In episode 66 of The Kitchen Table, Ken Baden interviews Ryan Stewman, CEO at Closer Capital, to discuss the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, navigating through challenging times, and the importance of building a strong team. Ryan also provides practical advice on how to handle tough decisions, manage financial stability, and stay focused on long-term goals.
Tune in as they delve into the realities of business ownership, the importance of mental fortitude, and strategies for thriving in uncertain times.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:01:08] Nothing on the Internet is Real.
[00:05:17] Starting as a C-level Entrepreneur.
[00:09:30] Building A High-Performing Team
[00:11:03] Overcoming Financial Setbacks.
[00:16:05] Entrepreneurial Evolution and Growth.
[00:18:05] Entrepreneurship Challenges and Rewards.
[00:20:44] Hiring and Team Culture.
[00:23:39] Ownership Mindset in the Workplace.
[00:27:55] The Importance of Hiring Wisely.
[00:30:18] Being Real with People.
[00:34:10] Prosperity During Economic Downturn.
[00:38:13] Managing Finances Wisely.
[00:45:12] Upgrade Your Savings and Investments.
[00:47:29] World War Three.
[00:49:42] Entrepreneurial Authenticity and Wisdom.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Ken Baden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialkenbaden/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialkenbaden
Ryan Stewman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hardcorecloser/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realryanstewman/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanstewman/
WEBSITES:
The Kitchen Table Podcast: https://thekitchentablepodcast.net/
Blue Collar Ballers Union: https://bluecollarballersunion.com/
Closer Capital: https://closer-capital.phonesites.com/
Million Dollar Mastermind: https://milliondollarmastermind.com/
Welcome to the Kitchen Table, a podcast about where business is done. So pull up a chair and join your host, Ken Baden.
What is up, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Kitchen Table podcast. And as I say, every episode, we have a special episode, but we do have a special episode. I have my coach and good friend Ryan Stumann in the house at the table. Ryan, what's up, brother? We have the kitchen table, dog. That's right, man. This is actually a long time overdue, man. I was pushing this and pushing this and pushing this because I wanted to do this in person. But with everything going on with the family, with the business. Now, there's no time like the present, so we're virtually doing it right now and eventually we'll do a real actual kitchen table meet up, even though this isn't technically a kitchen table, but we'll get you in and or we'll come down there to Texas, man, and do it there.
Ken Baden
It's OK that it's not an actual kitchen table because nothing on the Internet is real, you know, so it's just it's OK. We're just following the protocol of the Internet.
Ryan Stewman
So, yeah, that is true. Nothing on the Internet is real. I don't think you have the people you see, have the people, they have the things they say.
Ken Baden
It's sad, but, you know, and the truth be known, this is just artificial. Kenny and I, we're not even really here. You know, we're just a I mean him.
This is all one big, that's probably what it'll be like in the very near future.
But I mean, on that note, if I can clone myself with artificial intelligence and go take a break for a minute, dude, I'm 100% in. Name your price. I'm there, bro. I'm sold. You don't even have to just shoot me the link. You know what I'm saying?
I have a whole bunch of Ryans just running around, running the office. That actually would be dumb. That would be amazing, right? Just a bunch of fucking chaos, but close all the sales. I'm going to say sell a ton and I feel the same here, but it would also just be, we'd probably be like at each other's throats 24 seven. You know what I mean?
It builds a bunch of Ryan's running around. We all be fighting over who gets to bang my wife anyway. So, you know,
Yeah, you have to clone enough Amy's to make a great show.
Yeah, like Rick and Morty, if you've ever seen that, they're like this name and other dimensions. Yeah, that's what we're going to have to have going on here.
So I love Rick and Morty. I saw your painting. So Ryan and I have been working together two years now, right? A little over, I think. It was a year in October. Yeah. So whatever. Right. So it was the two years. Yeah. Almost feels like forever. I know it does, man. It really does. So much has changed for me. So Ryan runs Apex. If you don't already know that he's got a bunch of other stuff, phone sites, Apex, SignSeal. He's an entrepreneur and he's also, you know, definitely in that influencer space with business like a lot of these other folks, the Andy Fraselas, you know, a lot of these big names that you guys know. Ryan, somebody that I resonated with a few years back because of his background. We've been working together ever since. And since then, we've done business together. We're doing business together, as you guys already know, on this show. We have the Blue Collar Ballers Group, and we've talked about that several times. You know, I try not to plug everything all the time, but you guys already know that by now. And, you know, Ryan's got a ton of stuff going on. What, I mean, what's, you've got so much going on lately. Can you kind of catch us up into like what you've been up to most recently? Cause I mean, I just see change after change, but all for the good. So what's been new in your world?
Well, let me, and you and I were the original conversation that I had that, that made me start thinking this way. And you and I talked about this maybe eight or nine months ago, believe it or not. And in, and it was just one of those things where we were on a coaching call and I said something to you and I went, oh shit, that's, that wasn't for Kenny. That was for me. It came out of my mouth to Kenny, but that was for me more than him. And, and I have this realization, right? And so. When you start a business, no matter what the business is, if you've never really ran a business before, like Kenny and I, for example, we were forced into entrepreneurship. Maybe for you, Kenny, but I don't think so. But for me, I didn't wake up as a little kid and go, you know what? I want to grow up and be an entrepreneur. you know, I wanted to be a salesperson by the time I was a teenager. And I thought that was the end game for me. I'll go get a good company. I'll sell for them. Uh, I'll just, I'll make millions of dollars in sales and I'll just be a really good salespeople person. And I looked up the salespeople surrounding myself by salespeople. And one day there was a law. It took an act of Congress to get me out of sales. There was a law that was passed by Congress and I could no longer sell in the position that I was in anymore. And, I was forced into entrepreneurship, but I didn't really know anything about being an entrepreneur. Great salesperson, really good marketer. That was about the extent of my entrepreneurism, right? And so when you start a business and you're not an MBA, or you're not a Harvard graduate, or somebody that went to SMU here in Dallas, and you start a business, all you can do is really call yourself a C-level entrepreneur. And what I mean by that is like, you don't have the experience. You've never started a business before. You never really, even if you're making money as a salesperson or you're making money in the job that you were in, you're still not an A player entrepreneur. You got to start somewhere. We all start somewhere. When I started in sales, I wasn't the best salesperson in the world. It took chopping wood every day and getting better at that. And so it's the same in entrepreneurism and entrepreneurship. And so I started as a C-level entrepreneur. Here's what most C-level entrepreneurs do. They go hire some friends, some people that they know, homies from back in the day. And they're like, Hey, I started a business. I'll give you guys a job. And these friends have no idea what the hell you're selling. They have No, they don't have the same ambitions. They are C-level people because I would hire people that worked with me in the car wash or whatever the hell. I just was looking for people that I knew from the neighborhood. Then as I get a couple of years experience, maybe I became a B-level entrepreneur, right? And that means I got a little experience. I made a little money. I'm starting to figure this shit out. I'm starting to hire some B-level employees. And so I got to cut ties with some of the C-level employees. And then a few more years go by, I get pretty good at it. Maybe now I'm a B-plus entrepreneur. And so I've got some experience. I've got some seeds in. I've been through a few years of ups and downs and economic downturns and everything else. And as I grow, and this is a problem we have if we're an entrepreneur that's addicted to growth, as I grow, not everybody is going to be able to grow at that same rate. I outgrew friends from the neighborhood. I outgrew the first round of employees that I hired. I outgrew the second round of employees that I hired. At some point last year, I looked up and I'm like, Man, I've got 13 years in the game. I've made, you know. more money than I'm comfortable saying online. And, you know, I kind of got this shit dialed in. I coach A player entrepreneurs. I'm an A player entrepreneur. Holy shit. And I look around my office and I'm like, I got a bunch of B and C people working for me. They're not the greatest representation. Doesn't mean they're bad people, but I don't have the greatest representation of what I want to do. And I'll never forget Kenny. I walked into a company meeting about last October and I gave out the projections for what I wanted to do in 2024. And I could see the looks on people's face that they thought it was impossible. And I went, oh, shit, it's time to level up. I've got to get new people in place. And so I got to go out and find A players that believe these numbers, that believe this is possible, that are willing to bleed for this number, that are willing to go to war for this number. And, you know, I learned this from a very wise man once. He said, the longer the relationship, the harder the breakup. And so like if you have a one night stand with someone and you don't see him again, they don't really care usually, you know. But if you've been in a relationship with a chick for two or three years and you try to break up with her, man, it can be holy hell. If you've been married to someone and you got to get a divorce, it can be holy hell. Right. So the longer the relationship, the harder the breakup. And so I had a few of these BNC level employees that had worked here for, you know, some of them four or five years, some of them, you know, three, four years. And that's a long time in a relationship. So it was a very, very uncomfortable, hard breakup, A, because as an entrepreneur, we want to reward loyalty. You know, hey, this person's been here. But just because someone's been here all along doesn't mean that they're growing with your business. Right. Just because someone was there and took a chance in day one and got you to maybe a million dollars a year doesn't mean that they can be there on day ten thousand and get you to one hundred million. Right. And if you're the entrepreneur that's growing, you have to recognize that just like any relationship, maybe I've outgrown these people. And so I look up and I'm like, man, I'm an apex A-level entrepreneur doing big, big things, especially for the humble beginnings that I came from. I got to find people that are on the same mission with me. So I went on a recruiting spree. And so I have this theory that you hire, then fire. And what I mean by that is like, if Kenny works for me and I fire him, then I got to go find a replacement for him. It's much easier to replace Kenny and Kenny not know it's his replacement, get the replacement trained up and then let Kenny go. And so that's what I started doing, hiring and replacing, hiring and replacing. So here we are about seven months into that journey. I literally replaced all but three employees. And so now we have 30 people working here, A players, top of their game. We had a record month last month, people that are on the mission, that are bleeding the core values, that are great representations of us, that care, that are pushing hard. And but I'll be honest, you know, I'd like to be like, oh, and the breakup was easier. Oh, life is great. And and man, it was a big struggle. You know, we in order to level up, we not only had to level up our personnel here in the office, we had to level up our technology. and we went two freaking months without collecting payments because the technology skipped and all this shit. So now I've got new people I'm training that don't know shit about fuck because they're new. It doesn't mean they're not a players. It's just, they're new. They don't know. You know what I mean? They're still learning the SOPs. They still need to know what the KPIs, the products, all this stuff. That's what happens when you get new people. Then I'm missing payments. Then I was supposed to close on about a hundred million dollars worth of real estate in March, and it just now closing next week. And so I thought, OK, I missed these payments. It's going to be OK. I got this big deal that'll hold me over. And then that didn't come through, bro. Right before the end of the year, I got hit with an unexpected seven figure tax bill that I was told that I wasn't going to owe taxes. And then last minute in October, the day before taxes, they're like, oh, surprise, you owe a million dollars. I just said I have one hundred million dollars in real estate. I went and spent that money investing in other real estate, $2, $3 million in real estate. And so literally, not only was I hiring, replacing, and training people, I was fighting bad breakups. I was trying to build a business, trying to retrain, retain, recruit, and missing payments, missed a freaking giant real estate deal that's just now closing three months later, two months later. I mean, Talk about a kick in the nuts, and then another kick in the nuts, and then another kick in the nuts. And then here's a tax bill that you are unexpected to pay. And I don't care how rich you are, seven-figure tax bill, unexpected. Any seven-figure bill, unexpected was rough. And back in November, I quit smoking weed. And so I got six months now that I haven't smoked weed. I'm about four days away from six whole months of not smoking weed for the first time in my life. So quit weed, got temper problems for, you know, 30, 45 days as I detox from that, leaving people behind, training new people, missing payments, switching technology. Shit was a massive clusterfuck, bro. And like, there wasn't a day, Kenny, that I didn't go home during all of this and be like, you know, on my drive home, I'd be like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm just going to go work for Kenny or I'm just going to go work for fucking this person or that person. I've had enough of this shit. But then I get home, man. and i see these four beautiful kids i got in this amazing wife that i got and i'm like i can't let these people down you know i come into the office the next morning i see the new people in there, pull the piss and vinegar and they're ready to rolls like i can't let these people down i look at the eighty two thousand people that we sold products to in thirteen years and i can't quit now and let these people down there's it was so much pressure bro, the amount of people that depend on me to be an example. If I quit, if I go back to smoking weed, that gives a lot of people an excuse to go back to smoking weed. If I quit being an entrepreneur, that gives a lot of people that are in the struggle permission to quit being an entrepreneur. If I quit showing up and winning for my kids, that gives my kids an excuse to quit winning for themselves, bro. I don't know how the fuck I didn't have a heart attack to be honest with you. I don't know how the hell I made it through all this, but here we are last month. We had the biggest month we've had in, in, in three years, uh, since 2021. And I mean, which is massive because you know, we're constantly growing and everything, but I've got a team that's on deck and on board. I've got amazing management. I've got a board of directors here. Now I'm not even the CEO of the company anymore. I'm just the dancing bear here that does the podcast, the videos, the coaching and things like that, which is, which is really, always been my dream. I never wanted to be the guy that has to talk to the bank. I never wanted to be the guy that has to deal with the CPAs. Those guys suck. They're nerds. They're not my personality type. I've never met a cool CPA, and they're necessary evil in the business, but I don't like talking to the lawyers because people frustrate me. I'm a man of the people. Now I've really, within seven months, built a business that allowed me to do what I do best. I'm at a point where I'm working on the business, not in the business. I'm in the business, but I'm working on the business. I'm leading the people. I'm doing my core skill sets, training the team, helping the clients, marketing and getting the leads and stuff. And I'm slowly working my way out of those positions as well. So I don't know if that's the answer you were looking for, but we go through these evolutions where we have C players, then we become a B player, then we got to go get B players. Because A players all have a job. And A players aren't going to leave their job for an A player corporation to come work for a C level entrepreneur. So you got to take what you can get. B players, they typically have a job, but they're not going to come work for a C-level organization. They're not going to leave a B-level organization to come work in a C-level organization. So once I grew to the point where I was like, hey, I can afford these bigger salaries, I can afford this better talent, the A players aren't going to come work with B players. They're not going to show up here and go, that's your manager. that's your your board of directors that's that's who i answer to i'm better than that person why would i answer to them so man i had to make the whole flip so we go through these evolutions as a an entrepreneur and this doesn't mean that it's the end for me you know i'm trying to do this for the rest of my life so i don't expect everybody here to be here for the rest of my life either and As I get better, I'll attract better people. As our culture gets better, it'll attract better people. As our organization gets more dialed in, because that's what organizations do, they're constantly getting more and more dialed in, will attract better people. It's a lifelong process of leveling up. If I look back 10 years ago, I can't believe I used to live that way. If I look back 20 years ago, I can't believe that I was even that guy, because we're constantly growing and getting better. Basically, that's what's been going on here in Plano, Texas.
Well, that was a hell of an answer, man. But I knew that was what I was. Yes, that was exactly what I was looking for. You had a lot going on, man. And I know that because I know you, but I wanted to get. This is a podcast where a big part of our demographic is, you know, either in sales or business ownership. Either way, it's high stress, high, you know, we deal with a lot of people and I know what you've been having to deal with. And so, yeah, that's, uh, I think I, I really took a lot away from, especially like I'm currently going through a scale myself, you know, cause you shouldn't have the board, my board of advisors. So on which you sit. So, uh, one of the things we talked about was we have. some really good leadership pieces that we just got. And one of those leadership pieces and I were just speaking because we had to part ways with some installers. We just had too many service calls. And frankly, we've had them for a while. I just tend to hang on maybe emotionally. I don't know. You said that, right? The longer they've been with you, the harder the breakup. Well, they've been with us since almost day one. And they play on that like, well, we've been together three years, three. It's like, well, brother, we're growing. we're platinum, the fastest ever get there. Now we have new standards that adhere to and you're still same spot, same place. Like if you're growing with us, great, but you're not. And so like we had to part ways, we had to part ways with a couple of things and people and businesses we were really affixed to for a long time, if nothing else, just because that's what was comfortable. Yep. Very uncomfortable to make those moves, but I think they were for the better. And it's, it's good to hear that. But like, you know, what advice could you give, you know, fellow entrepreneurs, you know, because I've heard by the time you make that decision, it's probably I've heard the thing that Brandon always said. By the time you let somebody go, it's usually six months too late. Is there any advice you can offer having just gone through that on a higher level with C-suite candidates on like what you would have maybe done different, like quicker, sooner and how to kind of identify those things so you don't have to go through, you know, when it's too little, too late, even though it's probably what's going to happen every time anyhow.
Yeah. You know, a smart person once told me, you know, being an entrepreneur is the constant shit storm with an occasional sunny day, you know, and, and, but most people expect it to be the opposite. They think, oh, I'm going to build my own business and everybody's going to support me and life's going to be great. And then you're like, Hey, where's my support. Where's the greatness. Oh, shit, I got to go find strangers to take the first risk on me. I got to go hire strangers. None of my friends believe in me. And you find out the hard way that it's the hard thing to do. That's why most businesses within the first three years go out of business. We always hear that statistic. And the reason why isn't that they didn't have good expectations and good intentions and a good business plan and a good product. It's that the shit's hard. And a lot of people go, you know what? I'm going to tap out. That ain't for me. I like working for somebody, right? And so, you know, the fact is, here's what I could tell you. You want to constantly replace and then fire. And I said that earlier, but what I mean by that is I'm constantly hiring salespeople. And that means that I've got to get rid of, if I'm hiring constantly salespeople, then that means I've got to constantly be cleaning out the bottom 10%, okay? people come in somebody else shifts to the bottom somebody else shifts to the top i can't keep the bottom around and look you're it's always gonna be six months too late because in my instance the people that i had to let go. Dude, they were, and I had no idea, but they were like certified ass kissers, dude. They, I just thought they were cool people that were doing their job and man, they would come and sit in my office and pretend that it was rainbows and sunshine and everything was perfect. And they're on the dream team and their company people. And then they'd be at the water cooler. talking mad shit about me five minutes later, you know, and they things they would never say to my face and things they know that would get them fired. And, you know, like I didn't know that. But as soon as I found out about it, like one of my employees, one of the new guys overheard on me, he's like, what's up with these people? And I was like, no shit. All right, well, let's get rid of them. Right. So but I don't know for how many months that have been going on or what caused it or anything. And, you know, most people they show up in front of the boss or the leader or the CEO dressed like Will Ferrell and Step Brothers. They got a tuxedo on, and they're putting their best foot forward, and it's a two-for-one deal. I'm going to work twice as hard as everybody else in here, and there's two of us, blah, blah, blah. Then they go and they return to average or normal behind closed doors. I don't know that there is a way to fix it. Other than now, we have a system of how we hire people that's a lot better. So they interview with Sean, then they interview with Amy, then they talk to me, then we leave them with each of our team members. They come here for a full eight hours. We leave them with each one of our team members. And at the end of the day, we all talk and make sure that we all agree that the person had good vibes, good personality, belongs, can do the job. And if we don't all agree, that means every employee here doesn't agree that we want this person on the team. We go find somebody else. So, you know, in the, in the past, it kind of works like this. It's like, I need a position filled. You say you can do it. All right, here you go, go do it. And then as if you're, especially if you're a small time entrepreneur, you're so busy doing your shit. You're just hoping they figure out their shit. Cause you ain't got time to train them. You ain't got time to pour time into them and do your job, but. You know, so you don't really get to know those people. You just assume that they're doing their job until one day you find out that they're not. And you're like, well, shit, I guess I got to let this person go because they're costing me time and money now. Whereas now I have somebody who trains them. Somebody comes to work here. Sean trains them. They come to work in operations. Brittany trains them. And so, you know, now I've got that time that bought back to where I know Brittany's doing her job. I know Sean's doing his job, so I don't have to worry about them not training the other people. But honestly, until you get to a certain financial point to where you can afford a players like Sean and Brittany and you can afford good people to come work for you and you've built a good culture and stuff, you're going to be burning through that cycle of CBB plus AA plus so on and so forth.
Man, and you said it right to like I've thought like really long and hard about. some of my training methods because I've done exactly what you just said with like, um, maybe not in the, in, in the role that I'm in or like delegating, but I have a bad habit or had a bad habit of expecting someone to be me. You know what I mean?
Like there's only one Kenny. Yeah.
Or one Ryan or just because like, you know, I'd say, well, you know, when I got thrown into management, I was 24 or 27 and I figured it out. Well, okay. But he learns differently than you do, or man, maybe he's just not gonna learn it all. Maybe he's not the right fit. So we've done a lot more, you know, like, like, that's the thing.
There's, there's two types of people. There is the employee and the owner. And an owner qualifies as management, too, right, because they got to own the people they're responsible for. But, you know, you and I, we have an ownership mindset, which means that if if I go to work for McDonald's today, I'm going to work my way up and be manager and work my way up to buying a McDonald's because I'm a responsible person and I take responsibility and I do my work with excellence and I'm willing to outshine everybody because I'm competitive. But a lot of people, they just want a job. And there's a good place for those people too, right? But it can't be, and they might just want a job and it'd be a good place in the organization, but we can't put them in high ranking positions. We can't expect them to think like us. Like right now, you know, Monday through Friday, Kenny, I trained the whole entire company every single day at 9 a.m. I'd never done that before in my career because I never had fucking time to do it. But now every morning, the first hour of the day, I'm some days shit gets in the way and I got things to do. I'm not here, but 99% of the time. And if I'm not, Sean does it, but I'm here training them every single day. I'm training them how to be a better person. I'm training them on the culture. I'm training them on the product. I'm training them on the standard operating procedures. I'm training them on how to make their numbers. I'm training them on how to be better salespeople. I'm training them on how to communicate, how to carry themselves, how to be an example, I'm doing that every single day, and I'm seeing the results of it. But I'm just now getting to a point where I've got time to do that, because in the past, I come in here, I'm head down, I got to work, I got calls, I got this, I got that, I got this, I got that, I got this shit, I got this dumped on my lap, I got this surprise, this knock at my door, this ring on my phone. And I've just now created an organization which has been very Very large headache, very costly financial, but I've created a large enough organization to where now my time's freed up to where I can actually pour into these people to ensure that they think like me, act like me, do like me, be like me, because that's what I need. And do I expect them to be me? No, I expect them to be one tenth of me. But if I got 10 of them now, I got to meet. Yeah.
Yeah, I love that, man. I mean, I've been in a similar position in that I've been meeting with the sales guy. I've been trying to get myself off of everything else and just focusing on sales. That's where I'm comfortable. I like being in sales management. That's just where I'm and I've gotten really, really close to where that's that has been the role I've assumed recently. And I think with what you guys do, it's so interesting because You know like you said you're the dancing bear and that like you're almost in a lot of ways you're the product i mean you've created a system but you're the you're the visual of that product or the direct representation of that product so you're going to kind of be but i would love to be able to be like. If I could get it to that point, because as you know, I mean, I'm striving. I'm hoping that I'm not hoping anything. My goal is for this business to do what it needs to do to stamp the resume to my future, be very much like yourself, to where like I can then go off and say, OK, I want to help other people do this. That's what I want to do. I want to be in the future just talking and working with people and training them and helping them like doing exactly how you are doing it, the way you're doing it, because I enjoy doing that. So for me, that'd be a dream job. I like talking to people. I like making content. And you're kind of there now to where like that's what you can actually do because we see you on social media we see that stuff but you know behind the scenes you were having to do still like a whole lot of everything you feel like you're, you're really just kind of there now where you're able to just focus on those things.
Yeah, I, uh, and I'm not to the, I'll never be at the level I want to be. Cause I want to be always moving the bar, you know, but my job here is I'm the hand shaker and rainmaker. That's what I do. And, and it's not so much that I'm the product, which I, I guess in some levels I am, but the product and closer capital, I'm not the product, but. But at Apex, I'm a major portion of the product. And so it's my job. In the past, before I had Sean and Amy running things here, if something went wrong, I had to be the deliverer of bad news. Hey, you're fired. Hey, we don't need you as a client anymore. Hey, you made these mistakes. And if you don't make that right, you got to go. And they've taken that off of me to keep me as more of the political face to where I'm kissing babies and petting dogs and all that stuff. And that's been huge, too, you know, and because it's a lot less stressful for me and it maintains that, you know, keeps me in character because I hate delivering bad news anyway, you know, but I didn't have anybody else who could do that. And, you know, with with the other thing is, you know, We have to figure out like we get into on to be an entrepreneur for a specific set of reasons. We're good at sales. We're good at marketing. We're good at people or whatever that they good at numbers, whatever that thing is. You've got to hire enough to where you can focus on those things you're good at. Like, I'm not good at hiring people. I want to give everybody a chance. Kenny, you do heroin. Fuck. Cool. I'll give you a job. We'll get you off of it. You know what I mean? That's, I believe the best in everybody, which is a terrible mindset to have as a hire. A hirer should be the skeptic, you know, but what I am good at is training. I am a master fucking trainer, dude. Like I don't think anybody's better than me at training, especially not for the products that I sell. So being able to not have to worry about hiring, knowing that whoever shows up in that office for me to train has been vetted by everybody and everybody's agreed on it. I can pour into one of the problems I had in the beginning of my career. is I didn't want to pour a lot of time into an employee and train them. Let's say you pay me 100 grand a year to train you, and I felt like I was doing a disservice to you, the client, by giving that to somebody that I'm paying here. I always felt like, hey, instead of joining Apex for 30 grand a year, They could come in and work here for three or four months and get training every day for me. And then they could burn me off. And now I've kind of done a disservice to my clients and possibly train somebody that didn't deserve it. And so now I'm at a point where I don't feel that. I mean, I'm pouring it all into these people. These guys are getting a million dollars a year of my time. You know what I mean? If you think about that, they're getting a minimum of five hours a week. That is 20 hours plus a month. did you know the way that my system set up so imagine if somebody actually had to pay for that it would be like having a seven figure employee in their company and so you know i'm but i'm at a point now where it's like the more i train them the more i pour into them the less likely they are to leave because they're going to be making money they're going to be happy they're going to be performing so on and so forth
This has been, I hope you guys are paying attention. I mean, a lot of people, to your point, pay a whole lot of money to have Ryan train or his system or his coaches, you know, train their businesses. And I hope that's the, you know, that's the vibe and the feeling here on the show is that we get these folks that either I, you know, I paid or made a great connection with to come in and drop some serious value, man. Absolutely. The low, low cost of $0, but in all seriousness, Uh, you were getting ready to say something actually coach. What were you going to say?
Yeah. Well, you know, um, I just wanted to come on and this is what I'm been really good at my, my whole entire career is just being real with people. You know, like there'll be a lot of guys come on here and they're like, oh, I've got it going on and I'm the best and everything's perfect. And that's fucking false no matter who you are. You know what I'm saying?
Like,
In the last few years, we've watched Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates all get divorced. You know what I mean? Nobody has it all fucking figured out. You know what I mean? And then when you figure one thing out, the force of average goes, hey, I got a surprise for you, motherfucker. And that never ends. And so I like to come on here and not, you know, shit on everybody's parade, but, but be real with you and then give you the lessons that I've extracted from these real experiences so that maybe you can skip a part of what I just talked about. Maybe, maybe you were about to go fire a couple of people on your team and you don't have replacements for them yet. Then I might just have saved you a big ass headache by looking for the next person to bring in. And once they're trained, then cutting the person you might. Your top producer might have just turned toxic and you need to get rid of them and you want to walk in there today and fire them. That's a bad idea. What you got to do is bring somebody else in, train them up, pour into them, make them the top producer. Then when you cut that guy, you never really missed anything. You never skip the beat. They step in, pick up their pipeline and keep rocking and rolling.
That's great advice, man. I actually didn't heed that. And you know, we paid the price over the winter and in the fall, like we cut seven people and we did not, we replaced them pretty quick. But then it takes two months to get them up and running two months to get them, you know, a month after that to get them really producing. So that's great advice is if you have the option, do that. But coach, what It's 2024. It's been a shit show of a year. The market's volatile. Things are wild. That's all I ever hear about now. We have peers in different markets that doesn't matter. But for most, it's a little bit of a shaky time. Is there any piece of parting advice that it's 40 minutes in, and we usually 30, 35 minutes, but we can stay on all day with someone like yourself? but I really want to make sure that the listener gets to get from you what I get from you. And, you know, if you were to give anybody a piece of advice, like, look, man, it's 2024, I get X, Y, because you're and me are both well aware of what's going on right now. But as a business owner or someone in sales, someone who's dependent on the market, is there anything that you would impart onto them? Like, look, don't let, ignore it or do this. Or what would you say is like, this is something I would focus on because of this year. Or would you just say, fuck this year, do your goals.
Well, that's a great question. You know, we we kind of got spoiled from 2016 to 2022. You know, money was everywhere. Trump was in office. And whether you like the guy or not, I could give two shits. The facts are the facts. The economy was better than it's ever been before. And whether, I don't agree with everything Trump does and I don't agree with everything Kenny does. And I love Kenny, you know what I'm saying? But you cannot deny that Trump had the economy better, okay? And so let's just talk about facts. And so money was everywhere. Even when COVID hit, the government stepped in and they fucking put money in everybody's hands and forgave PPP loans and lowered taxes and all these things that help us as business people. And we kind of got a little of entitlement and spoiled. You see, I come from a banking background. I was a mortgage banker from 2004 to 2010. So I had six solid years of every day, day in and day out, studying the economy, studying things. But if you think about it from 2004 to 2010, those weren't the fucking wonder years of being a banker. That was the end of the subprime era. the beginning of the downturn of the real estate market. And ultimately in 2010, when I left, it was the turn of the real estate market to where it got good again. So, but here's the thing that I learned from that is that, man, I prospered in a downtime, you know, and how did I do that? Because I chopped wood every day, right? I made my fires and chopped wood every single day, no matter if it was a good economy, bad economy, there would be people in 2006 that were like, Like, oh, man, shit's not the same. I'm not making the same amount of money. They were spoiled because they had written loans from 2001 to 2004, and anybody could get a loan. Anybody could do this. And so they were spoiled. I didn't know the difference. I just went in there and chopped wood. the economy is going to work like this. We're going to have a Congress or a president that makes weird laws that sometimes goes up, sometimes goes down. But my grandfather, who was also a banker, he always said, it always regresses to the mean. So it always returns back to normal at some point. So we had an extremely abnormal time with money everywhere. And now we have an extremely high inflation, which is because money was everywhere. And we have an economic downturn. And Some industries and some sectors of the market are down dramatically. You could be in Arizona right now and can't sell a house for shit, but in Texas, things are on top of the world. So it just depends on what market and what segment of the market that you're in. I have two houses that I didn't even put on the market for 10 days and they were gone around here. But there's people in Florida right now that can't sell their house to save their life in certain parts of Florida. So I say that because here's what you do regardless. A, you chop wood every day, whether the economy's good, whether Biden's president or Trump's president or Obama's president or Bush, it doesn't matter. You chop wood every day. You stick to your goals. Number two is the times like now and last year, because last year was really the first rough year, 2022. And then about halfway through last year, we went, what the fuck? And now we're still dealing with the net. Now we're like, what the fuck feels normal to us at this point, right? Like the costs are up and everything, but we're used to paying it. People are starting to open their wallets a little bit better because everybody thought the fed was going to lower rates. Everybody thought that the market was going to come back and it clearly has it in a lot of areas. So people were like, well, fuck, I guess I just got to continue on. Right. But here's what I know. It will get better. And then it'll get worse again, and then it will get better and it will get worse again. That is an unstoppable force in our country and on our planet. So the times when it's a little more trying, like it is right now, you build that mental fortitude and that mental toughness to push through the trying times. And then here's the advice I would give everybody when it gets good again, let's say Trump steps back in office and he retroactively puts all these laws in place and tax cuts like he did before and money's everywhere. Again, don't be fucking stupid with it. Don't be, cause we were all, myself included, we were all a little stupid with it because there was just money everywhere. And here's what happened to most people. They made $5 million in 2021 and they're like, shit, I'm a $5 million man. No, you're not. You had a $5 million a year. You're still a $1 million man. Welcome to reality right now is reality, right? 2021 was an inflated reality. Everybody could get money, man. Like I would tell him people from 2017 to 2021, if you didn't make money, that was the biggest opportunity in America. And if you weren't making at least 150 grand at that time, you were a fucking loser, period. End of story, right? You were just not applying yourself because money was everywhere. Whether you were in sales, whether you were in operations, whether you work for a company, if you did not make the most money you made in your life from 17 to 21, you were not playing the game and not taking shit serious, right? So Now that things are serious and they're going to come back, let's say that Trump does get elected or whatever, the house flips, whatever the fuck it is. This isn't a political thing. I'm just saying how our government governs the economy and things get good. Next time, don't go out and buy 10 Rolexes. Next time, don't go out and spend your money on a Lamborghini. Next time, don't go out and start doing dumb investment shit. The next time you hoard that money and invest that money in something that's safe, a 401k, pieces of real estate, things that you know are always going to be going up and things that are trusted, safe, that have downtimes and uptimes, but they're safer than shit like NFTs. I fucked up on those too. And so So I mean, think about people are paying five, 10, 20, a hundred, a million dollars for a picture of a fucking ape on their phone, bro. It was fucking insane, right? And so the next time this happens, we learned our lesson and we don't go out and blow our money. We stack our money. We invest our money. We put our money in mutual bonds, mutual funds, bonds, stocks, real estate. oil, gas, things that we know are always going to be there. And then guess what? The next time we have a downturn, if you were smart in the upturn, when the downturn comes back, you'll be prepared for it. If I hadn't been good with money, and I made some mistakes with money in 2020 to 2022, I got fucking these damn monkeys on my wall over here that I bought, right? Like I did some dumb shit trying to get on some alternative investment stuff, but I never varied from my principles, okay? Meaning, I kept buying real estate, right? The rates were low, so I was buying real estate. The stock market was raging, so I was investing in my 401k and in my IRAs, right? If I hadn't have been diligent enough to have some control, like I own a Rolex, right? I didn't just go out and buy a bunch of Rolexes. I was selling them to people that were fucking blowing their money on them. I didn't go out and just buy a Lamborghini. I was selling them to people that were blowing their money on them. I'd drive a Lamborghini for free, and I'd sell it. I'd wear a Rolex for free, and I'd sell it, right? And so I was taking advantage of the market's stupidity and irrational exuberance, and that's what's been able to get me through the hard time over the last 12, 13 months, is because I was diligent with money when everybody else wasn't. And so there's always a spot in the market to where you can be like, you know what? Everybody's spending money on dumb shit. Let me go sell them dumb shit. If they're all blowing their money on Rolexes that are worth twice what they cost in the store, let me go to the store and buy some Rolexes and sell them to these people. They're going to pay for it somewhere. They might as well pay it for me. And let me capitalize on that shit. And if I want a Rolex, then I can make enough money from selling selling Rolexes to own one. If I want a Lamborghini, I can make enough money from, like, I had a Lamborghini STO and I don't remember the exact numbers, but let's say I paid $350 for it and then sold it for like $475. So I made $125,000. I went out and paid for a McLaren 720 that I still have today that I don't hardly owe anything because the dealership, not even an individual dealership was willing to give me that much more for that car at the time. And I was smart enough to order it ahead of time because I saw the trends and I saw what people were doing. And so now I got a cheap ass fucking exotic car that I drive while everybody else is paying. you know eleven twelve thirteen thousand dollars a month for a car like that because of interest rates and everything else if they want one right now i got one that just cost me a couple thousand bucks and i ride it off through my company because it's a marketing tool in a company car and i don't drive it other than company functions if the irs is listening and so you know I've been able to make smart decisions in good times that allow to carry me through downtime. So if you didn't make smart decisions last time, that's okay. Struggle and chop wood. But when the market comes back, make wiser decisions next time so that when the market goes down again, you'll be able to carry through that. And if I wasn't good at saving money, there's no way we'd still be in business because I had enough money saved and put back and profited from to where I could dump in during the hard times to get me through. I mean, we bought a building that's worth $10 million and we had to do a couple of million dollars worth of renovations on it and buy a couple million dollars worth of furniture and shit like that, right? And if I wasn't good at like, and I thought the train was never going to end like anybody else. And I look up one day and I was like, fuck, I owe $2 million to these people. and I got to pay it. And the money is nowhere near in 23 as it was in 22. When I bought this thing, I had to get my shit together, you know, but think, and I had to cash out some of my personal funds to be able to pay for this. But now here we are in 2024. I've got so much equity in this building that I've got a line of credit against it, that I'm using that line of credit to go buy other investment properties and flip them and other ranches and flip them. So I made some sound decisions. So again, the biggest thing that I would tell everybody is chop wood, stick to the goals. If you miss the goals, work harder, but next time when the economy picks back up, make better decisions and put your money back and don't just upgrade your lifestyle. I never went to wearing Gucci shirts. I never went to wearing fucking Louis Vuitton bags and all this shit. Do I have Louis Vuitton bags? Yes, but they were gifts from Brandon Brittingham and things of that nature where I see people all the time, they just blow almost, I mean, they'll make a million dollars, figure out a way to blow a million dollars. I make a million dollars, figure out a way to still live on 250,000 bucks. I've got my wife's cars paid off, my F-250s paid off, my mortgage has a less than 3% interest rate on a 10-year note. I paid less for my $2 million house that I've lived in for six years than most people in this area pay for a three-bedroom mid-size house. mid-tier B paper apartment, right? And I never went out and bought another nice expensive home. I bought an office where I can make money from it. I went and bought a ranch that I can make money from it. So make wise decisions. There's a great book by a guy named Keith Cunningham called The Road Less Stupid. And The Road Less Stupid, he talks about some of the decisions. He's an older guy, so he's talked about some of the times he's been up and some of the times he's been down, the lessons that he learned from them, how he learned to have thinking time every day and journal and stuff like that. It's a great book because here's a guy that was worth, I think you said at the time, $10 to $15 million, and they had all this real estate. And then the real estate market crashed, and they lost it all in about a 48-hour period of time, and he was back to being broke and struggling. trying to put a smile on for the public. And this was before social media, but you still had to shake hands with investors and shit and act like everything's good, even though it wasn't. And he talks about some of the things that he did that was stupid, that he's now moving down the road less stupid, hence the title of the book. I think it's a great book that everybody should read so that they can prepare themselves for this. If Trump does get elected, chances are the economy is going to be really good again. That's the time not to go upgrade your lifestyle, but to upgrade your savings, upgrade your investments, upgrade your cash reserves so that when the times get bad, because we don't know who's going to follow Trump, it could be somebody else that has no idea how to run this country that people vote for. And when shit gets fucked up, you're bulletproof and you're not worried about it because you've traveled the road less stupid.
I absolutely love it, man. I think, and I thank you for making that, you know, uh, you know, everybody sees probably the cool things, but they don't understand like, well, yeah, but I got these and I also sell this, do this, do you know what I mean? That's one of my favorite things about you is you're always got that hustler mentality of like, no, I'm not going to just go get this, but I'm going to get this and make money on it. You know what I mean? And I really love that distinction because I feel like people get wrapped up in seeing the stuff and the things and don't understand, like, You know, it's always nice to have passively, but it could get you in a lot of trouble. And I hope, man, I hope, I hope. Do you think that's what's going to happen in November? I know we're not trying to talk politically, but I hope you got me excited, man.
It might. We definitely don't want this old man that keeps shitting himself in office any longer.
I think nobody could possibly want that.
Well, some people do because their commitment to ignorance is just admirable, to be honest, honest with you.
But I'm not political either, man. And by the way, I'm just like, if you listen to this, like at this point, we're business people, we're business owners.
We want what's good for business, man. Like what we've got right now is not good for business. I think everybody is feeling the burn from Biden economically, whether you work at McDonald's, whether you run a hundred million dollar a year business. And I think everybody knows that even if we're a Democrat and look, I'm neither Republican or Democrat, I vote for whoever I like, but. You know, even if you are a diehard Democrat, you've got to admit that this guy isn't the Democrat that you want. You know what I mean? We're literally in World War Three. The definition of a world war is when three or more countries are at war. And we are literally fighting five fucking countries right now. They just haven't called it World War Three. We went from peace on Earth to World War III within a four-year period of time. Everything costs more money. They're spending more money on other countries of war than they're spending right here at home. And we need to change that. And maybe somebody else pops up in the game that's not Trump that's even better. I really wanted Vivek to really be something because I really liked his policies and who he was. That didn't work out. Looks like we're going to have another rundown between Biden and Trump. We can hope that there's no cheating. We can hope on either side. We can hope that America sees the difference between a mean guy that talks shit and stops war by saying, my nuclear button's bigger than yours, motherfucker, try me, versus a guy that goes, if you want to nuke us, it's cool or whatever the fuck Biden's doing right now. And we can actually get in there. And and again, even if you are a diehard Democrat and I'm apolitical, but we got to admit this Democrat is not a good fucking president. Right. It's like even if we're affiliated and and loyal to the party,
Dude, look at him. He was a diehard Democrat that just had to run independent because they just wouldn't let it happen.
I liked Obama. I like I know that's not popular to say that you liked Obama. And I think I might have been like Obama. I liked when I liked Bush and I liked Obama. And in my lifetime, I have liked every president since 1979. I have liked every president we've had until this motherfucker right now. So, you know, and the only reason I don't like it, times got better during Obama. Times got better during Trump. There was uptimes and downtimes during Bush. There was uptimes and downtimes during Bush. One, Reagan had the fucking economy on fire, but he also made drugs illegal. So that kind of fuck shit up, you know what I mean? And so he didn't make them illegal, but he really started enforcing it and stuff. Everybody, nobody's going to be perfect. But this guy that we got right now is really atrocious. And hopefully we can just get rid of him. And whether it's RFK or Trump or fuck, if it's a monkey, if it's a fucking orangutan, it's got to be better than Biden. You know, so that's that's how I feel.
I feel the same way, man. And I really hope. I can't, the pessimist in me, which is very small, but like, I just worry, man. But there's no point worrying. My worry would be that they're just not gonna let it happen. By the same token, it's like, you know what, at that point, I think everyone in the entire country and the entire world we'll see through like, come on, man, nobody. You know what I mean? If you had the election today, I just don't see it going. I feel like everybody's so fed up. I sincerely hope that's the case. I didn't mean to go get all political on the podcast, but this is an entrepreneur, uh, you know, personal and professional development based podcast. And my God, like we need some good, we need some good stuff, man. So Ryan, thank you so much for being real, for being authentic, As my friend, as my coach, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your wisdom with my audience. And I hope that they got something out of it like the way I do. We got to have to, we definitely need to do the in-person one. That's a fact, but this will suffice for now. And I'll see you definitely in June, but I might see you, what's up? I got Roger over here, so he's all excited.
By the way, if you like this and you want to learn skills and you want to learn how to become better, then go to milliondollarmastermind.com. Come out to Dallas, Texas, July 27th. See guys like Tommy Mello. Victor Rancor, myself, Ibrahim Hussain, John Czeplak, Richard Rollins, Juicy J, Tommy Vexx, Dusty Black. Like, we're gonna have an amazing event with people that have actually done shit and created shit, and then we're gonna have an amazing concert at the end of the night. It's gonna be a lot of learning during the day, a lot of partying at night. Tickets start as low as 97 bucks, so there's no excuse for you, your significant other, and your team not to be there. MillionDollarMastermind.com. I'll see you guys on July 27th. Thank you, Kenny.
To your websites and all those things, but that particular link will put in the. We'll do some promotional on this. We'll put that link. I'll get it from Ryan. We'll put it on the actual promos and I'll put it in the notes. Is there anything else anywhere else people can find you?
I mean, I know you have your IG handles and all that, but you find me on Instagram, Hardcore Closer, Facebook, Ryan Steumann. That's about the only two places I'm at. I write good shit and you'll like reading it and engaging with it. So just if you read it, like it, comment, let me know that you exist. Let me know you came from this podcast. And again, Kenny, thank you, man.
Dude, thank you so much. Check his YouTube out too. He's got great stuff and we will be doing an event, Ballers, Blue Collar Ballers event next month. But definitely MDM is a blast. I took most of my team there and intend to do that again this year. It's a lot of fun and we'll make sure that all of those links are in the notes for the show. But hope to see you guys there. Ryan, thank you again, my brother, and we'll chat live next time, maybe in June. Perfect.
Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show, wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. It is how new people find the show. Until next time, remember, there's always a seat at the table for business.