133: 14 Epic Lessons on How to Grow a Multi-Million Dollar Business with Cody Sperber, Wes Watson, and Brad Weimert

Today, we’re diving into some of the key lessons shared by individuals who are very near and dear to our podcast.

Cody Sperber is one of the world’s leading real estate investors and educators, a top-rated keynote speaker, and the founder of multiple 8-figure-a-year businesses.

Wes Watson spent 10 years in a California prison, only to build a coaching business that generates tens of thousands every single day.

They are known for their relentless grind, epic drive to compete, and unique approaches to leadership.

However, so much of their success comes down to mastering the fundamentals of entrepreneurship—doing the basics better than most, with relentless dedication and consistency.

In today’s episode, we’re highlighting 14 essential lessons in business that will remind you of the fundamentals that truly matter.

Any entrepreneur who manages to embody these lessons fully is guaranteed to be well on their way to achieving all their goals.

I hope these messages from Wes, Cody, and myself find you well on your journey to boldly go beyond a million.

Let’s dive in!

Inspiring Quotes

• “All roads need to focus on sales.” – Cody Sperber
• “Being prepared means possessing the traits and habits from moment to moment so you can seize an opportunity.”  – Wes Watson
• “You don’t have to have all the answers on the front end. You just need to start.” – Brad Weimert
• “Excellence in life often doesn’t come from the new tips and tricks that you learn but from mastering the basics.” – Brad Weimert
• “You’ll never rise to your goals. You’ll always fall to the strength of your system.” – Wes Watson
• Make a plan for training. Make a plan for doing it, and stick to the f@$*#%^ plan. – Brad Weimert

• It all comes down to what’s selling 
• Don’t fixate on the results! Do this instead… 
• What keeps 99% of entrepreneurs from growing 
• Use routines to keep yourself on track 
• Focus on what you’re really good at 
• The key to steady long-term growth 
• Unlearn the stuff that’s dragging you down
• Vertical strategies will 10x your growth
• If you’re stuck, make sure you do this
• How to secure top-level talent 
• Be prepared for anything you want
• Invest in real estate with your business
• Engage in playful competition
• Why you should keep pushing after your first million

Brad Weimert  00:00

The game is way more fun. When there’s more money involved in less critical pressure, if you’re still willing to play it,

Cody Sperber  00:08

I enroll everybody into the vision. And then I say this is what we’re going to do. This is how we’re going to do it. This is why we’re going to do it. And this what’s in it for you if we do it together, and then I get out of

Wes Watson  00:18

The way, the man can take more can validate himself for with the daily habits that gets the result over the result itself cannot be stopped. So when you validate yourself more with what you put in daily, you’ll see progress.

Brad Weimert  00:30

Make the plan for training, make the plan for doing and stick to the plan.

Brad Weimert  00:37

Congrats on getting Beyond the Million. What got you here won’t always get you there. This is a podcast for entrepreneurs who want to reach beyond their seven figure business and scale to eight, nine and even 10 figures. I’m Brad Weimert. And as the founder of Easy Pay Direct, I have had the privilege to work with more than 30,000 businesses, allowing me to see the data behind what some of the most successful companies on the planet are doing differently. Join me each week because I dig in with experts in sales, marketing operations, technology and wealth building. And you’ll learn some of the specific tools, tactics and strategies that are working today. And those multimillion eight nine and 10 figure businesses, life can get exciting beyond a million.

Brad Weimert  01:17

This week, I’d like to remind you that excellence in life often doesn’t come from the new tips and tricks that you learn, but from mastering the basics. So we’re going to revisit some of the best business lessons that I’ve learned from listening to pass guests like Wes Watson, Cody Sperber, and I’m gonna wedge myself in there too. So you can hear some awesome stories and some of the toughest challenges that these guys have gone through that have helped them build the businesses that they have. Life gets exciting beyond a million.

Cody Sperber  01:51

All roads need to focus on sales. A lot of people have it backwards. A lot of people try to get the perfect widget, the perfect product, the perfect online course. And then they go to market hoping that the market wants that project or product. I do the opposite. I I kind of test things with marketing, to see what it is that the world wants, then I sell the shit out of it. And then I go backwards and build it. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, like, I’ll sell something that doesn’t even exist yet. And then then create it. Yeah, afterwards. Kind of like what? like Kanye West right now did something really, really smart? So he ran a Superbowl ad paid millions of dollars for the Superbowl ad, but spent all the money on the ad that he shot like a an ad itself, just from his like his cell phone. He was like, hey, it’s Kanye, you know, got some shit for sale on my website. I don’t have anything else to say. Right? It was like this really short route. Really organic feeling, like, conversation. Well, he sold. I don’t know, I don’t remember what it was. But it was like 40 million or $30 million $20 million worth of shit. Yeah, instantly. Well, all on day one, instantly. Yep. But it was all preorder, when you actually go through it, it was really smart about it is that he hadn’t even built the product yet. He sold. First off, he sold everything on his website for 20 bucks. So imagine if I had five items, and they’re all 20 bucks. A couple of smart things is happening there. One, I’m going to be able to see if I drive 4 million people to my website overnight because of the Superbowl ad. And I get you know, whatever. 100,000 customers out of it, like 20 bucks. It’s like, it’s like, I can see one where all those customers came from, I now have 4 million people that I pixeled from my website that I’m gonna follow around forever and sell more shit to I have 100,000 buyers in my database where they have all their contact information, I’m gonna sell more shit to I’m gonna be able to see out of the five products I stepped off for 20 bucks. Which one is the one that everybody bought? So now I’m going oh, they all want the shoes. Fuck these other ones. I’m just gonna go and mask the production of the shoes. It’s like market research done in a really creative way. And they were all pre orders. So instead of having to come out of pocket to pre create all this shit. He just, you know, does it backwards. Yeah, it’s a really smart move.

Brad Weimert  04:17

I didn’t the other elements that I didn’t know, I didn’t know that it was 20 bucks each the market research side of that’s really cool. I also didn’t know that it was pre ordered. Yeah, yeah, that’s a trip

Wes Watson  04:31

I did 10 years in California prison, CDC general population, the worst of the worst. I did take years. And during those 10 years I solidified a mindset that a little did I know it was probably the cornerstone to being the best entrepreneur notes may which was not focusing on the result. Mono tasking, only focused on the habits and the systems they needed to get to the point you B, but focused on daily point A tasks and systems, I always like to say, you’ll never rise to your goals, you’ll always fall to the strength of your system. So I have a gaming system that’s in follow. I mean, I have expectations of myself and I have, I have standard set physically, mentally, financially that I hit every day, there is no way I can be the person who falls victim to what happens to a lot of people who have money and lose it. If I have a minimum each day that I have to make 30,000. And then I have returned revenue of another 30. I mean, the whole thing is, is like, a minimum of what I have to make a day is 30. So I’ll do what I have to do through the channels to make new sales at this level. And I have recurring revenue of you know, one of my low ticket areas is 15,000 members at $47. That’s about 700,001, I have a mid level program that’s 299 a month to 2000 a year that has about 3000 members, that’s an ascension program to my high ticket where I teach someone to do what I do, they get my mid level program, I get them, right their mind, their body, get them right as an individual better happens. And I teach them to do what I do what I did for them for others, so then they ascend to becoming a coach. So there’s a direct trajectory, if you sign up with me, like it’s a university or something was gonna get me right, and he’s gonna teach me how to make money. I think that’s how life should be gaining emotional, physical, like maturity in general, before you get the money so that you don’t blow it you have financial maturity through just being an individual that operates from a certain set of habits and principles. But you know, going to prison taught me this the most, because why would you drift forward? Why would you project former in prison if you’re not getting out for 10 years? And why don’t you think about the past, if you lost everything, and it’s very painful, you have to stay focused on the exact moment. And I like to tell people, the man in prison, the man to take more than validate himself for with the daily habits that gets the result over the result itself cannot be stopped. So when you validate yourself more with what you put in daily, and the actual end result in progress.

Brad Weimert  07:22

If it’s too big, most people get demoralized and never start. And if it’s too small, it doesn’t create enough fire inside you to feel like you actually have to drive. So it’s got to be something in the middle. And for me, this type of thing of Oh, yeah, I know how to ride a bike, I can’t ride a bike across the country. Sure, I can just run up this mountain, I know how to run, I know how to climb up a mountain, it’s just moving, you know. But as you start to, and I think that the point there is that you don’t have to have all the answers on the front end, you just need to know that you can start the journey and put together the pieces, and maybe it’s possible. And the other thing is you need to fucking start. A lot of people, it’s it’s very popular when people want to run a marathon to follow a marathon training program. And when they do that, and there are a ton of these out there, I mean, you Google marathon training program, most of them are basically the same. And the people believe that they have to do that training program to do a marathon. Well, the fact of the matter is, basically anybody on the planet can get off the couch with no experience and make their body move for 26 hours, or 26 Miles rather, now how long it’s going to take them and how much it’s going to suck afterwards is really variable. But they have the capacity to do it. And I bring that up because there are a million different paths from zero training and prep to just go make yourself do it mentally, to create a large training plan that is tried and true and tested. Both of those can get you to the outcome of finishing that race. And so I think it’s you know, I think there’s a lot to like pick a path and just run that fucking course. Right? The the largest mistake that I see with entrepreneurs in my age group that I grew up with in sales, or grew up with an entrepreneurship and they started something when they were 30 Is that they changed their fucking path 15 times. And when I meet people that I knew when I was 30 and 43 now, and they’re like, Oh, what are you doing? And I’m like, easy pay direct. And they’re like, Oh, you’re still doing that payment thing. And I’m like, Yeah, motherfucker. And we’re still growing you know, too. I need to 50% a year, what the fuck are you doing? You know, and some of them are destroying our growth, right. Some of them are way more focused than us and have gotten way further, in some of them changed their plan a bunch of times. And so you know, one of the lessons with endurance is like, make the plan for training, make the plan for doing and stick to the fucking plan.

Wes Watson  10:27

I’m the type of person if I were, if I really drove to work nine to five, I would drive way before traffic workout by my work, and then go to work. If I was at first. That’s what I would do in prison. Basically, I would get up before traffic, brush my teeth, do a quick workout, use the bathroom. And if you’re in a cell, you still want to be up before the traffic your cell is going to do at the toilet mistake. So if you want to use it, first, you want to wake up and have someone there get up before. So I always get up before so I could spend my time with myself in the morning. That turned into a quick workout in the morning. That turned into reading positive books in quotes. And then journaling in the morning. This turned into something crazy. Because I realized later I wake up at 3:45am I would do my morning stuff, I’d be on my racket 3:40am And I’d be writing in my journal and reading at 3:40am because the cops walk at four to count you, you have to be ready, or most you’re sleeping. But I have to be sitting there ready to be counted. I realized later that there’s the significance of 3:40am. And if you look up like Joe Dispenza they’ll say what the circadian clock at 3:40am Exactly, you’re most aligned with your purpose on this planet. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t give a fuck if anyone believes the thing is I will the craziest shit that I’ve ever wrote at that time. And it brought me cheer life from where I was. That’s all I ever wants to want to do also ever wants to reduce it. I was here I operated from this these thoughts this these actions, this energy and I got here. So I aligned my thoughts actions energy to this outcome this outcome I got when I fully changed my life it was because I got high again in Brisbane, I drank a little bit of prison wide. I did a little bit of speed we were we sell drugs in person, like it’s going out of style. I did a little bit of meth I dry. I smoked I smoked some shit and did like a parachute like a grand. I was drinking some prison one. And then that sent me off for like two weeks I was off. Well, that run turned into me beating the dog shit out of my out of my bunkie and I beat him up in the wrong area because it’s real racial in California. And so my people had to discipline me in what my ass. And then so once I got my password, and I was come down on drugs, like my nose was like fuck, dude, like broken silk. And I just sit there like some beat up bitch and everybody walked by me versus when he gets raspy. Everyone’s like, oh, you plus I got about you better than that. And it’s just some shade. It’s this real demeaning. It sucks. And then I just say I’ve never been weak again. And then I, I could get my ass kicked. But I’ve never been weak again, we put my choices and that being weak for vices, I’m not being weak for anything. So I just chose strength to what was strength in my in my book strictly for strength. Because changing tall the stuff that made me weak was my only prop. I’m physically strong. But I was weak with restraining myself. So now I saw the real real success quote of chasing like how to really become successful. And it was restraining yourself from everything that’s keeping you from what you already

Cody Sperber  13:35

You know, for me, I knew that I shouldn’t be in the meetings, I knew that I was the problem in my business. This is why I document and systematize everything. I needed to fire myself, delegate automate, delete, get me out of the meetings. I am the like, I’m a psychopath in meetings, like people got so irritated at me that they literally they did like my own companies would hold a vote and say, Alright, sponsor is not allowed back in the meetings. Because I thought I did a damn good job, I would go up in there and I’d be like, Look, you know, because I’m so crazy about details. Look at this, and you fuck this up and let’s get this better. And we’re gonna go over here we’re gonna charge this mountain and data. And then I believe thinking I did a great job and then it was pure chaos for the next six hours. My whole company was like in shock. And I didn’t even realize like that I was the problem. And so I flipped the model to Okay, fuck this. I’m just gonna overspend on people I cannot afford and have them tell me how to run this business. And once I finally started thinking like that, the bit the other businesses got better. And I also got really good at forming partnerships. I used to be scared of partnerships now partnership for like, the key to my whole entire world is I find phenomenal humans that are that are very talented, much better than me to run those different divisions. And I tell them, I’m normally the the guy that starts it right. I’m like the visionary the glue. So I enroll everybody into the vision, that’s my skill set to sales, persuasion influence enrolling. And then I say this is what we’re going to do, this is how we’re going to do it, this is why we’re going to do it. And this what’s in it for you if we do it together, and then I get the fuck out of the way.

Brad Weimert  15:21

So first of all, this endurance event was during one of those flatter years. And so it was during one of these times when we weren’t growing as much. And it was a distraction, in no uncertain terms, you know, had I not done this, I would have lost a tremendous amount of understanding of myself and what I’m capable of. And I would have lost a tremendous amount of relationships that were that I was able to deepen through both the actual event, but the story of the events, but the business would have been further along. Or, This taught me lessons that I can apply directly to the business. And after doing this allowed me to drive the business more, I don’t know. But what I do know is that the largest pivotal point with Easy Pay Direct and changing the trajectory from a few flat years early to consistent growth was refocusing on the basics. And I was talking to a coach of mine about sort of the client experience, and we’re very deliberate about looking at our client experience from the initial ad they see, or referral that brings them in, or article that they read a ton of our business comes from SEO and partnerships, all the way through to what their experience is after they’ve been with us for a year. And that client experience had some gaps, and I was talking to my coach, and I was I was kind of waiting for my operations person to do some of these things and plugs in these holes, and it wasn’t happening. And part of that’s just me not doing effective leadership not being good enough at it. And obviously, you know, I wasn’t getting what I wanted to expect from the operations person, but you know, as a leader, you have to own that shit. And my coach said, how long would it take you to just do it yourself? I was like, I don’t know. I mean, like, I’d have to drop all of their priorities. And he’s like, Well, how important is it? Now, it’s like, pretty fucking important that we have a clean client experience to convert clients and take care of them. And I said, probably take me two months, you know, three months instead, okay, well, why don’t you refocus and just do that. And so we did. And that refocusing on that client experience was the catalyst to move from a few flat years to this accelerated growth curve of you know, initially it was 50 60 70% a year. And then as we got bigger, you know, those increases are tougher, but that was it, those refocusing on the basics.

Wes Watson  18:04

A lot of people, they don’t understand that they go seek knowledge. And what are they doing? When they’re only seeking it’s seeking and seeking? That’s for they’re saying, I am not? What if, what if you knew you already were, and humans were perfect, and we were so we were still in instinctual. And we were so elevated and so conscious, what everything was society was what was holding us down. And then you got to process like Wes Watson, and you got up to the intention of your wakeup the intention of your workout, the intention of everything was the removal process, removing everything from keep you from being that conscious be you already are. So everyone wakes up, the more they think they’re finding something by doing an ice bath and all this shit. I’m like, No, that’s a removal process of all my lesser negative low frequency traits and emotions. So I remove all that. And by knowing it’s a removal process, not as seeking or searching, that I’m saying, we’ve always been it. So it’s a complete different rephrasing and definition. And you’re already perfect. We just have to remove all the shit that you’ve learned. And you’ll continue to learn throughout each day, there’ll become a part of you through habitual construction that keeps you in those limiting beliefs.

Brad Weimert  19:20

And so what you did in prison was focus on yourself and ultimately, by focusing on yourself and getting better as yourself. Other people saw that and attracted these people to you to contribute in that way.

Wes Watson  19:34

You have the best way you lead up so well, Trump said because look, it’s like why are you saying that it goes right into the best shit ever. self actualization. self actualization is what most people are in the phase of, and that’s okay. That’s okay. Maths loves law says that that’s needed. It’s a selfish needed phase of self actualization. But then when you transcend it can actually become actualized. If you’re Yep, to transcend. So, that’s the top of the pyramid, mass loss a lot of growth needs is self transcendence. Now, again, for others, that’s it, everything I do is so everyone else can realize what they’re capable of. I don’t think about me, so I’m free. You’re only constrained when you have that. You have that self absorbed self talk. So am I okay? Am I going to be right? Am I ever gonna make it all that bullshit, but self actualization is needed. If you guys are at that phase, it’s okay, you’re gonna need someone who has transcended self to get you to become the teacher. And when you become the teacher, you’ll be free. And that’s where I’m at. I don’t give a fuck about me suck less, Watson, I don’t give a shit. Like, all I have to do is get up every day. And be the optimist needed in this world. And an optimist in today’s society is someone who turns the world into words and create systems and blueprints and methods of operation that can change lives.

Cody Sperber  21:04

So first off, like I said, for almost 10 years, I didn’t do anything but real estate, you know, it was eight or nine years before I even started dabbling in education. And so I just, I am a big fan of saying focus, like, starve the ponies feed the stallions, like, that’s the, that’s the mantra of an entrepreneur. Otherwise, we all lie to ourselves, and we think we could do everything. And then all we end up doing is a bunch of shit, average Li and we die a death by 1000 cuts. So I, I agree with you. But I was more like strategic vertically. So like, I did real estate. And then I asked myself, who else makes money for my real estate transactions while the title company does, but let’s go buy a title company. The lending company does, let’s start a lending company, let’s you know, let’s make sure we’re licensed agents. And we build a real estate brokerage in a team. And so we started vertical lysing in our space, the only one I didn’t really get into his insurance. I started dabbling in it. But we never, we never ended up starting or buying a company in it. So that was my first start an online education, I was teaching real estate investors, and building software and data selling to real estate investors, which was also in the vertical of real estate investing. So I never like was I wasn’t doing real estate. And then I jumped over to a whole nother industry. Sure, I was building my empire in the space, because I knew that space very well.

Brad Weimert  22:32

One of the scariest things, as, as I’ve continued to grow and expand and do more things, is allocation of time. I’m afraid of investing my time in the wrong thing. I’m afraid of wasting time, it seems like the worst mistake that I could make is to piss away time. But what comes with that is paralysis is this idea of shit, I don’t want to invest three hours doing something or three months, when I’m not sure what the outcomes gonna be. And that has hit me much harder as the value of my time has increased a lot. But the pivotal moment with me with the coach was I was having conversation with him. And I think it was before that it was right around the same time with a flat year. And I was talking about selling the company. And he said, Okay, what would you do if you sold? And I was gonna I don’t fucking know, you know, it’s like, well, think about it. I was like, I mean, I guess I probably started another company said, okay, so Well, how long do you think it would take you to get to the same point? I was like, Yeah, I would definitely do it faster than I did it the first time. But, you know, maybe three years to get here. And you said, Okay. So it’s gonna take you three years to get back to this place. He said, You know what’s gonna happen? And I said, tell me, you said, you’re gonna spend three years rebuilding something, you’re gonna do it quicker. And you’re gonna have the same fucking problem you’re having right now. The problem isn’t the business. It’s you. You don’t know how to move through this phase. And I was like, Oh, shit. You’re right. You are positioned in the absolute best way possible to solve this problem right now. You have built an ecosystem around you. You have all these moving parts that are already moving as a machine. You can focus on just this problem and learn how to move through this right now. Better than any other time or you can rebuild the whole fucking thing over three years. To get to the same problem. And what that that was, that was why I decided to spend three months working through that stuff that for whatever reason I had been bucking. But it was also a huge moment for me to understand that I am building the company to get better as an entrepreneur, and continue to grow and learn. Yeah, all of the other things are important. Yes, we touch more clients. Yes, I have, you know, facilitated retirement and wealth. I’m now but But with that, it’s opened the door to realize what the more important things are.

Brad Weimert  25:45

And the more important thing in business for me is learning, understanding, growing, and also much more leverage, like now today. It’s tremendously interesting and important to me to figure out how to make the staff wealthy. And that’s exciting. And I had heard that from entrepreneurs before and heard that was their focus. And I really thought it was lip service. But it took me getting to a certain place. Before that became a priority for me. And now I’m waking up multiple days a week thinking, How do I get them super excited about building wealth inside the walls of easy pay direct to set them up? Forever?

Cody Sperber  26:32

I should never be the guy with the answers. As the owner of a company I shouldn’t roll into a meeting, say alright guys, here’s what we’re going to do. Like the main vision is, this is where we’re going, like I have clarity on like, we’re going to, we’re going to do this business. And we’re going to hire these teams, and we’re going to do the stuff. But the technical details down upstream, I should not be involved in like, all the details on like, making it happen. So for instance, me getting kicked out of all the meetings, me showing up to meetings and looking at like my C and B squad that I thought I could have, these are people I can afford at the time. And I’m realizing I know more than all you motherfuckers Why am I the one with a solution to the problem, you should be telling me what to do not me telling you what to do. So it was me just failing in with the wrong people and getting pissed off. And being like, Okay, here’s what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna be my job as an entrepreneur is to recruit the greatest talent in humans possible and put them on the team, find the right seat on the bus for them, get them in alignment with my vision, their vision of the future, point them in the right direction, give them the resources and training they need and get the fuck out of the way. So like, for instance, take take a great operations guy. Maybe I can afford a $80,000 a year operations guy. But I really want to get the $150,000 a year operations guy. Most people would say, well, we can only afford the ADK person so let’s pull the trigger. It’s a good enough candidate. Let’s try them. I immediately go fuck that. Let’s get the 150 to $200,000 a year operations guy that we cannot afford. Let’s you know, that person has already been running in a business that’s doing 10 plus million dollars a year we’re at 2 million. The the ADK guy has only done $2 million a year businesses they’re at the same fucking level as us like no let’s stretch because the way I think about is hire slow fire fast. Give them the resources they need. If they suck their two, three months in before I’m sitting them down and going, how the fuck do you not know what to do? Right like you now had enough time to get to know our world. You should be making progress at this point in just think about it. Any person doesn’t matter where they are in your organization if they make 20 bucks an hour and I’m paying you 20 bucks an hour because we’re in a capitalistic system you’re producing the $80 an hour worth of value or your fucking done by you’re fired. I should never be in a situation where all of the revenue from that $20 An hour person goes back to that person.

Brad Weimert  29:07

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Brad Weimert  29:26

With with an important role like operations would you rather have a mediocre person in the role or no person in the role? Why would there be no person in the role because if you have a mediocre person and you’re in pursuit of a great person, there might be a gap?

Cody Sperber  29:44

Well a couple things in my organization’s my hiring machine it never shuts off a lot of people go alright we got a we got a position we got to fill it’s ramp up the marketing and put out the ads on indeed and LinkedIn and all this stuff and let’s go find find somebody for it once I find that person I put them in there, I just keep the ads running in perpetual NIS PETRONAS in perpetuity. Yeah, we both got there, whatever, you get what I’m saying. And that’s because I always want that same the better candidates coming through the door, and I literally would parade them by the other operations guy be like, Hey, here’s another operations guy, you want to have a meeting with them? See if they’re a good fit for our organization? What’s he going to do? Whatever the fuck we need them to do take us to the next level. Maybe take your job, I don’t know, you know, but whatever, whatever. I want the best talent, always seeing that there’s great talent coming. So they’re always gunning. And so that’s number one. I don’t think I would be in a position where there’s nobody in the spot. And if there was somebody mediocre, I would keep hustling as hard as I could to fill that role with a better person. Yeah.

Brad Weimert  30:54

Before you got rid of them, or?

Cody Sperber  30:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like, I don’t I don’t think there’s ever been a situation where I’ve just outright fired somebody. There’s, if they lie to me or steal from me, they’re fired on the spot. Yeah. Right. So like that those are non negotiables. For me. But I’ve never been in a situation where like, the spot, this space was just empty unless I screwed something up. And they they left or I had one, I had one guy pass away, who was a phenomenal marketing guy. Oh, my God, that was very hard on a company, like our whole company felt that one. But that was the only situation I can ever think of where it was like, we weren’t prepared.

Brad Weimert  31:34

Okay, so what was your size or scope? When you had this huge mindset shift?

Cody Sperber  31:40

I was probably like the three or $4 million a year mark. You know, we were doing well. Yeah, money was coming in fast. We were scaling every year, we were making a million or $2 million more than the previous year. So we just kept growing and growing. And it’s not like today, like online education. Today, you can go from zero to 40 million in like two, three years pretty quickly. Because the blueprint model is now there. And if you have a really strong organic social brand, you can scale very fast with online education. When I started, there was no framework it was like me grinding it out trying different things to see what works. So I was the Trailblazer on the front end of it. So we would do 2 million next year, we do 4 million next year, 6 million, we kind of stair stepped up like that. And then we finally around the six or seven years when we finally like launched. But yeah, I think I think just listening to this podcast, take a note and just realize your job as the lead entrepreneurs, you are the official enroller of your company. And you need to force your people to hire the best and constantly push yourself outside way outside your comfort zone. Your CFO, if you’re trying to go to 50 million, your CFO should be a $50 million a year CFO, not the guy who’s never done that before, but you can afford.

Brad Weimert  32:58

Yeah, love that. I mean, that’s a good takeaway, I think for a lot of people.

Brad Weimert  33:02

Do you think that you should serve as, as a bootstrap entrepreneur? Do you start by hiring people that are more expensive than you can afford? Or do you wait until some point to do that? Yeah,

Cody Sperber  33:16

I would say if you can’t afford them, give them equity. If you’re just starting you want to do the Lean entrepreneur startup give people equity, don’t be scared to give very highly talented people equity.

Wes Watson  33:32

Being being prepared is like moment to moment possessing the traits and habits of Solon, UK see and seize an opportunity. A lot of people don’t realize they’re like, there’s no opportunities, I’m like you’re not prepared to, to grab it. Like if you were taught fear a one shape, you could just go online and say pitch yourself and sell a fitness program real quick and make millions, but you’re not taught to your shape. If that was your choice, you’re not prepared. I mean, if your dream girl walked up, and you weren’t prepared enough with the confidence of who you are, and your ability to go talk to her correctly, you could get her I can get anything I want because I’m prepared to grab it. I’m prepared to get it. And I mean, I’m always very more for maybe life events that could derail you by having a process that strengthened speech. But mainly it’s been much more than preparing with with living at the correct frequency, the correct mindset that that PMA correct mindset and at a high enough frequency, so I can actually see because in all reality, the world is not as it is the world is as you are. So if you are in a great place, you see opportunity all around you. And you could create an opportunity out of anything as I did in prison. I’m like, I need to follow that there’s no phones right now. Oh my gosh, Jerry, my buddy worked in maintenance. I’m like, Okay, you do the shipping in Europe, parts that come from other places. Okay. You got to reroute that part to your house and I It’s your house, your brother’s gonna stop that part, open it up and stuff, it was cell phones and a bunch of stuff. And then when it comes to you’re gonna make sure you open it. And you get to up before the people at the facility. And he gets your E in the package comes through his brothers and stuffs a cost please like I don’t even know what this is, why did this come to my house there? No, sorry, then they just don’t tell the facility, it stopped at this address, and it goes to the prison. And now it’s filled with cell phones and tobacco and drugs him. And then then my buddy grabs the phones out are you guys know 30 phones, and I just paid 1500 per phone, and I get my two or three phones, I cycle them around the block. And I know everyone’s getting the 50 punch for hours in one hour date for the months for 50 bucks. So to the phones are being rented out making me a bunch of green dot numbers that saved me a bunch of money. I’m on my phone building my Instagram, I made a bunch of money myself, the other phones. And it was all because I needed to seize this opportunity of posting on my Instagram, so that when I got out, I was able to kill it again and live the life I want. I’m 9 million steps ahead of most people what I want. Because I mean, people are so stupid. They’re like, I just need what I need. And I say fuck that. Like if you’re just filling a needs, I don’t want a part of that. In theory, why do you need so many cars, I’m like, It’s not about what you need. I’ve made it to once. And I’ve always made it to want in my life. As a person I watch most food, I watched most protein powder, and I would get it because it’s healthy to walk into go get and a lot of people just accept and they they take and they were dealt. And that’s just not me.

Cody Sperber  36:42

Real estate has two huge values, cashflow and tax benefits. And I realized I’m not even actually doing real estate. It’s like an agent, a real estate agent saying I’m in real estate. No, you’re not. You’re a transactional guy that is involved in a real estate transaction, but you don’t own the real estate. And when you’re wholesaling, you don’t own the real estate. And even though when you’re rehabbing you do buy the real estate, it’s only for a very short amount of time. So I needed to start keeping rental property and that’s my $600,000 tax bills woke me up of like, Hey, you got to see start keeping some of this, because with real estate, you get something called depreciation. And like the building we’re sitting in right now, I paid four and a half $4.25 million for this building. When I bought this building two years ago, I would have owed about, you know, a couple million dollars in taxes because of my earned income from my other businesses. When I bought this commercial building, I had a choice, I had the money set aside to pay my taxes, I could have just gave the money to Uncle Sam, right, let’s call it a million, let’s say I owed a million to Uncle Sam, I could have paid the money to Uncle Sam, or I could go buy a commercial building that my companies can run out of. Because we’re paying either rent or a mortgage anyway, we need a place to run our companies out of. And by the way, everybody listening, the point of owning a business is to own the real estate that the business operates in. You do not want to be somebody who owns a business that rents your office space. If you can avoid it, you want to own it, and here’s why. So I would have had to owe a million dollars anyway. So instead I put a million down on this commercial building. I go get a loan, my mortgage is 25 grand a month. Okay. This is an 18,000 square foot commercial space, I’m using about half of it to run my businesses out of I rent out the other half for $21,000 a month in rental income. So now I’m almost running my businesses for free. I my businesses, I have five businesses running out of here. Collectively, we pay four grand a month. Crazy to do that. Yeah, at the same time, I turned one of the spaces in this into a nother business. And I turned it into an event center. Now Mike, one of my companies uses event centers. So I needed that kind of a space anyway. But I actually turned it into something that anybody in the public can rent and I started Event Center for rent this month. So far, that little event center 3300 square foot Event Center brought in $62,000 Damn. So one of the spaces, I turned into another business as bringing in tons of cash. So now I’m actually positive cash flow on this asset. And at the same time, I did what’s called a cost segregation study on this commercial building, wiped out $1.9 million in tax. taxes.

Brad Weimert  39:29

Yeah, the cost of a component unfortunately is degrading right now in our tax code, right? It’s been a strong play for the last 20 years or I don’t know how long it’s been a strong play the entire time that I have started to generate wealth, right but now we’re this year down to 60% of the write off and then 40 then 20 Then gone. Do you have?

Cody Sperber  39:55

That’s for bonus depreciate? Yes, it is. That’s for bonus depreciate. If it’s not for the real estate, they’ll never get rid of the depreciation itself. So commercial real estate, you can depreciate over I believe either 39 or 37 years, I don’t remember, it’s one of those to something 39 years, it’s 39 years. And then residential, I believe it’s 27 years. And so, you know, there’s normal wear and tear on every building. And so if you pay a million dollars for the building, they give you 39 years to kind of write off that million bucks. So you can literally take a million divided by 39. And write that off against your earned income of that asset every year. With a cost segregation study, all’s we’re doing is we’re Excel, we the cost egg study says, All right, what is the trust is valued at what is the electrical switches valued at what are the doorknobs valued up, and they literally line item, almost every piece of the building, and then they assign a value to it. And then you can accelerate the depreciation in the first few years. So that’s how this is why real estate guys like Donald Trump don’t pay taxes. And once that light bulb went on, it took me about, you know, five years, six years, flipping real estate, making lots of money, paying crazy taxes, finally waking up and going, I’m so stupid, I’m in the real estate space. I’m not even using the benefits of real estate. And then eventually, when I started my education company, because I’m also doing a I own a development company called Green elephant development, I own a wholesaling business called sell quick for cash. I have all these real estate, businesses where I spend at least 50% of my time, in real estate, the in the eyes of the IRS, I’m considered a dealer. So that means on my when I started clever investor, and we scaled to $25 million a year, and it was making all this profit, I was offsetting my earned income from this online education business, which had we taught real estate but we weren’t in real estate, right? I was able to offset that earned income against my real estate holdings over here. And this is why I keep buying commercial assets. I don’t this doesn’t work as well, with residential like, I would highly recommend to anybody who’s making any significant amount of money, go find single tenant triple net lease type investments, something very easy, very safe, that you can put your money into, where you just get that mailbox money, but you get the depreciation and the tax write offs associated with it, because you need it. If you’re making over a million dollars a year in earned income, you need that type of asset to offset it.

Wes Watson  42:23

Also, Google is watching on YouTube and look at the interviews I have with all the top people I always be everybody. If I’m on your YouTube channel, you should pay me to be on your YouTube channel or get me on an IV everyone’s views. Last I was on Flex Lewis’s. And I’m like, I only have to beat or most that’s all it is that I get more than Hormoz. And they’re like, Why? Why more than Hormoz? Because I love him when he gets good shit. It’s very valuable. On an unbiased platform like, this is this body builders platform are mostly on your West West beats. Yes, validating. And then I go on and fly since buddy Mondays. And I beat Dan Bilzerian. Yes, validate. Like you guys need to win and be validated by your wins. It is a competition. Be in a competition. The competition, we’re making massive money and doing dope Twitter posts are mostly beaten yet introduce Jack. Oh, that guy talking. He is a brain. He’s awesome. He made the switch to doing our continent. Yes. Because I mean concert I love when I stumble across something that guys like, not even tried and orchestrated, and gave me a lot of stuff. And that’s what I do to be. So I love that I love that we’re doing this, I love constantly sketch without.

Brad Weimert  43:43

Establishing the baseline comfort, right? I’m not if you’re looking at the hierarchy of needs, right? I’m comfortable not going to starve to death. I can retire comfortably. And so I look at what the next levels are. And one is, you know, I’m 43. And single. And I have very deliberately through my life decided that I wanted to establish these things. First off, I wasn’t willing to compromise on a partner. I wanted to make sure that the partner was not a misstep. I wasn’t willing to, you know, marry somebody early, have kids and then get divorced. 10 years later, I knew I didn’t want to do that. The other is that there are different paths you can take with us that have different perks and drawbacks, right. You have kids when you’re 20. By the time you’re 40, they’re adults, and you have like a new chapter of life as 40 with adult kids and you’re close in age, you can relate very hard to do that part and also raise them wisely and raise them in a financially stable and secure environment. So I wanted to check those boxes first before going going into that mode. But I’m very much kind of in that mindset right now. And to me, now, it’s the beginning of the game, the game is way more fun, when there’s more money involved in less critical pressure, if you’re still willing to play it, right, a lot of people get complacent when they get to a certain point, and just fuck around. And I’ve spent the last couple years doing a lot of that. But, you know, with a lot more resources, the game just becomes more fun. So my father, my whole, my whole family, immediate family, or physicians, my father is a ear, nose and throat doctor retired. And he makes these, you’ve seen them these crazy, elaborate stained glass lamps. And these things take hundreds of hours to make. And it’s his hobby. And he’s notorious for saying when people like, Oh, will you make me one that, you know, will you commission one for me, I’ll pay you. And he’s like, there is no way you could pay me enough for this to make any sense. You know, like, this lamp would be way too expensive. That’s not why I’m doing it. It’s a hobby for him. It’s a very expensive hobby. That will almost certainly never happen in my life. And the reason for it is that part of the game for me is figuring out how to make the hobby. A capitalistic endeavor. And I know lots of people that feel like, if you put a business model around it, it takes the fun out of it. And then it makes it no longer enjoyable. And it’s a business. And I would challenge that person to think about a way to create the business so that it doesn’t do that for you. You don’t have to run a business to maximize ROI. You can run a business to other ends, but I don’t see myself you know, retiring and checking out and having you know, shuffleboard tournaments in my retirement home, I see myself, you know, not running a major organization sitting on boards instead, and having sort of a hobby business project that’s enjoyable to me in the future. And I think you know, you and I are very in line on kind of the experiential, environmental component of that we’re like, who you’re around the people you’re around, are amplified by the environment that you put them in and the circumstances that you put them in, and businesses that revolve around that kind of thing are sort of an interesting next chapter of life because they’re very difficult, time consuming. But if you’re not focused on maximizing ROI, or getting rich with them, that sounds super entertaining as a next chapter.

Brad Weimert  47:57

I hope you enjoyed the episode as much as I enjoyed doing it. I need your help. There are three places you can find beyond a million, the podcast itself, beyond a million.com, which has some cool free resources, including a free course and we finally launched the beyond a million YouTube channel. I would love it if you would go there and subscribe. And if you don’t want to, you still will probably enjoy seeing the visual content. Check it out youtube.com/@beyondamillion.