The 6 Traits Of A Successful Entrepreneur (#431)
Entrepreneurs, Hiring, Sales, and Scaling Multiple Ventures - March 16, 2023 (about 2 years ago) • 01:03:03
Transcript:
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Nick Huber | If no... if now this is the theory. This is the big part. If you can make other people good at their jobs—not just you good at your job—but if you can lead other people, set them up for success, and make them good at their jobs, you are the 10xer.
You're the 10xer! Welcome to *My First Million*. Thanks for joining me, Sam.
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Sam Parr | Alright, so Sean is in California. There's a power outage. Last minute, I called Nick Huber. We're going to give you the proper introduction, but basically, you were on a month ago, six weeks ago, and it was... yeah.
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Nick Huber | 1 month | |
Sam Parr | I think it was the second most downloaded podcast in the last 90 days. It had something like 150 or even more downloads. People loved you!
And what was your introduction last time? Nick has at least $100,000,000 in storage units, of which I am an investor, so I always disclose that. You also own 3 or 4 different companies right now that are doing really well, or you own part of them.
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Nick Huber |
Yep, yep. Dabbling in a lot of stuff. You texted me actually 1 hour and 6 minutes ago and you said:
> "Hey, can you come on the pod in 1 hour?"
And I said yes. Then you said:
> "Do you actually have good content?"
And I said, "Yes, I'm a content machine." I was just kidding with you. And you said:
> "Hey, you need to make a document and send it to me."
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Nick Huber | are you sure you | |
Nick Huber | have the fire you put | |
Nick Huber | the pressure on me because we | |
Sam Parr | Don't ever... I never asked the same person twice, but I know that you're easy to work with. Let's do it! I knew you'd show up on time.
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Nick Huber |
Well, you blew up my life, man. I mean, I looked back... You brought me on this show the very first time on November 11, 2020, and then another time February 16, 2023, which was 4 weeks ago today. And honestly, it blew up my world. I mean, I'm telling you, really.
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Sam Parr | what are the results I | |
Nick Huber | Mean Support Shepherd is the company that I used to hire a lot of VAs. I'm a partner in 200+ leads of business owners who reached out for the first time to hire their first VA, which is freaking awesome.
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Sam Parr | and that's like $4 a month or something or $2 a month | |
Nick Huber | It just costs about $3. It's 30% of the first-year salary, 35% of the first-year salary to make the placement.
So, the average ticket is between $3 and $4. All the other businesses I mentioned got some leads. I'm Ari Kosteg from Webrun.com. It's just crazy, man! I got reached out to by a lot of people and actually have kind of started with a couple more businesses since then. So, it's just been wild.
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Sam Parr | So, I went to Vancouver and I was hanging out with some guys that were worth hundreds of millions, and maybe one or two of them were in the billionaire range. We were having dinner, and they wouldn't stop talking about that episode. They wouldn't stop talking about you. They were like, "I gotta meet Nick." I introduced you to one of them and Courtney, but they wouldn't stop talking about you. I was like, "Damn, people love Nick!" It's amazing.
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Nick Huber | It's been amazing. I think the network effects of that have really impacted my life. Man, I have you to thank in a major way. So, I really, really appreciate it.
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Sam Parr | We were at a... I did like a MFM meetup last night. Jonathan organized it, and we had 500 people RSVP. I don't know how many people showed up, but it was awesome! We got to meet people, and a lot of them were asking about you.
It was really fun to get out from behind the microphone because what people do... I always say this, I said this last night: what they don't realize is that Sean and I, at least, we talk throughout the week. But we try to save our juicy conversations. If we're ever talking about something interesting, he'll just say, "Don't tell me. Tell me when we're live."
Right now, I'm just in my... well, I turned a small bedroom into a little office. It just has this desk and a camera. You probably have a small office in your house too. They don't realize that we're just a bunch of doofuses behind a mic, just barely... I mean, we prepare, but we're just kind of having a conversation with our friends.
It's really cool to see the people and actually hear from them. So we did that last night. It was exhausting, but I was very happy to do it. Hopefully, you've been able to meet some of the people as well.
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Nick Huber | It's crazy because we can sit here and talk, and I'm a little bit nervous just because I know the impact of my first million. I know that 100,000 people might listen to this.
But imagine how nervous we would be if we were sitting in two chairs in the middle of Dallas Cowboys Stadium with 100,000 people watching. I mean, it would make it feel a lot more real. It would make it feel a lot more real. | |
Sam Parr | We've had so many people say, "Why don't you guys do it in real life, like you and Sean?" And I'm like, "Well, it's just more convenient."
But also, one time I recorded at a studio, and there was this lady at the soundboard. She was hip and cool looking, and a cute lady. I remember she wouldn't laugh every once in a while when I thought I said something funny. I got in my head and thought, "Shit, was that douchey? Was that lame?"
Then, when she would laugh, I'd be like, "Alright, I got her. I gotta keep going." So, she became my audience. I remember I was changing everything I did, and afterwards I was like, "Ben, I can't do this with any of these people in this room anymore. It's getting in my head. I'm trying to impress them too much."
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Nick Huber | It's tough, man. It's tough. I'm having a live event on the 22nd in Athens, which you guys inspired me to do. I put it together right after that, and 30 people have bought tickets to it. So, I'm a little bit bummed out, but we're going to actually go through with it next Wednesday night in Athens.
We're going to see how many people show up and see if it's a success. But yeah, when you put yourself out there for a live event, it comes with a new level of stress and anxiety for sure.
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Sam Parr | so I moved to san francisco in 2012 I moved out there and I moved up there from tennessee and I I'm still a little rough back then I was really rough around the edges and this was right yeah and this and this was like basically I moved out there and like I would wear jeans and like boots and a white t shirt all the time and people and I've had a little bit of a twang you know and people would kinda tease me and I told them I'm from tennessee and they're like you know what do you date your cousin like they would make fun of me and I felt really like jealous of the stanford kids I would like I remember I took a bus or a train out and to walk around stanford's campus I felt it was like good a goodwill hunting moment I was like dude am I gonna meet all these geniuses what's gonna happen and I got so envious and so I created this thing called the anti mba because I was envious that I didn't get my mba from stanford because I would meet all these kids and they had this like awesome network and so I created this book club and we would meet once a week we would read 1 book a month and we would meet once a week and go over the trailing like you know weeks reading and then I would call in a guest to like lead the discussion and I would talk to them and I posted an ad on craigslist that's how I got my first people and so sieva one of my best friends sieva who's like a big entrepreneur he was one of those people you know he's one of my closest friends so I met him that way and so I would host these book groups and we it would be 10 people at first and then the next time like 12 and then over time I did this for a year every week for a year I got like 3,000 people signed up to my email list then I hosted an event that was like maybe 80 people came and then I hosted hustlecon and 300 people came but it was very slow like these like events I did them very like it was like a 4 year grind and then at hustlecon eventually we got like 25100 people coming and so like these events and and then sean and I did a live pod in miami and like maybe a 100 people came and it wasn't that good and then we did it again and it was a little bit better so like these events it takes time and it's hard and it's hard because unlike the internet when you you know with the internet you can delete some stuff with an event you just are gonna embarrass yourself you know what I mean it's so it is challenging but it was like a grind to do do those events | |
Nick Huber | Getting people to actually show up is tough. I mean, to get people to listen to my first million or my podcast, "The Cuber Show," all they have to do is flip through podcasts and click a little button. If they don't like it, they're gone.
Getting somebody to buy a ticket and drive somewhere, the discomfort of meeting other people, you know, it's more difficult.
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Sam Parr | where do you want to go today what you want to drive | |
Nick Huber | So, I want to talk about the traits of a successful entrepreneur. What makes a successful entrepreneur, whether it's a partner, an operator, or a manager at a company? When I say "entrepreneur," I don't necessarily just mean somebody who starts a business. I mean someone who leads other people inside of an organization.
What makes those people really, really good at what they do? I think you have a lot of experience tracking down and identifying these people who are "killers." We'll call them "10x-ers." They're the people who... you know, I have a theory that 80% of workers are just kind of skating by. Maybe they're adding a little bit of value to a company, but the top 20% are generating outsized returns for the company that they work for, or for themselves if they're an entrepreneur.
What makes those people tick? I want to talk about that.
Alright, the most interesting thing about this is that it will morph into a tactical guide for literally starting a company. Because when you start to identify these traits, track down these people, and bring them together, a company is nothing more than just a group of people that all work together.
So, if you can find these people and put them together—which I know you can, and I'm confident that I can, and anybody who scales a business can do—you can make a lot of money fast.
So, let's dig in.
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Sam Parr | Well, when I first started my career, it was basically just, "Can I make enough money to pay for my own bills?" Once I got past that, it was different for everyone. For us, it was in the $30,000 a month range. Once we got to $30,000 a month, I realized, "Cool, it's sustainable to a certain level. I need to hire people."
I hired one or two people in a few of my different companies. Once we got to like $30,000 to $40,000 a month, when you hire the right person, it can 10x fairly quickly. At that $30,000 mark, I realized at a young age that I am in the collection of people. I just have to collect interesting people, and you have to play a long-term game.
They aren't always available, but if you play the long game, relationships last a long time. So, I've done a good job of collecting people. You asked me this, so I made a list of four traits that I always look for.
The first is I look for emotionally stable people. The reason I look for that is I'm not exactly the most emotionally stable person; I'm the fire. When it comes to starting stuff, I don't need anyone to motivate me. I'm the flame; I'll get it started. I don't need any gasoline or anything like that.
But I need people who can, when you're the type of person like me and you have really high highs, I can motivate someone to do crazy things. Typically, those people—it's almost like a comedian—are often, if they're great on stage, probably sad a lot of the time or they get down. In my case, I'm like, "This is going to fail; this sucks."
So, I always look for someone who's pretty stable and is a rock who can sustain a pretty even pace. I can motivate them to get excited, but they don't get down too easily. I also look for people who follow...
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Nick Huber | Through this exercise, let's go one by one. You say one trait, and I say one trait.
For me, it's very similar to what you just described in yourself. It is that fire, that sense of urgency, and that energy.
I think most people out there, just in general, a lot of people, they're like they're in slow motion. They walk slow, they think slow, they talk slow, and they make decisions slow. They're just kind of lollygagging through life.
They go into work, they clock in at 9 AM, they do the bare minimum all day to get paid next Friday and not get fired. Then they clock out and go home to drink a couple of beers. They're not that excited about hobbies; they're not that excited about much at all. | |
Sam Parr | which is fine | |
Nick Huber | yeah it's fine I | |
Sam Parr | just don't wanna and and you need those people a lot of times | |
Nick Huber | you need you need bosses to eat | |
Sam Parr | yeah which is fine those people are fine and they serve a purpose | |
Nick Huber | But then you get those people that have that energy. You get those people that say, "Okay, I'm gonna get out of bed today, and I'm gonna attack this thing." We're gonna make decisions fast, we're gonna move fast, we're gonna talk fast, we're gonna take action fast, and we're gonna get shit done.
Those people, when you bring them in, they can do all the other things on this list. I think everything else on my list and your list feeds from, "Hey, we are going to get stuff done quick."
When I started my very first company, it was a moving company that would pick up and deliver storage for students. We bought a cargo van on Craigslist for $3,000 and we drove it back to the track house.
This is kind of a good example of the way that people think about business and opportunity. We were jacked up, my business partner and I, we were all excited about the idea of starting a company and going out to try to make some money.
We drove this van back and we were like, "We're gonna start doing pickup and delivery storage for students." Some of our buddies were sitting around the track house playing beer pong, and they were like, "You guys are freaking crazy."
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Sam Parr | what is exciting what do | |
Nick Huber | you know about that what beer pong | |
Sam Parr | no what do you what do you know about moving like you know like who you're not qualified | |
Nick Huber | Yeah, they're just like, "Why is that exciting? You're gonna go have fun this weekend? You're gonna go around and sweat and pick up boxes for $30 a piece? That does not sound fun to me."
I have zero energy and zero excitement around that. They would have quit or given up in a week or two, whereas we were energetic, we were excited, we got after it, and we were able to convince some other people to come along.
You know, that was... yeah, that's the whole thing.
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Sam Parr | There's this great book by Robert Greene, the author of "The 48 Laws of Power." He has another book that was way less popular called "The 50th Law." It's really interesting because he wrote it about 50 Cent, and it's actually a great book.
I know it sounds weird, but Robert Greene is into philosophy and all this stuff. He talks about rappers and loves hip-hop culture. He mentions that 50 Cent is really good at reinventing himself; he's changed his image multiple times.
Greene states that the key to 50's success is his sense of urgency. If you don't have a sense of urgency in everything that you do, it ruins everything. He doesn't just talk about business people; he discusses poets, writers, and people who discover or invent different medicines. It's always about energy and urgency.
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Nick Huber | Doing anything that makes your life better is uncomfortable.
Going out and meeting somebody, taking a chance, trying to get that really hot girl in the bar to go on a date with you—it's all super uncomfortable.
It's very, very easy to just be passive. "Oh, I don't necessarily have the energy to do that. I'm gonna step back."
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Sam Parr | I used to have a rule when I saw... this is how I met my wife. When I saw a cute girl who I wanted to talk to, I could only give myself 5 seconds after seeing her before I just spoke to her.
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Nick Huber | urgency baby | |
Sam Parr | The rule was the **5-second rule**. If you don't talk to them within a couple of seconds, you're never going to do it. The longer you wait, the harder it gets. So, I was with the **5-second rule**.
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Nick Huber | I have a couple more on my list do you want me to go again or do you wanna do your second one | |
Sam Parr | yeah go go one more | |
Nick Huber | Okay, so I think this one feeds into the next topic, which is when you're starting a company. People ask me a lot, especially after our last episode where I spoke about the four or five companies that I'm starting.
"Nick, how do you have time to do this? How are you doing it yourself?"
And the answer is, I'm not. I'm going out and tracking down people who are really good. I want you to riff on this too, Sam, because you're a master of bringing people together.
I have this theory about recruiting employees, partners, or people in your early company. Step one is always, you know, the website, getting your click funnels, getting your copywriting down, and getting your service put together. But then it's about attracting people. That's all it is. As an entrepreneur, all you're doing is attracting people.
I have a theory about this: 10% of people are in career nirvana, meaning they love their job, they're perfectly motivated, and under no circumstances are they going to go and do something else. Another 10% of people are literally actively looking for something else. Either they're unemployed or they really hate their job, and they are very open to new opportunities. These are the people that are looking on job boards, posting around for anything that might be another opportunity for them.
Then there's the remaining 80% of people who are in the middle. Eight out of ten people have somewhere in the middle; they like their job but are open to other things. However, they’re not going to go on Monster, Indeed, or LinkedIn and actually apply for jobs.
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Sam Parr | which typically is the those are the winners | |
Nick Huber | Those are the winners. Every 10xer that I've ever hired, and I've been lucky enough to bring a lot of 10xers into what I try to do, falls into that category.
Again, it's kind of because of my charisma and my sales ability. I really go out and put myself out there, putting my sales hat on. I'm literally turning into a salesman. I'm going to try to attract talent to come along on my mission.
Every single 10xer that I've gotten involved with was previously employed. They had a job they didn't hate, and they had a boss that really didn't want to let them go. My entire career has been built upon going out, finding those people, tracking them down, identifying them, and convincing them to leave that opportunity and come along with me.
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Sam Parr | how do you convince them | |
Nick Huber | It's sales. It's literally, I'm selling them on my mission. We can talk.
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Sam Parr | about sales what | |
Nick Huber | Sales is another thing, but I'm trying to tell them how they can win better than what they're winning right now with me. I can either make them more money, help them have a better quality of life, or we can do something more fun.
I have to get them to buy into my vision. I’ve got to be charismatic and convince them that they need to stop what they're doing. They need to make a big life change, which is a career change—a huge change to make. They’ve got to drop it and come with me.
And you do the same thing, Sam.
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Sam Parr | Yeah, usually what I do is find someone interesting, and I just chat them up. I’ll be like, “You’re amazing! What’s your story?” They’ll just gush and tell me their story, and I act interested because I am interested.
Then, I usually ask, “Where do you want to be in a handful of years? What do you want to do?” If they tell me something where I think, “Oh, I could help you get there,” sometimes I can, and sometimes I can’t. But if I can, then I tailor my pitch around helping them get there. I’ll say something like, “Would you like to come join me for a handful of years? I bet we could set you up nicely to get you to where you want to go.” I tailor my pitch all about them and how I’m going to help them achieve their goals.
Typically, what I do—I’ve said this a bunch of times—is that the world wants people to be vanilla. They want you to fit into a very safe box, and I think a lot of people dread that, even though they are living that life. So, I tend to go the excitement and fun angle.
A lot of the time, I’m not necessarily building the next SpaceX. If you work at NASA, there is some big vision, like putting someone on the moon. Or if you work at a company that’s trading a life-saving drug, you’re like, “We’re going to save lives.” But I don’t really do stuff like that; I just do awesome stuff, like fun stuff.
So, I typically lean into excitement, where it’s like, “Look, we’re going to build this pirate ship together, and you’re going to be leading it, or you’re going to be contributing in a way where we’re going to agree on the rules. But as long as you play within those rules, you can do whatever you want.” That’s typically how I pitch.
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Nick Huber | I love it! When I'm making a key hire, I do the exact same thing. I call it the **motivational interview**.
If I'm hiring someone who's a little bit higher level and making an investment, they're making a big change. I need them to do some pretty important stuff.
I'll sit there in the interview and I'll say, "Sam, we're talking about this company right now, but let's pretend that we're five years in the future. You and I are sitting right here in this office, and you walk in, gushing and excited. You're like, 'Nick, things are going freaking awesome! Tell me what is going on. Tell me how much money you're making, how big your team is, if you're working from home, how much you're working, and what kind of projects you're working on.'"
Then I just shut up and let them talk. I get to hear what makes them tick and where they want to go. If my company can't put that together, sometimes it's a really valuable tool. Because a lot of times, 30 to 40% of the time, I'll be like, "Wow, I can't deliver on this. My company can't deliver on this."
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Sam Parr | yeah | |
Nick Huber | But then other times, I'll be like, "Okay, it just gives you a look into how these people tick." You know what I mean?
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Sam Parr | Yeah, and you gotta tailor it. So, the third thing I—or the second thing that we won't talk about because we already did—is speed. I look for speed, and that's quite hard to find. Most people aren't fast. My current partner, Joe Speiser, he's the only person I've worked with that I'm like, "Joe, you're going fast, man! It's hard for me to keep up."
So, I look for speed a lot. But the third thing is follow-through. I find that to be probably the hardest thing to find. A lot of things are trainable, but I don't think that follow-through is. I think you either are or you aren't when it comes to following through and actually doing stuff.
What I tend to do is look at people who have products or projects that are live. For example, someone will be like, "We had this one lady reply to one of our tweets, and she's like, 'I sold $100,000 worth of Taylor Swift t-shirts.'" I'm like, "Okay, that's all I need to know. You do stuff."
Or maybe they have a blog, or maybe they tweet, or maybe they have a YouTube channel, or some type of hobby that involves taking action. I always look for those things. It could be like, "I organized clubs in college." Yeah, because anything where I see, "Alright, you follow through. You say you're gonna do something, and you do it." I look for that a lot.
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Nick Huber | And you also told me this in the group chat: you will give them a small job. That knocks off, if somebody's interested in joining Sanpar, the Sanpar ride, and getting involved in one of your companies. One of these things you're going to give them something to do, and that'll knock off 80% of the people because they're not going to follow through.
I think I have a good story. The guy that I found to start this front-end web development landing page company, his name is Will Wallace. He's a coder who lives in Atlanta. One of the most brilliant dudes I know. When I saw him, I was like, "Will, I need a favor." I was testing him; he didn't know what I meant. I said, "I need a landing page, and I need something to form up on my website. I need it like right away."
Then, boom! The next morning, I woke up, and it was there. It was freaking awesome! He just moved so fast; he got stuff done so quickly. That speed and sense of urgency that you're talking about—if you can find a way to get a look into their mind, it goes back to like, "Hey, we're looking to assemble a group of people." As an entrepreneur, we're looking to assemble a group of people.
How do you know who those 10xers are? How do you know who those 10xers are? Getting a look into their mind with some of these ways that we're talking about—you're saying give them something to do.
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Sam Parr | Give them something to follow through on, like look at what they're actually doing. Often, I tell them I get pitched like five times a day. You probably do too. People who want to make short clips for me.
Yep, and I almost ignore all of them. But every once in a while, I'll be like, "Alright, make me a video then." And I'll tell them, "I'm not even gonna post it, so don't worry about free work. I'm not gonna profit off your work. Make me a video then."
We used to do this all the time. People would apply to The Hustle for writing. I would go, "Okay, write tomorrow's email." And yeah, like I would, every once in a while, get a 1,200-word thing the next day. I would go, "Alright, sick. We'll talk."
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Nick Huber | What you're looking for is a look into the mind of these people to figure out if they're a "10xer." So, if you're going out and you're trying to build these teams, you can shoot from the hip. You can bring somebody in from an interview and then make the hire, or you can try to get a preview.
Another thing that I look for on my list, and these two blend together, is **clear and concise communication**. So many people, you'll have a conversation and you'll listen to them for 60 seconds, 90 seconds, and you'll be like, "What the hell is this person even talking about? Get to the point!"
Whereas you have Nick Huber on your podcast. I can say exactly what I've done, where I've been, and how many storage facilities I have. I've given you three or four things to bite off all in the first 28 seconds that I've been on the show because I'm a very clear and concise communicator. So, I look for that. I listen to that when I'm talking to other business people. Hey, you're trying to tell me a story; you're trying to get a point across.
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Nick Huber | Across how quickly, how clearly, and how concisely can you do it? It's about the ability to get points across.
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Sam Parr | the 3rd | |
Nick Huber | seconds versus 30 is just mind blowing | |
Sam Parr | How would you feel if someone referred to themselves in the third person in an interview, like you just did? That's a... that's a "I'm out, dog." That's an "I'm out, dog" right away. Fire!
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Nick Huber | we can talk we can talk about | |
Nick Huber | Everybody wants to hear about the "social justice warrior" tweet that I had a couple of days ago. But yeah, I mean, there are a lot of red flags too.
You're just looking for red flags. That's what you're doing.
**Red flag:** If somebody refers to themselves as "Nick Hubert" in the third person, cut them out.
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Sam Parr | Dude, the last thing that I have that's related is... and this is hard to figure out a little bit, but I look for **taste** and **intelligence**. Intelligence being, like, just like I always say, "Does your oven burn hot?" Are you just smart? Or do you have, like, emotional intelligence but also taste?
So I like to ask people what content they consume. I'd be like, "Do you like to read? What do you read?" Yeah, yeah. I'm like, "Where do you get your news?" Or if they're like... I'm like, "Seriously, just tell me, who do you follow on Instagram? Or what subreddits do you like to read?" Anything! I just want to know a little bit about your taste. I've noticed that.
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Nick Huber | That's a real challenge. When somebody puts you on the spot like that, it's really tough. What they want to do is please Sam; they want to say what you want to hear, but they don't know.
It's like somebody saying, "Hey, what's your political affiliation? Tell me who you voted for." And they'd be like, "Oh, I don't know. Who did you vote for?" "I voted for them." No.
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Sam Parr | And I don't care what they read. I'm just like, "Explain to me why it's exciting." Because if you're not excited about what you consume every day, then you're boring, and I don't want to be around you.
But I also want to know what their taste is because I'll hire certain people, and they write in a certain way that's maybe too corporate. My brand is fun, and if they're just not fun or they don't get that, I'm like, "This is just a bad culture fit. We're not going to blend well."
So, I look for taste a lot. I ask them what they consume, or I do this thing called the bottom fourth of the resume. At the very bottom of people's resumes is where they put their hobbies or what they did in college. They'll say something like, "I studied philosophy," and I'm like, "Alright, cool. I mean, I don't really care about philosophy, but what was your favorite class?"
If they say, "I'm not sure," I'm like, "Oh, you're out." But if they say, "Well, this philosophy class, which I don't even know about," I'll just be like, "Well, why?" If they can entertain me and convince me that it was interesting, I'm like, "Alright, cool. You're alright."
So, I look for taste a lot on the bottom fourth of the resume.
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Hubspot | This data is wrong every freaking time. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform where everything is fully integrated. I can see the client's whole history: calls, support tickets, emails, and here's a task from three days ago that I totally missed. HubSpot: grow better.
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Sam Parr | I have | |
Nick Huber | A theory is that you can get paid really, really well and earn a great living if you're good at your job. If you're good at your job, you're worth a heck of a lot to a lot of companies.
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Sam Parr | what do you albert einstein congratulations on that great theory | |
Nick Huber | If no... if now this is the theory, this is the big part. If you can make other people good at their jobs—not just you good at your job—but if you can lead other people, set them up for success, and make them good at their jobs, you are the 10xer.
So, I'm going to look for delegators who can do that—who can lead other people and grow the business beyond. Because look, if I hire somebody and I'm their direct report, but they can't be the direct report of other people, they're going to be a bottleneck. I'm going to be the bottleneck. They're not going to help me grow the company.
Now, the two things that I think are related to that, and are kind of counterintuitive:
Number one is copywriting. A really good copywriter, I think, is directly correlated to being able to delegate and lead other people. Because if you can write clearly and concisely, the way people can understand it, you can lead others. You can give directions. You can be on Slack, text, email... The way that we run our businesses is through the written word.
Very luckily, I can see how people write. I can see it because they're DMing me, I'm reading their tweets. I get a look into how they write. I think I took your email course—I want to talk about this—because I took this about nine months ago or so. It blew my mind and made me a better copywriter, and now I have...
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Sam Parr | did it did it work with you | |
Nick Huber | Yeah, so Sam has a course where for 10 days in a row, he's going to send... 10 weeks in a row. Is it days in a row or is it once a week?
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Sam Parr | days one day one a day for 10 days | |
Nick Huber | one a day for 10 days | |
Sam Parr | so 2 weeks | |
Nick Huber |
You send an email that teaches people how to do copywriting, and I did it. I got the email the first day, and I spent... My wife comes in and I've got a notebook full of copy written down. She's like, "What the hell are you doing?" and I was like, "Well, Sam told me it's gonna work. Just trust me."
So, 10 days I write and I copy these styles, and I start to learn how clear and concise communication hooks and throws away all the words that don't matter.
Where's that located again, by the way?
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Sam Parr | copy copy that dot com copy that dot com so the word copy and then that | |
Nick Huber | Yeah, $150 or something, and it's been worth, I would say, $50 added to my career. Easy, the best. | |
Sam Parr | Do you know why that works? I tried to explain it in that thing. It's called **copywork**, and it's how I learned how to write. It was a method used to teach kids how to write, and in the 1930s and 1940s, I think there was a change in the public schools, and this method got thrown to the side.
But it's called copywork. For example, Ben Franklin used to write this way. Hunter S. Thompson said this is how he wrote, and Judd Apatow, the director, also used this method. What they would do is find scripts or, if you're Judd Apatow, you would find a funny script that you want to emulate. If you're Hunter S. Thompson, you might choose "Catcher in the Rye" or some book that you like.
When you copy it by hand, you start seeing the patterns and the texture of the writing. It's similar to learning how to play guitar. You're not going to get the guitar on day one and write a song. Instead, you might start by playing "Jingle Bells," then move to "Happy Birthday," and eventually progress to rock and roll.
Then, maybe you'll discover a riff from Guns N' Roses that reminds you of a riff from the blues. You might think, "Oh, I'll mash that with this," and then, boom, you've got your own piece of art.
That's why it's really good. There's actually science behind it, where it imprints into your brain, and you learn the flow of certain things. | |
Nick Huber |
So if you could get good at writing and getting your ideas across, and also selling to other people... Because people think delegating is just telling people what to do. No, you have to make them *want* to do it. It's sales. Life is sales. So it's a beautiful resource.
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Sam Parr | do you have a few more or no I'm gonna ask you about that tweet | |
Nick Huber | So, I want to go through how I think about sales because I think this is really important. Life is sales. As an entrepreneur, you're selling to customers, you're selling to investors and partners, and you're selling to your employees.
Just like I said, you have to go find these people who have jobs, and you have to sell your idea and your vision to them. I wanted to give you a breakdown of how I think about sales and how I kind of flip the script.
The old school way to sell is to be pushy. You ask directly, speak the language, prove that you're an expert, talk about all the benefits and great things, and then hand them a clipboard and ask for their signature. I think that way is a terrible approach to selling in today's world, which offers so many options.
My way to do it is to speak the language briefly and prove that I'm professional without being braggadocious or bragging about myself or the product I'm trying to sell. Then, I dive right into talking about the downsides—why I'm worried about it, why the deal might not work, and all the things we need to stress about.
Then, I ask them, given those downsides, why they still want to do the deal, why they still want to work with me, or why they still want to work for my company. After that, I shut up and let them respond. It kind of flips the script to where they take the lead.
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Nick Huber | they become | |
Nick Huber | The salesperson... So, like, Sam, you're about to start working for me. As you know, you want to come to work for Nick really bad, and we're going to start this company together.
I'll say, "Dude, this is an agency business. It's really hard. It might take 6 months before we make any money at all. We might be stuck in it. Worst case scenario, we're going to waste a year of our life. Why do you want to come join me?"
Another really great example of this is for my investors and my real estate deals. They get on a call with me, and they expect me to just sit there and regurgitate all the great things about storage, all the great things about real estate investments, the tax benefits, why I'm such a good operator... all that stuff.
I don't do any of that. I get on a call with somebody, a Zoom call with somebody, and they already know me. They're already on a call; they're already interested in investing in storage. So, I talk about all the downsides.
I'll say, "Look, Sam, let's do an example here. You give me this $50 you're going to invest with me, and let's say interest rates spike, the economy tanks, people don't use storage as much, and all of a sudden this deal is worth 20 or 30% less than what it was. Instead of giving you an 8% cash on cash return, I'm going to give you a 2% cash on cash return. Now, it's my job to make sure we don't lose the properties. I'm going to do this, this, and this to think about risk. But why do you want to invest in storage?"
Boom! Flip the script. Flip the script, and the person will say, "Well, Nick, it seems like you've thought a lot about these risks. You're worried about this stuff. I don't have to worry about this stuff. I don't need cash flow off of this; it's a long-term investment." All the other reasons why, you know, it might work that way.
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Sam Parr | when you're starting these new things how much do you fund them with | |
Nick Huber | RecruitJet, we put $50 in the bank account. WebRun, we put $10 in the bank account. BlueKey Capital, we're going to put $50 in the bank account. | |
Sam Parr | Did I tell you about Kevin Ryan? Do you know who that is? You're kind of here doing what he does.
Kevin Ryan—I've talked about him a bunch on this podcast. He's kind of my hero. He started as the CEO of DoubleClick, which eventually sold to Google for multiple billions. It became AdWords or, whatever, AdSense. I think it was AdSense—one of those, like, the way Google makes all their money. So, it's like the best acquisition ever. He was like employee number 20 there, and then he took over as CEO and sold the company for multiple billions.
Then he went and started, he took like his whatever he made, $10,000,000, and this other guy who worked at DoubleClick named Dwight. They said, "We're going to start this thing called Silicon Alley," so they were based in New York. It was like their take on Silicon Valley.
They invested, and he goes, "Our whole shtick was we're going to invest $300,000 into a handful of interesting ideas we have. We'll try to find someone to partner with, and we'll try to make them big. We want big outcomes."
With this method, he started Gilt, you know, like the women's fashion clothing company. It didn't work out, but it got to like hundreds of millions in revenue. He started Business Insider, which had a $600,000,000 exit. He started MongoDB, which is a publicly traded database company. I don't know, it ranges between $20 million to $300 million in market cap.
What else did he start? He started Zola, which is like the wedding registry business. He started maybe three other things that are big. He goes, "I give each company six months, $300,000 or $400,000, something like that." You know, $300,000 is kind of a lot. I mean, it's definitely a lot of money, but it's not that much money for how much value he creates. He gives it $300,000 in six months, and that's how long it takes him to figure out if an idea is going to be worth it.
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Nick Huber | It all depends on the opportunity. I mean, some of these... the guy that we're partnering with on RecruitJet, me, Sajo, and Marshall from Support Shepherd, are starting a company called RecruitJet to headhunt U.S. talent. This is the exact way: like, "Hey, we're gonna go into that 80% of people, we're gonna find them for companies."
The guy that's our head recruiter has been a recruiter for 15 years. He's done work for me, and he's a complete badass. He's not gonna leave his job until we get our first contract signed. So, we don't have any expenses yet.
On the other side of the table, I'm trying to start a debt brokerage firm. This means we're gonna be the middleman that finds and secures debt for giant commercial real estate projects. We're gonna go to all the banks, we're gonna shop them, we're gonna put the packages together, and close the loans.
Right now, I'm on the road trying to attract a partner in that business. I have somebody in mind, but I'm gonna have to shell out a lot of money because this guy makes $450 for a bank right now. He's our best loan officer; he's a 10Xer, he's a killer.
I'm gonna have to make him an offer where it's a little bit less equity, less of a percentage of sales, but I'm gonna guarantee him $200,000 a year for 2 years, me personally, off my personal checking account.
Hey, this is... I'm gonna sign a contract with you because I already know how he thinks. I already know he's a 10Xer. I know he's incredible; he's done incredible things for our company when it comes to sourcing debt. Come to work for Blue Key Capital, and I'm gonna guarantee you, I'm gonna promise you 2 years of runway at $200,000 a year.
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Sam Parr | but are you gonna put any additional capital | |
Nick Huber |
Yeah, we'll have to... we need to hire some additional people, but for the most part it'll be:
- Website landing page
- Customer.io automatic replies to emails
You know, it'll just be building the infrastructure that I'm so good at doing for all these other companies. It will create and...
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Sam Parr | you're actually gonna do it you're gonna write all the copy you're gonna set up the email | |
Nick Huber |
Web run... I'm gonna have Web Run do that. Then I'm gonna create a Twitter account, make the follow account, and then I use software called Birdflow that has an automatic DM. So every time somebody...
"Yep, you told me about it."
Every time somebody follows the account, they get a DM, and it'll say, "Hey, if you're placing any debt on any big projects or you're buying something you need help with banks, give us a call." And we'll just drive leads that way. So it'll be... does that...?
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Sam Parr | does this person have a family | |
Nick Huber | what's that | |
Sam Parr | does this person have a family | |
Nick Huber | yeah he's got a 12 year old and a 9 year old and his wife doesn't that | |
Sam Parr | freak you out | |
Nick Huber | It's very... it's very freaky. Yeah, it drives pretty significant security.
I mean, even Will at Revron had to leave a job where he was making $400 to start an agency with me.
So, like, selling these people, identifying the 10xers, and selling them on coming to join the Nick Huber mission... that's what it all is. That's the hardest part of this stuff. | |
Sam Parr | The first family person that I hired was someone who had children. I remember thinking, when we hired them, "I have a family." I was only 26, and I was like, "Shit, it feels like I have a child."
It shouldn't actually feel that way, maybe, but in a way, it kind of should. I was like, "Oh shit, this is no longer just necessarily about me. This is about all these other people and stakeholders involved."
I remember freaking out. It was very nerve-wracking.
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Nick Huber | The stakes go up, and I definitely have some times where I'll wake up at night and think, "What the hell am I doing?" Am I really convinced we can drive enough business to support this person? I've convinced them to leave their job and their livelihood. They make $450 a year.
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Nick Huber | right now I'm I'm | |
Sam Parr | I'm insane, dude. It's scary. What about... you messaged something or you tweeted something out the other day that you got a lot of flack for? What did you say?
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Nick Huber | I'll just read the tweet because it's funny. So, we talk about social justice warriors a lot inside of our group chat.
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Sam Parr | how many what what would you what's a social justice warrior | |
Nick Huber |
A social justice warrior is anybody who can be a supreme leftist or it can be a "Trumper." It can be somebody who is out on a mission to change the way that a certain group of people is totally mistreated, whether it be:
- People who want to carry guns
- Minorities
- People who feel a certain way from a certain place
They're just out on a mission to go to war with culture to make it better for a certain group of people. That's a social justice warrior in my opinion. Am I... is that a correct definition?
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Sam Parr | That's significantly more positive than how I use it. A "social justice warrior," to me, is someone who is very closed-minded, very outspoken, and will not be well-balanced or open-minded to new ideas and new facts. They will automatically dislike you because you believe in something, regardless of your stance.
For example, let's say this is a controversial topic: pro or anti-abortion. It doesn't matter which side you fall on. You can probably have a conversation with either side. A lot of people can say, "Well, I disagree with you on that, but I understand your perspective, and I don't hate you for it." You just have different opinions than I do.
Whereas a social justice warrior is like, "Well, you're wrong," regardless of how you feel.
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Nick Huber | Yep, that's it. You put it exactly right.
So, I made this tweet: "The worst thing you can do as an entrepreneur is hire a social justice warrior." People who are very radical politically are way more likely to sue you or your business, upset your customers, and upset your team members—either side of the aisle.
I said, "Luckily, politics is not a protected class, so I'm allowed to view somebody's social media before you make me a hire."
Then I mentioned that these folks bash people they don't know on Twitter and social media constantly. I said, "You don't think they'll take to a public forum to bash you and your company when you fire them for missing work to attend the eighth rally or march of the year?"
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Sam Parr | and so what did you say to that no you didn't get any hate did you | |
Nick Huber | Oh yeah, oh yeah. The people who... it's got 64 quote tweets right now. This guy says, "Bro, just say that you don't hire black people. It's way easier."
People are just really calling me a racist and saying a lot of really mean things, which I'm not at all. I am trying to weed out people who are closed-minded. Because if you're radically politically left or radically politically right, that just tells me that you're not balanced. Nobody that I know is super radical politically. It's just a giant waste of time and energy.
So I just think it's a good practice, if you're a business owner, to look at the way people spend their time. Where are they? If they told you they were in Reddit's anti-work when you asked them that question earlier, like, "What content are you consuming?" Oh, "I'm in Reddit anti-work." Okay, out.
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Sam Parr | Well, I... and it, but they could make a good argument as to why they enjoy it.
For example, I like reading. Have you seen the subreddit called... what's the one where people have multiple jobs?
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Nick Huber | oh yeah yeah that is that is fascinating entertainment value is another thing | |
Sam Parr |
It's these people who get multiple jobs, like sometimes 3 or 4 jobs, and they'll... I've known a couple of people who have done this. It's called "overemployed" - it's a pretty funny name.
I've known people who have done this. So they get a job at Facebook and Google, and they call it J1 and J2. They'll post advice like, "Hey, so my J1 has me working from... I can get it done from like 8 to 10 AM, and then J2 is like noon to 3." How do people like...
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Nick Huber | get | |
Sam Parr | Your manager should only schedule meetings for Job One in the AM or something like that. It's crazy! I've known a guy who had jobs at Facebook and Google, making around $250,000 or something crazy for each job.
So, total income is $600,000, broken up with Job One at $200,000 and Job Two at $300,000. They’ll say this, and it’s hilarious. I read it all the time because I’m pretty sure I’m against that. It’s not illegal, but I wouldn’t like it if someone did it to me.
But then I think, is that wrong? So anyway, I like to read that to explore new ideas, and it’s also just hilarious. If someone told me they read "Anti-Work" or "Overemployed," I’d be like, "Okay, why? Tell me what you learned."
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Nick Huber |
It goes really deep as I'm diving into this stuff on RecruitJet and learning how recruiting companies work. I've talked to probably 15 recruiters in the past month and just asked them, you know, "What about...?" There are people who will literally show up to an interview like this, an interview like this, and their mouth is moving but somebody else is talking to them. It's the people who are trying [to cheat the interview process].
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Nick Huber | to get | |
Sam Parr | no way no way yes tell me tell me about that so what happens | |
Nick Huber |
If you're a recruiter, somebody hires you to go place a tech position. You're a technical recruiter, you're going to find somebody to work for Google for $250,000 a year. You're going to go in and you're going to sort through LinkedIn, you're going to bring in all these applicants, and you've got to try to find a way to scan out a third of the applicants.
A third of these people are trying to get more than one job being a software developer, and you literally can't talk to them on the phone because then they can wire in somebody else to talk for you.
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Sam Parr | that's why they do that they that's why they do video is for that reason | |
Nick Huber |
They have to do video. I should have asked the guy a lot more questions about it. If you're following me and Sam, and you're listening to this and you obviously know about this occurrence, tweet us because I want to know more about this as well.
He told me that you're on a Zoom call with somebody and it's blurry, and their voice is not really the one talking. It's people who are trying to get more than one [person on the call]. Freaking [unbelievable]...
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Sam Parr | Job crazy! That's ridiculous. That's kind of amazing.
You gotta look at it from a perspective like, "That's sleazy, don't do that," but also you're like, "That's pretty amazing." You know, it's like a lot of my sleazy friends in high school would pay someone to take the ACT for them. I remember thinking, "I don't know, man, that's pretty... that's almost as impressive as actually doing a good job."
You know what I mean? I'm like, "I don't want to work with you, but like, kind of I do if you could use that for good."
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Nick Huber | You see so many criminals get caught doing all this crazy stuff. You just think that if they put that energy towards something productive, how rich they could get.
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Sam Parr |
We had this guy named Michael Harris. Michael Harris founded Death Row Records. You know Death Row? They like created Tupac, Dr. Dre, N.W.A... They basically invented modern hip-hop, or they invented like gangster [rap].
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Nick Huber | rap they were the marketing machine behind those guys right | |
Sam Parr | Yeah, so Michael Harris partnered with Suge Knight. Michael Harris did it from prison; he was serving 25 to life. He got in trouble for attempted murder, which eventually he was exonerated from by Trump two years ago, and he got let out. But he served 30 years, partially on death row.
The other charge that he was convicted of, which I think he admitted to doing, was selling at times $2,000,000 a day of cocaine or crack. He was talking about it and he said, "Once I started getting all that money coming in, I started realizing I also need to go legit and do things the right way."
So, he started buying real estate and doing all this other stuff. He mentioned, "I was killing it in the drug game, but I killed it even harder doing the legal stuff." He had the cash flow from it, so he definitely profited off of it.
He bought buildings, started a limo company, and eventually Death Row was bringing in over $100,000,000 in revenue because CDs at the time were $19, and it was like a dollar to make a CD. He said, "We killed it the right way, but I did all this bad stuff, so I had to pay the price."
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Nick Huber | I think that | |
Sam Parr | he was like | |
Nick Huber | It's such a good example that business is simply a flywheel around these things that we've spoken about in this episode. If you can get these things right—attracting people, leading people, managing people, delegating, and writing—it can work in any business.
Once you learn these skills, I could take Sanpar and drop him in a grocery store chain, and I guarantee you he would thrive. I guarantee he could succeed just because of the way that he thinks about business, the way that he can lead people, and the decisions that he would make.
So, I feel strongly that once you get the flywheel going, once you push yourself, and once you start to learn some of these things, you can crush it.
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Sam Parr | You're doing something that I hate doing, and I advise most people not to do it. However, there are many examples of people doing it successfully, of which you're one of them. This is doing multiple things at once.
In most cases, I think doing multiple things at once is a horrible idea. We saw a few times it does work, like with Ryan Reynolds. Did you see Ryan Reynolds sold Mint Mobile today for $1.5 billion or $2 billion? Whatever it was. Then, like last year, he sold his liquor brand, Aviation, for $100 million.
I have no idea about the specifics, but it says "Ryan Reynolds sells his telephone company," and I'm like, "Probably he has nothing to do with it; he just does the commercials." Maybe he has something to do with it; I have no idea. It says "Ryan Reynolds' telecom company got sold." Maybe he only owns like 3%—I have no idea.
In that case, someone like him does have multiple things going on. But when it's you, and you are doing a lot of the work, and you're not famous or a big deal like everyone in America knows who you are, I think that it's scary and challenging. Why are you doing more than one thing versus just one thing?
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Nick Huber | I'm pushing myself. I don't know if I can do it. There's a lot of anxiety around it, and some of these things will fail. I mean, look, it's five companies that we've started in the past year.
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Sam Parr | what what will the collective revenue of those be do you think in 2024 | |
Nick Huber | Okay, so you want me to make a prediction, and then we can come back on and test it. Actually, I think re cost segregation will be doing $500 a... | |
Sam Parr | month or or so in ebitda in 12 months | |
Nick Huber | In the year 2024, at the end of 2024, we'll look back on the year. I think it'll do $2,500,000 in EBITDA, probably.
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Sam Parr | okay | |
Nick Huber | webrun I think | |
Sam Parr | on what top line | |
Nick Huber | Okay, 30% margins. So whatever that math is, Webrun, I think will be 30.
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Sam Parr | or 40% get get get getting close to 10,000,000 in in sales | |
Nick Huber | Yep, I think re cost segregation will be really big in the year 2024. So, 18 months from now, like Trailing Titan Risk, the commercial risk property insurance company, I think that one will do $3,000,000 in sales at a 50% margin.
Probably for the insurance brokerage company, Webron, I think it will be doing $200 a month in revenue, so maybe $70 to $100 a month of profit.
RecruitJet, I think, will be a big company. I think RecruitJet will have $5,000,000 of EBIT in revenue and $3,000,000 of EBITDA. That's for RecruitJet. | |
Nick Huber | dot com | |
Sam Parr | So collectively, you're in the **$6 million** profit range or something like that... **$7 million**? I forget.
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Nick Huber | Yep, what would Bluekey Capital be? Bluekey Capital could be the big one—the debt brokerage company for real estate firms. That one could be doing again $5 to $10 million in revenue as well, with pretty good margins and a small team. | |
Sam Parr | And would you say $2,500,000 for cost segregation? What would that be valued at? Could it be as high as 10 times profit?
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Nick Huber |
No, I don't think so. Cost segregation is politically dependent. You know, if bonus depreciation rules go up and down, it changes the demand for cost segs. Right? So I think 3 to 4 times EBITDA would probably be the value of that company. Wouldn't be worth selling... so the cash flow...
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Sam Parr | Is awesome. The multiples are shit. Everything that I've ever started, typically the cash flow is only okay, but the multiples are really, really good. | |
Nick Huber | this is this is what I | |
Sam Parr | 20 times profit | |
Nick Huber | Yep, this is what I can't stand. I tried to convince a kid to come with me to do a web development agency, and I failed. My sales pitch failed; he didn't join me. He kept saying, "There's no enterprise value." He kept saying, "There's no EV in web development."
My entire thesis is, screw EV! EV will come. I want to be making money every single month and cash flow every single year. That's the goal. If we can do that, good things will happen over time, and we'll see which one of these companies really takes off.
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Sam Parr | But to play devil's advocate here, when I was first starting the hustle, I was doing the math. I was like, "Wherever I want to be by the age of 30," so in 5 years after starting, or 4 years after starting, you have to make a ton of profit.
Like selling a company, if you can get 10 or 15 times earnings or 3 or 4 times revenue, that's a huge number. For a lot of businesses, it's not impossible to get that. You know, you need some type of recurring revenue in a really big market and fast growth.
But to make like $20 to $50 million, or significantly higher, my argument is it's way easier to get there by selling to get capital gains. There are a lot of people who have done it. Like Andrew Wilkinson's company is just killing it, and so he's doing it through cash flow.
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Nick Huber | but if | |
Sam Parr | You like do the math, Val. Yeah, my friend Val is doing it, but he also sold a company. He sold two of them for tens of millions of dollars.
In my opinion, and there are so many examples where I'm wrong, but in most cases, I think it's significantly easier to sell something than it is to earn through income. | |
Nick Huber |
That's my problem, Sam. I've never sold... I haven't sold a company. Right now, I've never... I've never sold something to create a massive liquidity event. So I don't know. Would you? Yeah, I think I would.
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Sam Parr |
I mean, unless you work in finance... Maybe like in your... One or two of your companies are finance-related. Unless you work in finance, I think it's hard to get a significant amount of income. But like, I don't know, Donald Trump claims to have done it. A bunch of people have claimed to have done it through real estate and finance, but I think it's hard through a product-based company.
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Nick Huber |
If you can wait it out, I mean, time is on your side. You know what I mean? If you're okay living... Look, I live in a house that I bought for $290,000. I drive a truck that's worth about $12,000 [assuming the speaker meant thousand, not just $12]. If I can just not buy a private plane or a $4,000,000 house, I don't have to sell anything. I think time will really help me, so I'm on the train now.
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Sam Parr | But how do you... how are you not like... you know, desire is also like evil, you know, when it comes to this stuff? Like, when you want things, you suffer.
I know a lot of people that are really wealthy, and every once in a while, I fall into this trap where I'm like, "Five years ago, if I knew... if my 25-year-old self knew where I was today, they'd be like, 'Oh, you're fine.'"
Then I get to where I am now, and I'm like, "Oh, but there's another step. What about a $10 or $20 million home? Or what about having a warehouse full of cars? Or what about doing this or that? Or owning a sports team?"
It's like, okay, you need more. You don't desire things like a $50,000 watch or something.
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Nick Huber | Of course I do, man. Of course I do! I really want an airplane. I really want a PC-12, and that's my goal: to have one.
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Sam Parr | much is that | |
Nick Huber | it's a $5,000,000 airplane | |
Sam Parr | I wanna and to fly yourself it | |
Nick Huber | would fly my family and fly my nanny and we could go from here to la without stopping for gas | |
Sam Parr | that's gas | |
Nick Huber | that's a goal of mine but | |
Sam Parr |
But why own it instead of rent? I knew a guy who bought a jet for $16 million during the pandemic when he had just sold the company for $100 million. He owned it for 6 months and he was like, "What the hell am I doing with this?"
He ended up selling it for $20 million. He goes, "I made a profit on it, which was lucky, but it was looking like a horrible financial decision because I had to spend all this money to store it." It was like... it was the stupidest thing ever.
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Nick Huber | Yeah, it's straight overhead for sure.
But I need to... I live, my family lives, 7 hours from here. Driving with my family is something we're only going to do once a year. So, I can't get back to see my dad, my mom, and my grandfather, who's only got a couple of years left, without easy access to get back.
So, it'd be really nice to have an airplane. But yeah, I'm not going to do it. I decided with my wife we're going to wait because I just want to show my kids that I'm not just going to go out and buy everything I want. I'm going to suffer a little bit, and that's okay.
You know, delayed gratification keeps me humble too. But it's tough. I battle with it every day, man. I mean, it's really easy to...
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Sam Parr | spend money but you want stuff what what's your what's your dream number | |
Nick Huber | like as far as personal net worth | |
Sam Parr | yeah | |
Nick Huber | if I'm making a $1,000,000 a month I think I can then do whatever I want | |
Sam Parr | Isn't that funny? I bet you would have thought that 10 years ago, if you were where you are now, you could do whatever you want.
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Nick Huber |
If somebody would have told me 5 years ago that when I retire, I am where I am right now, I would have given them a thumbs up and said, "I'm happy. Please make that happen."
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Sam Parr | dude the goalpost always changes | |
Nick Huber | It's so hard, man. It's easy for me to cry and say, "Oh, it's tough," but it's a tough thing to swallow as a man when, all of a sudden, you have seven figures in your checking account. You have hundreds of thousands of dollars a month that come your way, and you’ve got to figure out what gets you out of bed.
How are you going to not be an asshole? How are you going to raise good kids? I don't know about you, but I get excited about hobbies. I'll pick up golf, or tennis, or pickleball, or airplanes—whatever it is—and I'll just get really, really, really into it. Then it's on to the next thing, on to the next thing, on to the next thing.
I don't like that about myself. I wish that I was more disciplined long-term. How do you feel about that?
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Sam Parr | I'm very disciplined, I think, compared to a lot of people. I have a fairly disciplined approach. When we're in Austin, I spend around $15,000 a month or so. When I'm in New York, I spend a little bit more.
Because I don't drink and go out, Monday to Friday, we don't go out at night. We say, "Oh, it's a school night; we're not going out." I live in a house that is under $1,000,000 or paid well under $1,000,000, which in Austin, it's kind of hard to find that stuff.
I think I'm pretty disciplined long-term, but I do struggle with wanting more. My wife is always like, "Stop wanting that; you're going to drive yourself crazy." I always want more stuff. I try to manage it.
For example, I want to buy a huge garage in Brooklyn to stash all types of cars and motorcycles. I envision having a fantasy factory where I can open up the garage door, sit in front of it, and anyone who walks by and admires it, I could say, "Oh, you want to come in and look? I'll show you around; we could play with it all."
I want that, and it's going to cost around $20,000,000. But I know it's a pointless thing because when you die, you don't get any of it.
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Nick Huber | Yeah, I gotta tell you a story. I ordered a lot of bourbon lately, like high-end bourbon.
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Sam Parr | like how do you fancy thing of bourbon | |
Nick Huber | the most expensive bottle was like $75100 and this is gonna make me super you paid | |
Sam Parr | for a $75100 you bought a $75100 does it taste any different what's it do | |
Nick Huber | This is me being vulnerable. I have **zero life overhead**. I could cut my spending to **$5 a month** and still pay for my kids' daycare and my house payment, which is **$1,200**.
I've avoided the big expenses: the big house, the plane, the big cars—whatever it is. So, I splurge on some of the little things that might sound huge and obnoxious to some people, but aren't really that obnoxious.
For example, I got some really nice bourbon—some bottles that are really special. I'm looking at them in my bar, and I sent a text to like four of my boys: "Hey, come over, let's try some bourbon." But nobody can come over.
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Sam Parr | and they can't come and hang out | |
Nick Huber | Nobody can come hang out. They're all working, or they're out of town, or whatever.
So the next morning, I got up and I just looked at it. I opened one of the nicer bottles and poured a little bit for myself. I'm like, "Fuck, none of this matters. None of this matters."
It's all about the people. It's about how they feel about you, whether or not they care about you, whether or not they respect you, and how you can help them become better versions of themselves.
So the stuff is really just a distraction. That sounds cliché because everybody says that, but it hit me when I was looking at that bourbon. I'm like, "Fuck, my parents. My dad loves bourbon. He's seven hours away. My brother's nine hours away. He's not here. Sam Parr doesn't drink alcohol; he can't come over with me." You know what I mean?
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Nick Huber | does it | |
Nick Huber | hit me | |
Sam Parr | yeah does a $75100 bottle taste any different than a $50 bottle | |
Nick Huber | I haven't opened it yet it's the mickters 20 year | |
Sam Parr | does a $1,000 bottle taste any different | |
Nick Huber | You know, I think it does because... sounds ridiculous. No, it doesn't, Sam. It doesn't. It fucking doesn't. | |
Sam Parr | it's just a pokemon card | |
Nick Huber | It's an ego thing, man. I'm a weak man who is after the ego sometimes, and I gotta stay... I just gotta remind myself of that.
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Sam Parr | it doesn't matter does it | |
Nick Huber | none of it matters shane | |
Sam Parr | I bought a decent car, and that makes me happier. But besides that, most items don't.
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Nick Huber |
And what am I gonna do? Like, invite somebody cool over? There's a couple pro golfers in town that I'm friendly with, and I keep saying, "Come over and drink some of my nice bourbon." And what am I gonna be? That asshole guy who brings in this famous person into my house and is like, "Yeah, drink my awesome bourbon," and just talking about how awesome... It's so fucking dumb. Like, I'm such an idiot.
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Sam Parr | I don't think it's dumb. Where do you buy this from? And you do cigars too? Those are really good too, right?
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Nick Huber | those are those are 2 of my hobbies it's cigars and bourbon because I share them both with my dad and golf | |
Sam Parr | can you be any more of a stereotype golly | |
Nick Huber |
But my house is so weak... Like, it's literally sitting on the bourbon. It's sitting on a $200 really shitty cabinet that I got from Home Depot when I reached in my basement. But no, a guy over in Carrollton, Georgia, I'm his biggest customer. Every year he gets the releases and drives it over to me, and I give him an envelope full of a lot of cash.
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Sam Parr | You got a guy. Dude, I love having hobbies where you got a guy. That's the best! That's the best. | |
Nick Huber | you got | |
Sam Parr | A guy? Cool! I appreciate you doing this. We had a good episode. Is there anything you want to promote?
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Nick Huber |
A lot of people ask me where they could invest with Bolt Storage. Real estate's really slow, but you can go to boltstorage.com/investors if you're an accredited investor and you want to get storage exposure.
Also, my newsletter that I write every week... I think a lot about this stuff. A lot of the stuff we're talking about, like what makes... how...
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Sam Parr | many subscribers do you have on that | |
Nick Huber | I'm up to **42,000**. I'm working really hard; I'm adding like **600** a month. It's kind of weak, but I write a lot about this, like what makes a **10xer**.
How do you think about this stuff? How do you think about hiring, management, and getting these teams together?
If you go to my Twitter, [@swaystartup](https://twitter.com/swaystartup), there's a little link in my bio, and you can join my newsletter.
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Sam Parr | alright we appreciate you thanks for doing this |