The Personal Finance Podcast - How to Get Rich Buying Boring Businesses With Codie Sanchez

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

How to Get Rich Buying Boring Businesses With Codie Sanchez  Today we talk to Codie Sanchez about buying boring businesses. Codie owns 26 businesses, is the founder of Contrarian Thinking, and has a...n incredible newsletter with over 110K Readers. We talk about: Carwashes  Laundromats  Mailbox Money  Vending Machines  How to get financing for deals  How to manage multiple businesses  And so much more! Connect With Codie: www.codiesanchez.com www.contrarianthinking.co Linkedin: @codiesanchez Twitter: @Codie_Sanchez Instagram: @codiesanchez TikTok: @realcodiesanchez Sponsors:  Thank you to Gusto for sponsoring the show! Check them out at gusto.com/pfp Thanks to Policygenius For Sponsoring the show! Check them out a Policygenius.com Thanks to Mint Mobile for supporting the show! Cut your phone bill to $15 a month by going to https://mintmobile.com/pfp Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate for as little as $10 by going to fundrise.com/personalfinance Thank you to Hello Fresh for sponsoring the show! Go to Hello Fresh and use code PFP16 for 16 free meals and 3 free gifts.  FREE GUIDES: ============== -Check out the free guide on where to put your money in what order!  https://www.mastermoney.co/stairway-to-wealth -Here is the free How to Ask for A Raise ebook! https://www.mastermoney.co/get-a-raise-ebook -Get Access to the 75 Day Challenge: https://www.mastermoney.co/75daychallenge  ============= We have a YOUTUBE channel! Check it out here!  Our Latest Videos:  5 Index Funds to Hold for Life!  What Would Happen If You Maxed Out Your Roth IRA By Age?! (These Results Will Amaze You!) How to Become a Millionaire With a Small Amount of Money (Is it Really This Easy!?) ============ Got questions? Ask me on Instagram Here. @mastermoneyco This is the fastest way to get in touch with me.  =========== Want to Support the Show? Follow on Spotify or Follow and Leave a 5-Star Review on Apple Podcasts! ============ Episodes Mentioned More Episodes You Will Love:  The Stairway to Wealth 2.0 (The Order You Should Put Your Money in!) How to Track Your Net Worth How to Set Money Goals You Will Actually Achieve How To Prevent Lifestyle Creep (Lifestyle Inflation) 7 Ways to Pay Down Your Student Loans Faster How You Can Have a Free Car for Life (It's True!) Why Your Savings Rate Matters  ============ Check out all the Stuff I Recommend!  USEFUL RESOURCES: Best Place to Open a Roth IRA: https://m1finance.8bxp97.net/5vzD1 My Favorite Free Net Worth and Budget Tool: https://fxo.co/905L Best High Yield Savings Account: https://bit.ly/3HpPjAr  Get a $10 Free Bonus with Acorns: https://bit.ly/3lV0LLE Best Bank and Debit Card for Kids: https://bit.ly/3pJeI09  Get $5 Free Bitcoin at Coinbase: https://bit.ly/3oIQOml Best Credit Building Tool: https://bit.ly/3rmBuwZ  Best Personal Finance Books: https://kit.co/MasterMoney/best-personal-finance-books  ============ DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial adviser. This Podcast is for educational purposes only. Investing of any kind involves risk. While it is possible to minimize risk, your investments are solely your responsibility. It is imperative that you conduct your own research. I am sharing my opinion.  AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE: Some of the links on this channel are affiliate links, meaning, at NO additional cost to you, I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase and/or subscribe. However, this does not impact my opinion. ============ Check us out on social fam!  Twitter Dollar After Dollar Instagram www.thepersonalfinancepodcast.com www.dollarafterdollar.com www.mastermoney.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:56 Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. On this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to talk about how to get rich buying boring businesses with Cody Sanchez. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew founder of MasterMoney.com. And today on the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to be talking to Cody Sanchez about buying boring businesses. If you have any questions, hit me up on Instagram at Master
Starting point is 00:01:45 Money Co. And follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever podcast player you love listening to this podcast. If you want to help out the show, leave a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And don't forget to check us out on YouTube as well at Master Money over on YouTube. Now today, we're going to be talking to Cody Sanchez. And you guys have heard me talk about boring businesses in the past because I think there's a major opportunity with boring businesses. There's a ton of of baby boomers who are going to retire and a lot of their children don't want to take over their businesses and so what they have to do is go out and sell those businesses and as you're going to hear Cody's going to talk about the multiples that you can buy these businesses for and it's absolutely amazing the deals that you can get with boring businesses now this is something that there is a tremendous amount of opportunity out there and the opportunity is everywhere I've looked all over the country and I've seen it all over the place where there's opportunities to buy boring businesses
Starting point is 00:02:43 like car washes, laundromats, or you could look at things like plumbing companies, air conditioning companies, electrical companies. There's so many different types of things that you can go out and buy. You just have to look in your local area. So today we're going to be talking to Cody,
Starting point is 00:02:56 who is the queen of boring businesses. She owns dozens of these boring businesses and has a system where she buys them up and has other people manage them for her, but she is the actual owner. So today we're going to be talking about that and we're going to be talking about car washes, laundromats,
Starting point is 00:03:11 how you can build mailbox money. We're talking about vending machines, how to get financing for these deals, which is extremely important. And then how she actually manages multiple businesses. And we're going to talk about so much more as well. So let's welcome Cody Sanchez to the show. So Cody, welcome to the Personal Finance podcast. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
Starting point is 00:03:32 So we are so excited to have you today because you are one of my favorite follows on the internet, because you talk about some incredible ways to build well from buying boring businesses. And you also have one of my favorite newsletters to read every single week that I think everybody should be reading. We'll link it up down below as well. But tell us how you got started buying businesses and what drew you to that market. Yeah. So I was in finance for a long time. I've been in private equity and investing for most of my career before I was a journalist.
Starting point is 00:04:00 And so basically what I realized one day is that I was doing deals and making money for our firm at the time in the private equity space. And these deals were buying businesses. and we were crushing it like for the firm. And I remember sitting there one day and thinking, wait a second, you know, the main partners on this deal are making like millions off of every single deal. I'm not making millions off of every single deal. And yet I'm doing all the work on it. Why couldn't I just start doing this for myself?
Starting point is 00:04:29 And so if anything ever went sideways in finance, I could have these businesses on the side. And so that's basically what I did is I just said, hey, there's no real big difference between a giant LBO, which is a leveraged buyer. out that like KKR or any of the large private equity firms do, and the small boring businesses that I buy, they're materially pretty similar. And so why don't I just start accumulating some of these from my own portfolio and I'll use the money I earn to start investing in them? And so that's what happened. I love that idea. And I love the idea of buying boring businesses because I think there's a lot of baby boomers that are going to be retiring. And I think there's a lot of
Starting point is 00:05:03 those deals available right now. And I think it's a really cool market to focus on, especially when people are looking at real estate markets or things like that where they're over leverage, I think buying these boring businesses are a really incredible deal right now and they're everywhere. So what are some of the pros to buying boring businesses and why would you want to buy a business instead of starting one from scratch? Lots of reasons. One, when you start your business from scratch, you're basically betting on hopes and dreams and you're paying for the future hope of cash flow.
Starting point is 00:05:31 It costs money to start a business. And so I don't love not making money on day one. I especially don't love not make money on day one in pain for potential profits in the future. Don't love it. And so if what I'm starting a business for is actually to make money, not because I have a dream inside of me that has to exist, not because I couldn't live except for building this business, but as an income source, I would rather buy a business where I could have profits the second the deal closes and use a business for that reason.
Starting point is 00:06:01 And I think there's room in the world for both of those. But I like the idea of, like, I don't really believe in the, you know, starving artist, starving startup entrepreneur. I actually think you should give yourself some space. If you want to go build the amazing thing that you want to do, create some free cash flow so that you can be in a smart, non-ferebased, non-scarcity entrepreneur, as opposed to stressing about your startup nonstop. So that's why I think you should buy instead of built.
Starting point is 00:06:25 The other thing is you can't really use too much leverage when you're building, meaning you can't really get loans for something that doesn't exist. You really can't get grants. You can get people to give you money for it, which would be startup fundraising, right, but only for pretty crazy ideas and at kind of tough multiples to the business. It's one of the most expensive forms of money you can get. So I don't really love that. And that's why I sort of say, I think you should buy every chance you can instead of
Starting point is 00:06:50 built. And that's the thing I love about it, too, is just that you can put dollars down. And we'll talk about that a little bit later on how to do it. But you can put dollars down to actually buy something that can cash flow hundreds of thousands of dollars if you want to, depending on the deal. So it's something that's incredible that you can do. And you're buying that existing business. That's right.
Starting point is 00:07:06 I mean, the only thing I would add to that is we talk about this a lot. And I'm not saying that this stuff is super easy. It's hard work. But it is relatively simple. So like that is, people hear that and I think, no way, can I make hundreds of thousands of dollars for one deal? You absolutely can. Now, can you do it if you're a terrible operator and you've never run a business before
Starting point is 00:07:23 and you don't really want to work whatsoever and you just want to buy the thing and cut a check every month? Like, probably not. But if you were willing to put in work into your startup, I don't see why you couldn't also put in work into a business that exists. So yes, I agree with you. Absolutely. And one big business that you talk about all the time is laundromats. And I think it's one of the most simple businesses to understand for a lot of people. And you recently released a really cool YouTube video on one of your laundromats. So tell us about some of those projects and why laundromats are some of the best businesses out there. You know, I like talking about laundromats for exactly the
Starting point is 00:07:54 reason that you said. It's because laundromats are easy to exist. I have dirty clothes. I need them cleaned, I put some coins in a machine, and there's not employees on property all the time. It's a relatively straightforward business. That said, I don't always think they're the best business to start. In fact, it's really hard to get a laundromat that can do millions of dollars a year. We have one group of them that can, but it requires a lot of employees and a wash and fold service. The reason that I talk about laundromats is you nailed it, because it's a gateway business. So I call businesses that, you know, allow people to start understanding acquisition and gateway businesses, which basically mean you get a little taste and then you get hooked.
Starting point is 00:08:30 You get hooked on this idea of dealmaking and acquisition. And I think laundromats are a great way to do that, which is why I start with those types of business. Similar for like venue machines, ice vending machines, they're not incredibly expensive and they're simple. And the worst thing that you can do is have your first deal go sideways. You don't want that. You want your first deal to go pretty smooth because then you'll continue executing on them and do bigger and more complex deals.
Starting point is 00:08:53 If someone wanted to get into some of those deals and look at start. small, maybe with something like a laundromat, what would be the best way to get started running due diligence and running the numbers on that? So I always talk about learn, earn, invest. That's the three steps. So before you do anything, if you're watching videos on Instagram, TikTok, online, whatever, I think what you should do is start with learning. The reason why is even if you buy a laundromat tomorrow, the amount that you can earn on it is capped. It has a limited upside like most businesses do. Your ability to earn is unlimited as a human. And so I like investing in yourself. first. That's why we created an education company. So the first thing that I would do is I would go sign up for
Starting point is 00:09:31 our free newsletter at Contrary in Thinking. I would sign up for a free newsletter at unconventional acquisitions. We have a course there if you want to learn about business buying. You can also just sign up for the free newsletter, you know, no pressure either way. But I would make sure that you spend 30 to 60 days sort of immersed in this idea of doing M&A. The cool part is say you never buy a business. The ability to negotiate and do deals and think about structuring and equity is something you're going to thank me for for the rest of your life. So you don't actually have to do a deal to get an ROI on this. So that's where I would start. And I think you kind of want to get obsessed about your curiosity for that 30 or 60 day window. And then once you have the framework for how to actually buy
Starting point is 00:10:10 these businesses, you've done the course or you've compiled your own learning methodology online, then I think you can get into the actual numbers and tactics. But first, you've actually got to understand the foundation. Otherwise, you'll be set on a wobbly pill. Absolutely. And one of the things that you talked about is some of the ways that you can accelerate the cash flow in your laundromat. You talked about that in one of your articles, the seven income streams that you added to your laundromat. So what are some creative ways that you can actually accelerate that upside that you were just talking about? Yeah, you know, I think this is a fascinating part about businesses. Like if you wanted to increase your income on your real estate property, it'd be really hard, right?
Starting point is 00:10:43 Like the market's got to go up. I get, you know, you could upgrade the property some degree, but you can't really go crazy. And so it's kind of out of your control. You just have to play the waiting game or the fix it game. And then, you know, there's still some sort of cap. With the business, there's more options than you can imagine. So for some of our laundromats, for instance, like we're putting in vending machines into one. So you can do vending machine ads.
Starting point is 00:11:05 You can do ads of different types of services. Like the fold has traditional laundromats that you go in and do yourself. They also have a done for you model, which is like, you know, they pick up your laundry, they wash it, they fold it, they send it back to you. You could add a partnership with the dry cleaners. I typically don't recommend buying dry cleaners. There's a lot of issues with like, um, remediation of dry cleaning facilities. So that's a different subject. But you could add a
Starting point is 00:11:28 partnership with a dry cleaner. You could buy more laundromat. So if you have one like we do, you can add a few more to it. You could buy the software that underlines the laundromat machines. Or you could invest in the laundromat machines. You could add coin machines to it. It's like somebody reached out to us for a Bitcoin ATM to put in our laundromat. So I think there's about 72 ways you can add revenue streams to even a simple business like laundromats. And I absolutely love that because you're right. If you're managing a rental property or something like that, the only thing you could do is maybe add on to it. It's really expensive. But there's a lot of inexpensive ways to really increase your cash flow in these businesses. And there's a lot of ways to get creative with it as
Starting point is 00:12:03 well. It's very cool. So another really cool business that you profiled was the ice vending machine business. And I had one in a small town I grew up and I remember seeing it all the time and we're like on the coastal area and we would always get our ice when we go fishing and on the boat and stuff like that. And I never thought about the business side of that. But you profiled one and I thought it was incredibly cool. So tell us more about that ice bending machine business. Yeah, it's a similar idea to a laundromat, which is how can you have a business that works for you without you working on it constantly and with a minimal amount of employees? Because when you start, you know, employees can be really tough to manage. And so I like high margin, low people businesses.
Starting point is 00:12:40 And then as you grow, people become a different type of leverage. But I think to start out, it's better to not have a giant team for you to manage. And so these ice bending machines are fascinating. But essentially, you see them on, you know, roadsides at gas stations, buy like national parks next to lakes. And basically, you go up to them and you fill your ice chest with a bunch of ice. And they're not the ones with the bags of ice. They're the ones where the ice just kind of comes out of a shoot. And essentially, the part that I like about this business is no employees, again, relatively little maintenance and overhead. They cost anywhere from $30 to $130,000, but you can finance them. and you put them on a property that's either yours or leased pretty cheaply.
Starting point is 00:13:21 And you can cash flow, I mean, the numbers are all over the place. But let's say anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 a year per machine. And if you add a few of those, it actually becomes a nice little income stream in which you could actually profit to the tune of tens of thousands a year off of something that you only paid $30,000 to $150,000, let's say. That would be really hard to do with real estate. Absolutely. It's just frozen water.
Starting point is 00:13:44 You're profiting off that frozen water. I've seen them in some cool areas like really busy grocery stores and stuff like that as well. I love that. And then another really cool one that you profiled was your friend Lisa, who started the mini mailboxes business as you called it. And I think it's a really, really cool business. And that's a great article. I'll link it up below as well.
Starting point is 00:14:00 But tell us about that business and how Lisa got started. Yeah. So Lisa is sort of similar to me. She has lots of different businesses that she does. She's always looking for ways to one and back to her community in Las Vegas. And two, find ways to start businesses that are pretty inexpensive that have some sort of recurring revenue. Lisa is more of an expert in real estate. So she owns now the Engel Thulker's franchise in Vegas. But she was like, you know, looking at storage. She was looking at multifamily.
Starting point is 00:14:27 She was looking at single family. And then she came across UPS franchises. And essentially was like, yeah, maybe I'll do a UPS franchise and I'll have one of my friends run it. And what she realized is the UPS franchise business is really all about the PO boxes where people go and they have their business and they get their mail sent to there. But UPS limits the amount of mailboxes you can have in your store. And so she was like, actually, it'd be better to open up my own store, let's call it Lisa's package ship, and have a ton of these PO boxes. And basically, it's like a little mini storage center. Now, you've got to have somebody run the actual location. You have to have somebody send out the packages. So there is work here and there are employees. But I love the
Starting point is 00:15:09 reoccurring model of these tiny PO boxes. It's like mini real estate. Exactly. That's the coolest part about it is it's like little mini real estate. I have one of those at the UPS store, and it's like 500 bucks a month. And if you have a bunch of them, the cool thing about, I think that article that you were talking about is Lisa could get more into those by just creating her own business instead of having the UPS business, which is really interesting. Yeah, that's exactly right. I always try to ask myself and this is the same. Like, how would I do this if it was easy? If I really wanted to make income, but I wanted to do it in an easy way, what would be the easiest path to my goal?
Starting point is 00:15:40 And so that's how she got to that answer instead of the UPS franchise. Exactly. That makes complete sense. So lately, I've been noticing how fast things are changing at home. The kids are growing like crazy, clothes don't fit anymore, and routines are changing. And it just hits you. Life is expanding. And when your life grows, your responsibility grows with it. That's something I've been thinking about more this spring, making sure the safety net we have in place
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Starting point is 00:17:52 And another cool one that you profiled was Quinn and his vending machine business. And I think that's one where you can really start with a low cost. So tell us a little more about that business as well. Yeah. So Quinn's a friend of mine. And Quinn started a vending machine business after being a software sales guy. So, I mean, making six figures, doing well in California. But working like crazy.
Starting point is 00:18:10 I'm sure a lot of people can relate. And he basically was like, how could I do something on the side that I could scale up that would make some money for me, but wouldn't be hyper time intensive. And so he ended up buying some vending machines, you know, sodas, snacks, etc., placing them at locations around San Diego and essentially cash flowing on those vending machines. The part that's interesting is I think people think about vending machines as a logistics business, but it's also a sales business. Since he's a good sales guy, he calls up these locations and talks them into why he should be the one to be there and often negotiates better deals for him to get located on their property. And then, you know, now he has, I don't know, 15, 30 machines, something like that and does anywhere from 15 to $30,000 a month. And that's from vending machines. It certainly didn't start there.
Starting point is 00:18:58 But, you know, and the other thing I would say is a lot of people in the vending machine world are like, oh, you know, it's going to cost you $3,000 for a machine or it's going to cost you $5,000 for a machine. then the truth is it can. But again, ask yourself, like, what if it was easy? What if I didn't want to spend $3,000? And that's when you go and look for refurbished machines online. That's when you go and look for vending routes that you can purchase. And you try to think about whatever your goal is, is there an easier mechanism or a cheaper mechanism to achieve it. And I've seen even people on Twitter just finding these vending machines where people just want them out of their hair and they get these vending machines, they repair them.
Starting point is 00:19:32 And then they start to make money off of these free machines that they built up. and then they started to build a larger business around it. So it's a very cool way to get started inexpensively, I think, especially with some of these types of businesses. I totally agree. So if someone's listening to us and they say, this is a really cool idea, I want to get started buying boring businesses. Where should they go and look for them?
Starting point is 00:19:49 Should they look at biz buy sell? Should they call owners? Or there are other creative ways that they should start looking for businesses? Yeah, I actually think the best way to do it is to look to your personal network. I call it my personal P&L strategy. So that basically means, like in the unconventional acquisitions course, I think we have 13 different mechanisms to go and find a business to buy. Yes, you can go to Biz Buy Sell, but just like MLS, except on steroids, the worst businesses are usually the ones that are publicly listed.
Starting point is 00:20:14 And so what you really want to do is you want to talk to the people around you. You want to talk to your landscaper. You want to talk to your video production guy. You want to talk to your dad's friends or your mom's friends. You want to talk to your boss's friends. You basically want to just start telling people that you're interested in either buying or running somebody's sort of everyday normal business. And the more you do that, the more you do that, the more realize most business owners have a dollar amount in their head where if somebody offered it, they'd sell them right now because they're tired, because it's hard, because they're ready for the new challenge, because they want to retire, whatever it is. And so that's the way that you
Starting point is 00:20:47 should actually do it. It takes more work than plugging in car washes onto a site like Biz Buy Sell, but you'll have an infinitely higher likelihood of outcome. Absolutely. And I'll even give you an example of that where we bought a coin operated car wash and we were looking at it. And it looked like it was worth somewhere around 120 to 150. So we made the offer on it. We knew they wanted more than that. It was on biz buy sell. We made the offer on it. And they actually accepted it. And we just did what it was worth. And that was it. So it's a really cool way. Just offer what the numbers are actually showing you. And then you can go from there. But I love it. Exactly. So it's awesome. But say some people are listening and this is their aha moment. They want to start buying these
Starting point is 00:21:23 cash flowing businesses and create wealth. So how would you recommend that they structure these deals? Should they do seller financing or should they go get an SBA loan? Or what's the best way to do that? I think it depends on what you want to do. I think the best deal is always seller financing if you can get it. So anytime you can get somebody to give you a business for future profits at a low interest rate for an extended period of time, that's a win. Unless you can do even better, which would be like a rev share, buy a business that somebody doesn't even want to have, like my friend Drew Sanaki does, and say, hey, we'll buy your business for $1, but we'll give you a cut of all future revenue. That would be a pretty good deal. I mean, you could certainly go raise capital for any of these deals.
Starting point is 00:22:01 So if you didn't want to put your own personal loan, you know, or personal guarantee on the line, which you have to do for an SBA, you could raise money from other people and let them take on the risk. Or you could go to the SBA and get a loan from the government for, you know, 70 to 90% of the price of the business. So I think those are all ways that are actually really accessible. I'd say SBA loans are probably the most annoying to do, but, you know, more common than the other two. Absolutely. They seem more accessible at times, too, which is interesting as well. But the seller financing is one of my favorite ways to do it because I think it's just one of the easiest ways to go about it, especially if you're working with a seller who really wants to creatively sell or they want some cash flow for their retirement or whatever else. It's a great way to do it. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:22:43 So what is a good multiple when you're looking at some of these businesses or what are these businesses typically go for? You know, it varies wildly. The bigger the business, the more it's going to sell for, obviously. So, well, not obviously. It could be, you know, an unprofitable business, in which case that's not the case. but by and large, you have higher multiples when you have higher revenue and higher profits. I like to buy businesses right around the 2 to 3x profits range. And so if I'm buying a business that's doing less than $5 million in revenue, I'm typically looking to pay 2 to 3x the profits of the business. But you'll see plenty of businesses, especially right now with a lot of interest in this,
Starting point is 00:23:17 selling for 4 to 8x profits below the $5 million mark. So it really will vary. I think the most important thing for you is just figuring out what you want from the business. Do you want a business that is break even in three years? Do you want a business that returns all your capital in five? Do you want a business that cash flows at least X? Do you want a business that's maybe bigger and a little bit more expensive, but it's got an operator in place? So price is just one component of it. It's an important one, but I definitely don't think it's the most important or the only one. Speaking of operators, I know that's one big thing. If you want to
Starting point is 00:23:49 start buying a bunch of these businesses, you have to find good operators and put them into place. And that's been one of my bigger struggle. So how do you find good operators for your businesses. Yeah, it's really tough. I think you have to create operators. I think by and large, what I do is I have a grouping of humans who when I engage with them, I'm like, oh, you don't exactly love what you do. You're hypercompetent. You want to do something else. And I kind of carry them along with me. They're typically friends and people I know, family members that run some of these businesses. You know, there are people in the military that my husband worked with before. So I think one of the best ways to do it is not experienced talent, but known talent, meaning you know them.
Starting point is 00:24:26 they know you. I think that's one of the fastest and most expeditious ways to do it. A lot of times I like to steal from competitors. So like the best way to know if somebody's going to succeed as a car wash operator is if they've been a car wash operator before. And so if you can offer slightly better terms, if you can give somebody equity, if you can pay them a little bit more, you can often steal from businesses who have great managers but who aren't part of the ownership structure. Awesome. Those are some great tips as well because I think it's one of the biggest things. It's most important thing to make sure that your business is successful. Otherwise, you're going to have to go back into that business and start operating yourself. Right. So you want all of these businesses. How do you
Starting point is 00:25:03 manage your time every day? Yeah, you know, at this point, I'm pretty good in having a process to make sure that these businesses are run by the CEOs or operators of the business. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes I fall into it. There are a couple businesses that are either like too small but legacy that I got to offload or figure out or they're too big and need my help in some way, shape, or form. But for the most part, I try to buy businesses, have operators get into them and get out of their way. Or I invest in businesses with great operators already. And I just own part of the business and have some sort of distribution schedule. But they run the business.
Starting point is 00:25:39 I'm at a stage in my career where I'm more lazy about business ownership. I don't want to go and operate these businesses anymore. I've certainly been to many a car wash. I've certainly, you know, scrubbed mini a laundromat. But that's probably not something I'm going to do as much anymore. I buy a model called decentralized management, which basically means that I hire really great operators. I do a lot of screening on the front end and then I get out of their way because no business of mine is ever like too big to fail where it will take me down. If something's going wrong in the business, I say, okay, guys, well, that's a tough problem.
Starting point is 00:26:10 You got to run with it. I'm happy to have a strategy call with you, but I'm not getting my hands in the mix. And I love that. It's almost like what Warren Buffett's strategy was early on and then all these businesses grew because you let them run the business on their end. I think that's really interesting as well. So here are some questions that we ask all of our guests, Cody. So what are some of your favorite books, specifically if we're going to look into buying boring businesses? What are some of your favorite books on that topic? You know, there's not a lot of books.
Starting point is 00:26:34 There's one book called Buy Than Build by Walker Debel. So that's one. About buying businesses in general, I think the most important thing probably to do up front is actually figure out what you want. So before I would tell somebody to just go learn exclusively about buying businesses. Like one of the first segments in our course is a deal clarity portion because somebody will ask me, is this a good deal? Is this a bad deal? And I'm like, I have no idea for you. Like, it could be a great business or it could not. And so I actually like this other book that Rollo May wrote
Starting point is 00:27:07 called Man's Search for Himself, not to be confused with Man Search for Meaning, because it basically tells you what you care about as a human. And I think you need to figure that out first before you go and buy a bunch of businesses because you might end up buying a job and that might not make you happy or you might end up buying, you know, a really big business that you don't have time to run. And so I would start with those too. Buy and Build is one of my favorite books that I read in the last couple of years. And it's just so cool. It even paints the picture for you showing you you can get an SBA loan, put 10% down on a million dollar business and you have a million dollar business for $100,000. So there's just
Starting point is 00:27:40 some cool things in that book as well. So we'll link both those books down below so you guys can check those out. And this is the main one that we always ask everybody, Cody. What is wealth mean to you? Freedom, simply. I believe that financial freedom is the foundation for all freedom. On top of that, you can layer philosophical freedom and physical freedom. But without financial freedom, you know, you can't make a lot of choices. You can't do a lot of things for yourself. I also think you're a lot harder to fuck with if you're financially free. And so that's always been a big purpose for me. It's like, I want to be big enough where I can say, I don't want to do that. No, I will not compromise my values that way. No, I won't let you do that to somebody else.
Starting point is 00:28:18 In fact, if you do, I'm going to fight you monetarily. And so I think that is what money means to me. People laugh because some of the stuff we talk about sounds get rich quick. And I'm like, well, I don't really want to get rich slow. So, you know, I'm not looking for schemes, but I am looking for a way for human beings to get as much financial freedom as they can as quickly as they can because then I think you can do really interesting things. Exactly. That's what this entire podcast is about is teaching people how to gain that freedom. So that aligns exactly with what we talk about all the time in this podcast.
Starting point is 00:28:48 So, Cody, thank you so much for coming on today. Where can people find out more about you? I think the best spot is country and thinking.com. We have a weekly newsletter. You mentioned it. And then also we're big on all the socials. So if you want to follow on like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, we're in all of those. That's Cody Sanchez.
Starting point is 00:29:03 Awesome. We'll link all of those down below as well in the show notes. So everybody make sure you go check those out and we'll go from there. Thank you so much, Cody. We truly appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time.
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