Austin Zelan 0:00
The only place that you can go, really, from a corporate perspective, is just climbing up the corporate ladder. And I started having second thoughts, and I started experimenting with different things, and my biggest goal at that point was just to make more money. One thing that came on my radar was stock trading. I had finally figured out how to place a trade, and I placed the trade, and I totally forgot about it, because I wasn’t like actively trading. I was just messing around, and later that evening, I checked my phone and I made, like, several $1,000
Brad Weimert 0:25
what’s your favorite investment vehicle for cash flow that you’re participating in? Now, the biggest
Austin Zelan 0:31
thing that I enjoy investing in is, first of all, watches, second of all, jets.
Brad Weimert 0:36
What’s your advice for a 20 year old that’s working for a corporate America that wants to go into entrepreneurship. Congrats on getting beyond a 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 as 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 in those multi million, eight, nine and 10 figure businesses, life can get exciting beyond a million. Austin. Zelen, thank you for showing up. Man, it’s great to see you. Thanks
Austin Zelan 1:26
for having me. I’m excited to be here. Yeah,
Brad Weimert 1:28
welcome to Austin for the first time, apparently.
Austin Zelan 1:30
Yeah, my first time in Austin. You know, it’s, uh, definitely a city that I’ve always wanted to visit. First of all, because capital of Texas, I think that’s pretty significant. But secondly, because Austin’s my name, yeah, yeah. I think it’s a it’s cool, you know, it’s definitely its own unique flavor, not really what I expected, but it’s cool.
Brad Weimert 1:49
It’s ever changing, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I got here 10 years ago, and it was a very different place then. But even then, people were talking about how busy it was and how it was growing and whatever. And like, the last 10 years has been wild,
Austin Zelan 2:03
yeah, probably, like, a huge uptick in, like, tech oriented businesses, huge, huge deal.
Brad Weimert 2:08
Super tech a year. Yeah, yeah, it, uh, you know, through in particular, damn, we’re just gonna get knocked for saying on the air
Austin Zelan 2:18
the C word the forbidden sea Exactly,
Brad Weimert 2:21
exactly. We’ll bleep it out so we don’t get, you know, downgraded during that era. We got tons of California and New York moving in, yeah. And it definitely changed the culture to some extent. And some of those people turned around and left afterwards. But But I think, you know, like any city, it’s just it’s ever changing. And for me, it’s, like, the right size, it’s a million plus people downtown, yeah? Which is enough people where you’re going to run into the folks you want to see, if you want to see them, and if you want to avoid them, you can too. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That’s funny, yeah. So anyway, welcome here. I want to talk about a bunch of stuff, man. Stuff. Man, we met a few years ago through a mastermind, and you are an interesting character. You’ve done a few different things from a business perspective, but one of the things that I like is the transition out of corporate and I’ve got a number of friends that have done that, but I think it’s there are more attractive paths today to get out of a corporate job and jump into something on your own. Let’s start there, and then we’ll talk about, kind of the current Zelen Consulting Group and what you’re doing now.
Austin Zelan 3:31
Yeah, definitely. So I mean, when I was in corporate, I was very young, so I kind of like leapfrogged my way in there. I figured out that what all these tech people were doing is that they would get a job and then they’d use that experience to, like, leapfrog into another job within a year or two and get paid significantly more and then do it again and do it again and do it again. And I figured that out very early, and I was like, Oh, interesting. And my goal at that point was I wanted to get paid something significant, because my previous job, I wasn’t getting paid much at all, and my biggest goal at that point was just to make more money. And so I was like, Okay, this seems like a pretty good strategy, so let me see what I can do that. And so I ended up making it into corporate pretty young. And at that point I realized that, you know, I didn’t really know how I wanted my life to go, but that had been my, my target at that point. And so I thought it was my dream job. I was like, This is great, you know. And I enjoyed it for a while. It was cool, cool benefits, cool office, like the whole corporate culture. I was surrounded by all these super smart people, which was fascinating to me, because it was like, wow. All these people are literally like, you know, Microsoft, VMware, Google, like, they’re working with these people. And it was very interesting for me to learn from them and also see how they’re living their lives. And very quickly, I realized that the only where, the only place that you can go, really, from a corporate perspective, is just climbing up the corporate ladder. And I was like, Okay, well, you know, maybe, maybe this job isn’t so great. And I started having second thoughts, and I started experimenting. With different things. Because one thing that came on my radar was stock trading. And I was like, interesting, what if I could learn how to trade stocks? So I started, like, literally, I was in school at the time too. So in school, in corporate, and also, like, in my free time, I would look at different stock charts and try to make sense of it. And none of it really made sense. But I was like, just researching it. So I did that for a while, and eventually I settled on forex trading. So I decided that I was going to go ahead and try trading currencies from around the world, because it seemed fairly simple to do, and I thought it was something that I could manage in my free time. And so basically, where that took me was me investing all my spare cash into these forex trading accounts, trying to figure it out, stumbling my way through it my first year, just lost a bunch of money. But eventually, like, something clicked, and I was like, Oh, if only I, like, follow a system. I manage my risk and I don’t over leverage. I could actually be profitable by Forex. Well, it seems simpler than stocks. So stocks, at least, my initial perspective was okay, if something happens in the news to a stock, it can, like, totally tank, and I can lose a bunch of money, or I could, like, fly up aggressively, and I could, you know, miss out on the move or something. So they felt very volatile. Whereas with Forex, you’re talking about the whole economy of a country, it’s like, if USD is going strong. It’s because the US is doing well. You know what? I mean? It’s not affected by one single stock or one CEO doing something dumb and it making headlines. You know, like, it just seemed less risky from that perspective. Also with forex trading, you’re able to use a lot of leverage so you could have an account and, like, double it overnight. I definitely don’t recommend it. But like, if you’re, like, way over leveraging, you could do that, you know what I mean. And so for me, it was, like, my first experiment in that space. And I understood a little bit more about general economies than I did about a single company. I didn’t want to sit on shareholder meetings and all that stuff. So that’s kind of what drew me to it. Secondly, I had some friends who were beginning to trade Forex, so they showed me some of the basics of like, Hey, this is the platform you use, and this is where you do your analysis, and this is the trading terminal, and this is how you deposit money. This is how you withdraw money. So that was helpful. And, yeah. And then, actually, the funny thing is, when it really got my attention was somebody showed me how to do it, and I was playing around with a demo account, which is basically paper trading. It’s not real money. You’re just kind of messing around. So I had finally figured out how to place a trade. And so I met up with another friend of mine. I was like, dude, check it out. Like you can literally just like, place trades from your phone. And we met at Starbucks, maybe, like, 10am or something, 11am and I placed the trade. And I totally forgot about it, because I wasn’t, like, actively trading. I was just messing around. And later that evening, I checked my phone, and I made, like, several $1,000 was like, No way. Like, I didn’t even know what I was doing, and I made a couple $1,000 imagine, what do you know? Oh, back then, like, 1920 something like that, yeah. So I was like, I made a couple $1,000 like, literally not knowing anything. Imagine if I knew what I was doing, or imagine if my trade was just bigger, like, the same move happened, if I had a bigger trade, or maybe if I knew what I was doing, I could have made 10 times that. Sure. I was like, that would have been awesome in one day, you know. So that was a pretty good day for me. And that’s kind of when I was hooked. I was like, Okay, there’s opportunity here. And it started like really painting a picture in my mind, that there are people who know which buttons to click on their phone to make millions, and I was determined to become that person. So then came a whole year of losses, of course, but that taught me, you know, perseverance and all that stuff, and not giving up, because I literally lost all the money in my account over 20 times. I don’t even remember how many times, like, many, many, many times, but I stuck with it, and eventually got consistent. And then I realized that the rise of automated trading was just beginning. So I found this group of developers who knew how to code things in, like, trading language, basically, or trading code language. And I showed him my strategy. I’m like, Hey, this is how I’m trading. It’s pretty consistent. Do you think you could develop a software that does this automatically? They’re like, yeah, sure, no problem. So they did. And also like, Okay, well, and I’m still at Microsoft at this point. I’m like, Okay, well, this is kind of scary. You know, I don’t know that I want to risk my own money, but maybe I could just go get some credit cards. So I literally went out and I got a bunch of credit cards, got the cash off these credit cards, and I put it all into the account. I’m, like, all right, well, at this point, I’m super young. If I lose all my money, I’ll probably be okay. I’ll make it back, or I’ll file for bankruptcy or something. I don’t know, but the potential win, like, far outweighed my risk. I had, like, I think, 45,000 in the account. And so by the end of the year, my account had, like, made a ton of money. And I was like, wow, this is a real thing, and I could really do something with this. So from there, that was, like, my first real business. I started licensing that software. And so
Brad Weimert 9:58
let’s pause on that for a second. So big. Basically you were, were you still in school at this point? So you’re in school. I was doing night classes, night classes, but had a job at Microsoft during the day, and you were trading like on your breaks. No, no,
Austin Zelan 10:13
the market doesn’t move during the day, so you have to trade markets that are really volatile and have a lot of volume, which is the London market and then the New York market. And there’s actually a couple hours that they overlap. So I would start my trading day around 10pm and so I actually had a very insane schedule at this point. So 10pm until about 2am I would be trading between the hours of two to 4am I figured out that statistically speaking, nothing usually happens. That’s interesting. So I would sleep from two to 4am 4am I’d wake up again, and I’d trade until six, and then from six to eight, nothing really interesting happened anyway. So those two like time periods I’d be trading, and the rest of the time I’d be trying to sleep as much as I can. And then, of course, I’d go to my job. And then not, not every night, but I think Tuesdays and Thursdays we had class, and so I had class as well.
Brad Weimert 11:04
Damn, damn. So you get to the point where you have built the software, yeah, it’s working for you. What? What was the and this is a question for like, anybody that’s kind of dabbling in entrepreneurship or thinking about doing it. What did you need to have happen to make the leap full time out of Microsoft into your own gig?
Austin Zelan 11:28
Well, the number that I had in my mind was, if I’m making 10 times as much as I am here in my job, I will be able to comfortably leave. Because then I was like, okay, then at least, even if my expenses go up, I’ll have maybe a year or two worth of cash to find another job or do something else, or figure out what I want to do or start a business, I probably wouldn’t want to go back to corporate, because this was, like my great escape from corporate. Is what I call it. I found a way out, and I took it and, yeah, it was kind of a natural transition, though. It’s kind of like they, you know, they put me on a project that was, like, super slow, and it was just kind of getting boring, and, like, just at the same time everything happened, and this was taking off so and actually, you know, quite frankly, it was a waste of time for me to stay there and be in the office when I could be building this business, from a financial perspective. Yeah, exactly, yeah, because I was making way more here. And actually, as soon as I left, I started making even more. And I wouldn’t say that I started spending like, you know, my entire day working, but just that little additional time that I was putting into my business, like, created a ton more income. And I was so glad I left. It’s kind of scary, but, you know,
Brad Weimert 12:39
I mean, that’s how it should work. And of course, it was scary. That’s part of the gig. It also is scary spending everything you have in your account on the gamble of an automated trading bot. Oh, man, yeah. You don’t have to tell me that takes a unique character to do that. I mean, most people, you know, if, if somebody said, if some, well, let me just ask you, what’s your advice for a 20 year old that’s working for a corporate America that wants to go into entrepreneurship? Well, I
Austin Zelan 13:07
wouldn’t recommend doing what I did. First of all, I think that was very risky. But for me, that you see risk is, I think relative. For me, it was worth it. I would rather take that risk and at least have a chance of success and seeing way more success than I was seeing in Microsoft, then for me to not take that chance and then wonder, you’re like, Oh, well, maybe it could have worked out, or maybe I would have made money like I would rather know for sure, and at least give myself a chance. I’m always a fan of giving myself a chance. I’d like to bet on myself. And if I’m not giving myself an opportunity, I think I’m cheating myself of potentially something great. And so my advice to somebody starting out, though, is, like, take chances, but maybe be a little bit more calculated than I was, because I was just like, I’m going all in. Like, yeah, if I can leave this office, great. So knows it was cool, but I would say there are things that you can invest in that are backed by real assets. So for example, one of the things that we do is we buy watches and we trade them. So like you could find people that are selling their watch collection online because they need cash and they’re selling it under market value, you literally could just buy those watches, polish them up a little bit, take better pictures than they did, because they probably aren’t professional photographers, and probably sell it for above market value. So long as it’s a good presentation, you can sell it and so like just going through stuff like that, flipping things, and remember, your investment is backed by literal pieces of gold and diamonds like these are valuable assets. Your money is not going anywhere. Like the worst case, maybe you’ll break even. But that would be, that would mean that you’re also selling under market, which doesn’t make sense. So I’m a much bigger fan of taking that route versus something like Forex, because in that case, if I lost, I lost everything. Yeah,
Brad Weimert 14:53
I tend to agree with you. I mean, I’m a huge real estate person. For that reason, the majority of my time goes into real estate. Right? Because it’s in there are other parts of this, but it’s tangible, yeah? And I like that element of it. And I like it not only because of the stuff that you just said, which is, it can’t go away, but I like to touch and see and hold and feel and experience the investment. Yeah. And most of my world is digital, so it’s nice to have, or most of the, you know, obviously easypidirect, it’s one zeros, bank accounts, etc. So I like the physical assets. So how did you make the jump? So you had, you were, you were in trading, you were in forex. Then you were like, I don’t know what happened. Did something happen that caused you to think, I need a different business where you did, had it run its course? What was next? Yeah,
Austin Zelan 15:39
so the software, yeah, there was a certain point in time. I don’t know how exactly I came to this realization, but it just hit me all of a sudden. I was all like, oh, man, if this thing fails, or it stops working, or regulations change, or the market changes, or something crazy happens that I can’t even anticipate right now, what would be my backup plan? I would have to go back to corporate. And that scared me so much, I’m like, Oh man, like, I should probably diversify. So I immediately started looking for other investments that I could put my money into, which was initially fractional oil wells, like ownership of oil wells actually down here in Texas, and also crypto mining. So I was buying up miners and putting them in a warehouse that was being managed by somebody, and we were mining crypto, and it was going great, like we’re making good money with that. And eventually that ran its course too, but I kind of began building this financial moat around my investor status. So I was like, Okay, I went from being an employee to being a full time investor. How can I protect the status? So I imagine it as like this castle that I had built, and I’m like, How can I protect it? So I was like, building this moat of investments, or different things that I was putting my money into. So it’s like, okay, if the crypto miners failed, maybe the oil wells wouldn’t fail, or the Forex wouldn’t fail. Or maybe I should also have some real estate, or maybe I should also do exotic car rentals. Or maybe I should also do online stores, like all these different things that I could find, and because I was making pretty good money with the software, I kind of had, like, the luxury, I would say, I honestly just got lucky. I had the luxury to invest into these things and not care too much whether they worked out or not. I was more of an on an experiential journey, where I’m like, let me see what it’s like, let me feel it out. Let me figure out what works and what doesn’t work. And I wasn’t so much like, Okay, I’m investing into online stores, and if this Amazon store doesn’t make me a million dollars a month, like, it’s a huge failure. Like, I didn’t feel like that. I was like, I’m gonna try. It might work, might not, but at least I’m gonna figure out what works. I love that. And so my goal was just to find the portfolio that works, and that’s what I was building for myself. And then from there, actually is where the whole coaching company came from. Because people are like, oh, you know, I’ve used your software and it works. Like, I What else are you doing? I see your you have oil wells in Texas. I want oil wells too. And, like, after enough people started asking, I was like, Okay, well, I’m not gonna just, like, text people how to do this. Like, I feel like that would be a disservice to them, because if I just give them a couple details, they’re gonna go try it on their own and probably fail. Like, if I’m gonna show somebody, I’m gonna show them for real like, let me educate you on what the real deal here is. Like, why I chose this oil well, why I’m working with this specific person, why I invested into these things. Who are the vendors that I’m working with, what things should I should you be aware of, like what possibly went right or went wrong with my investment? And I basically made it into, like, a full on coaching program, and obviously, you know, that’s where cash flow preneur was born. One of the
Brad Weimert 18:35
things that I think is interesting about that is a lot of people, when they want to dive into entrepreneurship, are diving in because they want a home run in business. And your transitional path was employment to investor. And the idea of trying things to build an investment moat is unique in its approach. And I think that probably, I mean, you tell me, but it sounds like it contributed to the mindset behind it’s okay if it fails, because with investments, it is a numbers game, and like you, depending on what you’re doing, some percentage are going to fail. Yeah,
Austin Zelan 19:10
and this is actually, I think, a mindset that I got from trading Forex, because at the beginning, the only reason that I was losing money at the beginning is because I would put such a large percentage of my account on one trade, I’m like, Oh, if this trade works out, I can quit. Or if this trade works out, I’m gonna make my first 100k day. Or, you know, whatever it might be. And so I realized, after a certain point, is like, Okay, if I have $100,000 in my account, instead of me risking all $100,000 on one thing, what if I separated it into 10 different things, and if as long as six of them work out that’s I’m fine. So I realized that there was actually no pressure for any one investment to perform. And so that really was probably the biggest mindset shift for me, where I realized that it’s better to have a portfolio of things going at the same. Time instead of any one thing, and it removed that pressure from me judging myself based on the success or the loss of any one thing. So if any one trade didn’t work out, or it did work out, I wasn’t judging my self worth on that. I wasn’t like, Oh, I’m so good, because did you see I made 30% last night on my trade, you know? Or like, Oh, I lost 30% of my account, I separated up from myself, and so then I saw more of a portfolio. So
Brad Weimert 20:25
the advice is that everybody should go lose money in forex for a year.
Austin Zelan 20:30
No, no, no, no. I think, I think you can just kind of take the Cliff Notes and stop judging yourself for the performance of any one investment in particular. And I think I see the same thing in business now, like, as I’m going into like consulting multiple multiple businesses, is that people put so much pressure on the performance of that one business, they think it’s their baby, and if it fails, it’s like, oh my god, it’s the end of the world. Well, no, like, your worth is not tied to the success of that business, and your worth is also not tied to the failure of that business. This is an entrepreneurial endeavor, and if it works, great, let’s add it to our portfolio of winners and add the next thing. And if it fails, great. That’s just a pivot. We move on to the next thing. It becomes a lesson instead of a win. That’s cool.
Brad Weimert 21:14
I like that attitude. I want to talk about some of the investments, because I think they’re fun, yeah. And then I want to talk the info stuff and onto consulting. Definitely. What is you mentioned? A bunch of unique, fun investment strategies and watches. They’re sexy, right? Watches, luxury cars, jets, real estate is the standard staple that’s boring in that picture, but it’s still fun, depending on what you get. What’s your favorite investment vehicle for cash flow that you’re participating in? Now, you’re
Austin Zelan 21:46
very right about the uniqueness and the creativity behind the investment strategy, and that was actually driven by what people were like telling me, because, again, I had no experience, but people were telling me like, Oh, you have to invest into blue chip stocks and not touch it for the next 30 years, and invest into this real estate, and do this and do that. And I was like, Oh my God, that’s so boring. So I kind of set out on the mission to find the most interesting investments that I could that made me happy. I was like, why can’t I have this investment? Why can’t I have that? It doesn’t have to be boring. And I very much am against that mindset. And yes, there is value in stability and an established business and owning something like even a car wash like, yeah, it’s not sexy, but it makes money. But then you can also have the more lifestyle investor things like watches, like cars, like stuff like that. So Anyways, long story short, I would say the top performing investments. It just kind of depends on, you know, even every category of investment has multiple strategies. Even real estate. You could do Airbnbs, you could do long term rentals, you could do fix and flips. For me that the biggest thing that I enjoy investing in is, first of all watches, second of all jets. So basically the idea is, you buy a private jet and then you charter it out through a company, a charter company. And so there are certain models of jets that are more profitable than others. And, I mean, it’s cool. It’s like, a lifestyle thing. It’s like, yeah, like, I’m a part owner of a jet. Yeah, it’s, it’s more than like, oh, yeah, you know, I have a house somewhere in, you know, I don’t know where, but where would be like, a non, non cool place to have a house. Florida. No, no. Well, Florida School, I have some help. Depends where. It depends where, yeah, yeah. Like, Gainesville. Ago, exactly, got a house in Gainesville. You know, I’m saying nothing against Gainesville, but I like the more exciting investments, like, oh yeah, I get to be a part owner of a jet. Like, that’s just, that’s so interesting fun, and I want to have fun in my investment journey, because I see all these investors who, like, take pride in their super boring investments and, like, that’s great, like, I can have those too. But I also want to own part of a jet.
Brad Weimert 23:53
So tell me about the breakdown of the jet and the jet model and how it works financially. Yeah,
Austin Zelan 23:58
of course, it depends on the type of jet that you buy. Some people assume that we’re buying brand new jets, which is absolutely not true, because then we take a huge depreciation hit. But one thing that I found with luxury assets specifically, or trophy assets, you could call them, is that they have a very unique depreciation curve. So let’s say, for example, and by the way, this is relevant across multiple industries, but in jets, let’s say you buy a 10, $12 million jet, it’s going to depreciate to a certain point, and that point might be 5 million or 4 million or 2 million or 1 million, depending on the model. And the reason that it stops at that point is because demand is so high. As soon as it dips below, let’s say, 5 million, somebody’s very willing to buy it, or, for example, the parts are in such high demand that just the body or just the engines, like they could easily sell for that much so combine the values approximately 5 million, let’s say so that’s where we come in, and we try to buy jets as close as we can to that number, because that way we know if we hold the jet for the next few years or. Five years or 10 years, it’s likely not going to go far down in value. It’s probably going to hover right around that amount. And so, you know, as the years go on, some of them even start coming back up. So the equity or the depreciation curve bottoms out, and it starts coming right back up, and jets go up in value. Of course, if you’re buying it brand new, then you have to take that depreciation hit, but if you’re buying it at that point, you’re pretty safe for the most part. And afterwards, what you’re doing is finding a charter company that has demand for that specific jet. So there are certain models that are just commonly requested, like it might be a Learjet, or like a hawk or something like that. Those are very, very charterable jets, because it’s just convenient. It’s not super expensive to run, like, it’s decent charter prices. And so as long as it’s one of those models and it’s comfortable for people and people like it, it should be a pretty decent operation. Now, the charter company is going to take their chunk, the management fee. And by the way, they earn it, like, I know the back end operations of it, they definitely earn it because they’re the ones bringing all the clients in. They’re doing the marketing, the customer service. Like, there’s a lot that goes into it. Because people aren’t flying private just to fly private, just because they’re like, Oh, well, I don’t want to sit next to anybody. No, they expect, like, a supreme level of service, like they want the top of the top of the top, like they don’t want to think about anything, like they want everything done for them. And so that’s the type of service that these companies are providing. So they definitely earn their management fee. And basically we’re just either partnering up with people, so you can have one or two or three, four people partnered up on a jet together, that we have fractional ownership, or we have some people come in and they just buy their own. So they’re like, Yeah, you know, I have a million dollars on a $5 million jet. I’m gonna put 20% down finance. The rest part of the monthly revenue is gonna go to pay off that loan, and then they’re collecting some sort of net cash flow. Where
Brad Weimert 26:58
do you come in? You just mentioned sometimes people come in and want to buy their own. Are you consulting to help people do that? Or,
Austin Zelan 27:05
yeah, so through the coaching company, they see that we have people buying jets, and so some people approach me, they’re like, Hey, if you’re if you guys are going to be buying another jet, I’d like to participate in that. And so they can participate as a partner. Or sometimes they just want their own. Like, I have some people that just reach out to me on Instagram, and they’re like, hey, and they’re like, Hey, man, like, I see you’re doing jets. Like, I want to charter my jet. They might already have one. Or, hey, I want to buy one because I need to use it three times a month. But I also want to offset my operating expenses by chartering it in the free time. So many people do that. Actually, it’s a great way. Like, if you don’t look at it again. If all your eggs are not in one basket, and you’re like, oh, this has to work, and I have to make 50% a year on this jet thing. Like, if you’re just doing it to offset your costs, that’s a great way to think about it, because you’re probably going to actually net a significant amount of cash flow, but then you’re seeing it as a bonus, as opposed to, I have to make this money yet.
Brad Weimert 28:01
For me, those things are sexy in the context that you just said, which is less as an investment, more as a lifestyle play, which is, it’s okay if it doesn’t make money. Yeah, exactly. You’ve got some model around a bunch of those, and we could talk about all those, but luxury cars, similar jets, similar. On the jet front, where does maintenance and insurance and the shitty part of that business model fit in? Yeah,
Austin Zelan 28:30
so that’s actually all factored in into the numbers that we do. So we look at, for example, which jets require expensive maintenance all the time, or which jets are going to have more problems, and so we’re not buying those. And secondly, we look for stuff that we have a affordable alternative to, like sending it to the factory. So certain jets we can fix in house, certain jets would be like, Oh, we don’t really want to touch that. We should probably send that to the factory, to the manufacturer, which, again, is downtime. It’s expensive. It’s extremely expensive to fix them. But another thing also that is common is routine overhauls of the engine. So it’s called engine overhaul reserves. So for some jets, every hour that they fly, we set aside $1,000 per engine for this overhaul to happen, because at, let’s say, 4000 hours, they’re gonna literally need to be overhauled. They take apart the engine and they build it back together. It’s like a rebuilt engine, which is very normal, like they do that every 4000 hours some jets, but that can be very expensive. That can cost you 200,000 400,000 per engine. So we don’t want to be like, hey investors, we know you just bought a jet, but also, like, we’re gonna need $800,000 to fix the two engines, yeah, so we set aside cash, and then that goes to pay for them.
Brad Weimert 29:52
Yeah, that’s good. I’m glad that you said that, because that’s one of the things that I think is not discussed enough. You know, you talk about kind of the cost. Of operating the jet alone, fuel alone is a bitch. But then you’ve got these, you know, if you’re using it, pretty significant annual maintenance fees that are no joke, yeah.
Austin Zelan 30:11
I mean, the way we kind of get to our numbers is we calculate exactly how much it costs us, including, let’s say, the loan service, including parking insurance, pilot salaries, pilot training, like all these different aspects of the jet operating expenses, and we break it down per hour. What does it cost us per hour to keep this thing running? And so if that’s like, let’s say $2,800 or $3,000 then we simply figure out what we have to charge in order to make this worthwhile. And if we can do it at market or slightly under, then we do that. Then that’s a good model for us. But yeah, I’d say it’s it’s not unusual for us to have something that cost us between 2500 and like 3500 to for us to operate, and then we charge, let’s say between 4000 5000 per hour.
Brad Weimert 31:06
What, what markets are good and what markets are not good? Are there areas that you stay away from that you say, No way. Am I touching a jet in, you know, rural Kansas?
Austin Zelan 31:18
No, no, no. There are. We just have certain hotspots in the US that we like. So for example, I’d say the top three for us right now is like Tampa, Dallas and Van Nuys, California. And that’s just because of the people that we have there the network. Like some people literally request a specific crew in a specific jet. Remember, these are people not just because they don’t want to fly commercial. Like, they have very specific requirements. So that’s exactly what they want. And they want these specific snacks on board, and they don’t want any of these, and they want this specific pilot to fly them. And they want that specific jet, like, even if we have similar models, like, we could have three of the same model jet, and they’ll request the specific tail number that they like just because they like it for some reason, some reason. So it’s stuff like that, like, it’s just catering to those needs. Okay, so
Brad Weimert 32:07
you were doing a bunch of finding fun investments that lit you up diversifying those investments, and that led you to creating an info product company to teach other people how to do this exactly, before we got going, you told me that you were moving away from that. Tell me about the journey to get into that, and then why you’ve chosen to move away from it.
Austin Zelan 32:29
Yeah, so going into that again, it was just kind of people asking me about my experience, and, hey, can you teach me this? Can you teach me that? Can you teach me that? And I actually, I first started just doing one on one coaching. I remember somebody reached out to me, and I was like, hey, like, you know, I don’t really know what I can teach you on this, because I’m just doing it for myself. Like, it’s just, I like this, and I’m doing it, and it’s given me the ability to travel and do whatever I want, because I have passive income. And he’s like, yeah, like, I’ll pay anything. Just, like, name your price. And so I gave him a price, and I was actually shocked that he paid me, that he’s like, all right, it’s wired. I’m like, what? So I was like, then I was thinking. I was like, Oh, what am I going to teach him? Yeah, right. Where do I even start? So I was like, building the curriculum in my head. And I was like, You know what? I’m just going to tell him my exact journey. And that’s what I did, from the first investment that I did to the last one I did. Up until that point, we did a deal for a year. So I literally taught him everything. I met him on Zoom every single week, and we talked about the different investments that I did and everything that I liked or disliked about him. And it was just kind of an inside scoop, and over time that progressed to like, group coaching and stuff like that. And I still occasionally will do a one on one student with somebody who’s, like, very, very motivated. And I could see somebody being like, one of my business partners or something, but for the most part, like I saw that the value in that was basically me being like the guinea pig of the whole thing. It’s like, all right, Austin, you go out and try it for us and see if it works and if it works, tell us about it. So it’s kind of like I was like the Yelp of investments, right? So I’m out here just doing things because I’m going to anyways, but then I’m losing money on some investments, and on some investments I’m making money. And so basically all my winners, I would take them and put them into this program. And quite frankly, I would say, out of my whole portfolio, probably only 60 or 70% of the things actually worked out. The rest they either scammed me, or they never paid me out, or something went wrong, or, like, I’m still waiting to get paid out. Like, there’s a lot of things that didn’t go the way I planned, but overall, for me, I like, I see the value for somebody else to go through a program like this, because instead of them spending, I definitely spent millions on like, different things that I lost, and it’s better for them to just learn from my experience. It’s like, well, I already got all the bumps and bruises, like I already tried this. Like, why would you go and potentially be 60% profitable, like I was, and spend a bunch of money to figure it out? Instead of just, like, take the reviews that I have, like, I’m sharing my experience. Experience. If you want to check it out, check it out. I’ll tell you exactly who I worked with, and you guys can take it from there. So, yeah, it’s not really, I wouldn’t say, like a referral thing. I would say more of, like a review site where I’m, like, it’s a hub of all things investing and things that I liked and enjoyed and I had a good experience with. Yeah,
Brad Weimert 35:19
I think that that’s a really interesting point to hit on, because there are sort of two approaches to and maybe there are more, but two that I can think of for presenting information. And most people that sell information do it from the lens of, I’m the expert. Listen to everything I say. There tends to be a ton of ego wrapped up in this, and then they’re the dancing bear. And a lot of the time you find out too, that when things are presented that way, whether they’re full of shit or not, there are a lot that are not right, and there are some that are but you get scrutinized for every single every single thing that you say, because you’re on the spot as the expert, and you’re asked questions as the expert. The other approach is to sort of learn from the journey. And I think that that’s a really fun, authentic approach, because it’s lower key, more relaxed, and then you’re kind of allowed to make mistakes too, and you’re like, I’m just fucking figuring it out.
Austin Zelan 36:21
Definitely, I’ve definitely seen a lot of that, and that’s very true, because then people are like, Oh, well, you know, you know, this person is supposed to be the expert, and they made sure that this works. So then the responsibility is on them that it works. And it’s just kind of like a weird dynamic. It’s like, well, no, I’m just doing this for myself, and it worked. So you try it out too, yeah? Well,
Brad Weimert 36:41
a lot of that’s in the marketing message, right? If you sell yourself as the expert, then you kind of have to be the expert, exactly. But if you sell yourself as, hey, follow me as I go through this journey, yeah, the expectations are different, right? And what people are buying are different. And maybe that play, maybe this plays into the the next question, but what? What do you not like about the educational space and teaching people how to do things?
Austin Zelan 37:05
Well, I think there are different segments of the educational space. I really do enjoy the educational space because it allows me to empower others with the experiences and the knowledge that I do have about these different things. And that’s one thing I enjoyed. But one thing that I also realized is that many people aren’t committed or like, they aren’t like an all or nothing type of person, like they’re not gonna do everything they can to succeed, and that’s very frustrating, because I can give them all the information in the world, I can give them all my connections, I can give them I could literally even fund their their projects, and they could still fail. Like, even if I gave them everything they possibly needed and that I didn’t even have in order to succeed, and they would still fail. And it, like, it really puzzled me for a while. I’m like, what’s going on? Like, why are some people seeing so much success with less resources? And why are some people seeing less success with all the resources that they possibly have. And this is like, even like outside the program, it’s like in real life, that’s what it’s like. And I came to a realization that people have to have a desire and a hunger to succeed that’s bigger than their comfort where they’re at right now. So that pain has to grow that discomfort of their current position has to grow to be bigger than the comfort of staying there. And so until people reach that position, it’s a big mindset shift. And so I kind of, like, I figured out probably a year or two into the process that it’s really mostly a mindset thing. If they’re not thinking like an entrepreneur, if they’re not thinking like an investor, they’re likely never going to succeed. And so first they have to make that change in their mind, and then they can make that change in their business. And so that caused me to move more to B to B, because it’s like, the hardest part of this whole journey is the mindset thing. If I can just find a group of people that have already made that jump, that I’ve already like, figured out the mindset piece of it, man, they’d make so much like they’d see so much success, because I have a lot of experience that I can share with them, but they have to be ready to take it. So you have to find hungry people.
Brad Weimert 39:10
I think that that’s one of the most curious and most difficult parts of humanity, is that almost all of it is about mindset. Mindset is so hard to change without data points and references. Yeah, and that takes time experience, yeah. And I like to say that I’m very good at learning from myself after I’ve hit my face on the ground a few times, and I’m not very good at learning from other people, because I need the reference points, and that is not good. I wish that it was different. I’ve been there, yeah, but, but that’s the journey, right? Yeah. Okay, so tell me about today. So now Zelen consulting is focused on B to B. What’s the proposition? What are you doing and why are you doing it? Yeah.
Austin Zelan 39:58
Basically, now we’re. Working at a very different group of people. So now it’s business owners. We’re working directly with business owners, people who have made that mindset shift and they’re ready to see more from their lives. So then it’s us coming in and helping them grow their businesses. What I’ve found is that a lot of people who are, let’s say, between two and $5 million in revenue, that’s gross revenue, they’ve usually they’ve got a great idea. And some of them, like, accidentally made $2 million like, it’s crazy how often that happens, yeah? Like, they’ll literally just come up with something and it blows up. And they’re like, Oh my God. I didn’t even realize that that was a possibility. But they have no business experience. And, in fact, they have no business running a business. Yeah? So that’s where we come in, and we help them with some of the structure, because at this point, I mean, I’ve been a part of the growth of many companies, and I’ve seen what works what doesn’t work, like systems, SOPs, hiring culture, like all these different aspects of business that are so important. And quite frankly, you could just install a framework into one of these businesses and give them a systematic way to sell and deliver that genius product that they came up with, and they’ll hit 10 million or 15 million or more like it’s really just helping them along that journey. And that’s so exciting to me, because these are people who have made the mindset shift. They’re ready to be an entrepreneur. They at least have a taste of running a business. And you help them fulfill their business dreams. Instead of it being a high paying job for them, you’re helping create something that can actually run on its own. Once they hit 10 million, they have enough money to hire a CEO, like they could focus on, let’s say the creative part. I have a guy who’s a engineer. He likes designing that specific product that he designs, and that’s it. He has no interest in running the business, and he’s doing like 5 million a year. Like, he’s actually doing quite well, but he has no idea how to run a business. And I’m like, dude, like, you have no idea what you have here. Like, this is a genius product. Like, this thing outperforms almost everything on the market. And you just, like, first of all, you have no exposure and awareness. But second of all, you don’t even have a business. You have, like, two guys working for you, yeah, and so anyways, businesses like that is just, I think it’s amazing what can be done and how their business can totally be transformed to really be a machine. One thing that I learned is that when you’re building a business, you’re not necessarily building just a team or just creating a cool product or just creating excellent marketing. You’re creating a system, like a machine, and the system is what’s valuable. Like, if I were to go buy a company, I’m not buying the CEO or the people working there or their leads list or anything like that. It’s all valuable, but what I’m really buying is the system that they figured out to bring in customers and successfully fulfill whatever service or product that they’re selling to those customers. So the system is what contains all the value.
Brad Weimert 42:43
No question, I think that a mediocre product with an amazing system far outweighs an amazing product with a mediocre system.
Austin Zelan 42:52
Oh yeah, definitely.
Brad Weimert 42:53
What’s the first step when you come into a business, from a consulting perspective, to help them? Let’s say you come into a $5 million business, what’s your approach to audit it and see what you can do to make an impact?
Austin Zelan 43:04
Yeah, we have a whole onboarding process where we go through even just the basics, like, what’s your mission? What’s your What are your values? Like, what does your org chart look like? Like, we go through all these things, like, just the basics of business, and it’s like, okay, like, we need to make sure we understand where you’re at currently, and then see what’s realistic for you to even grow to. And specifically, one thing that we’ve been doing recently is called an AI Business Growth audit. So we basically look at their entire tech stack and where they have automations and where they’re using AI in their business, and we find ways for us to be able to either give them a templated tool, or even sometimes custom build AI products for them, where they can apply them to their business and become more effective at what they do, because I think that’s such an easy first plugin for businesses. It’s like, okay, you already know how to do like marketing, or you already know how to do sales. But how can we make it more effective? So we’re either looking for ways to generate more revenue or decrease their operating expenses using AI. And so we go into the business, we look at how everything’s running, what does the system look like? Where are the gaps? And where can we plug something in, like AI, to just make them more effective at where they’re at currently? Then it moves on to more of like, okay, well, actually, we need to hire this person. And instead of using an agency here, we need to hire somebody in house. And you need to have this running, you need to have that running. And we need to upgrade to a better CRM, like, whatever it might be. Those are all I’d say later down the line. Awesome.
Brad Weimert 44:38
Yeah, awesome, man. Well, if people want to find out more about Austin Zelen, where do you want to point them?
Austin Zelan 44:45
Instagram is going to be the best. So at Austin Zelen on Instagram.
Brad Weimert 44:49
Okay, so before, before we wrap, why is it on Instagram? So you’ve been basically pushing Instagram and everything through Instagram throughout the entire journey. Yeah, right. From the from, I don’t know how long, but the beginning, all the way through. Why is that the core mechanism versus anything else? Well, I
Austin Zelan 45:07
see it as my digital business card, you know, because I have so many things that I do, just because I like them, like I’m involved in private jets and exotic cars and like media companies, like all these different things, it would be very difficult for me to really explain what that is. And like on a website, or, you know, some sort of, yeah, probably most likely a website, or, like, a business card or something. But for me, it’s Instagram, because I think Pictures speak 1000 words. And if you can take a look at a picture and be like, Oh, okay, like, I kind of understand what he does. For me, that’s the most effective way, and it’s a consolidated way to have all my audience follow along on that journey. Like, if I’m if I am pivoting from coaching to B to B, or consulting, or AI, or whatever it is, they can see that journey on Instagram.
Brad Weimert 45:55
Awesome. Yeah, awesome. It’s been great, man. I appreciate you coming over. Thank
Austin Zelan 45:59
you for having me.
Brad Weimert 46:00
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, forward slash at beyond a million.
