In this episode of "Invest In Yourself: The Digital Entrepreneur Podcast," host Phil Better engages in an enlightening and humor-filled conversation with digital entrepreneur Sylvania Harrod. Sylvania shares his journey from a curious child fascinated by his mother's lawyer colleagues to becoming a successful digital entrepreneur and software company owner. They explore the key elements of building wealth through business exits, the power of SaaS companies, and the strategic leverage of personal branding and influence in today's business landscape.
Timestamps:
- [00:00] Introduction to the Episode
- [02:15] Pronouncing Sylvania’s Name and Telemarketer Misunderstandings
- [05:00] Sylvania’s Entrepreneurial Beginnings Selling Mixtapes
- [09:30] The Allure of Entrepreneurship – Freedom
- [14:45] Importance of Business Exits for Building Wealth
- [21:10] Growing SaaS Companies through Effective Sales and Marketing Processes
- [28:00] Leveraging Personal Brands vs. Building Sellable Assets
- [32:50] Successful Case Studies: Ryan Reynolds, Alex Homerozzi, and Trump’s SPAC Strategy
- [39:00] Transition from Network Marketing to Technology Sales
- [45:20] Private Equity Insights and Harrod's Company Acquisitions
- [52:00] Sylvania’s Advice to His Younger Self
- [55:30] Closing Remarks and Call to Action
Guest Bio:
Sylvania Harrod is a seasoned digital entrepreneur with a background in the military and insurance sales. Having founded his software development firm, Sylvania has expertly navigated the digital landscape to build successful SaaS companies and achieve impactful business exits. His expertise in leveraging personal branding, strategic influence, and software sales has made him a notable figure in digital entrepreneurship.
Key Takeaways:
1. **Freedom Through Entrepreneurship:** Entrepreneurship offers a unique sense of freedom and control over one's life.
2. **Importance of Business Exits:** Building wealth is greatly influenced by understanding and executing successful business exits.
3. **Power of SaaS Companies:** SaaS companies are prime candidates for favorable exits, though they often struggle with effective sales and marketing.
4. **Personal Branding vs. Sellable Assets:** While personal branding is powerful, sellable business assets typically provide more lucrative opportunities.
5. **Leveraging Influence:** Using influence to gain equity in businesses can significantly increase valuations and lead to scalable success.
6. **Focus on Private Equity:** Learning from industry leaders and embracing private equity can lead to strategic advantages and mutual success.
Resources and Links:
- Follow Sylvania Harrod on Instagram: @sylvaniaharod
- “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” by T. Harv Eker
Call to Action:
Enjoyed the episode? Make sure to subscribe to "Invest in Yourself: The Digital Entrepreneur Podcast" for more insightful conversations with successful entrepreneurs. Don’t forget to leave us a review and share this episode with your network. To get in touch with Sylvania, send a DM with the code word "pineapples!"
Contact Information:
- **Host:** Phil Better
- Instagram: @ThePodcastMogul
- LinkedIn: @ThePodcastMogul
- **Guest:** Sylvania Harrod
- Instagram: @sylvaniaharrod
- LinkedIn: @sylvaniaharrod
SEO Keywords:
Phil Better, Sylvania Harrod, digital entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, freedom, SaaS, Software as a Service, business exits, wealth building, revenue milestones, negotiation, personal branding, high-value software companies, SPAC, Trump’s strategy, influencer impact, Mint Mobile, Alex Homerozzi, Brendon Burchard, Kajabi, market trends, mergers and acquisitions, investing in yourself, trust yourself, lean into your gifts, Instagram @sylvaniahorad, Facebook @sylvaniahorad, private equity, Leverage (LVRG), T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, network marketing, insurance sales, enterprise software sales, technology sales, virtual assistant firm, influence to equity, business ownership, operation optimization, customer acquisition, SaaS exits, Tony Robbins, time freedom, financial freedom, location freedom, efficiency, customer service, marketing, accounting, Ryan Reynolds, occupational therapists, business value, investment attractiveness.
(upbeat music) - Welcome to "Investin' Yourself" the digital entrepreneur podcast. Join the podcast burger, Phil Better, as he interviews success for entrepreneur. Now make their living in the digital world. Now let's join your host, Phil Better, and your special guest. Today on "Investin' Yourself" the digital entrepreneur podcast. - Welcome back, inspired entrepreneurs, to another episode of "Investin' Yourself" the digital entrepreneur podcast. I am of course your host with the most Phil Better. I am truly excited to have Sylvana Howard here is, thank you so much for being here, sir. - Pleasure to be here, my friend. - Did I mess up your name at all? 'Cause I did. - It's Sylvania Harrod, but I've been called worse. - You didn't call me friends. - Anything that happens when you have a unique name like mine is back in the day, there was telemarketers that would call. And so I always could identify a telemarketer 'cause they would, because it ends in an A, they think you're a female. So they're like, "Hi, is Mrs. Sylvania Harrod?" They're like, "No, she died." Like, 10 minutes ago, we're trying to do, figure out what we need to do with the body. Please don't call back anymore. And we've been doing that post. - Oh my gosh, you didn't even hear the pause. Like, nope, she's dead. - She had a heart attack. And so, I thought this was a callback to figure out what we do at this current moment. So, up a little octopus, I gotta go. I would do it all the time. And soon, my friends who didn't know, they were always shocked. The bird, they're like, "Who was that?" They just call it just us telemarketer, no worries. - Yeah, I can just imagine. Badly dinner, you know. No one's heard it before, then it's like, nice. Oh yeah, no, she just had a heart attack. - Yeah. - Do you know what you do with the 86-year-old body? - Ee. - No. Okay, time flies. - Yeah. - Everybody, she's like stunned. But the unique thing is that they, you gotta know who they're like, who's sending the message. So, they know it's me, and they know I like to joke around and do things. So, they're just like, "Please tell me the rest of the story." - So, wow. - Unless you're brand new, and you're at your in-laws house, and they realize that on the first call, it's like, wow, what's happening, so. - This person is special. - I love that. Oh my God, that's, I love how we're just a mess up. God, this one rates story. (laughing) - Before we even started, like, I love this episode already. But yes, let's hear, why did you become an entrepreneur? Let's just jump into it. What was it about the world of entrepreneurship that brought you into it? - I had to label it down to one word, I would say, freedom. So, there was always this allure of, so let's back it up a little bit. So, like, when I was a kid, I was always interesting, because I was always a tinkerer. I was always a square pagan around whole. So, like, I remember, like, being in grade school and teachers would ask certain questions. And I'm like, no, that's, and I would be willing to challenge teachers, 'cause that was just kind of the mentality. And so, since I was a young kid, my parents used to say, like, my mom worked as a legal secretary growing up, so I would go on law firms, and I would just walk into these attorney's offices, like big law firms in New York on Wall Street, and you have this seven-year-old kid who just walks into your office. If your door's open, that means I can come in. So, it's like, I would sit there and be like, what is it that you do? They're like, "Oh, I'm an attorney." Obviously, what kind of attorney are you? - You're in his big office. I'm pretty sure you're an attorney or a lawyer. - It would always catch them off guard, 'cause they're like, "To the seven-year-old kid, "you say, well, obviously, what kind of lawyer are you?" And then, before you know it, my mom would be like, "Where'd my son go?" And she'd walk around, and I've been in their conference room questioning them for an hour. Like, getting questions, being curious, asking them at different moments. And so, there's nothing greater as a person who pretends to be an adult, working in an office building, and seeing a young kid coming in and is interested in what you're doing, and has the ability to hold a conversation, and be able to do things. So, for me, I always love that element. I always love the, I've naturally been a creative. So, it was like creating your own things, having your own stuff. And then, I was able to see this little small analogy of like, we went to, so on the summer houses, in the summer activities, we would go to some of the partner's office, like homes, like beach houses. And so, they had the big homes and the big things, and I'm like, "Well, what do they do that's different?" 'Cause this is what my house looks like. So, this is not the neighborhood that I'm in. And so, what are they doing that I'm not doing today? And I've always had this mentality of reverse engineering in your desires. So, as a kid, I remember being at the bus stop, and me and my buddies joke about this all the time, we call them the old rich white guy, because like, they come in, and sometimes they're taking their kids to the bus stop, and they're wearing basketball shorts and T-shirts. Other times, they're wearing suits, but like, they get to go on the field trips, they do other things, and I'm like, my parents work opposite shifts, they're working really long hours, and have to do over time always. And this dude's at the field trips with us. So, I don't know what he's doing, but I want to do that, and that was kind of, that's kind of the genesis of what I ended up acquiring over multiple different phases of my life. - I love that. I love that, like, from youth, you know, like, I want to do where I get the big beach house, and I get the field trips with my kids. That's all I want, right? I love it. I love that being the genesis of it. What was your first entrepreneurial venture, if you don't mind me asking? - So, I would say, if I had to go, if I'm going to go child or adult, let's go, let's say, child, and then we'll do your first child and your first adult. Let's do that. - Okay. So, first child was, I would sell mixed tapes in school. So, this is back in the day where, like, you went ahead and you gave your computer aids by downloading bear share or lime wire. Napster never worked, but you're just like, I'm willing to bet the entire farm, because I need to make this mix CD. And I remember being a techy and being like, hey, I got a mix CD, no longer am I sitting there on the radio where I started with making tapes, and I would have taped the record of the favorite songs, and then I would make copies of those tapes to go ahead and sell it to my friends. But, like, it was, I want it to be, I realized mixed tapes were more efficient. So, it's like, I know I can get more, and I can hang out with these different CDs. I saw my barber shops, different things to go there, and it's like, I can treat my own mixes. It's like kind of like, what is a modern-day DJ now? So, yeah, that's where I first started as a kid. Was doing those type of activities, 'cause I always realized, like, I just had this natural inclination of all scale. So, went through that, and then, as an adult, I would say, my first foray into entrepreneurship was network marketing. So, I can't remember the name of the company now. It was, I had, the gentleman's name, so I was in the military, and his name was O'Shane Cross. Haven't thought about his name in a year, so until this turn, no matter what, so thanks for the question. You're well, so, yeah, so, Sarginal Cross was just, like, he just thought different, and it thought, like, I thought, 'cause I always knew, like, no matter where I was at in the face of life, I always knew, like, the big beach house, and being with the kids was the desire, and it didn't matter if I did it in my 40s or 50s, or any, like, I just knew, like, I was going to be the destination, I was going to get it eventually. So, he had me read this book called Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harbacher, and I go, and I read it, and I just remember, like, it started, that started the voracious reading and process to go there, so I was like, oh, in that book, they talk about, like, your JOB isn't gonna give you the option unless you're in certain careers, which are, like, sales, be able to be there, but you have to create something and do it, and so, naturally, what does network marketing do? They, like, create their own problem. They create the problem and they're the solution. So, it's like, hey, as this is occurring, I went through that process, and that was when I learned, I don't like selling something to people that doesn't really benefit them. (laughing) - I got it, I got it. - I got it. - So, that created a different process, and then I transitioned from there when I got out of the military to where I got into insurance and started my own insurance agency. So, I was like, what's a good or service that people actually use, that they will be able to be there? I still can take some of this process and concepts and personal development on automobile university, and so, I think it was 21, 22? They're just thinking, like, what year was that? I think it was 2008. So, right around 22, 22, 23, is when I started an insurance agency and that began spanning things to where I realized, man, the digital world is much simpler, because at that time, these guys were just so used, so, because I'm a square pick, I'm always like, whatever path people are going, I'm gonna spend time looking at that, and then I'm gonna say, there has to be another way, and I'm just wired that way to, like, no matter what, and that's what kind of why I didn't succeed in network marketing, 'cause it's like, you know, this is a process, you just follow the process, but I'm like, but maybe I don't wanna do the process, but when I got into shit, there's gotta be a more efficient way, 'cause I have no desire to wanna work 70, 80 hours a week. That's why I'm not in retail, that's why I'm not in the restaurant business. No, I have no desire to do that. I want to build something that is not relying on my time, and that eventually, it can be multiplied from that time, and that's what the whole process created for me, like the secret of the billion of mine, he was talking about those kind of stuff. So, I realized at that moment that there were these, like, it was before social media, like, became prevalent, it was more of these forums, so I just started searching for forums, so as I'm searching for forums, finding out these things, I find out that there's guys that sell insurance over the phone in multiple states, and I'm like, I found it, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I said, I knew this has to exist somewhere, so that's when I got into the business of, like, getting leads, and I was able to condense my sales schedule into a four-hour block, 'cause I realized that, hey, most people that are buying these insurance policies are married. Married people, if you're gonna call 'em earlier in the day, you're probably getting the spouse, so what are they gonna want? I want you to call me back when my spouse is home, I gotta talk to them, well, if I can get old the spouse and the wife together at the same time, when I call them, then now I've even tripled my closing rate, so at that current period of time, I'm like, all right, this is what I'm doing, and I would just sit there, then I found out about this thing called auto dialers, man, I'm gonna change the game. I was like, you got people that will call these leads for me on the front end, and this is a little bit more, and then all it was is I got to the point where I was just picking up the phone. I sat there, I'd be able to hang out with my kid at the time, be able to get dinner situated, and then when the phone rang, meant a lead was ready, they were whittling to talk, and I would just walk over, put the headset on, be able to go through there, so that's a long-witted way of landing the plane of like, insured sales is what the first thing, but my first digital experience was through there, 'cause I realized that there are other people that have a zone of genius that they wanna be in. I knew I wasn't gonna follow up. I knew I wasn't gonna do multiple calls to get to the right person, unless it was a big deal, 'cause these were low cost leads, and I just realized if I can get 100 of these over the course of a month, I could work in this small window, and then I can have the rest of my life to do what I can work from anywhere, which was always a desire, was time freedom, location freedom, and financial freedom is what I call my wealth formula, over health, making sure your health's good. - I love it, just freedom in general, and then you're burdened down, you just knock them one at a time out, until you got that freedom, I love that. So now you're still doing the insurance I presume, correct? - No, not at all, man. - Oh, where are we at today? What are we doing today? - Oh, okay, so after the insurance thing ran, it's ran of course for a period of time, health insurance really got disrupted, post-Obama getting elected, 'cause people had this perception that healthcare was gonna be free, different things, so that meant that insurance companies had to change where they didn't have preexisting conditions, so because of that, they changed the commission structure, it's like, well, I gotta work 10 to 15 times as hard to make the same amount of money I did there. So I actually ended up just testing out multiple different facets that led to today. So I ended up working in enterprise software sales, 'cause I realized I was like, hey, I got a skill set, but who are these guys, I remember being at a gym and seeing these guys drive nice cars, and they would come in during their lunch breaks, kind of fit the image of what I saw with the older white guys, a kid, and I said, all right, what are these guys doing? So they're like, oh, we're in technology sales. Tech is only gonna grow over the next 20 years. We help broker the conversations between companies and technology firms. I was like, that sounds pretty cool. So I went through that route. I did that for, I still do that today because it's fun and it's exciting. But so I looked at it as like, hey, I like the marriage between you have one person on one side of the fence, you have one person on the other side of the fence. And so how can I bridge the gap between there and connection points? Because if I'm in this space where, let's say, for example, one group of audience I talk to are SaaS founders. Because I've realized that SaaS founders, the biggest things that stop SaaS founders from getting to the promised land, which is called the exit, is typically sales and marketing and having access to audiences. On this side, I looked at it and said, all right, well, who has access to these audiences? And I'm like, oh, well, it's typically influencers and some type of way. Whether they are coach, course creator, speaker, et cetera, they have an audience that's engaged and be able to be there. So if I can broker those conversations between the two, there's a couple big wins. There's the win on the element of like, this person has an asset. So most people don't know, but like the exit is the best part of business. That's where true wealth is built. That's where true opportunity is built. It's all in the exit. But the problem is nobody's really gonna tell you those things. They're gonna tell you about like, oh, I had a seven figure launch or I had these type of things to be able to be there. They're never gonna share what their profit was, but their profit breakdown or how much they actually walked away with after that. For all the money they had spent on ads to get to that point and all the different things that took to get there. But it sounds super sexy because one day I can have that kind of element. When I realized that SaaS consistently has these type of exits, I said, yeah, that seems like a much more efficient path to wanting to be there. But what stops them from getting the larger multiple and larger exit? Typically, they don't have a really good sales and marketing process. So I'm like, if I can find your ideal audience and bring them in, one, you're gonna give me a piece of the exit that happens to be there. And I'm gonna bring these individuals in so they can get a piece too. 'Cause what I realized is that when a company is sold, the people who make the largest amount on what a company has sold is one of them happens to be the person who negotiates the deal. So I looked at it and said, well, I'm just gonna be that person because I have a person as like, it's so much fun being an uncle versus being a parent. A parent is there when the kid's sick, when he's had a fight at school, when they're having doubts or different things and uncle parachutes in. They're the coolest person in the world. You get them all jazzed up on candy and cookies and all kind of things, you take them to the fun zone, you take them on trips. And then you send them back to their parents and they handle all the other responsibilities. It's the same thing in that workflow of like, I do nothing but talk to software companies all day. I have for the last 16 years. I've worked in large software companies, billion-dollar software companies, and billion-dollar software companies as customers. And I also had companies that were in single millions that happened to advise and work with. And I can tell you, through the entire lifecycle, we're different phase in what happens to be there and it all boils down to their marketing. They bring in a different individual if they want to get from, or they bring in a different E-staff, if they want to bring in a sales group that's gonna take them from 50 to 150 million. Same thing, like it's the same. And so I just looked at it and it's like, that's what I was doing anyway. So why don't I just jump in that world and tell you like, this is the things that are happening. And so the beautiful thing that ends up occurring is that if they had constant access to distribution, they would never have to worry about anything again. And all these coaches and speakers of the world, I kind of like really sunk my teeth in for a decade, they are building assets that can never be sold. So they're building these assets that can never be sold because it's a personal brand. The personal brands aren't worth anything. It's worth your name. So what you're, which even we're witnessing this today, like with Matthew McConaughey dropping a course, you got all these different influencers that are leveraging their audience to create an asset that then can be sold. If they build a company and build structure and different things like we saw with, we watch the leverage to do it. Like so we can look at like Ryan Reynolds. He drops in, parachutes in on Mint Mobile. His name of Ryan Reynolds cannot be sold, but his influence that he can do onto a business and build that. Now he's building assets that can be sold. So I just looked at it and said, what's the most valuable asset you can be able to go get today? SaaS company. So it's a marriage between these two where it's like, hey, if you look at like the M&A activity over the last two years, the, you had a fin serve was a period of time 'cause a crypto was going crazy. But most of the fin serve that happened to be there was software companies. If you look at, and then you saaS happens to be there. And then the other thing that hit me one day was when I was like, who is the top 10 richest people in the world today? And you'll look at it. And you take out Bernardo Naught, you take out Warren Buffett, 80% for a good period of time is going to be people in software, some form of fashion. Tesla's a software. - Microsoft. - Big as Microsoft. - Exactly. - Microsoft. - Why is one. - Yeah, why is it so high, right? Why is Tesla valued so high? It's not because of their cars. - No. - No, it's because it's a software company that makes cars. So all of those, I just looked at it and said, all right, who's the audience of people I really like hanging out with? Who's the audience of people I really know? And so I curt, like that's the path of being like, all right, I'm going to create a marriage between those two avenues. And now people have the opportunity to get pieces of that exit by leverage. Fun fact, it just happened in America. You look at Donald Trump. Why did Donald Trump's worth just double in the last week? - What he did, when I got more into like the finance world, I realized I was like, man, there's so much shell games to be able to be here. So there was this company called the digital, I want to call it like the digital world acquisition company. Basically, it's a shell company. There's a process called a SPAC where you can create a shell company, you get investors to put money into it. It's a public way of raising funds and then you take that money, you go acquire a company. You have a two year period of time, it's protected. There's a lot of red tape. But what they did was Donald Trump had Donald Trump media. So what he did was they did this process utilizing a SPAC as a reverse merger to bring in that company. So this company had money that erased from investors and publicly traded and purchased this company. And so they purchased it. Once that process was finalized last week, they went to market. He immediately, the day it launched, added $4 billion to his portfolio. Four, why? Because of his... They know the Donald Trump effect is gonna happen. They know that he has raving fan base of individuals that at any moment will buy whatever thing he loses. He goes out, he says, "Uh, guess what? "I'm going to create the Donald Trump shoes. "Sells out in seconds. "I'm gonna create shirts. "I'm gonna create hats. "I'm gonna create all these things and people go crazy." There's people creating credit cards based upon Donald Trump. Yeah, there's the NFTs, you had the crypto coin, you had the Trump bucks, which were vanity and people thought they were actual currency, like... Yes. Just putting your name on something. And if you have a... Like Donald Trump has a very, very rabid fan base, bordering on like a puzzle, like he will, Jesus style. And they will buy nearly anything he has, and it's so true. And it's just the name recognition. Same with like, I'm pretty sure Alex Homerosi in the business world, like he puts his name on, he just did it with school. And like, it probably, I don't know the numbers yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if the valuation of that business just quadrupled. - Exactly, cacta-harmosi. - Exactly, because the thing that ends up happening, so you can look at it there, I'll go a few years back, Brendan Bouchard and Kachabi. Brendan Bouchard, once the moment he realized he could not be able to like really sell his asset, that is his name, 'cause his name is labeled on all those different companies. What he ended up doing is he realized, like I do courses and this kind of stuff, I'm gonna get a percentage of Kajabi, and I'm going to drive traffic, and I'm gonna drive influence, I'm gonna drive revenue about Kajabi. Kajabi, Kajabi got all day long is what he talked about. And then when they got their multi-billion dollar valuation and got their money is when they raised funds, guests who got a good percentage of it. Brendan Bouchard, because you look at it and it's collapsing time. So for him, his business is doing $5 million a year to be able to be there. So what if you could make 20 years worth of income in one? It's only possible through exits. So he's able to, they get a billion dollar valuation, he's 10%, it's $100 million boom right there, then he has access to. And then he has the ability to take loans out against that by other assets, they can start playing that different game. And once I realized that, I'm like, yeah, you have to find ways to utilize your audience and influence to be able to get equity. So it's just there. And that's the game that I'm choosing to play is if the game, that's a lot more fun. Because when you get to sit there and be like, hey, yeah, I went ahead and I'm gonna get the opportunity to raise your valuation by another one to two mil just because of the customer base that I already have. I've all heard, the thing that I found fascinating, you know about high level right now. People are like, oh, I built a SaaS company. No, you didn't, bro. Because the thing is, you read the terms of conditions, who owns those customers? How are you gonna go sell that product? You go to a PE firm today, say, look, I have a high level, like I've built this thing on top of high level to be able to go there. And I want to be able to go sell it and they're gonna look at you and be like, you're not getting a four, five, 10x multiple on your thing. Congratulations, you know, who will, high level? They're gonna walk away and they're gonna be able to have it there on their platform. And they're gonna walk, you raise their valuation because you brought 8,000, 9,000 customers to their platform. ClickFunnels gets all big and bad and you're giving your dream car. Russell Bronson's walking away with the- - Yeah, and he's saying that he's walking away with the very nice Jang. - Jang, I bought another jet while you go ahead and drive your Tesla Model 3. - Yeah, it's funny 'cause if you look at it, technically all these businesses are network marketing. - Yes, but on it, they're not just selling products that people may not need. Well, like, you know, like Amway here or Tupperware companies, you know, like people don't really need another Tupperware. But if you go to a business and say, hey, I can set up a funnel for you that will just drive traffic to you and you only have to pay $65 a month. But let's just say, yes, most businesses are gonna be like, yes, I don't have to go out and get people to come in, yes. - And it's all you're doing is your network marketing and it's just learning about people. Apparently all business is a pyramid scheme in different dresses. It's fascinating though, 'cause you go and you sit back and it wasn't until I'm getting the rooms with these, like I wasn't really indoctrinated in the PE until the last two years. And then I'm going and I'm like, okay, tell me what you do again? Because I was familiar with real estate investing 'cause we hear about that and people are talking about that. - But I'm like, okay, and then Tony Robbins came out and he says, yeah, people that are like way higher millionaires than you can fathom. Billionaires keep 49% of their assets and private equity and private capital. - I'm gonna blow you, we're doing the other thing. Why are we doing what you're doing? - Why are we doing what the rich are doing? - Exactly, like, so I looked at that and said, yeah, I'm gonna try to play that game and be able to go there and you just look at that process and go through it and it's a much more advanced and it's intentional. Like because they don't want to keep people out and they use all confusing terms, but I had a few friends that do it and you just get access in the rooms and then you start having conversations and you go, oh, this is what you do? Man, that's not that complex. Everybody just use-- - You just use bigger words. - You just use fancier words. What does that word mean in English? Like if you were gonna explain it to me like I'm a five-year-old and then you go like what we do is we buy companies that we know have growth potential. We then take them, implement our systems and structures because we do this constantly. We make it more efficient than we sell it in three years. Oh, cool. And they're like, yeah, and most of the time we can buy them without using any dollars out of pocket. - What? - 'Cause it's, yeah, it's future, you're buying them on future growth. - You're buying it on future growth to be able to be there. So like you can tie in depends on the parts of absentee, things to be able to struct and you just, I just looked at all those and I said, yeah, that's a much more fun game to play than-- - It sounds even more, it's like in a high-stakes poker game, but everybody wins at the end. No, the house doesn't win. It's everyone wins if you make the deal go through and I love it. - Exactly. 'Cause I look at it like I wouldn't, the problem I did have with traditional private equity is there was a winner and there was a loser. And so being a sports guy like I am, like I understand that there's definitely winners and losers, but what if there's a way where pretty much everybody wins? Everybody wins at a different scale, but everybody's winning. Like nobody's walking away feeling like, man, I got totally slighted. That is the, that's Nirvana for me. It's that like everybody wins. - I love that, I love that. It's my personal thing. How can we make sure that everybody wins and everybody is happy and everything works the way we want? What is the name of your company? Like we've talked about your company, we haven't even mentioned the company. - So the one company that I created was called Leverage. So LVRG is one of the one. The one that, so I just started, I'm one that just starts moving and I just start doing things and building. I literally didn't even name it. It was just like, hey, this is underneath the Leverage umbrella. It's gonna be its own group to be able to be there. And so I've been testing out different names. So as I've been going through, what I've been doing is like, I just do different interviews and once I find out stuff. 'Cause we've already structured. So in the last, I started this process. I really opened my eyes in October. I started this process. Now that it's currently March 24, I started this process in December. And so since December, I've gone through the process of acquiring nine companies. With zero dollars out of pocket, nine. Zero dollars out of pocket to be able to be there, all because I had an audience. So because I have an audience, they're willing to give me equity in their firms to be able to go through there. And the unique thing that ends up happening is, so for example, I have a software development firm. So software development firm, what do they naturally need? They're gonna need different, they're gonna need bodies, they're gonna need different people to be able to go there. When you launch a software, what do you need? You need customer service. So guess what I have now? I have a VA firm. 'Cause the VA firm is going to need. So one company is paying the other company to be able to utilize services to make it more efficient, right? Then you go and you say, hey, guess what do you need? Oh, you need marketing? Oh yeah, I got that for you. Don't worry about that. So I have marketing. Marketing. So you start looking at these different pieces and you say, hey, 'cause guess what? I can go to a marketing firm. I'd be like, what do you need more than anything else? You need customers. What if I have a way to be able to consistently give you customers on a pilot? And they go, all right, what's the word? I was like, cool, give me a day. And I go to, I'm sorry, I'm like, hey, what do you guys need? We need this, great. Here's what it is, here's how it's structured. And you get my rate because I have equity in the company. Same thing happens when it comes to, I just did this conversation yesterday around, what do we all need accounting? We all need accounting at some point in time, but we need creative accounting strategies. So I go to them and say, how many customers can you maximum support? And they go, well, probably 100. How many have today? 20. I'm gonna bring you 80. I'm gonna create something. I'm gonna have an 80 to be able to be there. Can you support that? Sure. So guess what I do? I just go and turn the spigot. Now there's gonna be 80 customers coming in the door because they already had them as an audience. Yeah. So now the company or the marketing company, they're all there, you just don't know. You're all gonna move them. So you're gonna get customers immediately. It's just like once I've realized that spigot is a matter of like, it's like, I wanted to call it. So I was thinking, as I'm talking to you, I was listening to something, I'm like, it's like influence to equity, like ITV. Like it's just like, hey, you have influence. Let's show you how to get equity. It's the same thing. And all you're doing is leveraging your influence to gain equity on different items. It's the same thing that we look at. That's what celebrities do. It's like when Warren Ralston, he built a marketing company, first, and then he just uses that company to help market the companies that he's attached to, that he has equity in. And the marketing companies, like this is the only, we only work for Ryan Reynolds and the companies he works with, isn't he clean? - If you think about it, like, why did all these, like when they think about movie stars, people naturally think about movie stars. It's like the studio cuts them a check for X amount of dollars. Nope. They have a production company. So guess who's on set with them? Who may be doing makeup design? Who may be doing this like, I'm so much football guy. So you just look at, like, people don't realize, oh, when you see, why does Peyton Manning not want to do Monday Night Football? 'Cause Peyton Manning owns a production company. Is the, is Monday Night Football gonna hire his production company to be able to do things? Has any of these the main person? Nope. What are they gonna do? They're going to be able to hire him to do on a couple nights of Monday Night Football to be able to do things. And it'll make way more doing that than other things 'cause he owns the distribution. So it's only a full channel. He owns the full channel to be able to be there. And so you're like, hey, this company's gonna run to this company. This company's gonna do these other companies. All the big players, that's what they do. They have these different assets and you're relying on their level of influence to go in and do it. So it's like, oh, video editing company. Yep, got that too. Like, why? 'Cause I'm gonna be doing videos. So like after you do this one, I'm gonna be able to cut it and have then the marketing company is going to get paid to go ahead and promoted on these different channels to go through this process. Oh, okay. It's the same thing. Like, so you have these, you find these different elements, you bring them together. And so I know I can walk into any SaaS company today and be like, I know I can lower your costs. So I'm gonna lower the cost on what you're already spending money on as long as you guys already have current customers. And I have access to the distribution channels. So if you're going to give me this percent, because you know I'm going to go and you're going to get customers, like turning on a spigot as long as you have it, long do I get equity? And I'm gonna introduce you to people who also want a piece. And we're gonna multiply this because the reach is ridiculous. So it's kind of like influencer marketing, but in a completely different manner. It's influence marketing with businesses. That's what you're doing. 'Cause you're not doing an individual, you're doing it on a business. And that business is, you're using that business's influence. So which can be greater. And it's an asset that can be sold. A business can be sold. A business can be sold. Feel better, the podcast will look, that can't be sold. But the podcast launch agency, that's that can't be sold. - Exactly. - I love it. - So like that whole process is developed because now you have sphere of influence. Now you can be able to leverage that. The other crazy part that people don't realize is they can do, so I talk to another person, they help occupational therapists. I told them, I said, occupational therapists are good at doing what? Being occupational therapists. What are occupational therapists not good at? - Everything else, anything else. (laughing) - Everything else other than this one thing. - That one thing, they're mechanics. Like they are tinkerers, they are mechanics. They're like, I'm going to do this kind of stuff. So I said, if you were able to align the whole business part for them, that you already had set up and structured for them, they would give you equity in their company. Now you're invested. So you're still going to make the same monies that they're paying you maybe once per year. But now you can, if they ever decide to go sell that OT agency, but realize that like there's no committed contracts, there's no other things there, you're going to help them raise the multiples. They can be able to get because now people are buying, you have a management firm that's already managing all these things. So me, if I want to invest into that company as a PE, if the person wanted to stay on it, they just wanted to have more capital. PE firms are going to look at it, like you got a management firm, you got all the different operations done, you're running at this kind of rate. Yeah, I'm willing to throw money at that thing because I know I'm going to get an immediate return. Versus the person who's running it all by themselves, their financials are crap. Okay, they don't have any of that stuff. So when I look at those things, I just look big and then realize on the mic, we're all how to simplify them. I love these remote models. I want to, we're coming to the end, which I hate, but I'm having a great time learning, like more than I ever thought I would learn in a podcast interview about a different domain that I never knew anything about, which I love again. Yeah. So that, we're going to hit with the last question of the show, I have your 10 year old self here. Yes. Sit fire, still looking at those rich old white men wondering what they're doing. Yeah. What's one piece of advice you would love to be able to hand back to your 10 year old self. Let's say trust yourself, trust yourself. Like it's, there are going to be natural inclinations that you have as a child that were given to you as a gift. You may see it because it doesn't fit into the common mold of what you're seeing on a daily basis. You may see it as like weird or different, lean into that because that gift, you can't see it at the moment, but one day you'll wake up and recognize it and be like, it all makes sense now. So that's why I say hindsight is 2020. So trust in what you're seeing, trust in the things that awaken your heart today and just lean into those more. I love it. It's from a great advice for the 10 year olds worldwide, not just yourself, but the worldwide. I'm going to jump off stage. So then I want you to tell my audience, 'cause I know I'd probably have a few SaaS founders that are probably struggling for bits or people looking to connect with you. So just let them know how they can connect with you and how they can work with you if they're interested. - Absolutely. So the easiest way to get ahold of me is if, you'll see on Instagram, I'm at Sylvania Harad on Facebook. I'm Sylvania Harad. Make sure it's the one with a picture of me and my family and not the chess piece, 'cause that's my dad. You can reach out via DM. The code word is pineapples. Just send the word pineapples on there and I'll know that you've listened to this messaging and I look forward to helping and supporting. And anything I can do for you, I'm here for you. - I love that. First of all, I love the code word pineapples. I'm gonna make sure that it's in the show notes. (laughing) With the little icon of a pineapples. - Absolutely. - Yeah, Sylvania, I can't thank you enough. It's been a pleasure chatting with you and learning about this amazing business that I had no idea about. (laughing) - Well, I'm glad, Ben, to be able to help. Look forward to when this comes out, push again to my audience and making sure that I can raise the bar on when it comes to the Invest in Yourself podcast. - Ooh, I love that, I love that. To my audience, again, make sure you check out the show notes down below. Remember, when you DM Sylvania, it's pineapple. The key word is pineapple. That's very important so that he knows who've been listening to the podcast. And as always, remember to invest in yourself. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
