How I'd Start a Business With Zero Capital — Transcript

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1. 0:00If you had to start over question. I'll
2. 0:01I'll read this. If you were starting out
3. 0:02today with little or no capital, knowing
4. 0:04what you know now, what type of business
5. 0:06would you start? There's a that theme is
6. 0:08recurring.
7. 0:08>> Yeah.
8. 0:09>> Okay.
9. 0:10You want You should do yours and I'll do
10. 0:11mine cuz I have I bet you they're
11. 0:13different.
12. 0:13>> Um
13. 0:14A- anything that actually provides a pay
14. 0:17for performance is what I would start.
15. 0:19So that is the first thing.
16. 0:20The second thing is the second thing is
17. 0:23you also want any business that you
18. 0:25don't have upfront capital, right? So I
19. 0:26will tell you my favorite thing if I
20. 0:28were to start something right now, I
21. 0:29would be a recruiter.
22. 0:30>> Um
23. 0:31>> Right? So
24. 0:32if you take a real estate agent or a a
25. 0:34recruiter, what's the difference? A real
26. 0:35estate agent has to go get a listing and
27. 0:37then has to market the listing, has to
28. 0:38spend the money there, has to sit open
29. 0:40houses, has to do all of that. Or a
30. 0:41recruiter still has a listing, but then
31. 0:43can work it without any extra cost to be
32. 0:45able to do that, right? So if I were to
33. 0:47start something today, one something
34. 0:49performance-based and second that I can
35. 0:51actually do on my time and and actually
36. 0:54without a lot of spend upfront.
37. 0:56>> So I'm going to piggyback on Sharran's
38. 0:59because
39. 1:01you you want to when you when you have
40. 1:04no capital, right? You only have skills.
41. 1:06And so that means and if we're going to
42. 1:08do something performance-based, then you
43. 1:09want to sell the thing, you want to get
44. 1:10a small percentage of something that has
45. 1:11a lot of zeros. That's how it works. And
46. 1:13so obviously it comes to the real estate
47. 1:14space, lots of zeros. Even though it's
48. 1:16small percentage, you sell a $20 million
49. 1:18building, it takes you zero capital in
50. 1:20order to do that and you can get 4%, 5%
51. 1:23of a building like that's a million
52. 1:24dollar commission, okay? Huge.
53. 1:27Thing one. Thing two.
54. 1:29If you're recruiting, you can recruit
55. 1:31for VAs, smaller ticket, and you can
56. 1:34sell VAs for $5,000 a pop, okay, fine.
57. 1:37Or I could get a higher level skill set
58. 1:39and be like I can I can go recruit
59. 1:41executives. And also the term changes by
60. 1:44the way to head hunting.
61. 1:45>> That's right.
62. 1:46>> And you want to be a head hunter, not a
63. 1:48recruiter. No one's like I'm head
64. 1:49hunting VAs because it's ridiculous,
65. 1:51right? Of course you're not head hunting
66. 1:52VAs, right? You just you're catching
67. 1:53with a net, right? Like we're
68. 1:54harpooning, right? We're looking for
69. 1:55whales and so we need to use that
70. 1:57language. And so if you want to go hunt
71. 1:59whales, then you go find businesses that
72. 2:01are bigger, have the ability to pay and
73. 2:03write big checks, because many of you
74. 2:04guys might not know this, but in
75. 2:06recruiting it's typical to charge 20%
76. 2:09>> Correct.
77. 2:10>> a commission, but the sale, the item
78. 2:12that's being sold is what that person's
79. 2:14going to get paid all in. So if I
80. 2:16recruit an executive that gets paid
81. 2:19$750,000 a year,
82. 2:21>> Mhm.
83. 2:21>> that's like being a salesman who sells a
84. 2:24$750,000
85. 2:25product, but you get a 20% commission.
86. 2:28>> Right.
87. 2:29>> Absurd. It's a $150,000 commission
88. 2:31check.
89. 2:32>> Correct.
90. 2:33>> Per.
91. 2:33>> Per.
92. 2:35>> So like insane opportunity on that side.
93. 2:37On the flip side, I come from the
94. 2:39customer acquisition side. So I like I
95. 2:41have lost everything multiple times.
96. 2:44I'll be here all week. Uh actually I'll
97. 2:46be here for the next five 5 hours. Uh
98. 2:48>> [laughter]
99. 2:49>> So
100. 2:50So
101. 2:51At least
102. 2:53Before I'll do that or I'll pass out.
103. 2:54What I want to do. All right. But the
104. 2:56point is this.
105. 2:58Um
106. 2:59the uh where was I going with this? Oh
107. 3:01yeah. So so I have lost everything
108. 3:03twice, and so I've I've always operated
109. 3:05off performance. And so I went to
110. 3:07business owners, local is the easiest,
111. 3:09and you say, "Hey, Mr. Business Owner,
112. 3:11if I get you customers,
113. 3:14the the easy the cheap way of doing it
114. 3:16is if I get you customers, will you give
115. 3:17me a commission?" That's the easy way.
116. 3:19>> Mhm.
117. 3:19>> My preferred way is, "Let me negotiate
118. 3:22with the business and say, if I got you
119. 3:23100 customers, what's the cheapest you
120. 3:26would sell your delivery for?"
121. 3:28>> Mhm.
122. 3:28>> And because if you go to a less
123. 3:30sophisticated business owner, they're
124. 3:31going to be like, "Well, you know, I
125. 3:33sell my thing for 100, but I would if
126. 3:36you did 100 of them, I would do it for
127. 3:3850." And I say, "Great, 50's the
128. 3:40number."
129. 3:41Now what I'm going to go do is I'm going
130. 3:42to go sell it for a thousand, because I
131. 3:44know how to sell, and then all of a
132. 3:46sudden, of course, they're going to get
133. 3:47a little upset, and that's fine, and I'm
134. 3:48going to say, "Hey, I'm going to sell
135. 3:49this for a a more money." Now old me
136. 3:51would have just gone and sold it for way
137. 3:52more.
138. 3:53>> Yeah.
139. 3:53>> Newer me, it would be like, "Hey, I just
140. 3:55want to let you know, you agreed to 50,
141. 3:57I'm going to still pay you the 100."
142. 3:58>> Yeah. Right.
143. 3:59>> I'm going to pay you the full boat, but
144. 4:01I wanted to set this up because are you
145. 4:02going to be upset if I go sell people at
146. 4:041,000? And then if they push back, how
147. 4:07do you overcome that? I would say,
148. 4:08"Well, wouldn't you want somebody who
149. 4:09paid a $1,000 rather than a $100
150. 4:11customer?" Because what do you think a
151. 4:13$1,000 customer can do? They can spend
152. 4:14more money.
153. 4:15And so, you're going to be able to get
154. 4:16all the LTV after this from this
155. 4:19customer for life as long as you do a
156. 4:20good job. Right? And so, from there,
157. 4:22that's how I made my That's how I made
158. 4:24my split. Now, I went to businesses,
159. 4:26obviously gyms is what when I literally
160. 4:27did this.
161. 4:28Um they had basically no incremental
162. 4:30cost uh to add add a customer to a a
163. 4:33training session, right? And so,
164. 4:35what I mean by that is if you've got a
165. 4:36semi-private training studio and you've
166. 4:38got one trainer and they can go up to
167. 4:39six people in a session, and you've got
168. 4:41three there, you're still paying the
169. 4:43trainer the same amount. And so, me
170. 4:45putting two, three more people in there
171. 4:46changes basically nothing for the cost
172. 4:48basis of the business. And so, most of
173. 4:49those guys, if I said, "Hey, if I sell 6
174. 4:51weeks or 8 weeks up front, can I sell
175. 4:54that for whatever I want? And then
176. 4:55afterward, and you should want me to
177. 4:56sell that for as much as possible cuz
178. 4:58then they're more likely to stay for as
179. 4:59high as possible." And that was my
180. 5:00pitch. Now, if I was broke as a joke, I
181. 5:04had truly no money, then I would go and
182. 5:06make a $1,000. I'd do that first. Like,
183. 5:08I'm just being real. I would do that
184. 5:10first, and then I would take that small
185. 5:11amount of money, and then I would put it
186. 5:13into advertising so that I can then say,
187. 5:15"Hey, you don't even have to pay a
188. 5:15dollar." Cuz if you have to ask the
189. 5:17business owner to front the ad spend,
190. 5:18they get way more leverage for the work,
191. 5:20and so I'd rather just come to the table
192. 5:21with like five grand
193. 5:23>> Yeah.
194. 5:23>> and then do that. But I have done it
195. 5:25from zero. So, I just That's what I
196. 5:26would actually do. And it's cuz I That's
197. 5:28what I actually did. If you were a
198. 5:29business owner and you are not growing
199. 5:31as fast as you'd like, I'd like to give
200. 5:32you a free gift. So, my team and I put
201. 5:35together the $100 scaling roadmap, which
202. 5:37is basically 200 hours of us looking
203. 5:39over all the portfolio companies we've
204. 5:40had and what stages of growth they went
205. 5:43through, and more importantly, where
206. 5:44they got stuck and how they got past it.
207. 5:46And so, we broke it into these 10 stages
208. 5:48and we made this little kind of quiz
209. 5:49thing where if you put in your business
210. 5:51information, it'll tell you where you're
211. 5:52at and the most important part for you,
212. 5:54what to do for each of functions of the
213. 5:56business across product, marketing,
214. 5:57sales, customer success, recruiting, IT,
215. 5:59human resources, and finance. And so, no
216. 6:01matter what you're struggling with,
217. 6:03someone else has already struggled with
218. 6:04it and solved it. And so, I'd like to
219. 6:06give you this thing absolutely free. You
220. 6:08can go to acquisition.com/roadmap,
221. 6:09plug in your business information, and
222. 6:11if you want us to actually help you
223. 6:13deconstruct the business and you're
224. 6:15trying to scale, we'd love to help you
225. 6:16out. On the thank you page, you can book
226. 6:18a call with my team and we will
227. 6:20look into business, see if we can help,
228. 6:22and if we can, we'll invite you out to
229. 6:23Vegas and we'll do this in person live.