EYL #112 Big League feat. Darrell Freeman Sr.

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All right, guys, welcome back. Ey L is still in Atlanta, enjoying our time out here. And this is a this is a very special episode for a few different yes, yes, yes, so dal Freeman really, dal Freeman Senior, this is gonna be an interesting conversation because so if your loyal listeners are your leader, you know that we interviewed Swimming Husky. Shout out to the whole team. So those guys have a unique pizza operation that they're running, and they're from Nashville, Tennessee.

I just learned as well.

So that started the conversation of like, yo, yah should interview him.

Was like he's the old Okay.

So it's like all.

Right, so keeping in the Nashville We've interviewed a few people from Nashville.

Now out there we got snoop.

Right now, go to the plane part two.

You want to talk about first.

So this is the first time somebody flew into the interview now commercial like literally like, hey, I'm leaving Tennessee with my plane to fly to Atlanta right now.

He did. That's the first he did. He did.

He flew, he flew himself private plane to the airport, did the interview, and then he's going Ferrari shop.

So it might be for this.

Dal Freeman so serial entrepreneur, founder of Zecon Zikon Computer computer Services and is an IT company. He actually sold to BG Staffing. I started in nineteen ninety one, sold it in twenty seventeen for twenty three million dollars three million, twenty three million.

You break it down for you, okay.

Twenty nineteen million cash making their stock and a three million.

Dollar okay, came to twenty twenty three million, has two thousand dollars in it that you startarted with. That's a good, great return, I know.

I mean there's a stock broke in here somewhere that put those numbers.

Don't let that go over you, please don't, please don't. He's also the co founder of Relyant Bank. He is a real estate investor, big time real estate investor. He is the co founder of Pinnacle Construction partners. He also is a chairman of S three asset recycling solutions company. Anything I'm missing, Troy uh. He has a two dollars general he competed, he completed, not competed, completed ten iron Man races.

Yes, I mean, and and he's a his stock investor.

So I think we got it all.

I'm trying to hit the table. So yeah, his reputation precedes itself. So first and foremost having me thank you for joining us. I was just about to say thank you for joining us, no problem. So let's jump right into it because this is an interesting conversation. I was telling you, we've never had anybody that has sold their business. We've had a couple of people that's been offered, you know, buyouts,

Right, So can you.

Walk us through that that first process, because it's a long process. From nineteen ninety one to twenty seventeen, that's a long process. But how did what was that steps into building that business and then selling that business?

So I started the company in the office the size of a closet, with two thousand dollars in savings, my wife's credit cords.

You're still married to it. Rights lost a couple of credit cards a long way, but we got them back.

So it went from one person to about three hundred people. And the main things that when you're building a business, you want to build stability, You want to build you want to get customs with long term contracts.

You want to create a history of.

Performance, and you want to build a business around people, not around yourselves, around yourself. And so what happens most of the times is the entrepreneur builds the business around his or herself. And so I built the business from nineteen ninety one to somewhere in two thousand and six or seven. I built it from ten thousand and sales to about sixteen million in sales. But I recognized that I couldn't take it any further because I didn't have

Forty million a year a year.

Okay, sixteen I'm sorry, sixteen million a year in revenue to about forty million a year in revenue. Our conversations would go like this. I would say, why don't we try this? I was a chairman. He would say, he would say back to me, when I tried that at the other company, this is what happened.

So he came to the table with.

A bunch of experience, right, And so I built a company around people got long term contracts. I had an outstanding accounting department, because you need to have numbers. They need to be they need to be numbers that are all your TC's across all your ic to be dotted every year. Even though I didn't have to. I got a certified audit. I got all our numbers outed it every year.

And so.

When we got to about forty million, we got it was like a We got to forty million, but we couldn't get any higher. And I recognized at that time I had the forty million dollar team. I didn't have the hundred million dollar team. It is before when I was leading it, I had the sixteen million dollar team.

I built a quality company. And so.

When you do that in the marketplace and you create cash flow and consistent ebitdah, people recognized Green. So I approached a a banker here in Atlanta and said, we're interested in selling, and we talked about the business and what it needs. You know, what needs to change in the business, et cetera. Accept and I said, hey, I can make those adjustments. And so we put the business. We went through a process with the banker. Now, choosing the banker is that's a very important decision because you

And so how does that search process work?

Right, Like, if I'm a person that has I want to sell the company, how do I know, like this is the best person in the industry.

So I interviewed them.

Okay, I interviewed them.

So I wanted to see who was the best in the business. So I called a couple of VC funds, uh VC people and they said, well, if we're buying a company, we normally will buy it from here. And so we found a guy by the name Alan Bugler, Child's advisor here in Atlanta.

He was terrific.

I mean he you know, he brought he brought the So we put the package together. He brought the players to potential buyers at the table, and we met with them, had drinks with them, talk with them.

The first time.

The first offer was like fourteen million dollars, and I said, guys, here's the other thing.

You gotta know what your value is. I knew that wasn't the number.

You walked in with it in your mindset.

So how do you value Because all right, so if you if you're making if the company is making forty million a year gross gross, right, right, So how did you decide? Because I always heard this like like was it ten times the net that you're bringing in? Is that like a rough hand.

No, So it varies, but it varies by industry.

So in the staffing business, at that time, business was businesses were selling for anywhere from five to seven times ebitdah and that uh, income before taxes, interest, appreciation and some other.

Okay, that's happening.

So where they where they they.

Kind of level out.

You know, what the business is worth if you take out if you take out what you paid in taxes, what you paid out and depreciation, what you paid out I think I said taxes, what you put out an interest, and so it kind of puts the business on a level playing field. So you strip all those things out and find out what the actual cash flow of the businesses. And so in our business, I sold it for about five six times ibad.

Uh and so that's what it was true. That's a lot of business was selling for.

Now I am now in the recycling business information technology recycling business business. The multiple for ebadad sales for in this business is eight to fourteen times, so it has a chance to be way more valuable right than the first one. And so that's how you so you took me. You determine what your ebadat is and then you know in the marketplace what we're trades at. And one way you can do that is you can go to the

So so you sold, all right, so five times what you were kind of bringing in that for layman terms kind of similar to that, similar to that, So you knew you had that twenty million dollar number. So when they came in fourteen the first offer, what was your response like, was it a negotiation or what? Just like fled out no good, okay, yah good? And how many other offers came before that twenty million?

Officers came in different ranges And so sometimes people they may offer you that, they may say, well, hey, we'll give you fourteen million cash cash, we'll give you four million of our stock and another four million in earnout. So all I can about was cash, because if I took your stock and they didn't do anything, and if your stock is private, it's worseeness to me. Right, And if I took four million in earnout, earnout means I got to perform for a certain period of.

Time to get that. Well, I didn't want that.

I wanted the majority of the sale to be cash.

And so so the.

Nineteen million cash and a million of stock that was publicly traded that actually doubled when I had it.

So and then we want to three million earnout.

Yeah, that's the part I'm thinking about. So the earn out part, are you still working?

You sell the company, but you're still working, and you have like things you need to meet, goals you need to meet to reach the three million.

I'm gonna now, I'm gonna take you back to when I fired myself and hire the person the earnout. So it was nineteen million cash on April third and a milligan stopped. Then a three million dollar earnout that was over a two year period based on the company's performance. Right, And so since I had a team in place, I didn't have to go and do that performance. Because we had a team in place that was running the company.

I have one hundred million dollar team, definitely the US.

They hit the numbers. I got the three million.

Now what I also did when I sold the company, there was a there was a group of people that had been with me for a long time.

Ask about that.

They built me for a long time.

And I had a good friend of mine who started the company with me back in nineteen ninety one, who had retired a whole bunch of years back. And so I called them all into a room and I said, you all have been with me for a long time. I remember I just got the wire. And I said, here's a check. Here's a check for you, a check for you, a check for you, big checks that they ain't never seen before. And then one individual has two he had two small kids, and I said to him, I said, I know why.

You're working, because he was my age. You know why you're working.

You got two small kids. You're working because college fund, et cetera, et cetera. I said, what I want you to do is you go home to your wife and you find out from her what it's going to take to send your two kids to college. These kids for eight ten years old. You go home and find out what's going to take to send them to college. I'm back tomorrow and let me know what that number is. He went home, He came back, tell me what the number was. I told myself, go in his office and

Are the ones that make the company valuable.

It's not you.

So you see all you see a bunch of companies today where they built the companies around them themselves.

You can't grow that way. When everything has to flow through you.

It's hard to grow, and it's not you're not building value because if you want to go sell it, they know that if you if you get hit by a bus tomorrow, you that the party's over. But if you build a team that has value.

Can we go back just for a second, because I'm thinking, and I guess in twenty twelve, when you decided, like, in order for this company to grow, I need to set back to find myself. What's that process like? Is it like a you have to like weigh these things in the mirror. It's like, because I don't imagine this is like an ego check or it's a humbling experience.

That's That's the other thing. You don't need to have an ego as an entrepreneur. You have confidence, but you don't need to have an ego. So I knew, now.

Mind you, at sixteen million a year, I had a great lifestyle. I had a plane, but it wasn't I mean, I had.

A little plane. It wasn't a plane I got now, but I had a little plan.

I was thinking, like I had a car but okay, But but.

It was a comfortable lifestyle.

But for the people around me to grow and to develop, I needed to grow that company to help them grow and develop.

You got you.

You know people that have been with you for ten years. One start out as a junior accountant. For me to need a CFO, I need to grow that company so she could grow into that role. And so growing a company for me was more so about the people than the money. When when I sold the company, now I told you I started with two thousands and savings.

My payroll was two My payroll was a million dollars every.

Two weeks in ninety one.

No, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, it was a million dollars every two weeks. It was about the people, and so we ran a company that was about the people. I'm doing the same thing with Street Recycling Solutions. It's about the people.

So when you walk away with the twenty million, a couple questions I have about.

That, it's good, I assume.

So I'm gonna do it again way more.

I believe. I believe what is the strategy to mitigate taxes?

Is that? Or you just have because it's like ordinary income right now?

No, it's not ordinary income. It's uh, it's tax capital games. It's like a stock cap. Okay, but you do. But see, you go through all that math in your head when you set the number twenty million, and whatever the number you set, you set that number in your head, and then you go through. You meet with your turney and say, this is what the deal looks like. You meet with your accountant. This is what the deal's look deal looks like, and then they tell you at the end of all

Yeah I got.

If I brought a jet I got, I might have to think about the few costs I might have to think about it.

The plane I got, Now I have to think about it.

And you stayed on what after you sold the company's we still with him?

Yeah?

So I had a two year out, so to sign a two year contract with them to be on their team for two years. It turned into it's a It turned into it turned out to be a great relationship because their CEO and me similar attitudes towards people. That the company is built on people, and so it's a great partnership. So when they when the two years were over, they said, let's do it again. And then three years came, they said, let's.

Do it again.

Is it the same CEO that you brought in?

No, this is the CEO of the company that bought my company. O. Now, the cool part about the people that were.

On the people that were on my team.

Most of them are still there and they've taken on more responsibilities.

So when this company went out and.

Bought other companies, they asked my CEO to run those companies.

Let's been ton, let's spend ton.

So so it's all about having the right people on your team.

When when you had and correct me if I'm wrong, did you you own the land that the company was on or you know, because that's that's that's the other play to it, because it's like, yeah, you stall the company, but you're still on the land.

Yes, And so Zach Clark spent a number of years.

You know.

Well, first of all, at the beginning, I couldn't buy anything right right, right right. We were paying our office space one hundred and fifty square feet. Our rent was one hundred and fifty dollars. Then I moved to the National Business Incubation Center, where we stayed.

For five years.

Kind of a low rent incubator, help us grow kind of place. Then when we left there, I bought a building, yeah, in North Nashville over the other projects. And people are like, well, why would you buy all? That's because I wanted to be an inspiration to the people in this neighborhood and so and.

Plus I bought the building. It's our building.

I'd rather have a place that I own in my neighborhood or our neighborhood, then be renting at some twenty five story office building in the middle of downtown.

I want to own it.

Where I grew up my family, there was five groups, five families, my mom, her sisters.

We were all renters. I don't want to rent. I don't want to rent. I don't want to read nothing. I don't want to read a car. I don't want to rent nothing.

And so, yeah, we bought the building, and then we outgrew that building, but I kept it, and.

Now it's least we bought another building.

I kept it.

The company that bought my company stayed in it for a year, paid me rent for a year, and then yeah.

That's amazing, that's incredible.

Love it. That's it. That's the key.

But I'll tell you a funny story about that building. So they stayed in it for a year, and then I decided it wasn't a good decision.

I decided I was going to sell it.

So I bought it for six hundred thousand, put three hundred thousand dollars in it. So now I got nine hundred thousand in it. I decided in twenty seventeen, after two thousand twenty eighteen, seventeen eighteen that I was going to sell that building. I put on them work for two point four million, and a guy came and said, I'll give you two million for it, take it or leave it.

I didn't like the way he talked to me. I told him to get lost.

He talked to me as though I needed to have the that I need, like I needed the money, like it was a desperate And then I got there thinking about, man, all these years I've been buying real estate, why should I start selling now? So now, my daughter on vacation at our home in the Bahamas last week, she came up with a new mission statement, which is the Freemans ain't selling nothing no more real estate wise, that's our

Kids, it's easily you could easily pass it down.

So yeah, so where was that Chrumbin was located the corporate office now in our sellite office.

We didn't own those spaces all right.

So in that process, and I'm thinking, when does the Pinnacle Construction Partners come in?

Because if you're buying the real estate and maybe you're building.

It was that the vision like I'm going to have a construction company in the event that I body spaces.

No Pinnacle construction company came out of a large there was a large convention center being built in Nashurally. I can't think of the year that it was two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight. And so me and a friend of mine named Michael Carter, we pursued that opportunity with another company, and the other company thought that, you know, they thought that we started the company just to be a part of that build process, to be

We didn't win that, But we want a whole bunch of other things.

And so that business has been in business since two thousand and seven and it's located in our building.

So yeah, So the Slim and Huskies play, like you said, we talked about this with them. But Ray Krop and the founders when he said that McDonald's when he felt, well, somebody enlightened him, like McDonald's isn't a burger company, it's

So you talk about that a little bit.

Yeah, So when I met the Slim and Huskies, guys, first of all, brigant, process driven, way more process driven than me. I mean, these guys are about the nuts and the boats, the t's and crossing the t's and dotting the eyes.

These guys are solid. And so when I met him, we started talking.

I said, guys, you know, yes, you're in the piece of business, but you're really in the real estate business, whether you know that or not. And so why don't you know, why don't we schedule some time to visit my home in the Bahamas, will fly down on my plane, talk about your strategy and where it is, and you know, come up with a real estate play.

And so.

We did that, and so now we own three buildings and we've signed long term leases with the operating company. And so now they're running from themselves. I mean, and it's a great play in the event somewhere down the road fifty years, one hundred years, that they sell that company and they still own the real est. They don't have they don't have to sell the real estate. They just sell the company and continue to get the rental income.

I mean that's I.

Mean that they have to pay the defeat, which is like a million dollars something like that, just to open the franchise, and they have to pay the rent.

And then McDonald's every so many years can come to you and say, hey, we really don't like this location no more. We're gonna shut this location down. You are a business, but if you don't own the real estate. I mean, but if you own the real estate, you can say, okay, McDonalds, y'all, you all can go. I'm gonna put something else in here. That's why I like owning everything everything.

So talk about that triple net lease. What is a triple net lease?

A triple net least, I'll give you, as I told you guess before when I walked in. I don't talk about anything that I hadn't done. So triple at least triple at leases. So a tripple at least is For example, I owned a couple of Dollar General stores. Right, I owned the building. I don't own the operations, own the building and the land. Right so I signed at the

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Proof get damaged. They're responsible for paying that. They're also responsible for paying the taxes. So if the taxes go up from ten thousand dollars this year to twenty thousand next year, they're responsible for the taxes, and they're also responsible for paying the insurance.

Triple net leaks. They're going to pay for the maintenance, the insurance, and the taxes. You're going to get every mind it's a check.

So why would somebody do that?

Because it's like to my brain, at least the landlord is not what is The landlord is not responsible.

For anything nothing. I'm not responsible for anything.

Why would the tenant? Why would a tenant do that?

The market allows that, I mean they they they all their stores are triple that least. So when you look at the Walgreens or Dollar General, a lot of them have triple net least triple that leases.

Those locations have to play into that in that process well.

And so in the case of Dollar General, they picked their locations where they want to be and oftentimes they don't hire a developer to go build a building right where they wanted, and then an investor like me will come and buy the building from the developer. So Dollar General owns a bunch of they don't I'm sorry, they have a bunch of stores that they least they don't own.

M hm.

So there model is not like McDonald's.

Like even Walmart. Don't think Walmart owned they did you think about this? They just leased to space.

Least to space.

So for example, uh Me and some French coach founded the bank. We started the process in two thousand and four. We opened a bank in two thousand and six. The first two buildings that we built for the bank, we owned them. And so I mean we put that as a part of the perspectives that the board, some of the board members will owned the buildings. So we owned

You know we were.

It didn't look well to the public guy because now we became a public company. You know, you don't want to be on the board and getting a check from the bank for rent and so. But initially we before when we were private, we own the buildings, two of the buildings.

So the CEO of the Dollar Generals that you own is Rod McDaniel.

No, no, no, no, se I don't remember, yeah, because I'm thinking think about this. Yeah, I own two dollars general stores. I do nothing with operations, Okay, I'm not responsible for anything, nothing but going to the mailbox on the thirtieth to get the checks. When you sign a trip on at least you're responsible for You're not responsible

But they're doing they're managing the operations.

Yeah.

No, So I was saying from the standpoint of like when you did that Donald Generaldsdal and even the slim

Can you talk about like the thought process behind that or.

So starting the bank, it was starting the bank was a unique opportunity. A friend of mine named Farzane for those in the van or came to me and said, Hey, we're looking at starting the bank. Would you be interested in being and being involved with it? And I said, I said yes, And I said, this is how much capital you need to have to put into the bank to help get the started. And at the time, I think it was two hundred thousand dollars in investment from

So after that happens, it's like a border approval and things like that happen.

So Uh, each bank, each bank works differently, but depending on the size of the bank, you can have an executive loan committee. So maybe me, you, the three of us on the loan committee, and then you got the the loan officer. She will bring the loan to us and we will review it and decide whether we're going to fund it or not. But since I am pour owner of the bank or co founder of the bank, I know exactly what they're looking for.

And I also have one of the things.

One of the five seeds of credit or five seas of banking to get a loan is character. And if I vouch for your character, you may have some deficits in your credit. You may not have any cash or not enough collateral, but if somebody will vouch for your character, that will go a long way. And here's the thing that here's what I tell small business people all the time.

That's right.

So what what was the process of you actually like developing that bank, Like was just a bunch of cars coming together and say okay, we want to build a bank by an existing bank and just renamed it.

Like I'm sure there's a lot.

Of yeah, it's it's uh So I wasn't the brains behind the bank. I would say I was in. I was an investor in the bank. You know, I went through the entire process of getting the charter raise, helping raise the money, putting the money in, helping to hire the management team. Because to start the bank, you know, you got to go to the state and let it give them a business plan, and then you got to tell them who you're going to hire, and then you gotta tell them how much money you're planning to raise.

And all the.

Time you're paying those people that you've hired, but you hadn't opened the bank yet. You go back to the state and say, hey, we've We've got the money we said we're going to raise.

It's in the escrow.

And then the state said, okay, we'll give you a charter to start the bank in our case January six, two thousand and six. And then it's not that simple, but that's kind of yeah, but it takes money.

Yeah, that's the fact.

So outside of everything else that you need to know your your stock investor as well. Yes, he was telling us that you you brought Apple at a crazy price years ago.

Screenshot.

It's really so can you can you talk about that? As far as I know you said your value long term investor, but how important is it to diversified and not put all your in one basket? And yeah, can you talk about like what inspired you to purchase Apple into two thousand and seven?

I got on my phone, Yeah, I got you got I got it in my mind.

It was two thousand that was on will on vacation and they won't vacation in France, and what you said it wasn't sleep. And I was up on the computer buying stock. But I like buying stock in companies that I see in use all the time. You all talked about this. I mean, if you if you're on your Apple phone all the time and you don't own Apple, that's a problem.

I mean, if you mean, if you.

If you got Amazon boxes stacked all over your house and you ain't you don't own Amazon, that's a problem. And I don't own Amazon's. But if you using if you got Nike shoes and niked its like in that. So I try to buy companies that that I see people using all the time. I mean, like Facebook. I'm an investor in Facebook, then I'm investor in We talked about uh, some diffidence stocks.

But I try to.

Buy things that I see people using all the time, and so I may do a little deep do this little research.

But if I see people own the Apple all the time, was.

That your was that your best because you said you brought the fight? Was that your was that your your greatest stock?

Investment was crime was I told you I put two thousand.

Stop stop.

Probably have a five dollars cost basis in Apple, because I mean, is it that one something now? But that's that's not true price because it's split a few times so apples that you can really say it's like almost four hundred and fifty dollars probably if you would have taken taken away to split. So to have five dollars cost basis at four hundred and fifty dollars value.

I have it, my wife has it, my four kids.

Have it right, right, So that's part of the story to it was like you didn't just buy it, just got the memory. You said it was three thousand years in the photo. It was like, Yo, you bought something for you, you bought something for your wife, you bought something for your four kids.

It's like, and you've gone through two splits, not just one, because.

It's just I've gone through a bunch of splits, got through a bunch of splits. So generational yeah, So and that's how I look at every transit I do. I look at it through a generational lens. So the first thing I asked you guys when I first came in here, what's your plans? I look at a generational lens because at some point you need to exit. You need to exit, and so being an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is like being at a crap table and you're doing well. You

That you know.

Those guys are doing great. The chips are stacked up. But until you do this, you hadn't really won.

Because you have seen people at the crap table whose chips are stacked up, shout out whose chips are and they didn't do this, and the open here or two thousand and eight hit, but something happens. So that's why you got to plan the exit.

So let me ask you this as far, especially like for being a black business own. A lot of times people feel like there's two sides to the coin. And like if we if we always sell our businesses, we don't have the legacy brands of the Walmarts and we can't build those names sold. Did they well, they're publicly, but they took a bunch of chips off the thing they did, but they but they still the kids still have a large state sold. So the big question is

Okay, it ain't personal. Yeah, and I didn't have a black you can't you can't have. I had a great business. Can happen to be owned about black guys and so and as a as a father for happily merrit man. When you look at you talked about diversification. When you look at your nest egg and it's ninety percent in one company, that's dangerous. Yeah, that's dangerous. And so my chips were stacked and I didn't want something to happen.

And so.

Business is not personal, and we got to quit thinking of.

It that way.

You want to do a great job, you want to hire great people, provide them great opportunities, but at some point you need.

To exit because most of us go out of business. Let mean, think about it, think about it. So people came to me and said, man, I can't believe you sold your company. Why did you sell it? I said, twenty three million.

Dollars, twenty three million reasons.

But here's the deal. Some people came and said, why did you sell it?

And then some other folks came and said, how did you sell it?

Difference a difference to difference.

It's a difference.

How did you do it? That's my question. How did you do it? Not why did you do it? It's very obvious. I started a company two.

Thousand dollars twenty three million dollar evaluation? What would you do?

What we're talking about?

That's not even a question that.

We're talking about.

But I had I had one lady. She was all over me. She said, well, why did you do it? He's black owned company, and blah blah blah. I just said, twenty three billion dollars. Do you not understand?

So and so?

Here one more thing.

Yeah.

So when.

I got you, when the company was a sixteen million dollars and I realized I wasn't the person to take it to the next level, and I need a search to find the best person to run the company. He was a white guy. So how the white guy run this company. Now, my CEO at the time was black, my CFO was black. VP yourself is white. So I had a diverse team of folks. But people ask me, why did you hire the white guy to run your company?

Because he's the best, he's the best.

If you got a chance to hire Bill Gates to come run your company, we just said, now, I'm not gonna hire Bill because he's white. No, hire the best people, period. And if you do that, and I tell white people this, and I tell Black people this, If you hire the best people.

You're gonna get diversity. That's gonna happen.

Look at look at sports. They go out and find the best people. That's why you got diversity. You're finding guys from all Overseas coming to play ball here. You're gonna get diversity. So I had a diverse team because my focus is on quality. So a couple of stupid questions over the years for me, why'd you hire the white guy because she's the best.

And look what happened. We won a championship.

And you still trying to figure out how you gonna make your next move.

You have it. So the four phases of business.

This is interesting, you said, the idea, the startup phase, the run and grow, and then the sell. So because I think a lot of times most people they just start a business and it's like they don't really have any plan of like like when you met up, you're like what you're playing? Like how you playing on selling this? Like and a couple of people have actually asked me that before. So do you think every what's your advice

With the end in mind? Okay, star with the end of mind, where do you want this to be?

If you build a house, you got a vision of what you want that house to be, start with that in mind. Sto with what you want that business to be. Start with you know, uh, who don't want this business to what company? Don't want this company to be? Like oftentimes, what we do is we create jobs for ourselves, our businesses. It's a job for us. I mean if we don't go to work that next day, nothing happens. Most of us start businesses. Most businesses just have one person working for.

The owner.

So start with. A friend of mine named Scott Source says, start with how soon. Can you replace yourself and hire a bunch of good people. Start with that. Start with the understanding that you ain't the best person for the job. Start with the seven bigger people in the world. I guarantee that somebody better than you to do it.

Start with that's build it around the people. Start with in my company, I would never sit at the end of the table at the board table.

Strut with shrinking yourself so small that the people around you can perform that you don't overshadow them. Strut with stretching them and pushing them out front. And they ain't got to always they ain't got to be in the meeting and saying oh yeah. Under Daryl's leadership and under Darl's leadership, stuck my team knew not to ever do that. It was all about them.

Yeah, So can we can we go? And that that's a lot of valuable advice. Can we talk about three? Yeah, because if I'm listening to you to say that, I'm thinking, like, so, what's.

The vision for this?

Because this is.

So we're growing this business and obviously the evaluation so obviously that the playoff is gonna be bigger when we sell this.

So you asked me before we started, you know, not to hit the table.

Sorry, you asked me, why do I invest in businesses? And I have a philosophy, and that philosophy is I bet on the jockey, not the horse. I bet on a jockey because there are some people who are winners, regardless of any regardless of the situation you put them in, They're gonna find a way to win.

They gonna find a way to win. There's some folks that you know, you're like, man, oh, he won again, he won again.

So I bet on the jockey, not the horse. Street Recycling Solutions. I met this young African American CEO. At the time, he was twenty eight. They had four hundred thousand dollars in revenue, four employees, and I said, man, he's good.

And I could mentor him. He knows the industry.

He had a seven thousand square foot warehouse seven thousands small for recycling. So I invested about twenty percent of the company. I went back and bought another thirty one percent of the company. I went back and bought another now owned sixty four sixty five percent of the company. He owns a percentage and a couple other guys, but I'm the majority shareholder of the company. I needed to get majority on the ship so that when I spoke in the boardroom people would listens different.

But he was good, and so today in mentoring him.

Over the last years, it's gone from four hundred thousand dollars in sales.

To now it's about two and a half three million dollar company.

From seven thousand square feet that we were renting, you know, I would have never rented.

I came.

We're no longer renting. We bought a seventy five thousand square for.

Whose seven thousand and seventy five thousand.

Seven thousand to seventy five thousand. Our warehouse is bigger than the football field. We have signed four or five fortune five hundred companies to be our customers during COVID. Since March, the company has no debt outside of the debt for the real estate, no operational debt, and lots of cash. He is killing it and everybody needs it recycling and medical equipment recycling.

In my mind when I was, I.

Was everybody every corporation needs that. And he's the only one in that space that looks like him. So why can't I push him to the time.

So where are you at now as far as your career.

I know you have the charitable foundation, your family foundations. At this point in your life, are you more focused on still building businesses or helping people or combination of Like, what's your what's your twenty year plan?

Starting up today?

I told you that I have several port of jays, and I tell all of it.

If I can't help you add a megan or two.

Or three million dollars to your personal fans and statement, or if I can't help you make a million dollars or two million dollars, I shouldn't be your mental We should just be friends. We should just be drinking buddies. So my goal is to create a bunch of millionnaires. That's my goal. I got a friend and ask you who created?

So?

He created? He created so many millions we can't even count them. Include think myself.

He helped with me. My goal is to create a whole bunch of millionaires. That's my goal. The other thing, as a race to charity, we've donated my wife and I we've donated at least a half a million dollars to various charities. Next year, I'm gonna step my charity game up and why does why does that mean something? I want to be winning and giving. I want to be winning and giving because I grew up poor and I know there are a bunch of people that need help.

So you you had a obviously illustrious career, a lot of success, but there has been some failures, and so yes, can we talk about the American Addiction Center and some of the business biggest lessons we've learned from.

That American Addiction Centers took that company public and with a group of folks in two thousand October twenty fourteen. Very tough space it was. It was in vogue during that period of time, and then as insurance companies changed, as reimbursements change, it was devastating to the business. And so in that transaction, I think I lost between one and happened two billion dollars, and so that's my point. You gotta get in and get out. But we had

It's out good you have it, ladies and gentlemen.

It's been a pleasure of How can the people follow you on social media know you got a YouTube series when you actually interview people on.

When do you guys come up in the plane with me.

So I have a cockpit conversations where I take people up. We're successful, We talk about business concepts. We may talk about real estate, we got every checking. Take people up who are in corporate America, C level folks, talk about how they got to where they are. Just some inspirational stories. That gives me a chance to fly my plane and interview great folks. And then I'm on Instagram Dell Les Freeman, Sor and I also do a thing called OG free Game Friday.

I saw that og free Game Friday, and that's you know, I don't I've learned a lot because people have poured a lot into me.

This is not a I mean, I'm not a real smart person.

I've had some success, but it's because of people who've taken interest and said, hey, I'm gonna help you. And so I used the Internet and I used to copy conversations to whatever they poured in me. That has some value to be able to put it back out into the space. So it's just what I like doing it. And I admire what you all are doing because us you're bringing some real nuggets and you bring some real meaningful information appreciate that.

Yeah, I appreciate I told you that when we met downstairs. I'm like, I've known people my whole life and they know what we're doing and have never reached out to say anything. And you heard one episode, and like, I can guarantee once a month you're gonna send me something inspirational, whether it's you in the cockpits or it's you on the island.

To give you the real stuff.

Next time, I think you handle Man.

Now we're gonna be we're gonna be in the picture together.

That okay to come down to the island, man, Yeah, we gotta take my plane down.

We gotta come read the boat either.

Bamas, yeah, bahamas, I got a pictures.

I wouldn't expect anything. I wouldn't expect it. I wouldn't expect any paradise island.

I'm on my way.

Not paradise.

That sounds accident boom. I've been.

Island is nice.

We're gonna take it, Okay, I've been. I've been a nasal sound.

And you look at me when and you fly with me, you gotta take your shoes.

Off straight to the clip.

You're gonna we're.

Gonna drive the car right up to the plane.

I'm ready, man, I'm ready. If we didn't have market Monday, I would be right now.

I don't tip me with a good time. I appreciate it. I definitely appreciate it. I'm sure the audience appreciates it as well as uh. You know, it's always good to get first hand information from people that have experience and have done it. And you know, there's no better way to learn than to actually learn from somebody as opposed to like doing it in theory, like you actually did it in real life. So a thank you for joining us, and thank you for just being generous, because it's another

So appreciate that. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you the mentor.

I'll tell you what, I'm humble.

Thank you, guys, thank you man, thank you, thank you.

Troy housekeeping it on shout everybody on pitcheon dot com. Y'all know that's our product, paid program. Everybody that's been supporting. We greatly appreciate it, y'all know.

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Yes, So thank you guys for rocking with us. We'll see you next week.

Peace.

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