The Entrepreneur DNA - Make Your Money Matter | Cody Sperber | EP 32

Episode Date: August 4, 2024

Today I welcome my long time friend Cody Sperber. Cody discusses his journey, highlighting his significant achievements, including an eight-figure business exit and his role as the host of the upcoming Clever Summit 2024. The conversation covers the challenges and triumphs of entrepreneurship, the importance of being in the right rooms, and the value of building strong relationships. Cody emphasizes the impact of having the right mindset, systematizing processes, and continuously evolving through new challenges. The episode also delves into Cody's new venture, Floor Daddy, and the lessons learned from scaling the business rapidly. The discussion concludes with an invitation to the Clever Summit, where attendees can gain insights into making, multiplying, managing, and making their money matter.   ATTEND CLEVER SUMMIT 2024, SEPTEMBER 13TH-15TH  Grab your Clever Summit Tickets Here Before They Sell Out!  http://Justin.cleversummit.com   Connect with Cody: Instagram - @officalcodysperber  Clever Summit - cleversummit.com  

My coolest friends aren't the ones that own private jets in Bugattis and in cool cars. My coolest friends are like Cole Hatter, who owns a freaking orphanage in Mexico. And I'm like, that's badass, dude. That's my dopest friend. I want impact. I want to learn how I can go to Guatemala, which I've been doing for years, and build bottle schools out of trash and provide schooling for underprivileged kids. I want to go upstream and help the kids. I want to save elephants. You know, I want to save the environment.

Though that's the end game for almost all of us. Like when we say to ourselves, we want to make a lot of money. What we're really desiring is like, how do we have a legacy and create impact? What is up, Entrepreneur DNA? This episode, you are going to watch the whole thing. And here's why I have a very close friend of mine. He's a serial entrepreneur, one of the largest investors across the nation. He has built one of the best and largest communities in the real estate space, has had an eight figure exit, and is the host of the

upcoming Clever Summit 2024. My brother, the Clever Investor, Cody Sperber is here. Dang it. What's going on, brother? What's up, dude? Dude, you're looking good. Looking fit. As well.

I try. You're shining. I am shining. It's that bald nugget. That's what's shining? Yeah. So, bro, this is fun. This is fun.

I'm really proud of you. Thank you, bro. I've been watching you grow. Your podcast, your other podcast had like hundreds of episodes. Yeah, that's right. And this one comes out of the gate swinging and just explodes. Yeah. I'm so proud of you. Thank you, bro.

It's huge. Yeah, you deserve it. Yeah, well, thank you. I'm happy that you're here. I'm happy that you're on. This episode is going to be fire. You'll see the downloads. I'll make sure you know.

Make sure you follow us, bro, right now. And by the way, here's a huge plug out of the gate. If you are not yet going to Clever Summit 2024, there will be a link for you to get your tickets. I'm speaking, Sperber speaking, Ryan Serhant, PBD, Patrick Beck, David, Chris Crone, Pace Morby. I mean, the list is going to go on. If you're in real estate, if you're an enthusiast, if you are a business owner, an entrepreneur, 2024 september 13th through the 15th yep yeah clever summit.com and uh you know this is my grand finale okay i'm out here in miami right now uh because i'm going out to hollywood florida where we're throwing the summit at the diplomat hotel and i'm going to film some footage and some ads and stuff like that uh This was last time I threw a summit.

We had a little over 2,000 people show up. Yeah. And it was an epic party. I brought in my friend Sickick, who's one of my favorite DJs. I brought in T.I. Yeah. And we just threw a party, right? Yeah.

And I thought that was going to be my last summit. But the people that bought my education company wanted to throw one more. Yeah. And they kind of begged me, like, hey, can we do one more summit? I said, under one condition, I got to throw one more. Yeah. And they kind of begged me like, hey, can we do one more summit? I said, under one condition, I got to throw an even bigger party. Like I want it to be like a real estate rave. Like I want to go all out and I cannot have any breaks on who I put on my stage. Yeah.

Because I've been wanting Patrick Bed-David to speak at one of my events. Last time we had Kiyosaki and Ed Milet and Dean Graziosi and all these amazing speakers. This year, I have the GOAT himself, Justin Colby. Get it as well. And Patrick Bett, David, and Ryan Serian. So all my favorite people, I'm just putting them on the stage. And then I'm bringing Sick Kick back. We're going to throw a big-ass party.

It's going to be like your favorite wedding you've ever attended. That's it. Just that after party where everything's just a good vibe. Best networking. And then I have a very, very famous rapper coming out. I don't want to let the cat out of the bag yet because I kind of want it to be a surprise for the audience. I like it. But he's a boss. Ooh, I feel you on that. That's all I'm saying. He's the boss. I think I know where you're going. Yeah. So again, I'll plug it again. I'm speaking again. If you're an entrepreneur, if you're in real estate, if you just want to get into real estate, wherever you're at,

you need to be there September 13th through the 15th. We'll be here in Miami. Make sure there is going to be links all over this. Get there no matter what it costs because it is going to be an incredible spot for you to take your game to the next level. Now. Yeah, real quick. Tickets are cheap.

They're not expensive. We have very affordable tickets. We have the VIP where you get to go on a private yacht the day before. It's a couple grand for something like that. But we have $97 tickets. I mean, you can change your life with three powerful days for $97. Listen, you know this, and I'm a product of these rooms, right? So way back in, so we joined a mastermind back in 2009 together it had to be eight nine eight nine or ten somewhere right around there so before that mastermind i was in one of these big rooms right and i was sitting front row and i was broke and i had nothing i'm a product of this and so if you're listening to me following me following sperber you can be us if you are actually dedicated to this. You just need to be in these rooms and make those connections and meet Sperber, meet me, meet all of these individuals because it just takes one handshake to change your life.

Yeah, it's been the biggest needle mover in my entrepreneurial career is just getting myself in the right rooms. Yeah, kind of, you know, that kind of energy of like being the dumbest guy in the right room. Yeah. Right. Kind of, you know, that kind of energy of like being the dumbest guy in the right room. Yeah. Right? You learn so much. And I just, I want to give somebody that's listening some advice. If you ever put yourself in a room like that,

ask great questions. Don't bring your ego to the table. Like serve your way forward and just ask a ton of great questions. You know, I have a friend who paid to have lunch with um warren buffett he's a big big he exited his business for hundreds of millions of dollars and he was able to pay and like a charity thing pay to have lunch and he said warren he went in there thinking he was going to ask all

these questions to warren and like suck out like billionaire knowledge like these secrets right and instead he said warren commandeered the conversation by asking him a thousand questions. He goes, by the time I was done, he flipped the script on me, sucked out all of my knowledge. And he goes, that's why that guy's a billionaire. And he was able to do it. And I think the people that have that ability to just show up, serve, and ask lots of questions, they're the ones that are going to get the most value. Yeah, I would say be intentional, right? I mean, again, if you're going to be in these rooms, whether it's the people speaking or even in the crowds, I mean, I can't tell you how many people that are going to be in your audience that are going to be active

doers just getting started. They might financially be on a different plane than the person sitting next to them, and they might have opportunities, private money lending deal flow. I mean, there's going to be deal flow in that room immediately. I guarantee that part. Right. But if you kind of come in meager and get scared to talk, then you're not really helping yourself. I mean, they're not going to do that at summit. They're going to come in like that, but we're going to force them to dance. We're going to force them to firewalk. Like it's that Tony Robbins energy where it's like, I went to a UPW many, many years ago and I'm like this successful entrepreneur and kind of stuffy and nerdy. Right. And so I, I kind of was one of those people with my arms crossed, you know, kind of like watching and I'm like, I'm not dancing. Yeah. I'm not doing that. Like

I'm above that. I'm better than that. Four minutes in, I'm going crazy. No doubt. And I had the best time ever. And, and, and we'll do that with you too. It's just part of the culture of clever. You come to the event, we have fun. I think, you know, in this, I don't want to give away my speech too much, but like part of what this has to be is realize if you actually are intentional with networking and meeting people, it is limitless. And there's so many ways to say it. You know, our friend Bradley says, the more hands you shake, the more money you make. And that's the reality of it all. It's like, if you're going to do anything and think about what you've done in your own entrepreneur, I mean, now you have this brand new business starting and it's relational

and it's already going really well. And you already have all these clients. And a lot of that is because you had relationships to start with that you've cultivated for a decade plus. And that allows you to start a brand new business that isn't directly in real estate per se, but in real estate. And you can go and launch that thing. I mean, let's even just talk about the relationships over your 20-year entrepreneurial journey and what that has meant to you? Well, I mean, when we say things like, it's up to you, nobody's going to come to save you.

We're not saying that you're not going to have help along your journey. I've absolutely had many great mentors that have popped in and out of my life, relationships that have really moved the needle for me. When people say stuff like that, they're really talking about like, you got to get out of your own way and change your mindset. So that way you can be prepared when you show up in these rooms or you meet somebody in a relationship

that you have the right mindset to do something with it. And so I would never, my brands and my companies have made hundreds of millions of dollars. Like I can't even believe it. I was a dude who used to sell weed out of a Burger King drive-thru window. Yeah. Like that, I was a little hustler, like a street hustler.

Yeah. And, you know, I never thought I'd have a personal brand, never thought I'd be this big successful real estate investor, entrepreneur, and definitely never thought I'd make hundreds of millions of dollars. And I'm, when I say those things, it's kind of crazy. Cause I'm not saying it because I'm so great. I'm saying it because great people have locked arms with me along my journey and helped me become the man that I am today. And it's through lots of failure and through lots of great relationships that I'm able to play at this level. That's right. And that's it. It's,

it's that simple. I mean, you've already done something that I've never done. Uh, and a lot of people wish they could do, but you three checks at the same time. Yeah. Yes. Uh, I like that. So come on now you you've had exits in a business that I think most people would dream of, right? You recently just had an eight figure exit, which is incredible. Talk, talk about the journey of like escalation in business, right? You start somewhere, you just want to go make a buck. And then next, again, whether it's a decade or whatever, you have this exit that you can say, technically, I could go retire. Technically, if I wanted to, I can go. And guess what you're not going to go do? You're not going to retire. Well, I mean, I think a lot of people find themselves in the wrong vehicles. And so they

never really become super passionate about it for me real estate changed my life yeah i was a bookkeeper i was making 34 grand a year i discovered no money down real estate i thought it was a scam i thought i did there's no possible way this is happening like people flipping houses with no money in the deal it's got to be bs right and then i discover it's not bs and there's people all over the country doing it and even though it took me 14 months to do my first deal and it was a tremendous amount of uh trial and error and quitting and unquitting over that yeah and just frustration thirty thousand dollars in credit card debt like no sane person would have kept going but i just had this

belief that like like like almost like, like almost like Roger Bannister running the four minute mile. He just believed that he could do it, even though every expert under the sun said it was impossible. That's right. And of course he did it. And then now a bunch of people do it. And the same thing was with real estate. I knew people were successful in real estate. I knew the wealthiest people in the world did real estate, but could I do it? Yeah. You know, and then once I did my first deal, everything changed for me. And I, I kind of started collapsing time. I was able to get my second deal in just a couple months and my third deal in just a month and my fourth deal in just a couple of weeks. And it just boom, boom, boom, boom. Actually, you know, thousands of deals later, I'm retiring my dad. My parents sat me down nine months in. And my mom said, honey, you're making the biggest mistake of your life.

You need to stay focused on college. My dad said, you're disappointing me. You're getting distracted. I think that you need to quit real estate. Wait until you get a job and work your way up and save a bunch of money. And then you could do real estate. People don't do real estate at the beginning of their lives. They do it at the end. And I said, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're freaking wrong. I don't want to believe this. I was pissed because they were trying to talk me

out of like this dream I had. And then here I am three years later, retiring my parents. I'm getting shivers. You know, and it's just one of those moments where it's like, I got you, dad. I got you, mom. And my, my mom ended up dying of cancer two years ago. The last, thank you, appreciate that. In the last eight, nine years of my mom's life, my dad was able to spend every minute with her, taking care of her, being with her. And he wouldn't have been able to do that

if I didn't step in with my real estate business and say, I'm not quitting. I'm going to make this happen. I made so much money in real estate that I was able to hire my dad as a part-time helper that I remember that he really didn't do shit, but I was paying him. Yeah. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year to like, just chill. Basically. I remember coming in your office and you introducing you to, I just hired my dad and you're like, I'm like, Hey, Mr. Sperber, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's such a great feeling to give back to the people that gave you a lot. I want to stay. And he admitted years later, like, I'm so glad you didn't listen to me. You never listened to me, really? And I'm so glad you didn't listen to me this time. There's two points I need to stay on, and one of them right now is this thing that you just did with your mom and your dad. I've been posting a lot more about the meaningfulness of money. And I get all the haters come up. Justin, it's not always about money. It's not always about,

you know, whatever. And usually when I do post, it's actually about the experiences that money creates. It's not necessarily the things, but people are so twisted in their head. They've been so conditioned, I should say, that like when I post, why aren't you more focused on money? People go off on my post, which is great because now I got the interaction with them. But the reality is that is why you need to do whatever it takes, your story, and there's so many others like that, to create true financial freedom, to create more money than your parents ever had, to create more money than you ever thought you could make. Because the moments of this, I lost my mom when I was 24 years old, you just lost your mom, like, life is so fucking short. And if you don't make as much fucking money as possible, And don't overly sacrifice. You're an incredible dad. You're a super dad.

You have two incredible kids. And, you know, you've always focused on that. But you've also made a fucking lot of money. Yeah. And people don't realize what you did with your money. It's not just your Lambo or it's not just the things you're buying. You retired your fucking dad to let him have nine straight years with your mom. And it gives me shivers because people don't get that part. They don't get, oh, you're too

absorbed about money, Justin. It's not about the things and the watches and the, it's not, but it is cool to have them. And it's really cool to retire your parents. Well, I think it all comes down to just a belief system. You know, a lot of people have a broken relationship with money because they'd never had success around them. Yeah. And even, you know, I think you can go two directions. You know, you either get negative and toxic and become a victim around it. Yeah.

Or you dig in, you draw that line in the sand. You said, fuck this. I'm not living my life broke. I'm not going to live my life out of control. I'm not going to do the same thing my parents did. I'm going to run the football much further down the field. And it's just, it's like, which, which belief system are you buying into that money is abundant and that it can gravitate towards you and that you love money and you have a positive relationship with money or rich people are greedy, rich people are evil, you know, like which one?

And I always just kind of looked at it like I wanted to have a lot of money because I wanted to have a lot of control. Yeah. And I believed that success was an obligation, obligation, not an option for me. Okay. Because when your back's against the wall and you don't have a lot of resources, you know, I was that broke kid that, you know, my parents, my, my parents grew up in with not a lot of money. My grandparents lived in a trailer park. I lived with, you know, my grandparents lived with us a lot of times and I had to in a trailer park. I lived with, you know,

my grandparents lived with us a lot of times and I had to sleep on the couch and we shared bedrooms and stuff. And I, but I had a Lamborghini poster on my wall. I had a Rolls Royce poster on my wall. Yeah. And an MC Hammer poster. MC, come on.

You know, I had like these dreams of like, I wanted these things. I just didn't have a path to get it. And when you believe that success is your obligation and not an option, it's like a software download. I just operated differently. I said to myself, I want to be successful on all fucking levels, all levels, but I got to start with money because it's like, I can't take care of myself right now because I don't have the oxygen that I need to take care of myself. And, and, and so when, but I didn't know the vehicle until I discovered creative real estate investing. And then I realized,

oh, I have a path now. And I think a lot of people struggle with that. They don't have that path. And so they feel hopeless. Whereas now I'm in this right vehicle and I'm like, it's just a matter of time. I just gotta, I guess, gotta learn, increase my skills and capabilities to the point where I can pull this off. And once got to, I guess, got to learn, increase my skills and capabilities to the point where I can pull this off. And once I did it one time, my belief system changed from hope to knowing. And then it was like, I'm going to do that again and again and again and again and again. And I'm going to scale this.

And I did the one thing that a lot of young kids nowadays don't do in this Gen Z generation. They're like sitting there on their phone and they're just like looking at all this luxury and all these opportunities in crypto and stocks and real estate and e-com and startup business. I mean, it's just so much noise. I just laser focused in on just real estate. I said, I'm not going to do anything for a decade. I'm not going to start another business. I'm not going to talk to anybody. I don't give a fuck what your opinion is. I'm not getting distracted. I'm obsessed over being the best in the world at creative real estate. I wanted to dominate everybody. And I thought, I believe like,

damn, if I can dominate everybody, think of how much control I'm going to have. Yeah. I'm finally going to be the fucking man. Yeah. Because I was never the man in high school. Right. Right. I was the friend, you know, I wasn't getting laid. I was the friend. I wasn't getting invited to the parties. I wasn't fucking cool. I don't have tattoos. I'm not a cool guy. You know, I wasn't getting laid. I was the friend. I wasn't getting invited to the parties. I wasn't fucking cool. I don't have tattoos. I'm not a cool guy. You know, it's like I had to create the cool version of me as a fucking nerd. And so I was like, you know what? Real estate is going to make me cool because I'm going to be the best in the world at this thing. I'm going to whip everybody's ass and I'm going to earn everybody's respect. And it used to be I would walk in a room

and nobody gave a fuck nobody cared if anything they just ignored me yeah or talked a little shit now i walk in the room everybody pays the fuck attention totally you know you've created but you put it this is what i tell people it's up to you put it on your shoulders bet on yourself go create the person the life the experiences that you want not be beholden to whatever however you're raised which was the first point you were making that is so crushing. Even your fucking parents said, stop wasting your time. Yeah. You're messing this up. And even the closest people to you, literally the closest, could be your biggest haters. And it's not that they didn't love you. It's they loved you so much

they just wanted you to be successful. Yeah, it's not their fault. No. And they didn't know the belief system you have. So you related it to the four minute mile. I talk about it with religion. I say people have, hey, have you ever shaken Jesus's hand? But you believe and you believe at such an intimate level, cellular level, you change everything about yourself. So why can't you do that with business? Why can't you do that with success? Why can't you do that with real estate? Why? Just believe. Believe it that you don't know it exists because you haven't done it yet you haven't hit the day figure exit you haven't had that big ass check yet this is why i run this is why i get up at 4 35 every morning and i go running okay it's not because i love

running i'm not training for a marathon i'm'm not a runner. Right. I fucking hate running. Yeah, me too. I run because it's hard. Yeah. I run because my mind says, fuck that. It's cold out. It sucks out. It's tight. You're tired.

It's dark out. There's no reason to go do this. Like, why do this? And it's that action, despite your negative mindset, that creates that belief system where you're like, I'm doing hard things. I can put myself in the pressure cooker. And they say pressure can burst a pipe or create a diamond. And I just think of it like, hey, I'm going to do a bunch of hard things, whether it's for my health or for my business or for my spirituality or in my relationships that are tough. Like every day I envision, because I went through a divorce. I made a lot of mistakes

in my marriage. And obviously it ended up where it ended up, right? We got divorced. In my new relationship with my girlfriend, I play so differently than I did in my past relationships. I now look at it like every day is a Super Bowl and I got to win this game. I got to win today. And I visualize myself being recorded every thought, every email, every DM, every interaction when I'm here in Miami and she's back in Arizona. I picture my life being recorded and I'm like, you know what? If at the end of every day, my girl gets to watch that recording, would she be more proud of me and more in love with me than before that day? Love that. That video. And if the answer is yes, I fucking want. If the answer is no, more proud of me and more in love with me than before that day love that that video yeah and

if the answer is yes i fucking want if the answer is no i gotta go back and take inventory and go what yellow light behaviors was i doing that that caused me to get distracted because that's what it is it's like we all know what green light behaviors good healthy behavior eat healthy yeah work out move your body don't smoke don't drink get rid of the vices those are all healthy green light behaviors yeah yellow lights are the one and we know red light behaviors by the way yeah right it's it's watching porn all fucking day eight times a day it's like you're addicted to porn dude like you're distracted you got a problem all those vices drinking porn gambling gambling yeah but the yellow light is the ones that get you especially when you're an

entrepreneur and especially when you're becoming successful. Because all of a sudden you go from not being the man to having ego, having some clout, having a brand, getting up on stages, doing these speeches, having everybody want a piece of your time and wanting to talk to you and bringing you new opportunities. It's like becoming a celebrity. Yeah. No wonder so many celebrities get divorced yeah or or get trapped in all these negative vices because they can't control those yellow light behaviors that just slowly slip over to the red light shit and so like after i've made all those fucking mistakes i'm like i know what green light is i'm gonna i'm gonna stay in this this pocket yeah every single day and win on every single level because i do believe that a man

especially in 2024 needs to be a fucking man like be a man be a great provider women want three things it's so fucking simple they want three things we're just dumb men and we don't get it sometimes they want protected they want provided for and they want you to be present. And if you can pull up those three things, you're going to win in that relationship every single time. Yeah, I think there's so much to unpack on that because I think the same is to be said with anything that you're trying to create is being present is going to make you the most powerful, but there's going to be sacrifices along that. So to get all three of those, so providing usually is the biggest sacrifice. What we have to go do to

provide tends to lead to sacrifice of time for example you are here in miami you don't necessarily want to be yeah you love me we're boys great but you'd rather be with your girl in arizona let's face it right you don't want to be away from her right now and what are those sacrifices that you're willing to do to be a provider and that's where i literally have one of my one-on-one uh clients that i just had to break the mentality of this. He didn't really understand the amount of sacrifice and pain he has to go through to achieve the goal he wants. I said, then you've got to decide if that's the goal you want. Because to get there, you're going to go through a lot of pain and sacrifice.

Some real significant and some stuff like, hey, I'm traveling for a day or two. It's a sacrifice. It's a sacrifice, not the end of the world. There's levels to the sacrifice, but to be a provider and to be a man and to be a lion and provide and take care and love and be present, there has to be something given up for that. And that's where there's a breakdown a lot of times. And a lot of people that go down the path of what we've chosen to do and which is the right choice for us and being an entrepreneur, there is sacrifice. And you need to know what you're willing to sacrifice to be the best provider for that wife,

the children, because you're an incredible provider, but you've made a lot of sacrifices along the way. Yeah. And I've also made a lot of mistakes and don't buy into this bullshit belief that you have to give up your family in order to be successful. No doubt. And that's the thing that I was so obsessed with being the best and making money that I left my family behind a lot of times. And I did it because I couldn't control my home environment at all. Like I can control my entrepreneur world. Yeah. Right. I can control that. Everybody respected me, listened to me, did what I wanted. And then I come home and it's like the opposite. I'm like, I'm like, nobody listens to me. No, but I'm like, you know, and it was like this like the opposite. I'm like, nobody listens to me. And it was like this frustration almost. And I was like, oh, fuck that.

I'm just going to lean back in over this because I feel safe over here. But it was my just broken belief system. And what I learned through my experience in getting divorced was you can't have it all when it comes to making money and your family. You just got to bring them with you. That's right.

And do a much better job of learning your girl's love language. That's right. Because I wasn't either willing to or didn't know exactly what to do in order to make her feel appreciated and loved in a way that she needed to. Yeah. So that way our bond and our intimacy and our connection could stay tight. We destroyed that because I never leaned in on her love languages. Yeah. I thought her love language was my love language. Right. Which was? Money.

I'm like, what the fuck, dude? I'm a great provider. You have everything you want, millions of dollars. You drive the nicest cars. You take the nicest vacations. Like, you complaining? And it was almost like this negative, I was angry at her for complaining. And when in reality, I just wasn't listening. You don't. This is so deep and so good right now. And I didn't see it going here, but I'm glad it is because it is the other side of what we do. So with all those people at Clever Summit, which, by the way, now that I say that, I spoke at your very first ever event.

Do you remember that in Scottsdale? We had the master. That's right. Your very first event ever I spoke at and come full circle, whatever it is, 12 years. And now this is the grand finale and you're signing me off stage. This is going to go to Clever Summit. This is it. You got to get to Clever Summit. There's going to be links everywhere. Make sure you're signing me off stage this is gonna go to clever summit this is it you got to get to clever summit there's gonna be links everywhere make sure you're there um this is

the finality but i just thought about that because obviously getting i've known your family since i mean your kids were infants right um yeah and so i've seen this journey of you and what you've done and it impacts me in a great way and you are are a close friend, but I look up to you and I say, okay, there's things that he's done really incredibly right. Like I've not done an A-figure exit, right? So I want to follow that path. Then there's things that you've done that I can watch and say, hey, okay, how can I not make that mistake?

And that's the power of having mentors, friends, people who have been there before you. Again, going back to Clever Summit, get in the room. But that is really the power is to see those experiences. And I never would have wanted that for you. I don't want you to have gone through that. But if you're going to, then it would be foolish for me not to sit there and talk to you and understand and pick your, what could you have, what am I maybe doing wrong? Because there's a lot of things that you don't have to have the ultimate sacrifice. That's actually, many people made a comment yesterday on my post about money.

And they're like, oh, yeah, but you're choosing money over family. And I said, that wasn't what I said in my post. It's not. But that's how they're conditioned to think. And they think I'm saying, fuck your family, go make a bunch of money and look rich. I'm not saying that at all. Yeah. I'm saying bring your family with go make a bunch of money and look rich. I'm not saying that at all. Yeah. I'm saying

bring your family with you. Yeah. We never, I never answered your question about the eight figure exit. Yeah. The, the, the, I was able to build a really successful brand in the real estate investing space because I fell in love with real estate and it changed my life. That's where I was going with that conversation. And then I had to learn how to transition. I was doing so much real estate that so many people were coming to me saying, how do you do what you do? And I started teaching. And I always loved to teach. I wanted to be a ninth grade history teacher when I was a little kid. And so the teaching thing was in me and I was in love with this thing. So it was just coming naturally to me to talk about the thing that I loved the most. And because I was in the Navy, I was really conditioned to systematize, document

and create processes. And so in my real estate business, I did one thing that was really smart for almost a decade. I did system Saturday, every Saturday where I worked on one SOP every Saturday. And SOP is a standard operating procedure for young entrepreneurs. And it's basically just documenting a process. Like, so if I like nowadays, like if I wanted to do like a post on social media or something like that, I could document like step one, create this step to do this step one, create this, step two, do this, step three, do this, log in here, do that,

and document it to a point where I can then outsource it to somebody else to post all my content, right? It's a pretty simple example. But I do that. I would do that every Saturday with one thing. Like how do I send out an email to blast out a property? How do I write up a contract on a piece of real estate?

How do I, whatever. And I would document, document, document. property how do i you know write up a contract on a piece of real estate how do i whatever and i would document document document i 10 years later i had hundreds of sops where my business was so systematized so when somebody came to me and said will you teach me how to do this i'm like here you go like let's start let's start here let's get the foundation built for your business so you have an actual system because with a sit, this is why franchises are like, I don't know what the statistic is, but multiple times more likely to succeed than somebody who's not a franchise because of the system, right? That's right. You go through MacBurger university, you know, to put the fish filet in the blue wrapper, not the yellow wrapper,

right? It's pretty simple. Right. And, uh, a dummy could do it. And I did that with my real estate business, which helped other people that came into my world that were trying to learn, made it easy for them. And what started as a little side hustle turned into this thing that just exploded and Clever Investor, the education business, just started to scale. So I did that really right. The other thing I did really right is I built a great team around me. I, in real estate, you're kind of a solopreneur. You're kind of the person with all the major knowledge and you're, you're pulling all the levers as you're building a business. You can't do that if you want your business to scale. And

so I had to learn how to fire myself as fast as humanly possible, get out of my own way and put other people much smarter than me in the right seat of the bus and pay them the right amount of money and incentivize them because alignment equals velocity. And if you can get the right people in the right seat and create that alignment, magic happens and scale happens. I love that. Alignment equals velocity. Yes. And that was the hardest part because when you're a leader of a business, besides having insane clarity of what it is you do and where you're going, right? Because you're just like the ultimate salesman. You've got to sell the dream to every team member and you've got to champion it forever.

Like, I can never stop telling my team, we're going to the mountaintop. This is where we're going. And I would have to believe in it so much that it was like that reality distortion field energy. But besides that, I had to be able to transfer to people, this is what we do. This is how we do it. This is why we do it. And this is what's in it for you if you do it with me. And it's the what's in it for you if you do it with me, that's hard for people because we're entrepreneurs and we're bootstrapping things. We can't even see like two months down the road, let alone two, three years down the road. Like we have a general idea where we want to go, but it's not super clear and we're kind of winging it a little bit.

Right. Especially in the beginning. Believe it before you see it. Yeah. And so it's hard to make agreements with people and say, I'm going to pay you this insane amount of money over the next five years. Right. When you can't even barely afford them right now. Yeah.

But I got better and better at doing that. And I realized that, and I'm dealing, I'm dealing with this with floor daddy and we could talk about that, but like, as I'm scaling clever, I realized that it's disastrous if you put the wrong person in the wrong seat. And you don't create that alignment because everything in your business starts to hemorrhage

and break. It's also disastrous if you don't get out of that seat yourself. And I did that for like the first year or two with Clever. And I thought I could do everything or I just was hiring friends or people and it always backfired and failed. And I had to learn a lot of expensive lessons. I think that's one thing I was going to hit on is I remember there was a moment in Clever where we were all together and you were going through a very difficult decision with one of your key employees. My number one sales guy. And I remember that so clearly. And we were sitting at a resort down Scottsdale and you're like, Justin, what the fuck do I do right now?

Friend. He was a friend yep and he was a fucking amazing community member leader sales guy like he was a he made me more money than almost anybody else in clever's history yeah and i was at a crossroads where i either had to do give i had to either do a deal with the devil and give him stuff that I knew I couldn't afford to give him and lose all control and respect of my team. Or I had to let him go and lose the Rainmaker. Yep. And I struggled with that decision for probably four or five months. And he was running me over all of those months and creating division and cancer within our culture. And finally, one day I had enough.

He crossed a line and I just said, you know, he was making threats along the way. And you're going to have this where like somebody on your team goes, you can never do this without me. I'm the reason you're at where you're at. I'm i'm gonna steal your best people i'm gonna steal your i'm gonna i'm gonna ruin your business if you if you ever f me i'm gonna f you back and you're like dude you're your own worst enemy yeah you're the cancer like you're stabbing yourself in the leg over here i'm giving you a platform and an opportunity to dominate at the time i was paying him about 1.3 1.4 million dollars a year yeah imagine that you have a job and you're making 1.4 million dollars a year and you're beefing with the owner. Yeah. And I pulled the trigger and I just said, you're fired.

And all that tough talk went out the window. Yeah. Instantly when he realized it was done for him in that I had shut off the email and shut off his access and let everybody know and process the paperwork and everything. He turned from tough guy to crybaby in a second because he realized the well got, yeah. And it was the best decision I ever made. Best decision I ever made. My entire sales team, I had no idea because he kind of built a wall around them, lifted. Yeah. And I saw productivity and profits from people that I never thought could rise up the way they did because they finally saw a path. Yeah.

To making the big bucks where this guy was blocking it for them. And I had no idea. Yeah. And my whole, I mean, we probably made an extra $5 or $6 million the very next year as soon as I got that guy out of the way. It's people. Again, this is kind of what I'll be speaking about is people really are everything in the different versions of people

with their connections or even as you're now even experiencing this new company that you've started, which is super cool. And we were just talking for the podcast man people can be tricky people can be tricky uh so what are you currently going through uh that you can maybe uh maybe lean on your past experiences you would think you think so you would think that you're smart enough not to make the same mistakes twice uh so and let's talk about the new company. Yeah. So when I scaled Clever, it was a valuable brand that had lots of great culture, lots of great systems, a great team. And a company out of Utah saw the value and came and bought me, which was amazing. Right.

Because I was one of the lucky ones. There's not too many people in the real estate education space that exit their brand. And I was able to do it in a really great way. And they're doing great with the brand and everything's great right now. And so I'm very happy with that. And it also freed me up to take my life to the next level, which sometimes you're doing something and you have a lot of loyalty to your team. Yeah. But you know that if you don't get out of that vehicle and move over, you're never going to like launch to your next level.

That's right. And so it was the right timing for me to lateral over. And I kind of looked at the marketplace right now and I said, where's the big opportunity at? Interest rates are really high. We got this election coming up. We don't know which way it's going to go. We don't know where the economy is going to go, but it kind of feels like something bad is going to happen in the future. And people cannot afford to move. We have record low mortgages being given out right now. All the way, I think it goes back, I saw a graph the other day, it goes back to like 1992, where the last time

this low amount of mortgages being created, because people just aren't moving, right? They can't afford it. Real estate's out of control. The prices are out of control and the interest rates are out of control. So I said to myself, people aren't going to be moving. They're probably going to stay in their houses for a lot longer than they expected, but they wanted to move. Yeah. So there's this pent upup demand so their wives are probably looking at them going honey if we're gonna stay you got to remodel that's it right like and then i also looked at like emerging technologies like i don't i like to uh but do business in industries that are future-proof okay right like um like uh the the horse and buggy was the thing and there was a

billion horses and then automobiles came out and like you never see horses anymore that's right right and um and even with cars eventually they'll be driverless so like uber came and disrupted taxis but then even uber drivers are going to be disrupted by something autonomous cars right like so everything can be disrupted and uh but you're always going to need certain basic home services yeah and ai robots not going to take over anytime soon the job of a plumber yep right and so like that's a kind of a future-proof business right now and uh flooring was where i wanted to start because it's a high profit margin, high ticket. So like windows are high ticket, roofs are high ticket, floors are high ticket. Like we sold $44,000 worth of floors yesterday.

You know, I run at a 48% profit margin. So it's like, it's a beautiful business. So I came up with this idea to start a company called Floor Daddy. I wanted to make flooring and flooring sales sexy. My marketing style is always very aggressive. I believe to make floors, flooring and flooring sales sexy. Okay. My marketing style is always very aggressive. I believe that money flows where attention is. And so I wanted to disrupt the flooring industry and create a brand that's sexy, like sexy flooring, affordable prices, quality installs. That was kind of my vision. And so we created floor daddy. Yeah. And, uh, I brought in my, a few of my best friends cause I love making money with my friends. All my businesses have partners. It is the key to my world. I had bad partnerships in the beginning that made me very bitter around partnerships.

And for many years I was a solopreneur and I just didn't, I always felt like, God, I'm like trapped a little bit, like without me, I have to do all the work. And that's when I started scaling teams and stuff. But it was never the same as having a great partner. That's the ultimate alignment. Yeah, no doubt. And so I brought in my best friend, Bryant, who I have a development company with. Yeah.

And we've been best friends for 20 years. And I brought in my best friend, Mike Freeman, who was the first person I met when I started real estate over 20 years ago. Both incredible guys. And he's a big mortgage guy and mortgages are dog shit right now. So he's like looking for other opportunities. I said, hey, the three of us are going to start this company and we're going to bring in my friend, Jonathan, who's like an operations guy. So Freeman was great at just uh, at, um, just relationships and stuff like that. I said, go get your contracting license for flooring and you'll be like the contractor of the group.

Bryant, you're going to be the install manager and focus on installs. Jonathan, you're going to focus on operations and I'm going to put up all the money and be like the overarching entrepreneur that pulls this thing together and gets us going. So the four of us started floor daddy. We all owned equal ownership and we were off to the races. Our first month we did like 40 K next month we did 90 K and then 190 K and then 370 K and, uh, we're 44 K yesterday. Yeah. We're, we're a little over 850 K since we started three, four months ago. And, uh, we've officially started fucking everything up now, which, yeah, we broke the system. We grew too fast. My marketing worked too good. We had so many leads coming in. It's insane when you're good at lead generation, that lead generation and a good sales

strategy cures everything. That's right. And so we were sitting on all this cash. We started building out the team, but we hired one wrong person and it was a referral. So very first move That's right. quality people that are in this industry because I don't know anything about flooring. Sure. And so I stole the CMO from the largest flooring company and brought them over and he recommended this lady and said, she's got flooring experience. She has, she, she knows how to use the software that we're using to kind of run the backbone of our business. And boy, was that a bad hire. It was the ultimate bad hire. She fucked so much stuff up in our business. In our third month, everything started coming to light. First off, the very first thing that happened is we had three floors get installed in the wrong homes and went and installed. Oh, no, three in a row. And I was like, how does that happen? You know, are you just not watching? Are you not looking?

Are you not paying attention? And then when she pissed off a couple other customers, she started giving away free floors because she got flustered at them yelling at her. Yeah. Well, they yelled at her because she was setting up, okay, your install is going to be friday okay so you take off work you move your furniture you get all ready and no call no show and you're like what the hell so you call in you can't get a hold of anybody for two days and then finally you get a hold of somebody and she's like oh yeah sorry about that your install is now going to be on tuesday and then you do it a second time and no call no show yeah it was like blatant it was like almost like she was blatantly trying to like hurt her business.

Yeah. But nobody knew what was going on because she was covering it up. And then all of a sudden, all this started coming to light because we got this. I watch our reviews and we have like 50 five-star reviews. And then we got our first one-star. And then the next day we got two one-star reviews. And the next day we got four one-star reviews. And I was like, what the fuck is going on?

And how is this derailing? Like, are we scaling too fast? Do we not have the support? And every day I would come into the office and say, do you have the resources you need to win today? And she would go, yeah, yeah, I can't talk right now. I'm really busy. But yeah, yeah, I got it. I got it.

I got it. She didn't got it. She didn't get it. She didn't got it she didn't get it she didn't get it and by the and it was so crazy that towards the end we kind of like because she was like the achilles heel of the business she she was like ordering materials and setting up installs so but we couldn't see what she was doing because she was like running by sticky notes and shit and not using the system that we put together then we finally cornered her and said hey you need to walk us through every single

customer today because i had gotten all the one-star reviews taken down by giving away free floors and making them those customers a priority and making it right yeah and i was like this cannot continue you're not going to hurt my brand yeah right out of the gates and like implode my business because you're a shit show like come on what what what do we need to do let's walk through every customer and make sure every place thing is ordered and blah blah blah in the middle of the meeting she faints lays on the ground like it was such a fake thing that was oh it was like fake like i don't know what i'm doing like we started asking her tough questions and next thing you know she's laying on the ground and we all all stopped. And we were like, are you okay?

Like, we're worried about your health. Like, do we need to call an ambulance? No, no, no. And then she's pretending to dry heave in a trash can. And then she goes home and does not come back. Like, three days in. Like, we're like, what happened to this lady? It's so good.

I feel like the story is made up. Yeah. And so we finally let her go, obviously. Of course. And it was one of the best things that can happen to our business because it galvanized the owners. Yeah. It forced every single one of us to stop everything we're doing and stop playing small. Stop assuming that things are getting done.

Stop allowing people to make excuses. And we got serious. And we came in there. And over the last, like, month and a half, we built the dopest systems. We made it right with every customer. I hired two install managers, five new people in the office. I have the greatest team right now. We're humming.

We're getting five-star reviews again. Nice. It took us about a month, month and a half to work through the shit. Yeah. But we came out the other end. Every owner is dialed in. We're dividing and conquering now. Is the CMO still with you?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. You heard that lady? Look. He must must feel he not he felt awful yeah and he took extreme ownership over it and he stayed in the office working around the clock calling all the customers and make doing things that were outside his normal role yeah to try to help yeah uh that's all you can ask for right there right like if someone says you know i'm I'm going to step in this, I create my referral, my thing. That's great leadership,

right? Like take the bullet, take the wind, take the trophy, take the bullet when it's, when it's your fault. Right. And I think it's important to share stories like that because even the most

savvy entrepreneurs, like the group, the ownership group, yeah. A floor daddy. We're all seasoned entrepreneurs. We can still fuck stuff up. Super important to share that.

People think we walk on rainbows and shit gold. Like they do. They're like, oh yeah, but Justin, you've done. Today I'm still dealing with shit that you're just like, how is this mess happening? You know what it is? I say to myself all the time, today I want the biggest motherfucking problem

that God could throw at me. Like, let's go, baby. I don't want small problems. I want big problems. Oh, yeah. And every year, I'm like, I want even bigger problems than last year. I want bigger tax problems. I want bigger relationship problems.

I want bigger all the problems. Just don't go the size of Diddy Problems. No, no, no. I don't want Diddy Problems. But I look at it kind of like that because if you're not evolving right into new bigger problems then you're just actually going backwards that's right yeah dude uh we could do this for hours and i gotta cut it off and here's why is because people need to see this on stage at clever summit and i want to push you guys all to clever summit 2024 here in miami my

brother sperber has done this now for over a decade. I spoke in the first one. I'm going to be the last one. This is going to be an incredible party, event, all real estate investors, HVAC, windows, roofing, floor. If you're in the industry, they need to be here. Let's talk a little bit about Clever Summit one more time because I want to make sure people understand what is going to happen, the impact you're going to change lives. You've been changing lives now for well over a decade,

and this is going to be a big, big push to help include and make more and more impact as we go. So what is officially going down? Well, if you think about it, there's only a couple ways to really get wealthy, right? You can't save your way to wealth. That's right. Right? It's impossible. You'll run out of time with taxes and inflation. You just can't get there. You can't go, you can't work enough hours. That's right. Uh, even if you're making a thousand bucks an hour as a, uh, anesthesiologist, you can't get there. It's really tough. Yeah. So you got to entrepreneur your way there. You got to invest your way there. You got to be the speaker of the house and, and scam your way there through, uh, illegal trades. Right. You got to get a divorce and, and, or, the house and scam your way there through illegal trades.

Yeah. Right. You got to get a divorce and have your ex-husband give you the money or your ex-wife give you the money. You got to inherit your way. There's only a few ways to get there, right? I'm joking about the political stuff, but it's like the people that get there the fastest are all entrepreneurs because you can scale being an entrepreneur.

You can leverage other people's time, money, skills, relationships, and all that stuff. And so what we do at Clever Summit is we put people in the room and we talk about the current state of the market, the current state of the economy, and we give them a path. It's like four phases, right? It's like phase number one, we're going to teach you how to make money. Nothing is more in this economy that we're in right now that people learn the different strategies to making money, whether it's in real estate or as an entrepreneur, you got to learn how to make money and a lot of it very quickly. Yeah. Then the next stage is you got to learn how to multiply your money. Multiplying your money is now when your money is going to work for you, right? It's, it's starting to get those exponential returns because you're sending your little soldiers out to battle. And so there's certain strategies and investments and things

that help you multiply your money. And then as you're doing that, nothing is more important than managing your money correctly. And that's like the third phase is like, how do I stop giving all my money to the government and taxes? I haven't paid taxes in years because I own the right real estate. I'm setting up a foundation this year and I do all kinds of creative tax things to try to not pay taxes. But the biggest needle mover in not paying taxes is owning the right type of commercial real estate. I can't tell you how many commercial buildings I purchased where I cost seg the building, accelerate the depreciation and wipe out a million, two million dollars worth of taxes. And I do that every year. And I don't pay taxes. It's great.

I can go way faster than the normal person because I'm not giving my money to Ukraine. No doubt. Or to some dumb politician that's going to send it overseas. It's insane what's going on out there. So you got to learn how to manage your money. We bring in the best tax strategists in the world to teach you how to do that, wealth managers. And it's like, okay, now, even though I don't have any money and I'm still trying to learn, I'm new, I can see what I need to do. And then the more experienced people are like, oh, I'm implementing that strategy right now. No doubt. And then the last phase, which is the phase that I'm most excited about and where I'm at in my career right now is how to make your money matter. Yeah. Right. It's like my coolest friends aren't the ones that own private jets

in Bugattis and in cool cars. My coolest friends are like Cole Hatter, who owns a freaking orphanage in Mexico. And I'm like, that's badass, dude. And he just expanded the orphanage. And now they're taking on, it's a new rehab center for women who are addicted but have children. So the children could go on this side and the addiction clinic is over on this side. It's like, that's my dopest friend. I want impact. I want to learn how I can go to Guatemala, which I've been doing for years, and build bottle schools out of trash. And provide schooling for underprivileged kids.

I want to go upstream and help the kids. I want to save elephants. I want to save the environment. That's the end game for almost all of us. When we say to ourselves we want to make a lot of money, what we're really desiring is how do we have a legacy and create impact and make your money matter? And that's what you're going to get at Clever Summit.

Man, I'm ready for it. I know you're ready for it, brother. This is the big hurrah for our boy, Cody Sperber. If you aren't already, this man is an incredible human father, entrepreneur, incredible friend to me. Make sure you're giving him a follow. Add official Cody Sperber on Instagram. Official Cody Sperber because there's a lot of fake Sperbers out there.

Official Cody Sperber on Instagram. Clever Summit's going to be like nothing else. It's going to be incredible. It's going to be a party. It's going to be informative. Super excited to be there, brother. Thank you very much for spending your time here with me at the Entrepreneur DNA. Appreciate you, bro. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. All right, y'all. If this had impact at all, share it with two of your friends. I would greatly appreciate that and stay tuned for our next guest. Peace.