RPF0244-Matt_Miller_Interview
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00:00:29.800 | If you ever wanted to have a business that worked for you day and night and you didn't
00:00:36.480 | have to do a thing but put the money in the bank, well, I have.
00:00:42.120 | I'm sure that many of you have also had that same desire.
00:00:46.600 | There are a couple of places that most of us who have that desire will quickly go.
00:00:50.160 | Two of them that at least my brothers and I always talked about was vending and car
00:00:55.480 | washes.
00:00:56.760 | Pretty cool, you can just sit down and do nothing and the vending machines make you
00:00:59.560 | money 24 hours a day and the car wash makes you money 24 hours a day.
00:01:02.720 | It's kind of the ultimate dream, right?
00:01:04.720 | Well, does it work?
00:01:06.480 | Today I've invited Matt Miller who's got a world of experience in the vending business
00:01:10.600 | on the show and he's going to share with us whether or not it works.
00:01:14.840 | Of course, you like my tease.
00:01:18.220 | You got to listen to know how well it works.
00:01:36.860 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.
00:01:38.740 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:01:40.300 | Thank you for being with me today.
00:01:41.300 | Like I said, vending, pretty cool business, huh?
00:01:45.940 | Well, even though my brothers and I always wanted to do it, I never really wanted to
00:01:49.980 | actually buy the machines and take them around and stick the candy machines in everywhere
00:01:54.740 | and go and collect quarters.
00:01:57.460 | So I'm not an expert, but I have found an expert and he's going to share his story with
00:02:01.460 | you today.
00:02:09.060 | My guest is Matt Miller.
00:02:10.260 | I first met him at the Podcast Movement Conference and it was a serendipitous encounter.
00:02:14.860 | I hadn't pre-planned to interview him, but after meeting him, I knew that I wanted to
00:02:19.620 | bring his story to Radical Personal Finance since it indulges an interest of mine, which
00:02:23.460 | is vending.
00:02:24.460 | He's got a very interesting story he's going to share with you about his experience in
00:02:27.020 | the vending business, his own personal finance journey, and then how he's actually gone from
00:02:31.460 | having a business of doing vending to setting up a business as a franchise or, I guess I
00:02:37.500 | would say franchise or a franchisee, as a person who issues franchises for a vending
00:02:41.980 | business.
00:02:43.940 | It's one of the cool entrepreneurial stories that I think you'll enjoy listening to, how
00:02:47.860 | there can be opportunities that are a slight twist on a proven business model.
00:02:52.340 | That's what I want you to pay attention to as you hear his story.
00:02:55.020 | Think about the different twists of business models that come out even as he just simply
00:03:00.100 | shares his story, how you can take something that other people have done, proven methods,
00:03:05.460 | in this case it's proven methods of vending, proven methods of franchising, and then you
00:03:10.340 | can translate that into something really cool and special.
00:03:14.140 | Sit back.
00:03:15.140 | Here we go.
00:03:16.140 | Welcome, Matt, to the show.
00:03:17.140 | Matt, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:03:20.100 | Hey, Joshua.
00:03:21.100 | Excited to be here.
00:03:22.500 | Thanks for having me on.
00:03:23.500 | I brought you on today to talk about vending.
00:03:28.540 | This is probably, for most entrepreneurs I know, people who want to establish a business
00:03:33.820 | for themselves and they want to get started and work their way towards financial independence,
00:03:40.300 | vending, if they don't pursue it, it's at least one of the things that they consider
00:03:44.340 | because the dream of being able to go and buy some candy machines and put them out there
00:03:48.500 | and they work for you 24 hours a day and you sit back and reap the profits, it's a pretty
00:03:55.580 | compelling deal.
00:03:57.220 | What's your history with the vending business?
00:03:59.700 | It's kind of funny.
00:04:00.780 | I graduated from the Air Force Academy.
00:04:02.980 | I was an Air Force pilot for nine years.
00:04:05.740 | I know a lot of people that know me previously, I think, are still probably scratching their
00:04:09.540 | heads.
00:04:10.540 | But you know what?
00:04:11.540 | I got out of the military back in 1998, did some work in the corporate world for about
00:04:16.580 | 11 years.
00:04:18.420 | About halfway through that, there were just some decisions made early by my boss that
00:04:24.820 | made a huge financial impact on my family, not in a good way.
00:04:32.100 | We went from slowly working ourselves out of taking a pay cut to leave the military
00:04:37.720 | to being in a huge hole.
00:04:39.260 | In fact, I got to a point where I literally got turned down by a payday loan place for
00:04:45.140 | a couple hundred bucks that I needed just to pay a bill.
00:04:49.460 | You don't need a credit rating for that.
00:04:51.460 | I was going to say, hold on.
00:04:52.460 | So this is worth talking about.
00:04:54.140 | On what basis did they turn you out?
00:04:56.420 | Because you don't need a credit rating, but you have to bring in your last month's bank
00:04:59.820 | statements and there cannot be any dings against you.
00:05:03.180 | And I had bounced three checks the month prior.
00:05:05.940 | And so I got turned down by that.
00:05:10.260 | But you know what?
00:05:11.260 | During all of that, I knew that it wasn't me.
00:05:14.860 | I knew it was situational.
00:05:16.980 | So I didn't take it personally.
00:05:18.720 | How did you know that?
00:05:20.520 | What gave you that confidence?
00:05:21.520 | Because a lot of people struggle with knowing the difference.
00:05:24.460 | I think it was just my upbringing.
00:05:26.100 | I think it was the fact that, I mean, let's face it.
00:05:28.340 | I went to a school that I was one of a thousand that was accepted out of 60,000 that applied.
00:05:34.020 | I had done some pretty, what the world would say, incredible things and accomplished some
00:05:40.540 | stuff that most people could never dream of.
00:05:42.500 | I mean, when I was 22, 23 years old, government was entrusting me with multimillion dollar
00:05:47.860 | airplanes teaching students how to fly.
00:05:51.540 | So I knew it was a temporary thing.
00:05:55.300 | It was frustrating though.
00:05:57.140 | And during that experience, I realized that I could not put all my eggs in one basket.
00:06:03.700 | And so I was looking.
00:06:04.780 | I had done some multi-level marketing stuff.
00:06:07.060 | I had sold books on Amazon and half.com and eBay.
00:06:11.660 | All those were great and they brought in great money.
00:06:13.940 | But the challenge was I had read Robert Kiyosaki's book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and I had believed
00:06:19.500 | it.
00:06:20.500 | And so I was not looking just to create an income stream.
00:06:23.540 | I was looking to create a passive income stream.
00:06:26.860 | And none of those were.
00:06:28.420 | So I had a good buddy of mine from church that had mentioned that he and his young daughters
00:06:33.100 | had bought some gumball machines and they had something they could do together.
00:06:37.600 | They had placed them in some local area businesses and he was teaching them about business and
00:06:42.220 | about making money and all that.
00:06:44.540 | And that really resonated with me.
00:06:46.520 | And so as I was still searching, trying to figure out how to get myself out of this monster
00:06:51.280 | hole that I was in with a wife and three kids, I remember that conversation with Damon and
00:06:57.860 | I was like, maybe vending's the answer because I couldn't quit what I was doing.
00:07:03.100 | I needed something to supplement.
00:07:05.480 | And so I went on Amazon.
00:07:07.180 | I bought two or three different eBooks over the span of a month's time.
00:07:11.700 | I educated myself on vending.
00:07:14.740 | There's a bunch of different vending.
00:07:15.740 | In fact, when I tell people I'm in vending, most think candy or they think snacks and
00:07:21.140 | sodas and that type of thing.
00:07:23.440 | But the challenge with that is that equipment is very expensive and I didn't have the money.
00:07:27.820 | And that equipment also, the capacity for those machines is very small.
00:07:33.140 | So if you get a good location, you are back at least once, if not more frequently on a
00:07:39.660 | weekly basis.
00:07:41.220 | And I couldn't do that.
00:07:42.220 | I was working full time in the advertising world at the time.
00:07:45.340 | But bulk vending, candy, gumballs, toys, temporary tattoos, that type of thing.
00:07:51.660 | The machines were very simple.
00:07:54.460 | They were mechanical.
00:07:55.460 | There was no electricity involved.
00:07:57.180 | And they were very inexpensive.
00:07:58.180 | In fact, the first machine that I got, I bought on eBay.
00:08:01.820 | It was a two head candy and gumball machine for 32 bucks from a guy that was across Houston
00:08:09.380 | that I just happened to find.
00:08:10.380 | So I didn't even have to pay for shipping.
00:08:12.460 | And so I'll never forget loading up my two oldest kids in my 1998 Honda Accord on a Saturday
00:08:18.180 | morning and driving across town to pick up this first machine.
00:08:21.740 | What year was that?
00:08:22.740 | Let's see.
00:08:23.740 | That would have been about nine years ago.
00:08:26.140 | So about 2006 or so.
00:08:31.140 | Yeah.
00:08:32.140 | And man, talk about a humbling experience.
00:08:36.220 | But I was excited about this stupid little candy machine, you know.
00:08:41.140 | And we loaded up the car.
00:08:42.300 | I found out that the guy had 19 others in his garage that he was getting ready to list
00:08:46.980 | on eBay.
00:08:48.100 | And I convinced him to hold on to them and let me come back over the next couple of months
00:08:53.220 | and buy every last one of them from him.
00:08:57.100 | So I went home and the next day after work, I started knocking on doors and just went
00:09:03.540 | business to business to business, trying to find somebody who would have interest in partnering
00:09:09.000 | with me, letting me help them raise some money and me make some money as well.
00:09:14.660 | What was the product that that first machine was going to be selling?
00:09:18.580 | One head was gumballs and one was Skittles.
00:09:22.500 | So the major work of vending, and this is what I've thought about it.
00:09:25.700 | I worked with a client of mine when I was a financial planner who talked about who actually
00:09:31.140 | had a vending business.
00:09:33.180 | Candy had pretty good business.
00:09:35.620 | I mean, he was making six figures with his vending business.
00:09:37.780 | It was pretty impressive.
00:09:39.940 | And as I've considered the business, it seems to me that the challenge is having the number
00:09:47.380 | one, well, it's probably two major things.
00:09:50.020 | Number one, having the courage to go through and fight for the locations because there
00:09:55.220 | aren't many places I would imagine at this day and age.
00:09:57.460 | There aren't many places that don't have a vending machine that just haven't ever thought
00:10:02.060 | about it.
00:10:03.420 | And then number two, building a system where you can efficiently keep them full.
00:10:08.100 | But it's got to be a tough sales job.
00:10:11.660 | Well, anything to order nor is tough.
00:10:14.940 | But the reality is you find out that there's a lot of locations out there that no one ever
00:10:20.420 | thought of talking to before that did not have machines or they were just too new to
00:10:26.620 | have somebody come by.
00:10:28.940 | And so, yeah, I probably talked to 20 different restaurants and businesses in my area to find
00:10:33.660 | the first one.
00:10:34.900 | But that really wasn't a whole lot different than what I was doing in the advertising space
00:10:39.820 | in the years that I was doing that.
00:10:41.420 | So I was used to working the numbers.
00:10:44.380 | And so I got that first machine placed, went back a couple weeks later and it was full
00:10:50.660 | of quarters, man.
00:10:52.320 | And talk about fired up.
00:10:55.100 | Because I wasn't there.
00:10:57.900 | And so I took that money, took to the bank, and then I called the guy up across town and
00:11:03.540 | said, "Hey, I've got some money for two more machines.
00:11:06.360 | When can I come and get them?"
00:11:07.780 | And I literally built that business on cash flow over a couple of months time because
00:11:13.660 | I did not have the money to do it any other way.
00:11:17.500 | So the first machine cost you $32 and then from then on you bought each additional machine
00:11:23.300 | based upon the profits from the first one.
00:11:25.620 | Yes.
00:11:26.620 | Yes.
00:11:27.620 | And then the time to sell and service.
00:11:29.540 | Yes.
00:11:30.540 | Now, a lot of people could not be that patient, but I didn't have a choice.
00:11:35.980 | Now what's kind of interesting, after a while I got kind of bored with just candy and all
00:11:41.660 | that.
00:11:42.660 | I got a Yahoo'd board that I could be a part of and learned a little bit more about the
00:11:46.060 | industry.
00:11:47.700 | And I decided to get involved in the sticker business.
00:11:50.620 | Well, I had never bought a sticker.
00:11:53.220 | I had never done anything with those machines, but I was hearing people talk about it.
00:11:58.100 | And so once again, I went on eBay.
00:12:00.460 | I found a gentleman in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
00:12:02.540 | Now I was in Houston at the time, that had two brand new machines he had picked up at
00:12:08.660 | a trade show.
00:12:09.980 | The vendors didn't want to ship them back, so they give them away for next to nothing
00:12:14.100 | to anybody who will take them.
00:12:15.940 | And he had had them in his warehouse for a couple of years and never done anything with
00:12:18.620 | them.
00:12:19.620 | Well, I did some research online, found out that each machine was worth about $400.
00:12:23.300 | Well, I got both of them for $350.
00:12:27.060 | I picked the one machine that I didn't like the look of.
00:12:30.580 | I copied and pasted the photo from that machine onto my own eBay listing.
00:12:35.900 | And before I drove from Houston to Tulsa, I had the second machine sold for the amount
00:12:41.700 | of money that it cost me for the two.
00:12:44.500 | That's awesome.
00:12:45.860 | So my only cost was to drive to Tulsa.
00:12:49.500 | And when I got there, the guy was willing to talk to me for about an hour and share
00:12:53.340 | some more insights on what he had done.
00:12:55.220 | He'd been in the industry for years.
00:12:57.300 | And slowly but surely, I picked up and put that puzzle together that has become my knowledge
00:13:05.120 | of vending.
00:13:06.120 | Fast forward a year and a half down the road, and I've got 125, 150 locations all across
00:13:14.780 | the northern Houston area.
00:13:16.540 | That's awesome.
00:13:17.540 | And then '07 and '08 hit.
00:13:20.140 | And the market tanked, of course, as you're well aware.
00:13:24.820 | Less people were going out to eat.
00:13:26.780 | And when they were going out to eat, they weren't allowing little Johnny and little
00:13:30.280 | Suzy as many quarters to put in my machines.
00:13:34.060 | So I was frustrated, and I was trying to figure out a way to increase my revenues and maximize
00:13:39.800 | my return for my time.
00:13:42.080 | And at that time, God sent four little kids by my house in the span of a couple of weeks,
00:13:48.540 | knocking on my door, trying to sell me stuff for the local schools.
00:13:52.960 | And I was like, "You know, I don't know any of these kids.
00:13:55.780 | Their parents weren't with them."
00:13:58.280 | And as with a dad with young kids at that point, I was like, "There is something really
00:14:02.100 | wrong with this picture."
00:14:03.460 | Right, right.
00:14:05.260 | So I started to think about, "Well, maybe I could work something out to tie the whole
00:14:09.820 | vending thing together with school fundraising and maybe get little Johnny and Suzy off the
00:14:13.820 | street."
00:14:14.820 | Well, a good buddy of mine came by about a month later.
00:14:17.700 | He is an elementary PE teacher.
00:14:19.980 | And he and his wife came by for dinner one night, and we got to talking.
00:14:23.780 | And he and I had done some business together previously.
00:14:26.560 | And I told him what I was doing, or thinking about doing.
00:14:29.180 | He said, "Matt, let me talk to my principal and my PTO and just run the idea by them and
00:14:34.660 | see what they think."
00:14:36.540 | And he called me back two weeks later, and he said, "Matt, you're approved.
00:14:41.260 | Bring a machine."
00:14:42.860 | So we set up our first machine.
00:14:45.300 | We cobbled together custom stickers for that school with their mascot and everything for
00:14:50.180 | that first location, customized the machine with the signage and all, and began a test.
00:14:58.820 | And the numbers were phenomenal.
00:15:01.620 | And the acceptance at the school was amazing because every bit of fundraising they had
00:15:06.540 | to do was active.
00:15:08.260 | They had to get the kids involved, or the parents, or the faculty, or whatever.
00:15:12.100 | And this was the first passive fundraising they'd ever done.
00:15:15.620 | And so we had done this test for several months.
00:15:20.220 | We're excited about it.
00:15:21.980 | And I was like, "Okay, well, I've kind of validated this.
00:15:24.740 | Let's go and start to find some others."
00:15:27.100 | And I went back to what I was used to, which was knocking on doors.
00:15:30.140 | And I literally went school by school by school in my area, trying to find other administrators
00:15:35.900 | who would be excited about our program.
00:15:38.220 | And they all kind of patted me on the head like a cute little puppy dog.
00:15:41.540 | None of them were early adopters, and that's okay.
00:15:44.320 | Most of them, that's not their personality type.
00:15:47.100 | But I got frustrated again because I had this great idea, but nobody really got it.
00:15:53.820 | Went online, just so happened that the Texas PTA was having an event two and a half weeks
00:15:58.820 | later.
00:15:59.820 | I contacted their main office.
00:16:02.060 | They were doing exhibiting.
00:16:04.140 | They did have space.
00:16:05.780 | And in two and a half weeks, I scrambled to get a logo together.
00:16:09.700 | We bought some cheesy t-shirts, someplace that we could get them turned around in a
00:16:13.460 | couple of days.
00:16:14.940 | We showed up, we had two spirit stickers, which was our claim to fame, right?
00:16:20.500 | Customization.
00:16:21.500 | We put it on that table and we gave it a whirl.
00:16:26.620 | My buddy that got me into the school, Jeremy, and then another friend, Shane, that I'd done
00:16:31.460 | some business with, I shared with them what I was doing.
00:16:34.540 | And I taught Shane traditional bulk vending in the previous couple of years.
00:16:39.020 | And I said, "You guys know my idea.
00:16:41.220 | Would you guys be willing to split a table?"
00:16:43.580 | I couldn't afford to do it all by myself.
00:16:45.260 | It was like 800 bucks.
00:16:47.100 | And they said, "Yeah, sure."
00:16:48.380 | So we all showed up.
00:16:49.900 | Had no clue what we were doing, really knew nothing about the PTA.
00:16:54.060 | And we gave it a whirl.
00:16:57.940 | And we had 10 PTA moms that just could not fathom not having our program in their school.
00:17:06.900 | And now, we are in Texas.
00:17:09.020 | There was only three of us.
00:17:10.260 | But when you do an event like that, they come from everywhere.
00:17:14.180 | So I was thinking, "Well, the event's in Houston.
00:17:17.020 | They're going to be right in Houston."
00:17:18.460 | No, no.
00:17:20.580 | Two were from Austin, three were from San Antonio, and five were from the Dallas-Fort
00:17:25.340 | Worth area.
00:17:26.340 | Wow.
00:17:27.340 | Well, I had a decision to make.
00:17:29.140 | Are we going to make this work or what?
00:17:30.660 | So my buddy, Shane, who was out of San Antonio, took care of the San Antonio and Austin.
00:17:36.860 | And then I took care of the Dallas-Fort Worth schools.
00:17:39.740 | And I just fit my servicing schedule in with time off and that type of thing.
00:17:46.420 | And we just kind of got that ball rolling and it snowballed from there.
00:17:51.820 | How long ago was that PTA meeting?
00:17:55.340 | That was seven and a half years ago.
00:18:00.700 | Wow.
00:18:01.700 | October next month will be eight years since I put that first machine in.
00:18:05.700 | It's crazy how time's flown.
00:18:09.460 | So do you have machines all across the country or just in Texas?
00:18:13.220 | Where are you now with your personal business?
00:18:15.180 | Well, we've grown a distributor model for years, but we're now a franchise.
00:18:20.940 | We have a team of about 60 different families in about 24 states right now.
00:18:26.620 | And we're in about 1,800 or so schools.
00:18:29.220 | Are you making money?
00:18:31.420 | We're doing all right.
00:18:33.100 | My wife says it keeps me out of trouble.
00:18:36.060 | And this is your full-time deal now?
00:18:37.940 | Yes.
00:18:38.940 | A couple of years ago, I walked away from the corporate gig in the advertising world.
00:18:47.220 | We bought our first house.
00:18:48.940 | I moved five hours away to Central Texas and I quit my job all at one time.
00:18:55.300 | And we haven't looked back.
00:18:57.340 | That's awesome.
00:18:58.340 | Well, you've moved from the left side of the quadrant to the right side of the quadrant
00:19:04.220 | in Kiyosaki's cash flow quadrant.
00:19:07.020 | So that's awesome.
00:19:08.940 | It would seem to me that the problem in the vending business, which is why you turned
00:19:13.740 | to franchising, which sounds awesome, but it seems to me the problem in the vending
00:19:18.280 | business is scale and reach.
00:19:22.960 | Some businesses could easily expand across multiple states across the country.
00:19:27.340 | But in the vending business, if you're going to actually manage your machines and you're
00:19:30.900 | actually going to manage your employees, you've got to be able to have contact with them and
00:19:35.820 | you've got to find people that you can trust.
00:19:37.660 | You've got to put systems in place to handle the money.
00:19:40.100 | So it's not a business that scales across multiple states very easily, right?
00:19:43.900 | Well, but you know what?
00:19:45.260 | I'm on the board of directors of our national organization and I run with a lot of the big
00:19:51.940 | vendors in the country.
00:19:54.340 | And there's a lot of them that cover entire regions of the US.
00:19:59.220 | But I don't know if you remember ever seeing the Donnie Deutch show on CNN called The Big
00:20:04.100 | Idea.
00:20:05.580 | This was probably eight years ago or so.
00:20:08.980 | Anyway, he had the CEO of the company Coinstar on his show one time.
00:20:14.620 | I don't even know the guy's name.
00:20:16.220 | It's not really important except for the fact that he showed up on the show.
00:20:19.900 | He was dressed to the nines, cuff links, suit, all that stuff.
00:20:24.500 | And I saw that and I made a conscious decision at that point that I did not want to be that
00:20:30.140 | guy.
00:20:31.300 | Because you can be a hundred million plus dollar company.
00:20:33.900 | They've got all the red box machines and all that stuff now.
00:20:37.060 | But my guess is the guy works 80 to 90 hours a week.
00:20:41.500 | And I bought into Kiyosaki's lifestyle.
00:20:45.500 | So I was looking for something that I did not have to own completely and have all the
00:20:52.060 | headaches and hassles of.
00:20:53.920 | So I intentionally took the direction that I did because I know owners treat things completely
00:21:00.260 | differently than employees do.
00:21:02.660 | And I only had to teach people our system one time.
00:21:06.820 | And once they learned it, then they were on their own to grow at whatever pace they chose.
00:21:13.900 | All I had to do is create an environment for them to win and have a proven system in place
00:21:20.920 | for them to do it.
00:21:23.060 | And the franchise model is definitely the true owner lifestyle model, which is so cool.
00:21:28.740 | I mean, you prove your concept out and then you build the franchise.
00:21:32.300 | And as the franchisor, you get to enjoy the leverage of many people's businesses and they
00:21:38.900 | get to enjoy the leverage of your proven system.
00:21:43.500 | Franchising is an amazing concept and I'm so glad it exists.
00:21:47.660 | I want to clarify because I don't fully understand how the stickers relate to the kids.
00:21:53.820 | The kids are just simply buying the stickers or they're selling the stickers?
00:21:56.980 | The kids are buying the stickers.
00:21:58.260 | Just for their own personal use?
00:21:59.260 | For their own personal use.
00:22:01.220 | Like when we sell NFL stickers, you'll oftentimes, believe it or not, see the dads lined up at
00:22:06.540 | the machine when they're coming to pick up their kids because they want their NFL team
00:22:10.900 | sticker or whatever.
00:22:12.320 | But it's primarily geared towards the kids.
00:22:14.100 | Okay.
00:22:15.100 | And then so then you just split the revenue with the school.
00:22:17.740 | And so in exchange for having the machine in there, they take a percentage of it and
00:22:22.020 | that raises money for the school.
00:22:23.780 | And then you deal with the hassle of servicing it, filling it, making sure everything's up
00:22:28.060 | to date.
00:22:29.060 | We do everything.
00:22:30.280 | They just have to cash the check every month.
00:22:33.300 | That's awesome.
00:22:34.300 | Do you have to keep the stickers fresh?
00:22:36.620 | Do you have to swap them out all the time or does the same sticker sell continually?
00:22:41.060 | No.
00:22:42.060 | We have to constantly change out the product.
00:22:44.440 | One of the things that we learned early on is the fact that a lot of the vending industry,
00:22:49.060 | the product that they offer, they're trying to straddle two different worlds.
00:22:53.420 | They're trying to straddle the world with the young kids, but they're also trying to
00:22:57.740 | straddle like the tween teen market as well.
00:23:02.820 | And so because of that, in most series that were produced, there's always that one or
00:23:08.660 | two designs that was just edgy enough that we couldn't run it.
00:23:13.220 | So we had to establish exclusive relationships very early on to where I'm a part of the art
00:23:21.740 | direction of 90% of what we sell.
00:23:25.020 | I'm not the artist, but I have ultimate authority on whether we run something or not.
00:23:30.300 | And everything is geared towards little Johnny who's five years old.
00:23:35.660 | Because if mom and dad complain, then we're potentially out of business.
00:23:40.380 | And so everything has to be geared to that and most of our product is created specifically
00:23:46.500 | because of that.
00:23:48.680 | So you've spent a lot of years working your tail off.
00:23:52.420 | Yep.
00:23:54.240 | What prompted you?
00:23:56.080 | What has been giving you the energy to do that?
00:24:00.220 | Because it's not easy to work a full time job and then to walk away.
00:24:04.700 | You had kids and a wife and then not be there at night while you're out knocking on doors
00:24:08.460 | of businesses.
00:24:10.740 | What's driving you?
00:24:14.340 | I believe that American dream that we were all taught, that we've all heard about.
00:24:21.260 | The rags to riches story, we weren't necessarily rags, but I came from real humble beginnings
00:24:28.080 | with my family in Illinois, outside of Chicago.
00:24:32.120 | And man, I've always wanted to live that life.
00:24:36.640 | I've always wanted to have total control over what I do, to do what I want to do, not what
00:24:41.580 | somebody else tells me to do.
00:24:43.120 | And the only way for me to do that was to figure out the money side of things.
00:24:48.560 | And today, the reason why I continue to work so hard is number one, I believe I owe that
00:24:56.400 | to my team to continue to push the limits, to continue to strive to do better, to continue
00:25:03.440 | to provide more for them because they've entrusted me and the leadership and the direction of
00:25:09.920 | everything that we do.
00:25:12.200 | So the speed of the group is determined by the speed of the leader, right?
00:25:16.600 | So that's why I'm here, because the only way I get better, which helps me be better for
00:25:23.440 | my team and the families that we now support with our business is by me continuing to push
00:25:29.940 | forward and not being satisfied.
00:25:33.420 | We have a mantra in our team is that we're all green tomatoes.
00:25:38.120 | You know, a red tomato is dead.
00:25:41.160 | A green tomato is alive.
00:25:43.720 | And so we want to focus as much as we can on being a green tomato and not a red tomato.
00:25:49.760 | And so that's what my life's about, is learning more, getting around guys like you that can
00:25:54.920 | make me better, that are smarter in areas with talents that I just don't have.
00:26:02.440 | And in some cases, learning by osmosis, in some cases, having the opportunity to develop
00:26:07.480 | significant relationships over time and really get to help one another as we live this life,
00:26:14.680 | you know, live the live, the fight, live the challenge.
00:26:19.160 | It is it's we're not made for sitting down and doing nothing.
00:26:25.560 | You know, rest is needed, but rest is needed to get back in the battle.
00:26:29.880 | And and I, I enjoy the fight.
00:26:34.200 | I enjoy the struggle.
00:26:35.200 | I enjoy the the challenge.
00:26:36.720 | If you're doing something that you believe is worthwhile, then you can really enjoy the
00:26:42.080 | the struggle.
00:26:43.840 | I would much rather climb into bed at the end of the day, just exhausted and fall asleep
00:26:50.920 | knowing that I gave it everything, then just wander through the day and not bother with
00:26:56.560 | anything.
00:26:57.560 | And then you come into the bed and you're disgusted with yourself if you don't do something.
00:27:00.320 | Now, it does, again, not to say you don't need rest.
00:27:02.680 | We all need rest.
00:27:03.760 | Not say you don't need a vacation.
00:27:04.920 | We do, but rest is not the goal.
00:27:07.080 | It's just simply the tool to help you reach the goal.
00:27:10.400 | Yeah, my my parents are both artists.
00:27:13.260 | My dad is is an amazing woodcarver.
00:27:16.320 | He could take a picture of you and he could carve a bust that looks exactly like you.
00:27:21.280 | Wow.
00:27:22.280 | None of this, you know, woodland stuff.
00:27:23.280 | I mean, he's amazing.
00:27:24.520 | My mom's a painter and a she does stained glass.
00:27:29.240 | She does quilting.
00:27:31.040 | She's incredible as well.
00:27:32.120 | They're both teachers and their earlier years before they retired.
00:27:36.080 | I did not inherit a lick of that creative ability on the artistic front.
00:27:42.800 | What I inherited is creativity in the business sense.
00:27:46.960 | And I am most alive when I'm helping create something.
00:27:53.080 | You know, when I'm when I'm coming up with a new idea and then working through the process
00:27:58.640 | of launching it and and and creating something new.
00:28:02.800 | And my ultimate vision is not just sticker vending machines in schools.
00:28:08.360 | My ultimate vision, quite honestly, is to reinvent the fundraising process completely
00:28:14.900 | so that the educators in this country no longer have to worry about the fundraising.
00:28:19.920 | They work with companies like my own, where we have a whole stable of entities that they
00:28:25.280 | sign on with us.
00:28:26.600 | We come in and do our thing behind the scenes and they spend their time doing what they're
00:28:31.840 | experts at, which is educating our kids.
00:28:34.400 | And we come in and employ our expertise on their behalf so that they can do that.
00:28:40.020 | You mentioned a number of failures in a number of very difficult years where you're just
00:28:46.200 | really struggling.
00:28:48.040 | And then over time, you know, things have changed.
00:28:52.240 | The trajectory has changed.
00:28:54.160 | Are you able to identify anything in you that changed that made a difference or anything
00:28:59.960 | that you did that you were doing previously that you stopped or anything that you weren't
00:29:04.480 | doing when things were down that you started doing when things went up?
00:29:07.840 | Oh, man, a lot of stuff.
00:29:09.160 | I don't have enough time.
00:29:12.280 | I used to be an arrogant jerk for one thing, you know, a typical pilot, you know, kind
00:29:16.720 | of the whole Tom Cruise Top Gun thing.
00:29:18.640 | Right.
00:29:19.640 | I mean, that was me.
00:29:20.640 | And I hung out with those kind of guys.
00:29:22.840 | So humility has been a big thing.
00:29:27.520 | Another big thing has been patience.
00:29:30.640 | I am inherently very, very impatient.
00:29:34.240 | I don't know if you're familiar with the disc model of personalities, but I am an off the
00:29:40.240 | charts D. So I'm a driver.
00:29:43.480 | And so relatability and empathy and some of those things are not my strong suit at all.
00:29:51.060 | But one thing that has allowed me to learn patience, as silly as this sounds, is now
00:29:56.740 | that I have some time to do what I want to do, one of my passions is gardening and to
00:30:02.920 | plant that seed and then watch God grow it over a span of weeks or months and to have
00:30:09.520 | to be there just as the one that's tending it by watering it and pulling the weeds and
00:30:13.940 | all that has really been huge for me.
00:30:16.760 | It's been therapeutic.
00:30:17.760 | I get a chance to spend probably four hours a week out in the garden, especially right
00:30:22.520 | now where we're harvesting tomatoes and squash and all that stuff like there's no tomorrow.
00:30:29.220 | But that has really kind of leveled me as crazy as that sounds and has made me a lot
00:30:37.800 | better in the process.
00:30:40.360 | I also believe that I was put through what I was put through to prepare me to be where
00:30:46.560 | I am today.
00:30:47.560 | You know, a lot of people look back on their failures or their lows in their life with
00:30:53.720 | regret.
00:30:54.720 | I don't regret a minute of it because I don't think that I could be doing as successfully
00:30:59.580 | what I am today without having been through those lows.
00:31:03.760 | If you look at a mountain, I went to school in Colorado at the Air Force Academy, had
00:31:07.560 | the beautiful mountains right outside my window.
00:31:10.000 | Well, there's nothing growing on the mountaintop.
00:31:13.180 | It's all growing in the valley.
00:31:15.160 | And that's where growth occurs in each and every one of our lives as well, is in the
00:31:19.120 | valley.
00:31:20.560 | And so I'm grateful for those times.
00:31:25.160 | I don't wish them on anybody, but then again, they were necessary for me to be where I am.
00:31:30.640 | And that's one of my biggest struggles today as a parent is to make sure that I don't rob
00:31:36.040 | my kids of those struggles because if they don't have them, they can't grow to become
00:31:42.000 | who I believe God has meant for them to be.
00:31:45.640 | What else?
00:31:46.640 | Did you change anything as far as in your daily practices or in your habits?
00:31:52.600 | Did you change?
00:31:53.600 | I've had to become, I mean, I was pretty disciplined already, but I've had to become even more
00:31:59.800 | so because when you have total control of your time, as you know, it's real easy for
00:32:06.000 | time to get away from you.
00:32:08.080 | And I've wasted my share of time just like anybody, but what I did learn is that just
00:32:16.520 | being idle, there's no satisfaction in that whatsoever.
00:32:20.440 | I mean, tomorrow I'll go and I'll just kind of do nothing most of the day just because
00:32:25.440 | this has been a pretty intense weekend with a lot of relationships and a lot going on.
00:32:31.080 | But man, I'm going to be ready to jump right back in the saddle again and figure out how
00:32:37.320 | I can help the people that I've run into here and figure out ways that these relationships
00:32:42.920 | and this knowledge that I've gained here in these last few days can be leveraged to take
00:32:48.160 | things to a whole new level and in the process make things better for my team, make things
00:32:53.160 | better for my schools that I serve and improve things hopefully for everybody.
00:33:00.400 | How did you, let me rephrase.
00:33:06.360 | Are you passionate about vending?
00:33:09.440 | No.
00:33:12.240 | I'm passionate about, see, I tell everybody our business is kind of the unbusiness model,
00:33:20.560 | meaning I took everything that I liked about corporate America and the military and I kept,
00:33:24.760 | but everything that I hated I got rid of.
00:33:27.760 | They always changed the rules in corporate America and they were never to my favor.
00:33:32.080 | I was always asked to go to events like this or whatever, but it was just me and my family
00:33:37.040 | was left at home.
00:33:39.080 | So in our business, we have another one of our mantras is that families are our foundation
00:33:45.880 | and we encourage families to be involved, actively involved at all levels of what we
00:33:51.600 | do.
00:33:53.580 | My son Zane is a great example.
00:33:55.880 | When he was 10 years old, I started my company and I realized graphic design was going to
00:34:00.360 | be very expensive and that my business was going to require a lot of it.
00:34:04.440 | So I bought an iMac, I bought the Adobe Photoshop or the Adobe suite and Zane spent two hours
00:34:11.520 | working in the art of my good friend Jeff Smith, who's a trained graphic designer and
00:34:16.080 | Hollywood commercial editor in exchange for two hours of training on Photoshop and Illustrator.
00:34:22.680 | Zane at that point became the beginnings of our graphics team.
00:34:28.720 | Today he leads a team of multiple adults who are all freelancers working for what we do.
00:34:34.280 | He's 19 and he's a sophomore in college and he's had literally nine years of experience
00:34:43.840 | as a graphic designer.
00:34:46.200 | And to have the opportunity to allow him to grow at his own pace to do that has been huge,
00:34:53.660 | but also to see the same thing happen with the kids in a bunch of the different families
00:34:57.720 | on our team.
00:34:58.960 | We've got the second generation now that's getting involved, that we're helping their
00:35:03.000 | mom and dad build up their businesses and got excited about the opportunity of doing
00:35:08.940 | the same thing for themselves and now they are getting started at 18 and 19.
00:35:14.680 | And in the process we're creating a multi-generational business that is impacting families, it's
00:35:19.800 | changing the family tree of families.
00:35:24.100 | I was on the Dave Ramsey show and I know that you think a lot of Dave and got some of your
00:35:29.040 | start from listening to him.
00:35:32.200 | And I had an opportunity about a year and a half ago to ask him a question on his show.
00:35:36.720 | I was at an Entree Leadership event and I started out my question just letting Dave
00:35:44.280 | know, "Dave, I wanted to publicly thank you because your message has completely changed
00:35:49.960 | my family tree."
00:35:51.960 | And that's my hope, that's my prayer, is to be able to provide an environment and to
00:35:59.280 | provide some insights and some knowledge to some folks that maybe because they're not
00:36:04.800 | wired the same way had all the tools to go out and start something on their own, but
00:36:12.640 | could in a safe and proven environment like we've created.
00:36:17.560 | But in the process to give them more security over their finances, to give them a lot more
00:36:22.120 | options.
00:36:23.600 | Many of them have chosen to do this full time and are living successful lives with our program.
00:36:31.120 | Many this is just a supplement to allow them to pay some extra bills or to put some kids
00:36:35.800 | through school or whatever.
00:36:38.440 | But for each family to have an environment where they can take what we've done and make
00:36:43.920 | it what they want it to be and be a blessing for them and their family along the way.
00:36:49.480 | It's definitely a privilege and I guess that would be your answer to the passion question.
00:36:55.840 | I think this is something we don't talk about enough.
00:36:58.280 | A lot of times I talk a good bit on Radical Personal Finance about passion businesses
00:37:03.760 | and lifestyle businesses, do what you love.
00:37:07.120 | It's quite the mantra.
00:37:08.120 | I mean a gathering like this is over a thousand people here this weekend and I would say 850
00:37:13.840 | of them, 850 of us are wannabe motivational speakers saying go out and live your passion.
00:37:21.800 | Problem is I don't believe that passion is the only ingredient that you need and I don't
00:37:25.920 | believe that everybody can make a living cooking cupcakes because that's what they love to
00:37:29.760 | do or driving Corvettes because that's what they love to do.
00:37:32.720 | I think some people can but I think some people can make a living driving a race car and some
00:37:37.640 | people can make a living working on a race car and some people can make a living practicing
00:37:41.320 | law and racing cars on the weekends and that's not the determinant of happiness.
00:37:46.960 | Passion is not only expressed in the hobbies and in the fun things and frankly, myself
00:37:52.360 | having had some fun jobs, I realized I don't really necessarily like fun jobs.
00:37:59.120 | I learned, I'm so thankful for a summer, two summers, I taught wakeboarding and water skiing
00:38:06.200 | and it was the quintessential fun job.
00:38:09.220 | You show up to work in a pair of board shorts and you drive a boat around the lake and here
00:38:14.320 | I'm a high school kid and you got girls in bikinis all around and you're teaching them
00:38:20.240 | the wakeboard.
00:38:21.240 | That's a fun job and I hated it because by the end of the summer, it was the same thing
00:38:27.760 | over and over and over and over and I hated it.
00:38:35.260 | I learned that fun is not the measure of enjoyable.
00:38:39.520 | Fun is not the measure of passion and you can develop a passion around an activity,
00:38:46.720 | sure, and for some people, they're able to do that.
00:38:49.640 | You can also develop a passion for how you do an activity and you can just be enjoying
00:38:55.540 | the process of becoming the best and then you can also develop a passion for the results
00:39:00.540 | of an activity and that pushes a lot of moms and dads every single day when they don't
00:39:06.500 | feel like getting up and they don't feel like going to work and they don't feel like parenting
00:39:10.880 | and they don't feel like loving their spouse.
00:39:13.040 | That pushes them because they love the results and in my mind, I'm sure there's many other
00:39:18.140 | things that can drive the passion but we spend, and I probably am guilty of it, but we spend
00:39:24.120 | too much time talking about pursuing the fun passion and not enough time recognizing the
00:39:29.560 | fact that life is not all about fun and the most fulfilling times of life are not necessarily
00:39:35.860 | the most fun times.
00:39:37.260 | I like to stand on a beach with my wife and snuggle as we watch the sun set but I'll tell
00:39:41.640 | you the times that have been the most meaningful in our relationship to me have often been
00:39:48.120 | very difficult and they've been difficult for various reasons but those are the times
00:39:54.900 | where our relationship has deepened and I think we do a disservice if we set the expectation
00:40:00.640 | to people that the only way to be passionate is to pursue fun.
00:40:05.960 | No doubt about it.
00:40:07.480 | My passion really is making a difference.
00:40:11.140 | My coach Aaron Walker, which I think you've had a chance to meet this weekend, his whole
00:40:18.920 | motivation today is teaching men to go from just success to significance, to having a
00:40:24.680 | meaning in the world and in the people around them and that's what drives me more than anything,
00:40:31.240 | not only with our business team and our schools but because I now have control over my time,
00:40:37.480 | I work with an organization, I'm on the board of directors, it's called Kids Across Cultures
00:40:42.600 | and we do a lot of work overseas, primarily in China right now, working with a people
00:40:48.160 | group called the Hani that is one of the poorest and most remote groups of people on the planet
00:40:55.600 | and to go and to be able to spend time with those people and to be able to pour my life
00:40:59.920 | into them and help others do the same and to be able to take my kids with me.
00:41:05.320 | I took my son Zane two years ago, I took my daughter Sarah this last year and I'll take
00:41:10.480 | my youngest daughter Rebecca this coming year and for them to go and have an opportunity
00:41:17.600 | to share with some that will never have the opportunity that we have here and to shed
00:41:25.480 | some light in a really dark part of the world is worth it all.
00:41:31.240 | Have your other kids been involved in the business in any way similar to how Zane has
00:41:37.000 | been?
00:41:38.000 | Oh yeah, I mean before we moved to where we live now, we lived in a 1200 square foot house
00:41:42.640 | in Kingwood, Texas which is on the northeast side of Houston and we literally for years,
00:41:49.720 | our living room was a vending machine assembly area.
00:41:56.040 | Our kids would help collate the stickers and they'd help put labels and stamps on postcards
00:42:02.680 | that we were sending out.
00:42:04.560 | My daughter Sarah, the second in line, is now doing a bunch of graphic design work.
00:42:09.120 | She's even more artistically talented than her brother.
00:42:12.760 | Zane has the computer, the tech talent but she's applying her talents now having learned
00:42:19.680 | some of the basics of the Adobe products.
00:42:23.860 | My youngest, Becca, she helps out with a lot of other things.
00:42:27.680 | She helps me keep organized, she helps me keep my office clean.
00:42:31.120 | I've got somebody coming and she'll help me straighten up because my office is kind of
00:42:36.720 | organized chaos often times.
00:42:40.040 | She'll help me with some collating and that type of thing and she's expressed interest
00:42:43.480 | in doing some design at some point too.
00:42:48.080 | My goal is for them ultimately to have a skill set and to have an opportunity to pursue their
00:42:56.160 | giftings so that when they get to the point where they're out on their own, they can choose
00:43:01.120 | to work for somebody if they want but if not, they've been given a lot of the tools and
00:43:05.560 | the environment that they've grown up in to go out and make their own way and to do it
00:43:11.920 | their own way without us having given it all to them which I think is a real struggle for
00:43:18.880 | a lot of us but we really work hard to make sure that they understand the importance of
00:43:27.680 | hard work and all that because nothing comes for free in this world.
00:43:33.240 | It's a lot of responsibility to have that many lives depending on you.
00:43:39.360 | Employees, franchisees, children, not easy is it?
00:43:44.480 | No it's not and that's one reason why I started working with a coach, Aaron, and why I've
00:43:49.520 | been coming to events like this for the last number of years because I have to stay plugged
00:43:55.320 | in and you're really a sum of the books that you read and the people that you hang out
00:44:01.760 | with and so I really strive hard and long to regularly be out of my comfort zone by
00:44:09.800 | getting myself around people who make me uncomfortable because they're that much more successful
00:44:15.880 | or that much more knowledgeable in an area that I'm not and in doing so, it allows me
00:44:21.960 | to continue to grow and it allows me to continue to earn the opportunity to serve the people
00:44:28.760 | that I get a chance to serve.
00:44:31.600 | Take a minute, tell us about your company, website, your franchise.
00:44:34.720 | I know you're not allowed to talk about details necessarily but your franchise because that's
00:44:39.940 | your main focus now is building your franchisees to replicate what you've done here in Texas.
00:44:44.280 | Correct.
00:44:45.280 | Talk about that because it might be something that would be helpful for any listeners of
00:44:48.720 | this show.
00:44:49.720 | Yeah, I mean what we're looking for first off is folks that are maybe a little discouraged
00:44:53.680 | with their full-time career, kind of like I was, who are looking for a way to take some
00:44:59.140 | more control and maybe on down the road potentially exercise some more freedom financially.
00:45:05.720 | Our business, one of its strengths is the fact that it requires a very small time commitment
00:45:10.760 | to get started unlike most franchises that are going to expect you to step off the cliff
00:45:15.820 | and you are 100% having to work within your store or restaurant or what have you.
00:45:22.180 | Here someone can start our business on just a couple days a month.
00:45:26.360 | It's very inexpensive to get started, $15,000 to get started.
00:45:31.320 | That's franchise fee coupled with everything you need to get your first five schools up
00:45:37.020 | and running.
00:45:38.880 | We're looking for people literally in just about every state except for Texas today in
00:45:44.160 | some way, shape or form.
00:45:46.440 | Our school-facing website is schoolspiritvending.com and though I started the company originally
00:45:55.840 | to create temporary tattoos and all that for the high school and junior high market for
00:45:59.420 | athletic events and all, they didn't respond to it.
00:46:04.080 | We do most of our work with elementary schools today.
00:46:08.060 | Like I said, we're growing like a weed.
00:46:09.980 | We really have found a need and are filling it and schools have responded because of that.
00:46:17.600 | I think the franchise model is definitely something that many, many people should consider.
00:46:24.780 | I just read E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber where he talks about the structure of a business.
00:46:34.560 | I've experienced as an entrepreneur when I was with Northwestern Mutual, I was an entrepreneur
00:46:40.360 | but I was almost an entrepreneur with a franchise.
00:46:42.480 | I had a contractual agreement with Northwestern Mutual that was similar in many ways to a
00:46:46.760 | franchise agreement.
00:46:48.040 | I was able to represent their products and their services and I also worked with other
00:46:52.560 | companies and I was able to represent their products and services but I was given a system
00:46:56.880 | for success.
00:46:57.920 | I wasn't just sent out.
00:46:59.400 | I was told, "Do these things.
00:47:01.720 | If you do these things, you will get these results."
00:47:05.080 | That was such a beautiful thing because I always knew what to do.
00:47:09.240 | Now, I could decide whether I wanted to do it or not but I couldn't be surprised about
00:47:13.800 | the results that I got or not.
00:47:16.120 | The results were directly tied to doing the things.
00:47:18.280 | It's no problem if somebody says, "I just don't want to do those things."
00:47:21.520 | Okay, that's fine.
00:47:22.760 | You don't have to but this one is not going to work unless you do these things so you've
00:47:26.880 | got to do these things.
00:47:29.120 | That's very different than this business that I'm in now with Radical Personal Finance.
00:47:33.800 | The challenge here, I don't know what things to do and nobody knows what things to do.
00:47:39.160 | That is tough.
00:47:40.160 | That's where you are as the franchisor is in developing this, you're on the side of
00:47:46.520 | saying, "I don't know what to do.
00:47:48.080 | I got to figure it out.
00:47:49.080 | I think I want to go here and let's see if this works.
00:47:50.960 | Well, let's see if temporary tattoos work.
00:47:52.560 | Nope, that didn't work.
00:47:53.560 | Let's see if stickers work.
00:47:54.920 | Nope, that didn't work.
00:47:56.040 | You try this design.
00:47:57.040 | That one didn't work but this one does."
00:47:59.840 | That is tough.
00:48:01.960 | Some days I long for the days when I knew what to do every day.
00:48:05.920 | If I go in, do these actions, I get this result.
00:48:08.960 | Life's not like that anymore.
00:48:11.220 | There are a certain number of people.
00:48:13.200 | I enjoy it but it is challenging.
00:48:15.440 | There are a certain number of people I think who should go out and just do their own thing
00:48:19.000 | and set something up.
00:48:21.440 | Those people can take inspiration from what we've talked about.
00:48:24.560 | There are other people who can look at what they're doing and say, "There are some attributes
00:48:28.720 | of this job, attributes of this business that I don't really love.
00:48:33.160 | I can see some other things."
00:48:34.320 | The thing about franchising is, my goodness, pick up Entrepreneur Magazine and you'll find
00:48:39.440 | your franchise magazine.
00:48:40.920 | Just find Franchise Opportunity Magazines.
00:48:43.200 | As you start to read through them, they can give you exposure to many different types
00:48:47.600 | of businesses, whether it's a mobile dog grooming business or a selling stickers in schools
00:48:52.520 | business or a selling candy in restaurants business or a rug cleaning business.
00:48:57.240 | You can start to think, "Would I enjoy the attributes of that?
00:49:00.620 | Is there something about that?"
00:49:02.040 | And then you can filter through it.
00:49:05.360 | If appropriate, you do your research on the franchise or you make sure the business model
00:49:10.480 | you do carefully, which you do due diligence.
00:49:14.800 | At least when you sign up, you should, if you've done your due diligence, you should
00:49:18.720 | have a model that works.
00:49:20.040 | And then you just simply don't have to figure it out how to do it.
00:49:22.960 | You just simply sit down and do it.
00:49:24.760 | It's powerful.
00:49:25.760 | Yeah, and we've got eight years track record with what we're doing.
00:49:30.040 | There's no question that it works.
00:49:31.760 | Ultimately, it's a question of will that individual work it.
00:49:36.200 | Like you said, if they're willing to follow our simple recipe for success, what's really
00:49:42.960 | cool about this is the fact that I've seen person after person after person after person
00:49:48.760 | who is duplicating that to whatever level they choose to.
00:49:53.240 | And it's cool to see it.
00:49:55.800 | I loved being an instructor pilot in the Air Force because I could watch this student who
00:50:00.760 | knew nothing about flying before they sat down at my desk that first day.
00:50:05.960 | And in a matter of a month and a half, they're going solo in a supersonic airplane.
00:50:12.320 | And a couple months after that, they've gotten their wings and now they're going on to learn
00:50:17.800 | to fly whatever airplane they're assigned to.
00:50:22.000 | There was a lot of gratification in that.
00:50:24.120 | And this duplicates that a lot for me, is to be able to see that growth, to see that
00:50:29.760 | change and to provide an environment for people to win.
00:50:34.840 | Not to do it for them, but to provide the environment and then to watch them grow and
00:50:38.980 | change and become with us just being a little part of that process.
00:50:44.800 | When you have some of the things in life that are important to you, when you've got Maslow's
00:50:48.320 | hierarchy of needs, when you've got the basics of your life squared away, then some of the
00:50:54.280 | things that are for other people are more gratifying than some of the things for yourself.
00:50:58.360 | I mean, from time to time, I get an email from a listener that says, "Joshua, I want
00:51:01.880 | to thank you because of you, here's what's happened."
00:51:04.260 | I love those emails.
00:51:07.000 | They're so important because I rejoice in many ways more with them than often I do with
00:51:14.200 | my own successes.
00:51:16.520 | It's easier in many ways to rejoice.
00:51:19.560 | In the position you're in, it definitely, I think, can be a cool place where you can
00:51:24.960 | rejoice when you see other people able to change from something that's not a good fit
00:51:31.080 | to something that is.
00:51:32.740 | You mentioned your school-facing website, School Spirit Vending.
00:51:35.800 | I don't think you mentioned your franchise.
00:51:37.640 | It's SSVBusiness.com, School Spirit Vending, SSV Business.
00:51:43.680 | And Matt@SSVBusiness.com.
00:51:44.680 | Awesome.
00:51:45.680 | If folks have interest in talking a little bit more, I would love to talk.
00:51:51.880 | Or if they've just got some questions about vending or whatever, what you'll find with
00:51:57.040 | me is this is a very low-pressure deal.
00:51:59.900 | If it makes sense to you, great.
00:52:01.800 | If it doesn't, that's okay, too.
00:52:03.680 | I tell folks my Rice Krispies will be just as crispy tomorrow.
00:52:07.560 | And in the process, there's no pressure.
00:52:10.000 | This isn't some hard sell.
00:52:11.480 | So if it makes sense and you want to talk, I'd love to do so.
00:52:14.960 | And then check us out and decide for yourself if what we stand for and what we do makes
00:52:20.320 | sense for you and your family.
00:52:21.600 | Awesome.
00:52:22.600 | Matt, thanks for coming on.
00:52:23.600 | Thanks, Joshua.
00:52:24.600 | And I appreciate what you're doing, man.
00:52:27.200 | Of course, we just met yesterday, but I got a chance to listen to a couple of your shows
00:52:31.860 | early this morning.
00:52:33.720 | And man, I'm excited about what you're putting together.
00:52:37.560 | One of these days when I can get it done, I'm going to do some shows about some of the
00:52:43.040 | cool financial planning tricks you can use when you're using your kids in your business.
00:52:47.800 | Because there's some fun things that you can do.
00:52:50.120 | If nothing else, I don't know if you contribute to your son's college education, but pay him.
00:52:54.320 | And it is deductible.
00:52:55.320 | I mean, there's just some simple little technical financial planning tricks that you can do.
00:52:59.880 | And when your kids are involved, the rule with kids working in businesses is pay them
00:53:06.280 | for actual work they do like you would pay anybody else.
00:53:09.520 | And that's good for everybody.
00:53:10.520 | That's good for you, and it's good for them.
00:53:12.600 | And it's also good to be able to use the tax law in your favor.
00:53:19.180 | The only time it doesn't work is when you pay your nine-year-old daughter $100 an hour
00:53:23.080 | for collating the papers in your office.
00:53:25.320 | That doesn't work.
00:53:26.320 | Thanks, Matt.
00:53:27.320 | Thanks.
00:53:27.320 | How does the saying go?
00:53:31.240 | It ain't easy, but it's certainly worth it.
00:53:33.760 | That's the sense that I get from Matt's story.
00:53:37.800 | Love hearing people's stories of struggle and ultimately their triumph.
00:53:42.120 | Not every struggle ends in triumph, but it's cool when they do.
00:53:46.460 | And I think that the way to guarantee that your struggle doesn't end in triumph is to
00:53:50.100 | give up.
00:53:51.100 | If you don't give up, well, you're still in the struggle and ultimately it's going to
00:53:54.640 | end.
00:53:55.640 | So, give up and try again.
00:53:58.840 | Hopefully, maybe some of you who are listening for whom Matt's vending business opportunity
00:54:04.840 | could be a perfect fit for you, might help you to build your own little entrepreneurial
00:54:08.080 | thing on a proven system.
00:54:09.920 | Check out, after the interview, Matt went ahead and set up a special landing page.
00:54:13.480 | It's linked in the show notes.
00:54:15.000 | But check out ssvbusiness.com/radical.
00:54:19.040 | He sent me that over after the show.
00:54:22.520 | And he's giving away, to entice you to go there and give him your name and email address
00:54:26.520 | for his marketing process, he is giving away an e-book entitled, "Live Your Dreams, The
00:54:31.000 | Top 10 Reasons Why You Need to Start a Vending Business."
00:54:34.400 | So hopefully that can be packed with useful information for you.
00:54:36.720 | So ssvbusiness.com/radical.
00:54:40.720 | Do your own due diligence.
00:54:42.480 | Think carefully, of course, through whether or not it makes sense.
00:54:45.160 | But I'm sure after listening to this interview, you've gotten a good taste of Matt and what
00:54:48.800 | he's doing.
00:54:50.080 | If the vending business is for you, check that out.
00:54:52.000 | If the vending business is not for you, learn from Matt's story and just think about how,
00:54:57.240 | as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, you can do exactly what he did.
00:55:00.600 | Take something that works, make a few little tweaks to it to adjust it for a changing market
00:55:05.160 | condition.
00:55:06.160 | Who knows what can happen?
00:55:08.080 | Obviously, he's still in the middle of building out the franchise business.
00:55:13.100 | But it sounds exciting to me.
00:55:15.080 | Sounds like a good product fit for many people at a perfect time.
00:55:19.640 | Matt, let me know how you're doing as time goes on.
00:55:22.960 | Thank you all so much for listening to today's show.
00:55:25.000 | I just had a brain, my brain went blank there.
00:55:28.960 | Patrons, patrons, patrons, thank you to especially the many of you who support the show on Patreon.
00:55:34.560 | That's how the primary way that I pay the bills.
00:55:36.600 | That's what gives me the ability to have all of my emphasis and my allegiance directly
00:55:41.600 | to you, the listening audience, where I'm not beholden to advertisers.
00:55:45.360 | I'm not beholden to just simply support their deal and make, where they don't call the shots,
00:55:51.760 | you call the shots.
00:55:52.760 | If you're not supporting the show, please consider going to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron
00:55:57.280 | and sign up to support the show.
00:55:58.280 | I thank each and every one of you.
00:55:59.400 | (upbeat music)