The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex - From DoorDash to Millions: Andrew Imbesi’s Path to Entrepreneurial Success

Episode Date: September 7, 2024

In this episode of The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex, we explore the remarkable journey of Andrew Imbesi, an eight-figure entrepreneur who went from driving DoorDash to building multiple successful businesses, generating over $25 million in just 20 months. Andrew Imbesi shares how he transitioned from delivering food to helping over 3,000 individuals access $150 million in funding to start and scale their businesses. Tune in to learn about his mindset, strategies for success, and how you can apply his methods to achieve your own entrepreneurial goals.Check Out Andrew Imbesi: IG: https://www.instagram.com/andrewimbesi/?hl=en YT: https://www.youtube.com/@andrewimbesi“Your Network is your NETWORTH!”Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024Youtube: https://jo.my/ytpaulalex2024Linkedin: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur?Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.ATMTogether.comwww.Merchantautomation.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

Welcome to the Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Paul Alex. I went from being a cop to an eight-figure entrepreneur that helps average people like you and me make money every single day. I created this podcast to help you get motivated and to crush your goals. Let's win together.

Remember, I have your six. Get ready to level up right now. Hey guys, and welcome to the Level Up Podcast with Paul Alex. I'm here with my special friend, Andrew Mbesi. Andrew Mbesi is actually a eight-figure entrepreneur. And over the last 20 months, guys, he's done over $25 million across the board with all his businesses. However, it wasn't always like this for Andrew, guys.

As you guys know, humble beginnings, right? Only four years ago, he was just finding his footing and driving DoorDash, guys. So if you're driving DoorDash, here's the great possibilities for you, right? Only four years ago, he was just finding his footing and driving DoorDash, guys. So if you're driving DoorDash, here's the great possibilities for you, right? He was making around $2,000 to $3,000 a month, guys. He spent two years studying sales, marketing, and business through online mentorships. And before he jumped in and started his own business, he actually helps individuals access up to $250,000 worth of zero interest business credit. So this is going to be a good one, guys. Tune in, right? And he can help you fund any business or any investment that you want. To date, guys, over the last 2.5 years, he's helped over 3,000 individuals access more than

$150 million in funding, guys, to start and scale their businesses. So Andrew, how are you doing, my friend? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, bro. Absolutely, man. As always, dude, Miami resident. I mean, we connected like when I moved down here, dude, and it's been such a game changer, dude. You've helped so many of my clients get funding for their businesses. Yeah, I appreciate that. And yeah, no, I'm more than happy to help them, you know, take advantage of a great opportunity. I talk about it all the time, even just to my own clients, because they're always looking for things to do with the funding that they get. And I say, you got to connect with Paul Alex,

because he knows what to do when it comes to ATMs, BTMs, and merchant. It's just incredible what you do. Yeah. It's the new wave, dude. You got to make your money work for you, right? Yeah. It's a great way to make your money work for you because it's something that you could set up and it could just essentially run for you without being there. Like super heavy monitoring it, maybe like a big business or something, right?

But like you could just set it up and it just produces income for you. No, absolutely, man. So let's start from the very beginning, dude. So roughly four years ago, you were driving DoorDash. Start from there, dude, because a lot of people need to hear this. A lot of people need to be motivated,

but not only that, learn the mindset, the mindset that you have to have to scale like you did, dude. So start from there. Yeah, for sure. And I've learned over the past week to really like put this together as what I like to call knowledge approach resources. So I think a lot of people, when they start, they don't know the right approach and they don't have the right knowledge. It's very quick and easy

to get access to resources, right? But you really need both knowledge and approach to be successful with a business, investment, whatever it may be. So back in 2020, it was post-COVID, right? We were all recovering from COVID. I was just living at home with my parents. Didn't have an income stream. I was just making money through DoorDash, but I knew I needed to make more money to achieve my own financial goals, to achieve my personal goals. I didn't know what I really wanted as a career. So I just turned to the internet so I could work from home, make money, be able to enjoy my life, have enough money to do what I want whenever I want.

And I started diving into all these different courses online and very quickly started getting burned because I didn't know what to look for. And that was the first lesson I learned early on. I already had the hard work ethic, which is so important. And I've noticed in those groups of thousands of people, I'm sure you've been part of those same like Facebook groups, school communities. And you see thousands of people. And what's the difference between us making it work versus the people who don't make it work?

I think it comes down to work ethic and having access to the right information. No, absolutely. And before you get into that, man, because you're going to get into the deep roots of this, but like, let's, let's go step a little bit back. Where were you living at at this moment in your life? Yeah, I was living with my parents back in New Jersey. In New Jersey. So you're an East Coast boy. I'm an East Coast boy. Okay. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I made a ton of friends since I moved to Miami from New York, Connecticut and like New Jersey. So it's pretty awesome, dude. A different environment for sure. But me being a California boy, dude, I'm still adjusting to absolutely the lifestyle I hear. But it's amazing. I love it. You know, we get to network with like minded individuals like ourselves. So when you were driving DoorDash, dude, what was in your

mind? Like you were driving DoorDash and for a lot of people they're driving Door door dash and they're like probably not thinking like this yet they're probably like they're just trying to make ends meet they know door dash is a sustainable income because you're able to go ahead and rely on this company that created this application to provide you a job and all you have to do is just simply pick up food and drop it off how can you mess that up right yeah but how much do you really get paid off of that you You know, I was working pretty hard at it. I was making maybe like three to 4,000 at my peak. Yeah. And how many hours, but I was working like at least eight to 12 hours a day. Um, I had a pretty good area in which I could deliver food. They were like, I started like learning how to, you know, play the system to

where I can make more money. And it was by declining orders. It was, it was like a very clever strategy. So I would only accept 25% of my orders and I would do that. So that way I would get like the $10 orders or the $12 orders. And those would take me 15 minutes. So if I could do those quickly and I could keep declining orders, I could increase my hourly rate to something like $40 an hour and I could make money fast. But those were only during the hot hours, right? Like that's like 12 to two. And then from like two to four, it's like kind of dead. And then you have dinner. So, you know, there's a lot to consider with that that so from 12 to 4 usually the

hot hours you decline until you see an order that is going to make you like 10 bucks or more and then those usually take you about 10 to 15 minutes so you're you're talking about more quality and then quantity when you're looking at like looking at the orders yeah it was like a little strategy i came up with that's pretty badass yeah i, I was trying to make like $5 a mile basically. Wow. Right. Because you got to factor in gas. You got to factor in how much time it's going to take, all these little things. But that's how focused I was on trying to make more money. But I realized that it wasn't a long-term thing. Living in my parents' house, not a long-term thing. Not having enough money to afford my own apartment, this was not a long-term thing. I realized I had to start

making some more money because this was just not going to be sustainable for a very long time, especially when you consider things like inflation, housing market goes up in price. And if I'm only making $3,000 to $4,000 a month, I'm never going to afford my own place or afford to live on my own. Bro, $3,000 to $4,000 a month is the reality for a lot of people right now. I know. And that's the crazy part. But guys, if you guys are currently doing DoorDash or any of the delivery orders, hey, Andrew just already gave you game, guys. He just dropped some major, major golden nuggets here if you're doing that, okay?

So follow those steps. All right. So to get to it, dude, nuggets here if you're doing that. Okay. So follow those steps. All right. So to get to it, dude, so you went into the online world. Were you big on social media before you actually went on social media to start like a consulting company? Yeah, no, really. I wasn't big at all on social media. I wasn't really using it. I wouldn't really post. I really wouldn't, um, film any stories or anything like that. It was just kind of something I had there with some moments of my life. Okay. And then you started researching.

Was it somebody like a friend or a mentor that told you like, hey dude, you got to start investing in self-education. How did you like fall into that? Yeah. So I fell into just self-education because I think I had some experiences in the past. There was a,

I bought an Amazon course in the past, like 500 bucks. I didn't really do anything with it. But then I bought a music production program. It was like $2,000. And because I really have always wanted to be a music producer. So I've always had this urge to be independent and do my own things. And even more so after I had this one corporate experience, like a year before COVID, I was doing an internship at a corporate company and I wasn't huge on the

culture and the job I was doing. And I said, there's no way I could work somewhere as boring as this for the rest of my life. So I was always attracted to, you know, being able to do something fun and make money while doing it. And that's what I think really got me interested in music production because I think it's very cool. I think it's pretty interesting. Yeah. And so I had that experience is really what I'm getting at is I had this course that I bought and I was part of a community and my music production skills did get better. So I went from not understanding, for example, what stereo imaging was when you put on your headphones

and you hear stuff in your ears and then like on top of your head, like I started learning and I realized that, wow, there is potential in this online education stuff because I have seen results in the past from it. So that really built up my courage because eventually I think I was just looking for ways online education stuff because I have seen results in the past from it. Yeah. So that really built up my courage because eventually I think I was just looking for ways to make money. And then the ads just started targeting me.

I started getting the e-commerce ads. I started getting the SMMA ads. I started like getting those ads to learn how to make money online. And Andrew, just before you go deeper into that, what is SMMA? Just because we have a lot of beginner people listening to this and they're probably like, what is that, bro? Yeah, SMMA stands for Social Media Marketing Agency.

It's a company or a firm that would advertise, do marketing for other businesses. Like you're basically like a freelancer and you charge businesses, whether it's like a thousand or $5, dollars a month to do marketing for their businesses which means just posting on social media or running advertising for them that's what a social media marketing agency would do and it's huge it's huge i use quite a few uh people for my businesses and dude they're raking it in man like they charge a retainer typically retainer guys is like anywhere between five to 20 Gs,

depending on who you use, right? The more expensive means the more experience they have. And then also a lot of times they'll charge also a percentage of your sales, depending on what platform they're actually promoting for you. So it's very lucrative if you do it right. Yeah.

Right. So that's cool, man. So you get targeted with all these courses at this time, right before you hit gold, meaning that like you found that course or that program that got you, uh, basically the knowledge to know what, what to actually do and how to implement it. How much money did you spend before you got there, bro? Like overall, because you were investing in your, your DoorDash money, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I started in like August of 2020 and up to that point I'd saved up $10,000

and very quickly I blew all that money by the time the end of September came around on different courses, advertising spend, and just, yeah, very quickly just lit that money on fire, threw it in trash can because I didn't know what I was looking for. And I was just looking for knowledge. And the first lesson I learned really early on was that, and I didn't have any entrepreneurs in my family, by the way, who I could learn from. So I was kind of on my own trying to figure out how sales or marketing or any of that stuff worked. And I didn't even know that was what was important. I just was trying to learn about a business model. And that's why I think a course is only good for, for the most part is like, you're going to learn about something, but where

you're really going to get the best experience, in my opinion, is if you could get your hands on a one-on-one mentorship. So that's really where I started learning like, okay, like I'm buying all these courses. I'm spending 12, 16 hours a day watching these videos. Yeah. And I'm looking at all these other success stories. I'm thinking to myself, how did these guys become successful? Right. And I only know as much as I am in these videos. And there's definitely some missing pieces.

Now I look back at it. There are totally missing pieces that I didn't know. And I didn't have someone to really learn from, pick their brain, think, see what they were thinking about themselves. Like what were the things that they were focused on? Because I was trying to develop this information as a brand new newbie. And that was something I didn't realize was a huge component to why I wasn't succeeding with it. So that $10,000, although I didn't get the anticipated result, I did get a priceless lesson. And I think that's another valuable thing to mention about just when people are getting into investing or business for the first time is that there's going to be times where you get burned

and there's going to be times where you don't make any money. Right. But you have to take away the lesson that you learned. And if you can't take away a lesson, then you're going to end up blaming everyone else for your failures. And you have to take some kind of responsibility over what you could have done better and what you didn't know and how your approach could have been better. And most importantly, you got to take away a lesson like, ah, I wish I knew that. Okay. Now I can take that lesson and, you know, pick up from where I left off and learn from my mistakes and get into the next thing. Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's awesome, dude. So let's, let's dive into the mindset because I'm at the level of podcasting, the main reason why I even launched this podcast like the beginning of this year in 2024 is just simply to help people with the biggest needle mover that every entrepreneur needs to work on on a daily basis.

I even work on this. I know you do too, is mindset. Mindset. So where was your mindset at when you were failing, dude, when you invested that $10,000 and you weren't getting the result you wanted? Like, where was your mind at? Like, how did you feel, dude? What were like everybody around you and your environment telling you, dude? Sure. So I think a lot of people in my environment didn't know if it was going to work or not. They weren't really like firm believers in what I saw. And that's, there's going to be a lot that to unpack in this. Cause there's a lot of things that ran through my mind. When you say that there's going to be people that look at what you're doing and they're not going to fully

understand because they haven't seen what you've seen and it's important that you don't listen to others who don't see what you see because if you see this opportunity in front of you but others don't then why would you look to them for advice when they aren't really the ones who have the same passion or drive for the dreams that you have for yourself. It's it's very it's not the right thinking process. And it ultimately boils down to you're afraid of, you know, continuing to take chances and losing money. But that's not the worst case scenario at all.

The worst thing is you don't want to, you know, die saying, I regret this. And, you know, you don't want to die and say, I wish I gave that a shot. I wish I tried harder. Because the worst case scenario is that you just keep doing the thing that you're doing right now. You keep spending money on these things and you keep having failures. But with every failure, you get closer to success. So the only obstacles that exist are the ones that you create. And I knew that early on. And that wasn't like a quote I would say to myself, but inherently had just kind of like this instinct of the only way I'm ever going to like a failure, they say it doesn't work, and they give up. But the reality is there's plenty of people out there that make so many different business models work, whether it's ATMs or BTMs or merchant or a restaurant or barbershop. I have a barber who, you know, just opened up his own shop right down the street from here. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, there's so many different ways to go about it. But I think, you know, the mindset is like, you can't just give up when it gets tough. You know, like you have to just keep working hard and it's going to be a lot of work. Like you see all the luxury of entrepreneurship where you get to buy the cars, the boats,

the penthouses. I have all those things, but it's consistent work every single day, even on the weekends, even on the holidays to eventually achieve that goal. But I already know in the next five, 10, 15 years, I'm going to be so far ahead of where everyone else was who started at the same time as me. And I'm going to have the opportunity later in life to do all the things that everyone else dreams about. You know, I don't say that in a cocky way, but it's because that's the risk that you take

and that's the reward you get. Let me ask you a real question, bro. Is it worth it? Totally worth it. You know, actually, I think instinctively, yeah, totally worth it. But at the same time, I think sometimes you'll think like, you know,

because I've seen people say this. I've seen other people say, my life was good when I was a door dasher. My life is good now. And, you know, it's great having more money. But, you know, as you grow bigger, more money, more problems, right? Of course. So you can pick your problems, too, if you're smart enough in the beginning. And if you can evaluate the risks of what you're

getting into before you jump into it, like what problems am I going to experience at the $100,000 a month level at the million dollar a month level, the $10,000 a month level, what problems am I going to have? And if there are problems that you are, you know, excited to solve, like, yeah, like, you know, it's going to be okay. But I think, you know, it's definitely rewarding to have more than what you started with. Yeah. And there's opportunities I've been able to do that many people still dream of, but, you know, haven't been able to do for themselves because they haven't taken that leap of faith, whether it be buying a home for my parents or giving my brother an opportunity to work and produce and make money. You know, it's like those kind of heartfelt things that you want to do things for your family or friends

that you're never going to be able to do unless you don't give up on yourself and keep working hard every single day to make it happen. That's some fire advice, dude. So let's do like literally like a two minute masterclass right now for somebody that's watching this. Okay. So if you were to give someone three steps to execute, okay, what would those three steps be in order to get it, get their business up and running no matter what business they're going into, but what would be the three main focus points? Yeah, totally. You know, that's so funny because I just came, I was talking about a little bit earlier, but I just came up with this acronym the other day.

I call it the CAR method. Because if you want to be successful, you got to, you know, and success is like driving a car. And we spell CAR, K-A-R, which stands for knowledge, approach, resources. You know, if you want to be successful, first, you have to have enough knowledge about what you're getting into. So the business model doesn't matter what the business model is. You should understand what is involved with this business model. You have to understand what the risks are with this business model. You need to learn who the mentors are in this business model that you can learn from, who you can replicate, who you can duplicate.

And you really want to know everything that you could possibly learn about this business model so you could be successful with it because you're only going to have success if you have access to the right information. Not just any information, but you need the right information. So you should look for the best one-on-one mentor that has done the things that you want to be successful at. And from there, learn everything there is to know, whether it be the benefits, the risks, the problems that you'll eventually run into, the profit margins, all these different things. You're going to want to learn about it. Now, all that right, correct knowledge

is completely worthless unless you have the right approach. So this means the mindset, the concepts of blame versus responsibility, having the right attitude, having just anything that has to do with the right approach. Are you going to have the correct work ethic? And how are you going to handle failures? So you need to have the right approach because you could have all the right knowledge, but it's going to be worthless if you're only spending an hour a day doing it. And you could have, you know, insane work ethic. But if you don't have the right knowledge, it doesn't matter. Fine.

Once you have those two things aligned, then you need the right resources, which is where you, you know, confront the capital to invest into these different opportunities, whether it be mentorships, advertising spend, different business services, different inventory expenses like ATMs or hard assets. You need the resources, whether it's investing in real estate, but you need the knowledge and the approach first. And that's where I really like my own product, helping people get the resources with 0% interest business credit, because we can help someone get up to, you know, anywhere between 50,000 to $250,000 of 0% interest business credit with just a few hours of work, as long as they have a, you know, a qualifying credit score, we can help them get capital to invest into those things to learn the

right knowledge to learn the right skills, but they're going to have to those things, to learn the right knowledge, to learn the right skills, but they're going to have to have the approach too. And so during the process, we're helping them develop that approach. So that would be like my two minute masterclass, someone who's really looking to be successful. I love that dude. And that's so badass. So let's get into, let's say hypothetically, I was a student or a client of yours and i'm going ahead and asking you for your services what would be the initial steps that i have to take in order to go ahead and get you saw like 50k or 100k for funding because i want to start a dog grooming yeah business called cookie right like a dog yeah i call it cookies groomers. So, um, I need 50 to a hundred

K. I know everything that I need for the business, but I just don't have the money. I have good credit. I have decent credit, but I work a nine to five. Um, no one's really educated me as I, as I grew up, dude. And I'm coming to you for that help. So what would you do with a client like me? Yeah. Great question. So our So our service is like super simple. So it's not, it'll take very fast to actually explain. So someone comes to us, we make sure they're qualified first and foremost. We aren't going to sign up anyone who is not qualified.

And sure, sometimes they slip through, but. What's the qualifications? At least a 700 plus credit score. And then the only exception to that is if they have just, you know, high credit card utilization, we could help them get connected to a private lender who can pay down that balance temporarily. So their credit score goes above 700. But these banks aren't going to give you any credit unless you have a 700 plus credit score. So we'll make sure

someone's qualified. They sign up with us. We get full details of what their credit profile looks like, whether it be late payments or credit card usage, what relationships they currently have, where they live, all these different things. We don't need their SSN either. We trust that they're going to give us the accurate, correct information. This takes about 15, 20 minutes. We have a document that we have them fill out. And then from there, our team will create a custom funding plan, personalized to what that person's profile is, and we'll provide them that funding plan. And so each bank has a different strategy on how we go about getting the most amount of funding possible from each bank. So, you know, there will probably be anywhere between six to

12 different banks that will apply to together. And so each bank will have a different strategy. And that's the last part. And this takes maybe like, you know, an hour or two to knock out all the banks that you can do just from home. Yeah. Whether they're like remote applications or online applications. And then for each in-person bank, because there's three ways we apply with people and we do with people because that's what gets them the best results. Like if we do just like a blitz of online algorithmic applications, it does not yield the same results. So we ask for our clients to be part of the process.

So that way, you know, there's certain cards where you could apply online and get a $10,000 limit. But if you know the secret strategy, you could get a $50,000 limit. But that requires the client's participation because the bankers, the employees at these institutions are going to want participation and, you know, like the client doing it. So it's not fraud. So, um, so, you know, we'll spend a little bit of

time going through each application, going through whether it's an online, um, application of a relationship manager remotely, or walking into the branch and we're just walking through that strategy with them, this place, this funding product, and this is how we do it. We'll do it together. We do it together online, or we, or they, we coach them on how to walk into the branch. And through that, you know, usually they get anywhere between 50,000 to 250,000, just a few hours of work. Dude, that's awesome. That's awesome. It's almost like a no brainer, especially as someone who's like in startup mode and they need cash and they know that they can make a large percentage in profit margins

and leverage that man, OPM, other people's money. Right. I'm a, I'm a big believer that I would always send people to American express, the cash personal or business credit card, zero interest for it's a perfect 12 12 months 18 months sometimes and uh a lot of times for a lot of my clients before um they have gotten about six thousand dollars that's that's around like the range yeah it's perfect like you know for for like new people they might get you know stumped with something like 2 000 but if you have like you know a better credit profile existing relationship with them potentially, usually those people get between like $10,000, $25,000, you know, on a single card.

So it's pretty sweet. And that's the thing. And that's what I learned really early on, too. Like super valuable for the beginner. It's like if you want to really be successful, the opportunities that are going to change your life are going to cost more than just $1,000 or $2,000. If you think that you can just buy a $1,000 course or a $2,000 course, and you're going to be successful, not saying that it's not possible, but if you really want to get closer to guaranteeing your chances of success, which it's never guaranteed,

it's always going to be dependent on you having the right information and you having the right approach. The best way to do is like, you're going to have to spend more money to get access to these mentors. Like these mentors are not cheap. They're going to charge you $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 to work one-on-one with them. So you're going to need to put some skin in the game to get access to the right information, to learn from the right people. So that way you could have better chances of being successful.

I think a lot of people miss that. Like that's why you would want to get access to that capital because if you're new and starting out, it's like investing in a college, but you're investing in a way better opportunity than college because you're learning how to become a millionaire from someone who is already a millionaire and you're learning how to become a millionaire from someone

who is already a millionaire and you're learning the strategy that helped them become a millionaire and it's going to cost money it's going to cost 10 20 50 000 so you could get a zero percent card put you know like pay minimum payments like a hundred dollars two hundred dollars a month one or two percent of the balance that you owe and you don't have to pay any interest on this money. And while you're learning and while you're getting better, you're starting to make way more money than what you were making before. And you start paying down that balance in bigger chunks.

Something that I love that you said, bro, skin in the game. I'm big on that, right? Yeah. Ear to date, since you started your venture and you successfully launched your funding consulting business, uh, how much have you invested in yourself? Millions, millions, millions at this point, even just this year, I think I've I'm close to a

million. Who, uh, who are your current mentors right now? Good question. You, you're the, I do, we have a lot of conversations and actually your, your questions are really great. I'm glad. We've actually, just for the audience, like we've never had like kind of a conversation like this. We've had, we've talked about each other's backstories, but Paul asks great questions. But I'm learning from a lot of people. My first sales mentor, his name was Dylan Cadullo. He taught me a lot about sales.

I've also learned a lot from Grant Cardone, Brandon Dawson. Andy is a good mentor in leadership. Yeah, he's like super motivating, you know, really knows how to drive the best version of yourself. I think Brandon Dawson is really great when you're learning systems and processes for a company. Yeah. And like structuring it and things like that. You know, Dylan Cadula is really good with sales. And then I had like a couple of really good marketing mentors. I would prefer not to say their names just because they're not really

doing what they were teaching anymore. So they kind of like ventured into other stuff and kind of left some people in the dust. So I was just kind of one of those lucky few who were in the right place at the right time and took advantage of that opportunity. And even just like for my own like self-development, kind of like a controversial one, but one that's probably been the number one source of like my personal, professional, and financial success

would be the Church of Scientology. So all together, those have been like my mentors that have taken me from three to $4,000 a month as a door dash driver to million dollar a month entrepreneur. Who would you say, okay, right now, and you're in, in, in just consulting, because that's, that's the world we're in right now in the online space are the top three consultants. And would you say say and it could vary dude but that really is dominating the market you know because i know you you uh you mentioned grand cordone and a few other like andy elliott uh those those are top dogs dude but in your eyes you're the top three right now yeah i think um honestly i like i've seen a lot of what other

people have and yeah and when you And you only know what you know. And you also know that there's things you don't know. And then there's also you don't know that you don't know. Brandon Dawson actually talks about this. You take a pie, like a circle of all the information that exists in the universe. And 1% of that is you know what you know. The other 1% is you know what you don't know. And then 98% of that is you don't know what you don't know.

So I don't know about everyone's programs, but I've been around a lot of people this year. I've been around Tai Lopez, Bradley, Andy Elliott. I've been around Patrick Bet-David, Brandon Dawson, Grant Cardone. I mean, I've been around a lot of people. And I think if you're going to learn, um, you know, like leadership and he's just a motivational guy. Like he really knows how to cultivate an audience and cultivate a team. And, um, and then I also really like Brandon Dawson for his ability to build systems and, you know, all that stuff. And then honestly, as a third, I would honestly say the church, because that's really where I learned a lot of

great stuff, like whether it be communication techniques and strategies, you know, they have really good admin tech about an organizing board, very inspiring stories, too. Just like there's there's a lot that can be learned there. We were even like they've gone up against some huge battles, too, in their life, and they've been able to overcome a lot of battles. Yeah. So, you know, it's really looking for those those organizations, those people who've been able to overcome a lot of adversity, who've been able to design and set up things. I mean, Brandon, you know, they have a nine figure, they have multiple nine figure companies and they're doing it bigger than

most people. So they must have something different than what other people have. You know, Andy's grown so fast and a lot of it is really because of how well he's branded himself and his leadership. Absolutely. So I think when you can combine all those things, I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time, just where I'm at. Cause I can go learn from all these other people too. I feel really confident with the specific people I'm working with right now. Yeah. You don't need, you don't need a big group. You don't need a huge network. You just need the right people. Yeah, totally. And I think that's what you got, bro. You're in the right place. You're in Miami. It's the hub for entrepreneurs.

And then you just have access and proximity. And the people are in proximity, man. So let me ask you, and this is going to be probably the final question. My question is, what builds a solid culture, a solid company once, like, let's say everybody watching right now they're like dude i'm about to hook up with andrew bessie and and get some money from him so i can launch my you know my my restaurant or i can launch you know the business that i've been dreaming of right because for most people it's finances that's what it comes down to or or they're just they're not ready as far as the level of mindset that they have which is fine because we can work with you. But let's say they're ready to do the funding, they're qualified, and now their business is starting to evolve and it's scaling, right? And it's getting to the point where they're working 18 hours, man. I mean, I'm pretty sure

you remember this. Sure. A few years ago, I was working 18, 20 hours on my businesses and I was just like, oh dude, I got to hire people. I don't know how to. So then I started hiring people who grew massively, got a hundred employees and it's just culture is everything, dude. Culture and environment. And I believe leading by example is one of the biggest pivots. But for you, man, what's your opinion on that? Yeah. I think once someone discovers a system that works for them, and most importantly, before you start hiring, I think it's important to really see for yourself how that position can perform at max capacity before you give it to someone else. Because when you give it to someone else, you're going to have to give them the opportunity to achieve their personal, professional, and financial goals too. So when I finally hired my first salesperson, I made sure that there was a runway for him to make $10,000 to $20,000 a month. And I knew what that looked like.

So I think that's a very critical point to add. But don't underestimate the value of building a culture and how critical and important that is to the growth of your business. Because you shouldn't just hire people who are talented. You should be hiring people who work really hard and want to learn and get better every single day and aren't going to settle for less. Like you don't want people who know it all because they're not going to follow instructions. There's a lot to consider. And at first, like hiring was difficult for me because I didn't know they should be looking for, you should really write down everything that is about you that, you know, you resemble because you want to work with people just

like you. Maybe they aren't like as entrepreneurial as you, and they're looking for something a little bit more stable and they want to be more of an intrapreneur versus an entrepreneur, which is totally great. And you really want to find out what are those qualities about you that define who you are that you would want to surround yourself with. It's like really important that you're pulling in hard workers, people who, you know, are listening to podcasts like this, like they eat, sleep and breathe success. Like it's all they think about. They're not going out on the weekends. They're not doing stupid shit. Right. Sorry for the cuss, but yeah, but it's like that you really want to find people who are going to be engaged, but you have, you're going to be the opinion leader. So every morning

for us, like we have a daily all team meeting where we get fired up. We, you know, share the wins from the day before. Um, you know, I know Andy, for example, he has like a little creed that he does with his sales team. Brandon and Grant, they, you know, Grant Cardone in Miami with Cardone U and the Cardone Capital guys. Yeah.

They have like a huge rally with 200 people at like nine in the morning. I love that. Insane. Like the whole room is screaming, clapping. It's like little things like that

will get your team excited and motivated to work for you every single day and work for themselves because they have something to look forward to. So I think there's like a lot of little things. But most importantly, you need to be bringing in the right people who want to be part of that culture. Because, I mean, likely if you're watching this, you want to have something energetic. You're probably watching this because you don't want us to come to this corporate, boring lifestyle. It's just my guess. And you know, you have to show your energy and you have to make sure the people that you're bringing in already have that energy. It's very hard to coach or teach someone how to have that energy. So you really want to have those people who want to be part of something that is exciting and have that same goal. You'll want someone who's looking

to pass time and just get paychecks. You want someone who's going to be excited. They're going to bring energy. They're going to compete. They're going to hustle with others. And that's probably the mindset that you have. And so you want to create and develop a team of people who do that and start you know creating like your own little knickknacks yeah like between each other like your own little like not necessarily inside jokes but just things that make the company the company people want to work with other people they relate to other people they can have fun with i mean when i was back in law enforcement dude that's what really kept me there it fulfilled me because yeah the people i built relationships with my co- even community members, dude. And

it made it fun. It made it fun as a cop, you know? And most people were like, it was fun as a cop. I was like, yeah, dude, not the fact that I was arresting people, but I'm just saying like, it was more of like the culture. It was just like, everybody was in there work as a team, you know, everybody makes sure they're safe and we're there to one mission, one team. Right. And, and that's the way I brought it into entrepreneurship as well, dude. So I totally agree with everything you're saying. So Andrew, where can they go ahead and find you? Let's say somebody wants to reach out to you. Somebody like me, dude, wants to reach out to you and be like, Andrew, I need some money. So yeah. Um, where can they find you? Yeah. Uh, probably the easiest way, um, would just simply be on Instagram, on Instagram at Andrew and Bessie.

My last name is spelled with one S. So it's I-M as in Mary, B-E-S-I. And they can find me on Instagram. I also have a YouTube channel. Drop it, bro. Yeah, same thing, at Andrew and Bessie. So yeah, I got a lot of content out there. There's, you know, send me a private message on Instagram.

I'll respond to, you know, link in bio too, if you just want to directly schedule a call with our team. So yeah. I love it. I love it. And guys, that is the show. So we're going to be doing roughly about two to four special episodes every single month here at the Love of a Podcast with Paul Alex.

Guys, phenomenal, phenomenal actual episode, guys. Andrew just talked about doing funding. episodes every single month here at the level of podcast with paul alex guys phenomenal phenomenal actual episode guys andrew just talked about doing funding he talked about how you can get started with funding i mean minimum qualifications i believe that 80 probably even 90 of the united states in canada do you do international as well it's only the united states unfortunately united states okay united states only but at the, United States, there's billions of people that are here. So at the end of the day, guys, if you're an entrepreneur, you have that vision, you have that dream, and you want to level up, go see Andrew. He'll help you with the funding. And that way we can all level up together. All right, guys, this is Paul Alex with the Level Up Podcast. Andrew, thanks again, brother.

Hey, thanks for having me. Take care, guys. Remember, I always have your six. Make sure to share this episode with your family, friends and anyone you care about. The world's already hard enough and we need to take care of each other. Make sure to share this episode on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and share it with the world. Do me a big favor and tag me, Paul Alex. Also, keep the five star reviews on iTunes coming. This episode is going to help change the way the world thinks and will help everyone level up in their life.

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