 11 o'clock, I'm in the middle of my run, just killing it because the numbers are so good. Really, everybody's excited, and my phone's blowing up. So I finally pick up the phone. I exit the room. I give the meeting over to my CFO. David Gentile has been criminally indicted by the SEC. He turned himself in in Boston.

he flew in the night before with the team and had dinner with them from New York. They had dinner in Boston. That morning, he never made it to my board meeting because he was going to jail. Wow. So the manufacturers in the auto space aren't terribly excited about criminals running companies, right? What the money is, obviously. So we had to put it all together. We had to keep everybody together.

And we were able to keep this thing together. We ultimately end up selling the company to group one, which is like the four. largest auto retail in the country. And we started the company. It was worth $250 million in January 2020. $250 million. We sold it for a billion, 23 months later, Forex.

Not that the 4X was not impressive enough, but what was so impressive was that we did it under the SEC scandal. And we also won Boston Globes best places to work in the same month we sold the company. So our employees, through the scandal, were happy. And the reason we're happy is because we were transparent and we communicated.

The first thing I did when I got to Boston, this is a lesson for business. I said, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm a brand new CEO, but I need to go to every one of these 56 dealerships. And I need to talk to these people. And I got to see what's going on. And I went out and I lured them into asking me questions. And we gave them Dunkin' Donut cards if they asked questions. We did everything we needed to do.

Right. And they didn't believe me. But we fixed the things. they said that we're broken. So the next time we went back three months later to do another town hall meeting, they liked me a little better. And the next time I went back, they liked me a little better. And before you know what, a year's down the road, they believe me. So when the company is blowing up, they believe whatever I say. And what I said was, folks, bad news. We're going to have to sell the company. Good news, no Joe Smow across the street car dealership can afford this business.

It's going to be a big, reputable player. You're going to have a great pro. you're going to be good and nobody quit Sean we lost zero general managers in that transition that's that's amazing that is such an amazing story the thing that really sticks out to me I'm just about you in general and and and why like I love you already like you're like one of my favorite people now is the fact that when you're going through your career and going through all of these things even through the SEC scandal you are staying true to yourself you know you're being very humble. You're hungry for everything.

Right. You want to accomplish so much. But the thing that is so admirable about you is that you are so hyper-focused on, okay, what's next? Right. You don't think in terms of, now again, you do have dreams. I'm not saying that. You always want to reach for the,

you always want to reach for the next stratosphere. But you don't let that drive you every single day. And, you know, having the focus on just what's next. what's in front of you, what's now, has built this brand for you in this, in this, um, recipe for success that not a lot of, not a lot of others achieve because what they'll do is after the first failed CEO job, they'll tell themselves a story that this wasn't meant to be. They're not supposed to do this. What you did is you dug your heels in, right?

And you operated out of the space here, right, in your heart. And that story about when you got on the first town hall meeting, just admitting, I don't know what I'm doing. I am a brand new CEO. I need to visit all these car dealerships and find out what's going on. Like, man, that's somebody I can get behind as an employee of any type of auto mode, you know, like any dealership, whatever. Just someone coming in here that is the CEO of the company and saying like, hey,

I don't have all the answers. You know, do you see other CEOs in your position doing that same thing? Yeah, yeah, I do. I mean, I have a high level of respect for the majority. There's six big public auto dealers groups, just six. Nobody else. There was a seventh. They came in, they were late to the game, and they went out, okay, recently.

So I have a high level of respect for five out of the six. One, I just don't like the management style. But I think part of it is, and I interviewed. oddly enough, they interviewed me, I interviewed them during the cell process of this company, because when you have a company that has this kind of valuation, all of the six companies wanted to buy us. They're there. So I had one-on-one and many one-on-one discussions with the top leadership of these businesses,

so I knew most of them anyway. And I think the key is, going back to those town hall meetings, the one thing we left them with was they gave us a short lift of short-lived of short- list of issues. And if there was an issue they gave me that made no sense like, well, we got two buildings, Todd, and we want to join them together. Well, okay, we're not going to do that right now, okay, because it doesn't make any sense. What else do you have? All IT sucks. Okay, I could fix that. We got potholes that need to be done. I could fix that. And I told the team, the minute we left, I go, within 48 hours, preferably 24, fix something that we said we were going to do.

And when we did that, that built the trust, right? So just going in and getting questions answered, doesn't fix it unless you follow up. And I think that the folks that I know in the other public companies, the other big CEOs, do similar things, right? They, and they convinced me that have, if they bought my company, they saw how well we took care of our people, that those folks would remain, uh, in the same set of loyalty that they have. And unfortunately, the, the folks that that bought prime, that they're very happy. Now, there's some that left. You know, when you have a cultural change, people are going to leave, but ultimately, yes. And I think that's what a lot of the CEOs do. And one of the things that I'm going to do when I finish scaling this other business and we exit out of it is I'm going to do speaking on attracting the best people, right? Attracting the best people. Because if I'm an expert at something, that lesson taught me, we had really low turnover. We had a lot of engagement. We did engagement surveys. We did a lot in 23 months. But it was all about them. I improved their benefits. I improved their 401K. We had to do those things. We paid them during COVID. When nobody else was really paying,

we paid them. My CFO went nuts. He's like, Todd, we can't do it. I said, West, we can't have not do it. You got to do it, brother. I said, this is uncharted territory. But Sean, here's what's interesting. I knew most of everything that I had to do as a CEO probably 10 years earlier. So the mistake I made was hanging around with that clown at AutoNation for 17 years. And that's something that I try to teach people is when you know you're in the wrong place, just get out, right? Be smart about it. Go find something else first. Don't just quit. But I stayed too long. Now, it worked out fine. Yeah. But here I am at 57 and I could have done this when I was 50. I had this same skill set, but I was sitting around trying to please a boss who was unpleasible.

And when I tell you, my wife will explain all the time how miserable I was. I didn't even know I was miserable. I spent most of my days trying to keep this guy happy. Ridiculous. So don't do that. You know, and again, man, you know, and I'm going to challenge you here on something, right? I'm going to challenge your perspective. I don't think you stayed in too long.

I think you stayed in exactly how long God intended you to stay in there. Because here's the thing. Here's the thing, man. Now you can be someone's survival guy, their compass, that's going through it. It happened the way it was supposed to happen. That was your journey, man. And I'm going to tell you, though, a lot of weaker people would have exited sooner. And all that growth that you went through, all the, all this even skills of working with negative people that you went through that you can teach someone else that's going to come to you for mentorship.

Like, dude, that's, that's everything. You know, a lot of times I look at things going on in my life. I'm like, man, like, what is it? going on right now? Like, why am I dealing with this? And then I have to sit there and shift and say, okay, this is happening for me, not to me. This is my plan. Like, this, like, God

had this plan for me before I was even born. This is my journey. Who am I to ask that question? Just go through it, man. Just go through it and see where you come out. I mean, I got chills in my arms right now, okay? Because just this morning

I was thinking about the same thing. We were in a clubhouse. house room and I was listening to some things and I was sharing a little bit here and there. But ultimately, this is something that my coach, will go back to a coach, Dave Meltzer taught me. And granted, it doesn't take much, folks. I get 15 minutes every other week and that's all I need. Plus, I have unlimited access to them if I need them for something else. And there's been many occasions where we've had quick phone calls where I've had something I

needed to do. But primarily it's a setup that every two weeks for 15 minutes. One of the first things he told me was, Todd, you've got to get rid of the resistance. and I had a breakthrough. There's been multiple levels of breakthrough of understanding this resistance, but the final one was a couple of days ago when I started realizing what you just said,

things are happening to me. How did you say it? Say it again? Things are happening for me, not to me. Right. And the thought is I accept whatever's coming my way because you know what? It always works out because it's exactly how God intended it to work out. and I've been able to like lay at night and sit and pray and say, you know what,

thank you for this amazing exit that I'm going to have in this truck business. I already know it's done. It's finished. Don't, you know, I knew before, like my CFO would say, don't tell those board members and don't tell the investors we're going to for X this company. I go, I'm going to tell them that. But now I kind of understand why as you grow through this is because it's going to happen. And I'm just going to accept that energy now.

when we sit and people sit and they don't accept this, that's the resistance and the resistance doesn't allow things to flow. And man, that that will stifle you in a big kind of way. So I appreciate your comment on that. You're absolutely right. Yeah, man. And we all go through it, right? I mean, I'm going to be, I'm going to be straight up with you and everybody listening. Like, the last two, three days for me, I've been in that resistance. Like, I've been living in that energy and it has been painful. You know, I have been like physically and emotionally exhausted because of it. And quite literally about an hour before our recording, I snapped out of it.

Wow. And it's like, wait a second. Look at everything that has happened in your life in the last year. You know, and it took a phone call from a really good friend of mine to say like, hey, man, what you got going on on socials right now? I see a lot of coaches out there saying they want to coach people. but like you're making me feel insecure about my work ethic. I'm like, huh?

Like, what are you talking about? Like, he's like, dude, you've got everybody reposting calls that they're having with you. You have this group mastermind that you started. And you just had the idea like two days ago and you got 12 people in it. I was like, well, you know, like, well, you know, it should be like 50. Right. But he's like, no, dude, listen. Like, you know, and it snapped me out of it, you know, because it's like, wait a second.

I'm going to stop resisting what's going on right now. I'm going to enjoy it because if I look back at a year ago from today, do you know where my podcast was being recorded? Hmm. In my car. Oh, my. And I ended up getting a really good guest on Lee, Larry Hagner, from the Dad Edge podcast. And then I had DJ from Real AF Andy Fresselos co-host scheduled to come on the very next week.

And I'm like, I got to level up a little bit. Right. So I found a post-production guy. And we bought some rights of music. And then he's like, hey, you need a 4K camera. You know, a little webcam. You need a microphone. We did all that.

Had no sign. Now we have a sign. And so while I sit here in all this pain, I'm not really seeing what has transpired in my life the last year. I mean, things are happening to all of the world. us for the good of us. And sometimes we need other people out there to sit there and grab us by the shoulders and shake us a little bit. Sometimes it's an executive coach like David Meltzer. And sometimes it's just a really good friend of your life. Yeah. No, you're exactly

right. And I'll go back and I'll put it, put it right back to you. So the 12 that are in your deal are the 12 that are supposed to be there. Right. It's not supposed to be 50. It's just not. And, you know, we struggle with the dumbest things. I follow this philosophy that Cardone talks about. And I've actually done this before he even said it. But so I go broke all the time because I put my money into assets. And I learned this recently. And I put money in investments.

And I probably go too far. And I get myself stressed out because it's like, okay, well, now let's just figure out how the regular flow is going to go here. And I got myself from one of those positions three, four. four days ago and I'm like, okay, well, a guy with this kind of net worth and all shouldn't be worried about a few thousand bucks here or there, like you shouldn't have to worry about that, but I did that to myself. But again, it was the right thing to do and the timing was right. And I finally said, Sean, you know what? Screw this resistance. It's always been fine. It's going to be fine. I don't know exactly how, but it's going to be fine. And sure enough, out of the blue,

the guy that I'm a 62% equity owner in the hotel's like bro we're crushing it and he just out of the blue yesterday sends me a distribution for the hotel boom just boom there it is you're the best you know and he didn't know why and I would have been fine man I would have been fine it's not like I'm going I'm starving or oh my god we're going to go into bankruptcy and nothing like that it's just relative I get it yeah I was living close to the edge and it's about resistance and when you can let it go, your life is so much better. And I'm learning this, man. I'm living this right now like so recently. And I just know what's coming forward when we don't have to deal with the resistance. So I love it, man. I mean, I absolutely love it. And

thank you so much for that. You know, and the reality is we just launched this two days ago. You know, there's still time. And, you know, so it's like, but you're right. The 12 people that have signed up, there are the 12 people that are supposed to be there right now. And that's a great lesson. Thank you. And I think that we all need reminders of that because, you know, we're all building something special in our lives for other people, right? Like, you know, you want more for your employees, right?

And the businesses that you're involved in. I want more for the people that I coach, you know. And here, again, too, I'm also in corporate America still. I still have a highly successful sales career. you know that's what's that's what's keeping everything afloat right now and so that one day where i can look back and say okay this is it it's time but it's a plan and so it's funny Crock uh reached out to me this morning goes hey man you're killing it you're doing good you know also runs a successful podcast what are you made of and um he he said you know like how's your

list and how's this and I go dude I got all that I got email lists and I got I got a giveaway that I'll put up for your folks here about hiring great people and all that. But that's not my focus right now, man. My focus is the thing, right? And the thing is building and scaling a truck business, right, that we need to do and exiting that truck business and, you know, pulling down 40, 50 million bucks, man. And not just me, my executive team, everybody gets to win. The employees get to win.

We all get to win. And my goal is that money is never, ever, ever, ever, a conservative. for the rest of my life in the sense that I can just go out and give back and I can speak and I can do seminars, whatever. And I don't care if there's any monetary gain. Now, there will be, but I don't care. It doesn't matter to me, man. And I just, you sense, I sense that you're the same type of person in that regard because you can just feel the energy that you got people that just want to coach kids and want to coach executives and help people not have to make the same mistakes that we've done when they don't have to. No, I agree. I lead with my heart. I want more for people, right? I mean, you know, the reality is, is if people in my industry knew what I was charging for this mastermind, they'd look at me like I had two heads. But the reality is, is like, if I truly want to help people, am I not going to make it a finance, an investment that these individuals can actually execute on so they can grow their business? Like, you can't have it both ways.

Right. You can't always go that 1% offer. Hey, it's 40 grand. That's what it is. You know, it might be something smaller. It might be an entry level lower ticket type thing. And that's okay. I think there's too many people trying to capitalize on that one sale. It's like, do you want fast quarters or a slow dollar? You know, Gina, my wife, Gina has an amazing women female entrepreneur group called the Mom Link. And they, We hired Dinell Dogato, who's called the millionaire maker, and she's amazing at what she does as a coach to kind of scale a business model. And they scaled the business model up, and they said, okay, now you've got this huge community of women, 25,000-ish women that you've supported for a year plus. You know, how can we make this into something that's real, a real business?

And they put a plan together, Sean, to your point, and they were going to bring on 25 a chapter presidents. And the fee was 10 grand, but then they get to share in revenue and all that kind of stuff. and they tested it. And about three weeks in, there were multiples of people that came and said, hey, I can't, I want to do it. I can't do it.

I could do five. It kept coming up five. And I finally said to the ladies, I said, look, it's your business. I'm an investor in your business. I hired the coach for you. But my suggestion is cut it in half. If five's the number,

be more inclusive. And to be honest, Danelle was kind of pissed. She's like, well, Todd, why would we do that so soon? I go, Danelle, it's the right thing. thing to do because that's the price point that this group of folks can afford. And they did that and Sean wildly successful. It's not always about the short term money, man. You got to read, you got to read the room, right? The room was five grand. And now testing. That's called testing.

Yes. Right. You went through testing at 10 grand. It got a lot of interest, but not a lot of execution because the demographic was five grand. Yeah, it was five green. Yeah. It's five green. And that's And maybe the next group is 10 grand because there's success in it now and a different level of people want to come in. But whatever, you know, whatever. But it's fantastic. Well, look, man, I know we're getting close to the, you know, it's a time here and I want to land the plane. I have a couple more questions for you. Sure.

But first, I want to allow you to share what you said that you were able to share with the audience. Yeah. So what I did is I took and I put an 11-step process together for hiring the. absolute best people it's free trust me I'm not coming at you with with offers this is a literally a gift back and it's at free dot todd r skeleton don't forget the r todd r skeleton dot r skeleton dot r skeleton com and if you go there yes I'm going to collect your email address and such but I promise you we're not coming after you I want you to have that that guide and I think that that's what actually helped me if there was one thing that's the one thing that got me the got us the 4x lift

in that business during that that cycle. And so I think I can give that back. And then the second thing is, you know, Todd Skelton CEO on Instagram, that's my one platform I'm really trying to build. Now, obviously that works directly with Facebook. But we're working on IG right now. I've got a huge LinkedIn account at Todd Skelton as well. But I'm spending a lot of time on Instagram because I think it's the right place for

what my message is. So followers there, fantastic. I try to put out a piece of content every day. and there'll be something in there that people will be able to grab something from. I got to get you on LinkedIn. We're not connected on LinkedIn yet. Oh, yeah, man. Let's do that.

Let's do it. No, he does put out some great content every single day, guys. Check them out. Again, can you say that link where we can get the 11th? You said free. Free. Free dot. Free dot Todd R.keleton.com.

Yes, sir. Got it. Okay, cool. Because I'm going to make sure that I go there and get that. free off for myself because eventually I will be hiring some people into my company. I want to make sure I do it the right way. So I'm going to take advice from the best. And don't worry, I'm going to have all this stuff in the notes here for you, for everybody

that is listening that wants to go and find my boy, Todd. So let me ask you two more questions, ma'am. Sure. How can my audience, besides what you just said, best support you? That's it, man. That's it. Honestly, that's it. I just want to connect.

right now with folks so that I can give back in the future. That's all I'm looking for. But thank you. Love it, man. Love it. Love it. Absolutely love it. Last question.

Before we let you roll onto your day, how can I best support you? Stay in touch, man. I think you and I are just starting a relationship here. I think there's a lot of things that you and I can do together in the future. We're both in Florida, different coasts. But I'm in Delray Beach. You're in Fort Myers. Yes.

Oh, dude. That's a quick drive, man. It's funny because my wife, we'll come over and my wife's like all right we're not leaving because that's where she she wants to live in del Rey well we're here so you come visit man anytime you want but i think we stay in touch uh and uh we got a lot of synergies man and i think that that's what that's how we build we build life yep absolutely well you heard it here guys pick up his free gift at free dot taut free dot tautr skeleton dot com hit my boy up on lincoln and instagram he's building his instagram uh so go and support

support him in that. I'll have his handle in the show notes as well. If you got anything out of this show, as always, I'm going to ask you to share it to your social platforms. Tag me, tag Todd. I know I'm going to share it back to my socials. I'm sure he'll do the same. And, uh, you know, if you aren't already subscribed to this podcast and you're hearing it for the first time, please hit the, please hit the button. Follow the show, subscribe, right? And write a review. I love hearing what y'all have to say about the show. With that being said, guys, love you so much,

and I'll talk to you next time. Be good.