Ambition 0:00
I'm going to put all this in my book bag, because I'm from the streets, the boom, what's going on? It's your boy ambition. And welcome to another episode of the MYFB podcast. And today with me, I have a lifelong entrepreneur Digital Marketer. And I'm really excited about this episode. Because while everyone is very excited about Web 3.0 We haven't really mastered web 2.0 all that well. And that is exactly why this gentleman still has a job. So I have with me today, Mr. Michael Bunn. Burzynski.
Buzz 0:46
That's right. You said it right. You can call me buzz.
Ambition 0:50
I was gonna say Bunsen ski, and I looked at it again. I was like, No, that's not i you doing today, Mike?
Buzz 0:57
I'm doing good. You can call me Buzz.
Ambition 0:59
Buzz. Gotcha. Gotcha. I want that actually. Buzz like Buzz Lightyear Buzz Aldrin. There you go. Yeah, you got it the second time. That's good. Not the Toy Story.
Buzz 1:13
No, no, I mean, it's funny because I just got married and we got my wedding band as a stripe of meteorite all the way around. And Buzz Lightyear is obviously a thing that I hear a lot of, and it's the inscription that I put in here is to our love to infinity and beyond. So there you go.
Ambition 1:36
Oh, man, that's a keeper that you have ranches. All right. So um, see, I noticed I'm peeking in your office I'm pretty sure some people that may see the video later on may see it. I noticed the flag in the background. You prior enlisted or did you
Buzz 1:53
was a fight I was Air Force for 10 years. My both my parents were Air Force. And my grandfather was Air Corps in the World War Two. Amen. Thank you. That's my that's my, my grandfather's flag.
Ambition 2:03
Thank you for your service
Buzz 2:05
two years ago. Thanks.
Ambition 2:06
And my condolences on that served nine years in the Marine Corps. So okay, yeah, that's why I zoomed in. I was like this guy.
Buzz 2:18
All of you zoom in just a little bit further over to the other side, you'll see bangles all over the place, too. So
Ambition 2:26
all right. So jumping into it, right? You say lifelong entrepreneur, and really zoning in into digital marketing. So if you could just tell our audience a little bit more about what you do.
Buzz 2:38
So I've been in sales and marketing for 30 years now, I guess. And actually more than that, like 32 years was crazy. Anyway, I started out actually in audio production. I was a professional musician for 15 years, side, hustle, working musician, nothing big. But the web paid the bills was sales and marketing. And so you really utilize your marketing skills when you're you have a band, and it's just the way it goes. And so through the years, I realized that I wasn't quite tall enough, dark enough, good looking enough or talented enough to be a rockstar for a living. So when I got out of the service, back in 2005, I started a recording studio. And I was working with working muse, other working musicians and helping them sound as good as they could. And about a year into that I realized that surviving off of starving musicians was a horrible business plan. Though it was a lot of fun. There's a lot of work for very little pay, and it wasn't gonna go anywhere except for maybe a lifestyle business. And that wasn't what I went into business for was really to make a mark, help more people. And if you can't pay the bills, you can't really help a lot of people. So I transitioned into or pivoted the company into a media production house. And we worked with small businesses. And over the years that media production house grew into a creative agency. And about three years ago, we were a multimillion dollar company had a 13,000 square foot facility, 25 employees mobile volleyball, and but I was miserable. And I wasn't really utilized. I owned a job and not a company. And my job was CEO. And it's not really what I wanted to do. It's not why I went into business. I was very removed from the marketing process. So buzzworthy was born out of the Busbys legacy. And we still have Busbys production media, which is a production house but we have buzzworthy integrated marketing now. And we focused specifically on the website marketing for service based businesses. So I wrote a book to kind of describe what that looks like as far as all the things that are involved with increasing the Revenue website, service based businesses get from their website. I call it the rule of 26.
Ambition 5:02
Gotcha. That, man, you said a lot of really good gems in there, right? You can't help a whole lot of people if you can't pay the bills. And hopefully that really hits the ears of some of our listeners, I know a lot of people that are, you know, they're trying to help a lot of people, right, they're trying to do so much good in the world. But you got to fulfill that bottom rung on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So I definitely agree with you. And I love the I love the brand consistency as well, right? I'm really just taking the name and making sure that it's everywhere. And, you know, if you have any kids passing on that legacy, is gonna be so much easier.
Buzz 5:49
Right? And it's, it's separated enough to where if I exited the company to somebody else, they would be able to utilize it without it being weird. Right, right. So it's not like the Burzynski group, right? And to where some, and I've seen legacy ad agencies in my younger years, where they went through rebrands when the founders went ahead and moved on, right? And then they have, they're stuck rebranding, what a brand that was built over 2030 years. And it's tough, it's really tough. And so I didn't want to get caught in that I wanted I want, I you know, I'm building something bigger than myself. So as much as there's a likeness to me, it's not my likeness, so people don't have to buy buy into me, they just need to buy into the systems that will perform for them. So there, they don't feel like they're getting shortcutted. If they're not hearing from me every day, they just know that I'm going to be putting the best people in front of them to get their needs taken care of. Right.
Ambition 6:50
And I like the fact that you eventually that business rolled into a creative agency, because you can't have an agency if you're not somebody who's passing the ball. Right, right. So if the ball in this sense, is your brand, what you're known for your reputation, you built the business, you made sure that you know you hired out. And, you know, one thing that I'll definitely take note that you talked about was you mentioned walking away from a multimillion dollar company. Right? I'm
Buzz 7:24
literally breaking it up actually didn't even walk away. I broke it up myself,
Ambition 7:28
man. So let's talk a little bit more about that. Right? Um, no, I've mentioned to my audience at several points, you know, I've walked away from $200,000 a year salary, and people talk to me like I'm crazy for walking away from that, right. And my reasoning, much like yours was No, I wasn't doing what I wanted to do. Right? That didn't bring me fulfillment, this brings me fulfillment. And even if it means less pay, you know what this is right on brand for me. You know, what was your mind state at the time? And what was some of the criticisms that you heard of your decision making?
Buzz 8:12
Well, at the time, it was about misery, like, I don't care how much money you're making. And my problem back in that that point was I wasn't making as much money as I should have been making with the amount of revenue the company was bringing in. So I had I had built his business so fast. And when we say fast, I mean, it was 15 years into its existence. But it took 10 years to get to the million dollar annual mark. In only 10 or 11 years, it only took another two years to double that. Wow. And so at its height, we were looking at 2.3 and a half or something like that in revenue. And I was barely making six figures, technically, right? At a 3% margin, I'm looking at that going, we have to do something drastic, in order to change how I am seated in the company. And unfortunately, at the time, I hadn't put the right people at the number one and number two positions. To do that, too. I could reorganize how I fit into the company. And because of that I was now in this rut, looking forward of five to 10 more years to reinvent the company without completely dismantling. Because once you get a business that is that size, and technically it's a small business, right? It's only 25 people, but those are 25 souls that are feeding 25 families dot dot dot dot, right and we're serving 300 companies a year. Right? So when you try to change course for 300 companies that are your clients, people get scared because that's their business. That's their livelihood. That's their way of paying all the salaries that they pay and all the families that they feed. So there's this domino effect that can happen if you don't look past your own nose. So I said, Well, I'm just going to rip the band aid off. And in doing so, there was a lot of confusion, because people don't understand business, your employees will never understand the business the way you do. And because of that, you have a lot of like, bad information, misinformation, before misinformation was the thing. The but a lot of information that was out there, like Oh, Buzz went bankrupt, or better than my personal bankruptcy through that process was what was required for me to do what was right for my, my health, my life, my everything, right, like, I was going to be miserable, and I was going to make more people miserable. And I was gonna be less effective as time went on, if I hadn't broken everything down and just said, Alright, we're just gonna start it over.
Ambition 11:02
Man, I love the fact that you said that. And I love the fact that you added in the mental health portion of this, right? Because who builds a multimillion dollar company to make six figures, right? No one does that. So that you weren't wrong, it was just, it almost seems like what was being asked to you of you to build the business was sacrifice and you've made those sacrifices. But to continue to sacrifice once you have that multimillion dollar company, you know, my hat's off to you for, you know, not getting caught up with the sunk cost, right? Um, the sunk costs, usually. And for our listeners, that that just means time invested, a lot of people would have said I had 15 years in this business. I'm gonna keep writing it out. And a lot of times, you find out 15 years later that that was the wrong decision, but you don't have another 15 years. Right, right. So, you know, talk to me a little bit more about what what did it take internally to work up that courage to tell those 300 business owners? No, we're not going to continue to we can't continue to support you, as well as to just understand and absorb that, that sunk cost is gone, that those 15 years was gone. And, you know, essentially, what you walked away from it from was the experience. But what did it really take to walk away from that? And what was your what were your thoughts at the time?
Buzz 12:50
Well, my thought at the time was fear. Because I didn't know what was going to happen. There was a time where I brushed up my resume. And I hadn't touched my resume in 25 years, at that point. And you know, and looking at businesses that I could go work for and make a couple $100,000. And just worry about one brand and take my vacations and my weekends and, and not worry about anything. And my fiancee at the time was like, I'm now my wife, just so everybody knows. But my wife, my fiancee at the time was like, you can't go to a nine to five job, you can't work for other people. That's like, you're not going to be happy doing that, like you are not that way. You are an entrepreneur. And of course, she's not an entrepreneur, she she is blown away at what I do. When it comes to business, and how I could handle the it's weird. There's certain securities you create as entrepreneur that make you feel secure. But there's no security and entrepreneurship. Right. So that so I was used to that. Right? I was so afraid the first five years of failing because all the numbers were against me, you know, succeeding, right? Because only 1% of all businesses that start get past five years. Right? Well, I'm at 15. The numbers are even smaller at that point. So it's like, am I being greedy? And or am I being realistic with my own feelings? And so to answer your question, it, it had came down to being honest with myself, and really saying, Okay, you grinded this out to this point, over 15 years of your life. Are you willing to put another 10 in in hopes that we can turn this titanic around? Well, right. And I knew that I had learned enough to say, if you continue to do something the same way and expect the same results. The fifth, Einstein says that's the definition of insanity. Right? Right. I looked around and go, Well, if I think I can continue to do the same things and turn this round, that's insane. So I need to reinvent this whole thing. And so it wasn't a matter of like calling all the clients and saying, Hey, that's not what it's going to do. It was more of just letting the clients come back to us that we that I still wanted to work with that, you know, they were going to continue to work with us until they weren't, right. And then the contracts that were expiring, I just didn't go after renewing them. Sorry, that doesn't fit into my done. We were under Billing for a lot of things. So the people who didn't understand it, they just didn't renew it. Like, here's the new Oh, you don't like it? No problem. Go for it, like find somebody else. Right? I got to start having a business that works for me. What did I what I really found out is that the businesses that we were we were undercharging, were actually we were delivering a disservice. Because we were just giving them a discount service. When you discount your services, you are giving less than 100% that you're able to give. Because you're only charging for a percentage of what you're worth.
Ambition 16:13
Was buzz, buzz. Listen, you just gave a whole bunch of people, the best sales tip that I have ever heard. Right. And as you were saying it, it just it really clicked. Right. I don't know anyone who's underpaid that puts their whole ass into it. Right? Nobody,
Buzz 16:34
especially if you have other people pay me 100%. Right. Right, who gets who gets it?
Ambition 16:40
Right? And that and that's exactly what it is. So it's like, now I can hear the conversations I'm gonna have I'm gonna go man, you want to pay full price for this? You don't want to discount? Right? Yeah, my guys are really amazing. But they're gonna think that you don't think that much of them? Can I give you this discount? Right? And, man, that's so there was several times that you were talking I kind of got chills man, like, because it was there's so much truth behind it. And, you know, you're much farther ahead than I am. Right? I don't have a million dollar business yet. But it's, um, it's great to see that some of the lessons are the same. Even as you get further down the line is just so amazing.
Buzz 17:32
The fundamentals of business do not change. Right? The fundamentals of what you're doing do not change, just like physics, they don't change the energy that it takes to change courses changes. But that's, that's the physics right? That the foundational basics of business do not change, you have to provide value for what you're charging, you have to provide results if you're giving a service. And when you don't you lose your clients that have no matter if you have one client or 100. Right. So 100% agree with that. And what and I'd like to eradicate the word discount. For people who want to pay less, I now just tell them, Oh, well, you're just not ready for the full blown, right? Or maybe we just tiptoe into this. And let's start with some of the services that will get you to the point where you can afford all of the services?
Ambition 18:28
Well, I love that, you know, what I've taken to, on a lot of calls is I'll tell people, if you walk into the Versace store and you want that purse, you can't ask them for a discount at the store. Right? If you walk into the product store and you want something, right, you don't ask them for a discount at the store, you're going to pay the price for the price that they tell
Buzz 18:52
you. They don't put it on sale for reason. Right?
Ambition 18:55
And that's a lot of what's going on here. Right? If you wanted a discount, we have partners, right? Like, for example, I have a partner agency that I work with, which is no which has been the only place that you can get a one on one with me for the price that you can get it for with her. Right. Um, but that's different. That's about relationship building for me, and I don't it doesn't feel like a discount. I'm building relationships. And I'm projecting out.
Buzz 19:25
Yeah, I mean, if somebody is price, if somebody's price sensitive, and they're not, they're more worried about how much money they're spending versus what they're getting back in their investment. Right. So there's two types of clients. So when I hear somebody think of their marketing as an expense, I have either I now have either responsibility to educate them that marketing is an investment, not an expense. So if you're going to spend less, you're going to get back less. Gotcha. So why would you shortcut the But you're gonna spend the same amount of effort to get there. So why would you want to spend the same amount of time to get less results? Why don't we fully invest into this process fully believe in this process, which is the second piece, they don't believe marketing works. And that's why they are either a control freak, and they and so what they can't control makes them scared. And when they get scared, you you're skittish, and all these other things that keep you from being a good client. Right, right. Well, as a service provider, I need identify that that's probably not a good client for me. Like, I could probably convince them that I'm worth it. But they'll never believe it. Right? Because they came into it on the fundamental belief that marketing is a sham.
Ambition 20:45
So look, let me actually I guarantee you, some people are listening right now. And they're going, you keep saying service provider. But this, this service provider is starting to sound a lot like a psychologist. How big of a role does psychology play in what you do in marketing, and marketing
Buzz 21:06
is all psychology like, you're literally like, I have, like one of my books is actually it's this big, thick book as it was written back in the 1990s. So so for some probably older than some of the folks that are listening are okay. That book is about the study of generational behavior. Marketing is a behavioral science, men. So if you're not interested, you are not looking at the psychology of your clients, regardless of what you do. You can never really fully market to them, you will might market around them. But you're never marketing to them, because you're never speaking to them. You're speaking at them.
Ambition 21:54
Let's go. Right? I love that you. I love that. I love everything. It's just saying, Man, I'm literally blown away in this interview, right? This is gotta be one of my favorite interviews. And as you mentioned, the psychology. Right? This is another industry where we're learning has a lot to do with psychology. Right? I've had sales people telling me sales is all about psychology. Right? Yeah, I had a day trader on he's goes, well, you know, making the right trades is all about psychology, we're trading off of human emotion, and patterns of human emotion. Essentially, what has basically come full circle to me is there's a lot of fear that people have about entrepreneurs and thinking that entrepreneurs are these emotionally insensitive people. And my discovery is that entrepreneurs are usually good entrepreneurs are usually the most emotionally intelligent. And the lease. The lease, overtly provocative, right? When entrepreneurs are provocative, it's provocation for a reason for a point, something that will bring it there's a purpose behind it. But Gary Vee is provocative. Yeah, he's not hurting anybody's feelings he's talking to
Buzz 23:16
oh, I don't know you. He's heard a couple of people's feelings, feelings that are ready to cuddle their kids too long. And I mean, he's pretty, he's pretty straightforward. I think what you're trying to say is that empathy is and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but empathy is the key. And the most successful entrepreneurs are the ones that have the most empathetic approach to their business and their clients.
Ambition 23:41
Right. And when I say he's not hurting anyone's feelings, what I'm really saying is, if your feelings are hurt by the truth,
Buzz 23:48
I don't care. Right? Yeah. Well, that's what his that's his philosophy.
Ambition 23:52
Yeah, I'm right there with him. So I don't think anyone's feelings
Buzz 23:56
and being enlightened to people is more hurtful than telling them the truth. Because if I lie to you and say the world is something that it's not, and then I let you go out thinking that I have now set you on a path that is not is less desirable than if I just told you the truth, and maybe tore off a band aid and made it happen. Like, you just need to know this, like I had a client who was a fractional CFO, CIO, Chief, financial officer. So he gets hired, instead of spending hundreds of 1000s of dollars, he gets hired for a couple of 10s of 1000s of dollars, to go into companies and help them with their financial planning for the company, right? We came to me and he's like, Well, I have this network. I have this I got that. Anyone to this website to say all of these things, and I had to rip off the band and go, if you put all of these things in here, nobody will come to you. He says, Well, why not? I got all these resources, because you're confusing them. And when you confuse your consumer, you shoo them away. So it took him about a week to read only get like I had to like hammer this home, like, I'm not going to market a website that doesn't talk to anybody specific. Right, we have to be very specific. And we work, we found out exactly who he wanted, he launched the website, he had a speaking engagement and signed to clients that paid him over $200,000, between the two of them to get his business started. Those are his two first clients. And if I hadn't been that guy to tell him the truth, he'd still be looking for his first client, or he would be working at that discounted rate that he thought he was worth. Right and struggling.
Ambition 25:38
And I'm so glad that we're repeatedly hitting this mark about ripping off the band aid, right? When it was your business with yourself, you ripped off the band aid and with your clients, you rip off the band aid. And this speaks a lot to I how I how I believe that people should go about choosing who they work with, whether it's a coach, consultant, whether you're going for someone from marketing or sales, it doesn't matter what you're going to them for, look at the way that they treat their business, right? In a very short amount of time. We didn't talk about you selling to anyone on my side at all. But I wouldn't be happy to pick up the phone and tell my friends. Hey, man, if you can work with buzz you should write because he's not going to bullshit you he doesn't bullshit himself.
Buzz 26:31
No, I don't. Those are the places I'm probably the hardest on me than anybody else in the world. But I'm okay with that.
Ambition 26:38
I think that's how it should be no, um, but for everybody listening, these are the type of people that you want to work with. And the reason you want to work with these guys is that you can't really do business with someone who hides behind. No mirrors, right? If the client if you go if you still have a ideal ideology in 2022, that the client is always right. When they have no idea about your industry, they're coming to you for help. And you can't say to them, Hey, this is this is my show, right? This is my dog, you're just holding the ears, right? You know, the full thing that goes along with that. Right? Right. So if you can't say that, and if you can't do that, you're gonna have a really rough time. So I really do. Thank you for bringing that up. Um, what advice do you have for entrepreneurs that are listening, that maybe they're in a rut, maybe they're, you know, down, and they're not bringing in the money that they would like to bring in? And they're in that that misery point that you spoke about earlier? What advice do you have for those people
Buzz 27:51
get help. So many years, I spent trying to figure it out myself because I Oh, I don't have any money. And there's always a way to get money to get into now I'm not I'm not saying go into debt to do something, but figure it out. Like, if if you're not getting a lot of clients, and there's nothing that you're doing in marketing, that's getting you more clients, that means you have time during the day, to sign up for Uber and start driving around for Uber, while you come up with your next best idea and save up money to get somebody for marketing. Or maybe you have financial things, where are you bringing in money, we can't seem to hold on to it. Get an accountant to help you put your your money in order, get help, regardless of what part of the business it is. And if you can't afford it, find it because if you can't find money, you are not an entrepreneur. entrepreneurs find the money, they either hustle it out of their own business, or they find side hustles to feed their business.
Ambition 28:51
That being said, right. I love the fact that you said that. But that being said, that reminds me of a story. That friend of mine was just me and friend were talking about we were talking about virtual assistants and outsourcing. And he swears by his virtual assistant. He goes bro, this is the this is it. This is the way in the future. Right? And he told me about a young lady that he knows. So this is now gone. twice removed from myself, right? He told me about a young lady that he knows not sure what business she does, but she has to VAs now run her entire business as she works a day job so that she can pay the VAs so that the VAs can continue to make her I think I believe it was $10,000 a month. Right? You can easily decide that she wants to take the from the 10,000 to go pay the VAs. Right. But by working right she's putting more money in her pocket. She's not taking from her business this early. Right. She's giving herself a very long runway. Now I will say You know, that that would be easier with some businesses rather than others. And that may be easier with, you know, some visions rather than others. But again, co signing co get some help. Yeah,
Buzz 30:12
the well, you, you bring up a good point. So if you have a business that can't operate without you, you have a lifestyle, business, you own a job. And you will always want a job as long as you are the one that has to be there to make sure the business is running, whether that be your giving the service, or making the decisions, wherever that goes. To build a company, you must be able to remove yourself from every aspect of your business, every aspect. So in the last three years, I have been able to rebuild a company that is now a virtual company. So my virtual assistant is does a lot of admin stuff. And then I have people who do other things for the for the business so that I have the bandwidth to do things like this, right? Be a spokesman for my company. Now there's one, there are two, two positions in my business that I'm replacing this year, or one one of them I should say. And that's sales. I'm still the only salesperson in my company. Wow. Okay. But this because I've automated a lot of things, and it doesn't take a lot. And you know, our clients, we have a lot of DIY stuff and stuff like that. So, I mean, we have people who can do like demos and whatnot. But when it comes to like our done for you services, they have to talk to me, in order to get on board. And so now this quarter, we are building out a sales team that can do that for me. And at that point, I'll be able to walk away from my business and have an opportunity for it to grow without me having any part of any part of the process. That is owning a company that that can take a long time people. It doesn't happen overnight. And there's one thing that Gary Vito says really well, I'm not a huge, huge fan of Gary Vee, I have a lot of respect for him. But one of the things he says that I really like is that says your overnight success is 10 years in the making.
Ambition 32:11
Listen, even just to get to the point where I'm at, where I am humbly sitting, right? I'm not doing amazingly well. But just to get where I am, took me about 10 years of mulling over the idea into several business failures, right? If you ask I've done it, right, like I had a a child product store, right, I had a baby furniture store that I put up, right? Again, just getting hit with the entrepreneur bug and got super motivated and realize after building everything out that I don't really want to do this. But just thinking like, man, it's pretty cool that you built it out. But it took me 10 years of starting and failing and stop starting and stopping. Um, the first time that I tried to take a whack at a cybersecurity consulting or IT consulting business. I worked with one nonprofit had a bad experience. And I shut down the business and ran that experience in my mind about three four times before I got started where with the business that I'm currently running, right, um, so I just say that to say whatever your process is, is your process. But yeah, nobody's lying to you. They say about 10 years. It may take you 10 years just to build the confidence.
Buzz 33:41
Yeah. Right. I mean, it's tough. I mean, a lot of people don't realize how much dedication it really does take. I was blessed when I started mine. I, I was blessed with a divorce. You know, that if people are like, What the heck do you mean by that? I was like, Well, if I hadn't had that divorce, I wouldn't have done my business. Right? So you have to take a look at the good or the bad. And not all things that are perceivably bad are actually bad for you. They just feel bad. And that's okay. Sometimes some of the successes were actually bad for me, right? There's things that happen for us, that made it more difficult for us to be more successful down the road, right? And so we have to take a look at the fact that not all business is good business. So as you're starting your business, you're scrappy, you'll take anything you possibly can. And it doesn't matter ethos be damned, right? And you're really just you. I'm telling you, I went through it, and my business technically has been four businesses, right? It's been around like the companies are there, right? Busbys studios became Busbys. Creative became Buzz, Buzz media, and then there was a split off of buzzworthy integrated marketing, right. So though there's only been two business licenses out of all four of those names. It's basically the same company But there are four different businesses that have existed, right? And I've owned cafes along the way. I've been minority owners of indoor football league teams, I've done a lot of entrepreneur serial entrepreneur stuff that has failed miserably. Okay. And rightfully so I was going halfway in on a lot of them, I thought it was going to be easy, because I've already had a business that was, you know, in the million dollar revenue, blah, blah, blah. So I'll be able to diversify. Diversify my portfolio, blah, all of the things. Business is hard, the fundamentals of business don't change. Getting one off the ground. Takes a lot. A lot of guts takes a lot of work. Yeah, if you can, if you don't, are not afraid of work, and you got the guts to be honest with yourself. You'll be a great entrepreneur. You've got to find out what you're passionate about.
Ambition 35:50
I 100% agree with that. All right. So we are normally at the point where I hit every one with the story for a story, right? All right. Normally what I say to my guests, Hey, you tell a story. I'll tell a story. A lot of them get a little bit flustered. But I don't think that's what's going to happen today. I think we're going to have an amazing story. You seem like somebody who's paid attention to your public speaking classes and enjoyed your Toastmaster. All right, sounds good. Here we go. All right.
Buzz 36:23
So I start with a story. Yes, you start with a story. Okay. What What kind of story would you like to hear? Um,
Ambition 36:30
that's usually what I have you guys start with the story, right? Like I'm pretty well, though. I'll tell you a story about anything. So if you want
Buzz 36:37
to bid business related life related relationship related. Let's go
Ambition 36:41
crazy fun story and if you can tie it back into business. Sure. But
Buzz 36:46
okay. All right. So crazy fun story was this last weekend when I went to Cincinnati and watched the Bengals win their first playoff game and 31 years? Nice. 31 years, which for a lot of the people that were in the in the stands, which had a at Paul Brown stadium had the biggest attendance 67,000 people in that in attendance that day. Was that a record breaking attendance? For a lot of those people in there. The last they weren't born. The last time the Bengals had won a playoff game.
Ambition 37:20
That is true, because I will turn 31 in May.
Buzz 37:24
There you go. The crazy thing is this. I would not have been able to go to that game. Had I stayed on the trajectory I was three years ago with my business
Ambition 37:37
what would you have been doing? Would you have been busy I would
Buzz 37:40
have still been working my ass off trying to pay the bills. When you're upside down in your business, you can't do anything fun for yourself because you have no cash flow. Cash flow is king, right? Yeah, that's one book I would tell anybody who's starting a business or has just started business or is suffering from cashflow itis is a book called Profit First by Mike McCalla wits, profit for profit first by Mike McCalla wits. So my business now has not hit the $2.3 million mark yet. But I am able to pay myself almost double what I was making just three years ago with a multimillion dollar company. Nice. And my clients are getting better service. My employees are getting paid more. The results are always there like we are we're killing it. Because we're able to give 100% to every client because we charge them 100% What we're worth. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. All right. So that's my story. That's sticking to it.
Ambition 38:46
No, that's a good story, right. 31 years ago, this was last time this happened. It's like watching a meteor shower. Right. All right. I'll give you one. All right. I'll make it sports related. Right? So I want to say this is early 2000s. Right. I'm Lance Stephenson. Basketball player is a couple years older than me. So this is his senior year. Right. And I just got invited to a basketball game. It's the championships right there. And I want to say it was either in Brooklyn or Manhattan. I can't remember exactly where it was. But this is high school game. Lance Stephenson senior year, right. I'm not really that into basketball, but I go to the game. I'm really in the girls. And there's always a lot of girls at these basketball games. That I'm doing what I do, right, right. And a couple years later, slips my mind and actually not even a couple years later, a decade later. I really only remember who Lance Stephenson is because every Buddy was talking about how this guy is so great. And he's gonna go to the NBA. Right? I'm gonna say about 10 years later I see the picture pops up with Lance Stephenson in the finals. When the Pacers are going against LeBron. I'm not sure what team LeBron was on at the time because you know, LeBron switches back. Probably in Cleveland, I think. Yeah, I think it was Cleveland, right? And he's leaning leaning in. And he's looking at LeBron, like, kind of taunting him. And it reminded me of like, Man, I remember, I watched this guy on the basketball game. So this comes up because everybody was like, Man, did you see it? And everybody's like, Oh, no, what's wrong with him? Now here, I gotta go. I got to go defend Lance Stephenson, right, I find myself defending multimillionaires. Because I'm from Brooklyn, and I get it. It's like, no, he's playing a game. He wants to get know the bronze, a goat, he's got to get in his head and get him off his game. And I remember thinking, Man, that's dedication. Right? 10 years ago, I didn't care who this guy was. But I heard his name because he was on a basketball court, right? heard his name because he was in this game. And years goes by, and he's in league, his name isn't really frickin big in the league. But that year with the Pacers starts to crush it. Right? Because that's when I really started to hear his name. It was starting to hear his name that year. And then here, here's the same dedication, that same competitive spirit that seen, you know, Brooklyn attitude where, you know, it doesn't matter, I'm having a good time. Hopefully you are. Because if you mess around, and you think about the fact that I'm excusing you, I'm going to take advantage of that. And I got to grow this admiration for the dedication that says 10 years later, I'm still going to be doing the same thing. And I'm going to be doing it on the highest level possible. So that's my sports story. For someone who's not big into sports, I got one or two of those.
Buzz 42:22
Well, I have had a few sports stories. Over the years. I was never like a really big sports guy. But as I got older, I kept getting thrown into sports. I have a feeling it has something to do with my competitive, my competitive nature. But I was a so I had my business. When I started my business. It was in Anchorage, Alaska, in 2005, is I got stationed there in 2001 got out in 2005 started my business. And one of my first one of my earlier clients when it came to marketing. So it's probably about three or four years into the into the business was a brand new indoor football team called the Alaska wild. They didn't have a name yet. I was like the second or third person that gentleman had talked about, like the validity or the potential of having a football team in here. And I don't know if a lot of people have remember the AFL which is the Arena Football League. So indoor football league was actually at the time when we were looking at it, he wanted to get into the F two. But anchorage wasn't big enough and he didn't have enough money in his bank account to go there. But we went all the way down to Puerto Rico where they're having the F two cup which is their Super Bowl of this the minor leagues of the Arena Football, okay, so there's not a big big stuff here. But fun. The first thing we went to was the the actual AF l bowl. So the arena football bowl. Okay, that was in Vegas. We had x foot F and NFL football players, everything like big rings on everybody's hands or champagne and steak, steak this and lobster that and all this I've been we're getting all wined and dined. I'm like, Oh, wow, this is kind of cool. And then we go, okay, well, we're not going for AFL we're going to have to and so the pitch to all the owners was going to be at in the, in Puerto Rico, so we have to travel from Alaska down to Puerto Rico, me and another person and the owner. Okay, and we're two marketing persons once the branding and I was the marketing, so I had created the logo I had created, I helped with creating the name all the other things, okay. Now it's our job to come up with a pitch and he decided that we were going to wait until we got there to do the pitch. And we were the first to pitch before the owners talk to the owner. Okay. And we went through this 30 minute pitch, we're in Puerto Rico. It is gorgeous outside, it's sunny, the pool, the beach, everything and we're stuck inside working all day on this pitch is 30 minute pitch. First question, how you're going to come flow when you have a bad year, that's what the first question after our pitch was to the owner, and he bumbled around. And within two minutes of that first question, I knew we were not getting in the league. And me and Denise was the lady that was with both livid, we were so pissed we had spent all day out of the sun, the whole nine yards. And there was. So moral of the story is, if you got a business venture, you're going to try to get into make sure that people were funding and have enough to get where you want to go.
Ambition 45:38
Man, I just love the fact that you even brought that one full circle that goes back to your book recommendation for us. was the name of it again.
Buzz 45:49
It's called Profit First Profit First by Mike McCalla wits,
Ambition 45:54
and that that's another one that came up the cash flow.
Buzz 45:57
So cash flow is cash flow, cash flow, right? It's always gonna be cash flow. We ended up in a indoor football league called the intense Football League, which is a Texas arena ball. And then that, and we did really well the first year didn't make a lot of money, because for a lot, that's another story. But then a bunch of these little tiny leagues got together and created the indoor football league was ifl. I don't think they're around anymore. Man. I lost a lot of money being a minority owner of that team. So Oh, man.
Ambition 46:29
Well, I mean, you gave the dope lesson, man. Amazing story.
Buzz 46:37
If it sounds too good to be true, don't believe.
Ambition 46:41
Oh, that was such a great story. You know what it sounded like? It sounded like, like an entrepreneur punishment. Puerto Rico? Would you have to stay inside? Because you didn't? Right?
Buzz 46:56
Oh, my gosh. It's it has to do with like, entrepreneurs have rosy colored glasses on everything. Right? My my, my wife says I'm the ultimate optimist. It's like you always see the positive in everything. So even if they everything goes to crap, I'm sitting there going? Well, at least we learned that bla bla bla bla bla, and we'll be able to do that. And I started putting out the silver linings of everything. Right? Right. She's like, can we just be mad for a minute? I was like, Yeah, you guys can be working on tomorrow, like we're going. I don't know what that gonna do. For me, that's, you know,
Ambition 47:31
you know what that anger is gonna do? It's not going to pay the
Buzz 47:34
bills. You don't pay the bills, it doesn't get you past it gets to the next step. It sucks your energy as I tell people all the time, like if somebody's if a client is making you mad, walk away from them. Because all you're all they are doing is sucking your energy for your other clients. So now this person is selfish person is robbing your other clients from the service that they deserve and they're paying for.
Ambition 47:56
I'll be so very honest with you, because I've agreed with everything that you've said. Right? I am not a yes, man. I don't know if you get that vibe from me. I'm a bit of an asshole. So for me to 100% agree with you. That says a lot about you, buddy.
Buzz 48:11
Thank you. Ambition. That's awesome. That wasn't a
Ambition 48:14
good thing to say. And you're probably an asshole too.
Buzz 48:18
If that's an asshole, then I don't want to be the other. It's okay. It's it's when people don't agree with you doesn't make you an asshole. When you have a constitution that you won't are not afraid to stick with. Regardless what other people think of you see, when people have a con a strong constitution to their values, other people hate them, and call them asshole because they're not like that. They see their weakness in your strength. There's nothing wrong with being strong willed.
Ambition 48:53
That's the the foundational definition definition of character. Right? That's right. That's exactly what we're talking about. So I definitely appreciate it everything that you shared with us. I'm going to try to just squeeze a little bit more juice out of this orange. Right. All right, last coming down to the end of it. What would you say to our audience has been the greatest tool in your belt that has helped you achieve the amount of success that you've achieved over the years?
Buzz 49:29
That is a tough question because there are so many tools. I'm gonna give you one more sports analogy. And we're neither of us are even big sports guy. So here we go. If you ever followed football, there are 32 to 36 I think people that are on the feed that can be on the fields. There are over 70 to 100 people that support those 32 people. If you asked a head coach. If you had to pick one person to get this team to the Super Bowl, which one would it be? They would look at you and go, it can't be done with just one. Tools in business or the same as a team in sports, you will have tools that seemingly you can't do without. But all they're doing is overshadowing and all the other tools that make it possible for you to leverage that tool that you love so much.
Ambition 50:33
Man, I'm going to borrow that. I'm going to borrow that analogy from you. Because the first thing that popped in my head is you said it was. So stop fucking depending on your superstars, right? overburdening your superstars, and a lot of people are trying to be the superstar themselves. And that's why we end up with so many solopreneur businesses and solopreneurs need coaches because that's their team. Right?
Buzz 51:02
No, solopreneurs? Don't do it by themselves. No, not at all. They hire other poor ones usually do. Because they don't they don't they don't get it. Like they don't understand that you you might be the one that you you are what's the product, right? But it's okay. If you're the product, that's great. That means you need a support system around the product. A product doesn't sit in a store without a roof, a door, checkout lines, aisles, everything that goes around it, that product has to have everything around it to be a sellable product, you hear it in a story, right? And that means you have to have somebody to check you out at the end of the day, right? So your website's part of your team, your person who built your website, your bank is part of your team, the CPA that makes sure that you pay your taxes correctly as part of your team. All of those people are there. And the people who think they can do it all are the ones that are too pompous to be a true entrepreneur, because entrepreneurs understand they are a jack of all trades and masters of none. But that makes us more powerful than any one.
Ambition 52:06
Right? I listen. I keep saying it. There's nothing you've said I've disagreed with and it almost makes me upset. Because you seem like you'd be a fun person to debate when I can.
Buzz 52:23
So I just have to say something you disagree with, right? Yeah, like but then I'd have to start lying to you when it comes to business.
Ambition 52:31
That's no way to build a relationship.
Buzz 52:35
Or come full circle again.
Ambition 52:36
Right? So for everybody listening, go back. Listen to this episode. Again. You're guaranteed to get some massive value out of it. And go be great
