Building one successful business for most of us can be hard. So how do you build seven successful companies over the last 25 years, with run rates between 5,000,020 $5 million? With two of these companies making the Inc 500 Fastest Growing Companies, you have to ask yourself, what are the keys to success that are duplicatable that many times? How do you as the entrepreneur as the serial entrepreneur, how do you lead? How do you manage your day? What do you do in your
day? And what are the superstar DNA characteristics of a serial entrepreneur? Don't worry, I have Stephen Halasnik joining me today on MindShift, and he's going to break it all down. You'll not just hear him talk about the entrepreneurial journey, but the tipping point that made him become an entrepreneur in the first place.
My name is Darrell Evans, I am the host of The MindShift Podcast and over the last three decades, I too have been on the entrepreneurial journey, and each week in this show, we interview successful entrepreneurs to help you shift your mind so that you can shift your results.
This is The MindShift Podcast where we share real stories, real strategies that will help you find real success. This is the place to hear from people just like you who've taken their ideas, goals, and dreams from a point of inspiration to realization, or when life knocked them down from a point of breakdown, to breakthrough. I'm your host, Darrell Evans. Let's get started with today's
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Stephen, welcome to The MindShift Podcast. How you doing today?
I'm good. I'm happy to be here. It's always fun.
Yeah, excited to talk with you, man. You got a backstory that's just exciting to dig into never failed 5-6-7 ventures, introduce yourself to the audience tell everybody where you're calling in from.
So my name is Stephen Halasnik. I'm 58 I calling in from the mountain and lake region in New Jersey, which most people don't know, there is a lake in the mountain region of New Jersey. I'm an hour outside of New York. I live in a beautiful area. I'm lucky to live here. And I've been an entrepreneur for 30 years now. So I started off my career at a major company, Xerox, for eight and a half years when I was a top sales rep in the country for them. And then I started my own company at age 30.
What made you decide to leave corporate what was the itch? Or that that bug? What was it that drove you to leave corporate obviously had a lot of success in corporate.
Yeah, I loved Xerox, I really, but I'm a very Yeah, what was it? driven person, I always I've always have a vision for myself. So I mean, at the age of 17, when the hot entrepreneurs were Bill Gates and Steve Jobs when they were 22 years old, my vision was to start my own business. And I said, I'm gonna go work for a big company, learn, makes mistakes on their time, and start my own company. And that's exactly what I did. The Xerox world, I loved working
for the company. I think I might even continued to stay there because I was really happy doing what I was doing. I made good money. I treated me really, really well. I wasn't good at the politics game. That's not my strength. And so I moved up to the level of management and at that level, you had to have good EQ, emotional intelligence, you had to have good political skills. I was not I knew that that was my weakness. And I knew I wouldn't be happy if I didn't start my own company at some point.
Yeah. What would you attribute your early success through your 20s at Xerox because I believe that a lot of entrepreneurs can find that their calling you very similar story, I had a seven or eight year run in management and couldn't do the politics wasn't nowhere near the size of Xerox but I realized that I so driven that I would want to chart my own path. But a lot of times, it takes a lot of discipline to succeed in a big corporate
environment. So I want to compare and contrast that employee run and then kind of bridge the gap to the entrepreneurial run because the mindsets a little bit different, or is it?
Well, for me, it's drive, you know, I mean, that's like my middle name. I'm very, very, very driven. And so you know, it's not difficult at a big company like Xerox, which by the way, most people are a little younger. They don't realize it Xerox was the Google of its day. It's a great company to work for. But for me, I was in sales. So I had gone through a lot of different sales positions, you know, five different promotions in those
eight and a half years. And by the way, professional sales is completely different than retail sales. You know, it's it's a, it's a consultative sale and I'm selling, you know, equipment that's $500,000. You know, so I mean, it's this is not like little copiers. So anyway, so the answer your question was in sales, it's about the numbers. You know, that's all they don't care if they like you, or they don't like me yeah, it's a part
of it. But if if your numbers are there, they love you, you know, it's like having your best sales rep. You. Unfortunately, you give them a lot of leeway because they're bringing in big box, and they're hard to find. So it wasn't difficult for me to do really great at Xerox. And it was because I was extremely driven, really good at my job, really care about it. And I put the time in and a great bunch of people, man to tell you unbelievable, I loved working there. They're really talented people.
Do you feel like sales and that early success? And that drive led you to become a great entrepreneur?
I don't think yes. But I don't think so. I don't think it's the I think that's me. And you know, I think every entrepreneur has something that they bring to their profession, right, Bill Gates, it was, and I'm not comparing myself to Bill Gates. But Bill Gates was an introvert, which is extremely rare in being an entrepreneur 95%. and I'm just using my statistics, but 95% of entrepreneurs are extroverts, or at least not introverts. So you
never know, right? You never know why somebody and I'm so lucky I, you know, I belong to the same entrepreneur group for 25 years. And so I know tons and tons and tons of entrepreneurs, and really closely in fact, I'm playing poker with nine of them on Thursday. And they're all so different. So there isn't one way.
Interesting. Couple of things that just popped up. So 25 years, you've been a part of this same entrepreneurship group, is this more of a mastermind is it a?
So it's, it's through the Entrepreneur Organization, which is very, very popular, it's 15,000 members throughout the world, that we all formed or got together in that group, most of them have been there the whole time. It's been an amazing, great experience. And you really need to be in some type of group, if you want to survive.
Talk a little bit more about that, because I agree with you. I've been in my latest group nine years, and but I've always been in a group like that over my 20 to 30. Talk a little bit about that for the entrepreneurs on the other side that, you know, they most entrepreneurs have that, that that idea that I can figure it out, right. And of course, we've got Professor Google, which seems to be able to answer every question to every ill. But talk about the power of these groups
and why it's so important. I know what my reasons are, but share a little bit more about why it was so important.
Well, the first thing is Mr. Google is pretty horrible at providing real life experiences. And in the EEO training that you go through and then our group, we are specifically trained to talk from experience and not based on what you've read, or what you think, or your opinions and
stuff like that. So it's the group's been great that way, but it's the individual experiences that people have been through that blows away the internet research you can do all the thing is like they everybody in my group has a specific something, like I said earlier, that they're really, really good at. I've like one guy, for example, is an awesome at contracts. He's just amazing. He's great at them, reading them, and knowing them and
knowing the details. And so like, if I have a question in regards to a contract or negotiation or something, I call him up. And they say, Steve, you know, his name, Steve too? Hey, Steve, what do you know about this, this issue in regards to this contract, and he'll he's amazing at it. And then you know, this is so they each have incredible, and another guy is amazing with people and managing
people and stuff like that. And I'll call him and say, Hey, I got this problem with this employee, you know, what do you think? So it's those individual experiences that now I get. And what's amazing, too, is, so the group started off the first 15-10 years all about talking about business, right, for the last 10 years now and say that well, so then we switched to talking about our kids and our families and our wives, and you know, our spouses and all that
stuff. And then after that, it's now it's changing to taking care of parents and retirement and kids helping them get out of college and what they do. So it's been this life cycle. We don't talk about business at all anymore. You know, it's pretty rare. And so, you know, listen, I also want to say too, you have to put the time in, and sometimes the group isn't always going the direction you want it to go. But you got to stick it
out. You stick it out, and you and you do because there's guys who have left our group and boy did they make a mistake. So and just so you know, every guy in my group has built really good companies. Several like, across the board, like seeing the lifecycle of somebody building a business. Like, you know, you mentioned I build six, or I really seven businesses, right? That is not out of the ordinary.
I mean, seven, yes. But you know, two or three is not out of the ordinary for an entrepreneur life.
Especially when you commit to it and right, when you know that entrepreneurship is your DNA, it's not uncommon. A lot of people come into the entrepreneurial space dipping their toe in the water side hustling it, it's not really entrepreneurship, it's, it's, you know, it is what it is. It's a side hustle, right being an entrepreneur is it's It's taxing, which actually makes me want to ask this question. So you left Xerox around 30? What was the first business that you started built?
mean, there's a funny story behind and I'll make it short. I had a mentor, and my I was getting married and my wife, they were going through a recession, United States. And so what was happening was I wasn't getting promoted at Xerox because the older people there were getting the jobs that I normally would have gotten, right. And so it was kind of a
delay, and I was impatient. And so you know, my wife said, you know, listen, if you're going to start your business, you better do it now, you know, because she knew statistically, when you have start having kids, when you start getting a mortgage, it gets harder and harder, because I told her that not because
she wasn't her wisdom was we had, right?
Yeah, it was, you know, and I was like, so this is the funny part. I had been preparing for 10 years to start my own company, right? Like for variety, different ways, books, read classes, taken all this different stuff, mindset. I forgot one of the most important parts of starting a business and that is the idea. And so I didn't have an idea for the business. I was so stupid. But I, my my mentor had said something to me. He said, well pick something you know, and I
knew digital printing. So I went into that.
You're on your seventh company. Now I want to let's do this. Let's break down the seven companies or industries just so we can get some scope.
Printing company first. Technical staffing company second. So we placed where we are a high end technology, staffing companies, we placed consultants that were very expensive into companies on long term temporary assignments. That next company I bought commercial real I bought a commercial real estate building with the profits so that a rather large building, so that's a business, then I still have it. Then I started a healthcare
staffing company. So we placed registered nurses at hospitals on long term temporary assignments. They're called Travel nurses. Then we got that was an Inc 500 Fastest Growing Company got to 11 million run rate. The other company before that Expert Eeeker was called it was the technology company was $6 million dollars. And it great
profits just great. Then after Health Care Seeker, which was the travel nurse business, I started another company called Credential Agent, which was software that helped organizations store employee credentials, think of licenses, certifications, immunizations, background checks, those types of they needed to store those things and let them know when
they expire. Then I started a financing company called Financing Solutions, which provides businesses with business lines of credit, I still have that business now. It's 1112 years into it now $25 million company. And we started Elite Funeral Funding, which buys life insurance policies when someone passes away and gives them the money up front so they don't have to wait to 60 days to get the money from the insurance company. And that's a
$25 million company. That's an Inc 500 Fastest Growing Company United States. So, so two companies on the Inc 500 Fastest Growing Companies and all these companies have done very well financially. The advantage I have okay, was that I been able to play from strength. So healthcare seeker failed, okay, it was on a runway for 11, I was doing 11 million. And then I got twice I've gotten smacked with recessions that really destroy
business. But because of my first my second company, Expert Seeker, I make very good money in that. I bought a very, I bought a commercial building that allowed me leverage. I was able to stay entrepreneur because I saved my money. I saved my money. I knew that there was going to be bad times and outside of sometimes your control and because I had that money I was able to stay self
employed. And that hurts sometimes if you do your first venture and you don't make money pour all your money into it. Sometimes you don't get a second chance. Yeah, although my sister did say to me, after one of my company death Health Care Seeker, failed. She said you know Stephen there's no reason why you can't go out in the work world get a job and go back at the entrepreneurship thing later. She was right. I didn't have to do it. But she was right.
Yeah. I'm very fascinated by the types of industries that you started. How do you pick an industry? Are you the person who looks in the market and says, I see that this is an opportunity, because you went from digital printing, which you knew, which is great advice for anyone listeners, don't go try to make something up because it's hot. It's the run of the mill. That's what the economy says is hot right now. The easiest way to start a business go do what it is that you currently do. I've taken
that advice twice. And I've taken it this last 12 years. I didn't do it. I did more, something completely 180. But how do you choose opportunities?
So other than the first one, I typically will do listen, I It's about running businesses. It's not running a printing business. It's not running a staffing business. It's not running, running a financing business. Businesses are business, they have income statements, they have balance sheets, they have customers you have you might have employees, it's all the same. It's all the same. And listen, I'm not a big believer in building a business based on passion. It's okay.
It's nice if you have that deep, but you got to like your business. I know that, but it's just dollars and cents. And so to answer your question more succinctly, it was a funnest time in my life whenever I got to think about starting another business. And by the way, the last two businesses I have, I have a business partner who's amazing. So prior to that, I didn't have any business partners, but the one I've had for the last 12 years, Keith,
we're best friends. He is the incredible complement to my skill set. But to answer your question is, I would just read a lot and take notes. So I would spend weeks just saying okay, let me just put something down and read and, oh, maybe that's a
good business. I mean, one of the business I thought I was gonna go maybe go into was a long time ago, 15-20 years ago was well, not that 15 years ago, was a company that protects other corporations from virus viruses, you know, virus protection, you know, so it's like, I never let any industry stop me, although listen to the funny thing is, is, if you asked me one business I would not go into it would have been finance, which I'm in now, because I'm not very, I'm not very good at
it. Another words is I don't understand finance super well, guys, my business partner does. And and I complement his skills in other ways. So it seems like nothing is off the table. I have a lot of guts, I'm willing to do anything. And the other thing I do really well is I take really good calculated risks. I really do. I don't put all the money on the table all at once I make sure something's working, there's a demand for it. And then once I know it's there, I go out at full force.
Listeners to the show will know that I talk a lot about entrepreneurship and how a founder, an owner has a certain gift that they bring to the business. Yeah, I've heard you say what I think I think is the answer. But I want to ask you, what is your superstar DNA? DNA stands for Definite Natural Ability.
My ability to get things done, moved, moved from A to Z. I'm really good at finding I'm very foxy, crafty about getting something done. I'm great at marketing. I'm great at getting prospects to become to come to us through advertising. I'm really good at that. I have the ability I love the ability to control my company based on getting clients to come to us. I love it. I love it. I feel like if I know we're not showing video now, but I feel like I'm a min helped me with pronunciations. I have
dyslexia manual. No, it's Matt, you know, the with the Pinocchio with the strings and all my fingers. And I can control the amount of revenue we make, based on my ability to get clients to come to us. I love that.
What's your What's the thing you suck at as an entrepreneur? Self reflection.
details, contracts
That's why, that's why you got that guy in the group. Yeah.
Yeah, I've gotten much better at managing people that was hard at first, and then I really worked hard at it. That was that was something that I had to work hard at, you know, the companies that both my business partner who's had another, he had his own successful business that he sold that we both wanted companies that didn't have a lot of employees. That was one of our requirements. And so now I don't have to worry about that as much.
Gotcha. How would you define your leadership style?
Caring, empathetic, gaining commitment, visionary, clear, honest, loyal, and I overpay
That's a great quality. It's a great quality. You know, you touched on a number of things because at the beginning and the onset of this conversation, we talked about your sales career and the drive. And we talked about how companies corporations pay salespeople really well, because they bring in the numbers, they hit the numbers, they're sometimes the most they're they are the most valuable people in the company. Let's be clear. And I'm not saying this about operations because they don't
add value. It's just I grew up in the sales world, He who brings in the bacon. Right? But but that often comes with the stigma of being arrogant, pompous jackass. Just gonna say same thing. How did you balance because I love what you said, empathy, caring, honest, visionary, clear, I aspire, in my mind the same way. But I also grew up in that sales environment first and transitioned. And I had to develop empathy, I had to develop an understanding that everybody wasn't wired like me.
And I had to tone it down. And I had to learn how to lean across and say, this individual is uniquely gifted at what they do and I have to meet them where they are, because they're in alignment with our vision. Speak to the contrast between the driven Stephen salesperson who ran it off the charts at Xerox, and now 5-6-7 businesses later, which we all know is driven by marketing and sales, which I love that you said that. How do you compare and contrast the
leadership balance? What kind of journey did you have to go through? Or did you have to go through a journey between those two characters?
Well, I think it's a life journey. It's more personal than business even. I mean, first thing, I certainly recognize that I didn't like, how I was treating my employees. And so I, I seeked, help, you know, I hired a coach.
Did you catch that? Or did they tell you that? Like, did you catch that? Or was there outside influence that said, hey, something needs to chang? What was it like for you?
I think it was more me, but okay, no, I never had anybody who say, you know, Steve, you're a jerk. Nothing like, Okay, now, okay. But I didn't like it. So, hired a coach saw a psychologist, took courses, read books. I knew it was important, not just to me as a business person, but as a person. And then I also, I'm a Buddhist, and I really got really involved in my Buddhism, and that really helped a lot, and helped me become a better person, and thus a better manager and made progress I just
did just kept at it. You know, it's still not my greatest strength, but it's not my weakest anymore. I'm good at it.
Good. Good for you. Good for you. How do you manage multiple companies today, at the size that they are today? What role do you play on a day to day basis?
So the the one can be Elite Funeral Funding, we have two people who run it for us. They, they, they do a great
Talk about the credit environment right now, job. And it's fantastic because I don't have to do anything. And I really just in the beginning, we had to, you know, help them and get them really rolling. And my business partner really does a lot more work than I do in that business. So that's nice since this is, at the time of recording, we're in the middle way to run a business, right? The Financing Solutions, I'm extremely actively involved. I talk to prospects and clients
all the time. So I'm, you know, we have a very small team, I'm dealing with because, you know, we're, we're we are providing lines of credit with our own money, we're using our own money. And so, you know, that's a good thing. I mean, that means that you're dealing right with the person who makes the decisions, you know, and so I handle the, the marketing. We don't do sales calls, we you know, people encouraged allowed an application and talk to them. My partner does the due
diligence. And we have we have a couple people that help him. Gotcha. We had a little bit bigger team at one point, and then we kind of scaled it down a little more. So that's what I do. I like it, I love it. You know, it's good. of some very interesting inflationary times, interest rates, rising consumer goods
price is off the charts. It's my experience, having made it through the seventh 2000 7-8-9 financial crash, I was in the mortgage industry at the time, we don't need to go any deeper than that, there's probably going to be some credit pressures. I love that you're investing your own capital, you're you're basically the bank, and you're able to provide that at that resource that is probably going to be needed and always will be needed. What's
happening? What are you seeing in the world of credit lines of credit, and quote, unquote, the financial markets right now is as it relates to cash flow, and businesses having the ability to grow?
I can only speak from my own experience at my company. And I'll give you my opinion on outside of us, like commercial banks. So for us, we are being more particular about we I think we're spending double the amount of time on due diligence about doing a deal or not doing a deal, because we're seeing quite a number of business businesses that are having problems. So we're seeing like we're denying more deals than we used to because we're seeing problems.
If you don't mind talking about the problems you're seeing because I spent 17 years 12 years in lending, both commercial retail I understand what you're referring to. But can you speak to the listening audience who could be in a place where they're looking to extend their lines of credit? Or they're seeing some tightening on the lines of credit, from your perspective? What are you seeing, in the businesses that make you as a lender want to
back away from those deals? I think there's some nuggets there that matter to the business owners running businesses, who maybe have not experienced, maybe their 10 year old business and they missed the last thing where credit tightening tighten it and just tighten it just disappeared for a while. Yeah, talk a little bit about that, if you don't mind.
Yeah, I don't know if it really credited as for us, and as I know, the word credit and tightening, tightening, but for us, it's just that we're seeing more problems. So we're doing the same due diligence that we used to, but we're seeing more problems. And so what does that mean to problems? Yeah, they may mean they, maybe they took out other loans, and they're having problems paying them, right? Okay, maybe they're, maybe their sales are going down, maybe their profits or they have a
problem. Credit is an issue, always a personal credit score, I don't care who you who you borrow money from, they're going to take your personal credit scoring again. That's the issue number one thing that you need to be concerned with as a business owner is you better make sure you know what your credit score is, and it's better than a 650 credit score. 100% 100. Okay, so and if it's not there, you better do something
to get it up. The number one thing that we're going to I'm going to look at, do you have a 650 or greater personal credit score, if you don't, we're not gonna help you and banks look at 700-720.
Someone's 700 points or so some of our 720 I mean, correct. And to your point, and I want to speak to this, you can say whether in you being a non commercial bank lender, you're probably saying, look, I've got to trust you, as a human, along with what I see on paper. And if you're, if your credit isn't, it doesn't have the history of, I'm betting on you. Right. And so the banks look at it the same way. And they obviously some of them want
720. And when I mentioned tightening, I can only speak to my experience with American Express, for example, American Express is a very well known very popular every, a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs know this company and use it and love it for what it is, they always say you don't have a credit limit until you do until they magically tell you that you do for some odd reason. I just wanted to kind of mention that there were a few points, number one cash flow going the other
way, not cash flow. But if sales are going down, and you're looking to extend that's gonna be an issue for lender, your personal credit and I'm sure that if there's no if there's no strong collateral that you feel confident in, do you ever look at collateral opportunity?
We're an unsecured klat, we go, okay, we don't require collateral. That's why the personal credit score is so important. So important. Yeah. So just, I mean, just add to that, so listen, if you haven't borrowed from a bank, before, you're going to commercial bank, you're going to be in for quite a shock. It is a completely different world. I mean by that is, it's a different language. It's, you know, they're, they're looking at ratios, and they're looking
all these things. But, you know, I can't tell you many times, I've had commercial lines of credit, I really believe them. I really believe in what I do for a living, because it's so hard for a business to get a line of credit with a commercial bank. And yet, they still have a good business. And that's why, you know, I'm letting you I'm providing money to really good businesses that banks are saying no to funding. Yep. So and for a variety of different reasons.
So. So when you start to work with it, you know, you don't go to a bank with a business plan and get a line of credit or a business loan. They don't do that. They want collateral. They want your home. They want stocks and bonds, they want any personal guarantees, personal guarantees, they want your wife to sign. They want everything. Close. Yeah, even shoe. Yeah, they take it all the most people don't have that stuff. Yeah.
And if you don't feel bad, you feel like you're you feel bad. Like I mean, we've all done it, but you feel like, dang, it's like an interrogation.
I think it's what was surprising to me was how many times I had a really good business that I thought was very, very good, and very profitable. And the bank didn't, couldn't get funding. Yeah, just trying to understand their Yeah, trying their standard. Now, there's other parts of there's industries or certain industries that banks don't like, there's political stuff that's going on inside the bank to there's like, like, you mentioned a timing
right. So, you know, are we going into a recession right now, you know, the bank manager, or the loan manager might be well, his managers manager might be like, You know what, let's cut back a little bit, you know, and I've been through two major recessions. So I know what it's like for credit to quote unquote, get dried up. We're not
even close to that. I mean, at the end of the day banks look at they still issue you know, unless it was the 2009 recession, you know, they still issue credit lines, your lines of credit and business loans, but your your fundamental need to be there.
Yeah, Stephen, you've been an entrepreneur on this path for a long, long, long time, I think I want to finish with a couple of words of wisdom. From your perspective, someone listening to this is maybe still in their first or second business or maybe they're thinking about starting a business, can you give a couple of pieces of advice that would help them avoid the pitfalls? I mean, you've had, you know, successful venture after
successful venture. I think behind it all the impact of your experience with EO and having being surrounded by that circle of CEOs, and other founders, that where you guys could have shared vision, even if you're doing different things and help collaborate with each other. it's almost like having you're having a board of advisors, maybe officially being your board of advisors, right. That's what ours is. What advice would you give entrepreneurs right now
about succeeding? I mean, you've started in sales, you've started multiple businesses, we talked about superpowers, leadership style, couple ideas, couple of big ideas that could set someone straight, if they're crooked right now about succeeding in entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is a marathon and not a sprint. And what I mean by that is, stop spending money in your personal life, you got to really give yourself a long runway, because it takes three to five years for a business to really start to be profitable enough to be able to start paying the owner something. So it's going to be long. I mean, you said earlier, I think side hustles a very good way to kind of get involved in the business idea that you have now. I don't mean side hustling,
like selling stuff on eBay. It's not a business, right. But testing your business idea while you have an existing business business, I'm sorry, an existing job is that's what I did. By the way, I worked for Xerox for a year while I was doing my existing business. So I we worked from Xerox from six in the morning to one o'clock in the afternoon. And then from one o'clock, till nine o'clock at night, with my business, they didn't know that. But that's
what I did. Yeah, so yeah, so I would say is cut your expenses at at home. Really, it's gonna be a long runway. Number two is you got to make sure your idea is working. You got to make sure people are are gonna pay for it. You got to make sure you have clients, you got to make sure you know how you're going to get your clients marketing. How are they like what I do for a living? How do they going to come to you? Because you're not going to go out to them and make all these sales calls. It's it's
just not going to happen? It's especially right.
Yeah. I mean, it's what we did 30 years ago, right? Yeah, this doesn't work that way. It's what we had. I'm sure I wasn't in corporate sales, but we made outbound calls to strangers. Yep. And it was a hard fight. But today, there's so many ways to bring it. You know what, actually, let's stay there. You've talked about your marketing prowess. And what are some of the best couple of ideas you have right now? How are you generating? And I know you've got multiple practices here, multiple
businesses? Yeah, but how are you attracting business to let's stay with the financing company? How are you getting people to come in?
Yeah, Search Engine Marketing is by far, you know, Google has leveled the playing field for small businesses. They really Yes, they've democratized business in some regards. You know, search engine optimization has always been my forte, I'm really, you know, it's, I've been doing it for a long time. I don't do the work. I strategize on it. No,
that's, that's big. But for the last 12 years, I've tried so many different things from paid for search to trade publications, to website advertisements on banner ads, to direct mail to and you know, everything gets measured everything. So try it, was it effective? You know, how much money did we make, what was our cost of acquisition, all those things, you got to be able to figure out how close you're gonna get, because everybody thinks they have the best product or services and stuff
like that. But you could have the best product and service but nobody knows about yet. You got to really focus on that other end. And it's not easy, by the way. The best thing about being an entrepreneur early on is you're you're kind of you're so naive, and you just figure it out as you go along. The other thing I would tell third thing I think I would tell people is a great book called The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. And he says it takes 10 years be a professional at anything. And he
uses the Beatles as example. But I'm a professional entrepreneur now. Right? I know exactly what it takes to get a business profitable and everything. But you got to keep learning. You got to keep learning, right? Because you want to kind of condense that time it takes that's what the Beatles did, right? They played six nights, six days a week and some nights twice a week, twice a night in Berlin, and they became really good musicians, and really a really good band very quickly.
So you want to take that same thought process about entrepreneurship,
I appreciate it, you know, very good way for us to wrap up. I couldn't agree more about this continuous learning, like you said, people that are not paying attention to what's happening with, you don't need these big PR and media agencies anymore, you can go right to Google, get the job done, and find out what your customer wants. So obviously, what we've done the last 12 years and our agency as well, so I couldn't concur more. And this
long game idea, right? There's so much of this hypee stuff that you see out here. The reality of the reality is entrepreneurship, when you decide to do it on your own, it's not going to be like corporate, like I always say the hardest jump to make from employed entrepreneurship is realizing you get paid last. As opposed to get paid anything. Yeah, right. Right. Right, right sometimes it's anytime. So I
love those three points. If, for whatever reason today happen to be your last day here on this beautiful planet we call Earth, what would be the thing that you would want everyone to remember you for?
Well, you know, not to get somber here. I mean, my wife passed away a year ago, and by unexpectedly, and it was the hardest thing I've ever gone through, still going through. So I'd want to be known as a fantastic husband, which I was, and a fantastic dad, which I am. So those are the most important things. But have outside of those two things. It's sure great that I got to live my my dream, the last couple of years even be married to my wife for 26 years. And how
it ended unexpectedly. It was I've had an incredible life so far, and I still got 1/3 of it left to go. So
I love that 1/3 of it left at 58. I know your mindset already. We've only been here for about 40 minutes. But Stephen has been a pleasure hanging out with you. Where can people connect with you online with your projects, where we help them to check you out?
No, the website is financing solutions. now.com. If you are looking for a line of credit for your business, we give a free quote. So you just fill in a two minute application, no documents required. And we'll tell you, if you're approved, how much and if you're not, wwhy. So that's first thing if you need to reach me personally, you can go to my email, which is steveh@financingsolutionsnow.com
Amazing, amazing. Stephen, I just want to honor you for your journey and commitment to entrepreneurship. It takes a lot to be an entrepreneur, there's a lot of sacrifice. There's a lot of things behind the scenes that a lot of people listening this know some people listening to this are not entrepreneurs and don't know. But I know what it takes to not just do it once, but to you know, just do it multiple times to get the success two Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Companies in America is
not the easiest feat. That just lets us know that you know how to grow things. And I know you've employed some people, I think a lot of people misunderstand that entrepreneurship. One of the biggest joys I get from entrepreneurship is the ability to be a part of the economy of other people, right. In order for you to grow something and to get away from the business, you have to find people that trust and believe in what you're doing, and who are passionate to show up every day and make it
happen. So I want to honor you for your journey as an entrepreneur. Thank you for taking some time to be here on The MindShift Podcast, and we'll get everything linked up where people can find you.
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Hey, my friend. Thanks again for listening to today's episode of The MindShift Podcast. Listen, let's not have the conversation end here. Connect with me on social @mrdarrellevans on almost all the platforms, with the exception of Facebook. My Facebook fan page is @darrellevansfan. Until next week, remember you're just one shift away from the breakthrough you're looking for.