EP 206 | From Drug Addict To A Nine Figure Exit with Eric Spofford

Published Oct 10, 2023, 1:11 AM

On this episode of Building Billions, I sat down with nine figure entrepreneur Eric Spofford. We dive deep into his struggles with drug addiction and how he turned his rock bottom moments into a business that helped tens of thousands of individuals battling with addiction. 

Eric Spofford is the CEO of Spofford Enterprises. He is an entrepreneur, speaker, coach, recovered drug addict, and student of the game. At 23, inspired by his own struggles with addiction, Eric founded and operated one of the largest addiction treatment organizations in New England, which he sold for nine figures in 2021. Eric is also a seasoned real estate investor and developer.

Spofford Enterprises oversees investments in commercial and multifamily real estate, private equity funds, a media company, and behavioral healthcare businesses, among other innovative ventures. Eric has numerous accolades to his name, including testifying before the U.S. Senate, being awarded Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration, and becoming a published author.

His success and entrepreneurial determination led him to a nine figure exit. We go through the struggles, loneliness, and low moments that shaped him into the multi million dollar entrepreneur he is today. 

 

 

I've never had a job. I mean, I was a drug dealer and a and a stickup kid until I got sober. 3 or 4 years in, I cleared my first million dollars. All in all, he gave me $24 million. That is nothing compared to the education that I got in the several years that we were partners. Hey everybody.

It's Brandon Dawson. Welcome back to another episode of Building Billions. I have a special guest today. And look, one of the things I love about this community and hanging out with people who have proven to succeed, like my buddy Eric here, he is not only a nine figure mindset entrepreneur, he is a nine figure exit entrepreneur. Right? And it's one thing to talk about nine figures. Oh, I'm worth 100 million. I'm this this, this is another thing to actually. Exit and put it the cash in the bank. That's an entirely different game. And and this guys played both sides of the game. So I'm excited to introduce you to Eric. I'm going to have him introduce himself where he's come from what he's done. And we're going to get into it. Eric.

Brandon, thank you for having me. It's a real pleasure. Um, you know, for the folks that I don't know or don't know me, I should say I grew up about 45 minutes north of Boston. I got enrolled in America's addiction crisis at a very young age. For me, that was OxyContin at the age of 14, uh, which turned into a heroin addiction, which for about six, almost seven years, uh, I went through hell and I hit rock bottom on December 7th of 2006. I've consistently been sober and in recovery since that date, so this December will be 17 years of recovery and sobriety. And it was out of my pain of addiction and my enthusiasm and excitement for recovery that I started my business, which I started in October of 2008 as the first sober living home in the state of New Hampshire. And when I sold it 13 years and two months later, uh, in December of 2021, it was the largest provider of addiction treatment services in the northeast.

Wow. I mean, so, you know, people talk about one of my, uh, mentors told me in my 20s, he said, hey, when you when you find something. And what caused the conversation was the flip phone. I was like, man, I love this phone. And he's like, you should go buy the stock. And I'm like, why? And he goes, because anytime you have a personal experience where you use something and you're like, this is unbelievable. That's an indicator that if you feel that way, a lot of people are going to feel that way, and you should go buy the stock and invest in it, because it's probably going to do well. In your case. The experience that you went through, the negative experience and of of drug use propelled you to want to solve that problem for other people once you got sober.

That's right.

And you went on a journey and you found your way to sobriety.

That's right.

So you're like, I can help others do it. Which is what I always tell people is the people you should be learning from are the ones that actually have done it.

Lived experience and have the resume. I talk about that all the time. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly how it went. And in the beginning I had no idea really what I was doing. I dropped out of the high school at 15 years old in the beginning of 10th grade. My father owned a small business, so I learned about like small business and business principles from him. Um, but I just knew that I was watching a lot of people suffer. I grew up, you know, in an area New Hampshire actually ended up being the worst in opioid addiction and the leader in the country for opioid overdose death. And so, I mean, Donald Trump, when he was running for office, called New Hampshire a drug infested den, um, which you think of New Hampshire, you think of mountains and lakes, and it's this beautiful place to live. I think if a.

Little tiny state like, yeah.

Most people don't even know where it is. They're like, is that a part of New York? And I'm like, no, it's above Boston. But, um, it's it really was ground zero for the opioid epidemic for, for pharmaceutical pills and heroin. And so I was just watching kids that I grew up with that I loved, like family. And they were still in the struggle. And then, you know, it was just affecting my community and my entire world. And I want to do something. The origination of the of the business was actually volunteer work. I was going I was so passionate about it that I was going into these facilities that were kind of run down and run by the state, and I was just going and connecting with people that wanted help getting sober and that were trying. And then in that, you know, was the idea. I was like, these people need a place to go. I could turn this into a small business. I've always wanted to be in real estate. I want to help people. And I pulled it all together. And so at 23 years old, with a little bit of help from my dad, who believed in me again, after a long period of not believing in me, I bought a three family home in October 2008, which was an interesting time to be buying real estate because the world was melting. And, uh, and so we bought it for $150,000. It was bank foreclosed. I got some furniture donated, I moved into it, and then I just started charging guys like 150 bucks a week to come stay with me. And then when they. I lived there for two years with the guys and.

You, you'd help them.

I did everything with them. I taught them recovery. I taught them life skills. I taught them, you know, how to change their life. And that's that was the foundation of it. But I never imagined that that would at the time would grow into this enormous company. And it was big at the end.

And so, so when you sold it, how big was it?

325 employees? We have did about 55 million of top line revenue, and I transacted off of $13 million to EBITDA.

So so you go from your own personal recovery to helping a couple people at a time, doing it to creating a business where you had over 300 and would you say 50.

Employees, 325.

325.

And we had 440 treatment beds, which turned over frequently. And so we did, you know, between 4 and 500 missions a month. And so, you know, we were doing, I don't know, five, 6000 lives touched a year.

Wow.

Yeah.

Talk about impact.

Tons, tons. Not an easy job. Not easy businesses, but worth it.

Yes, if you're lucky. My guess is, is that you see a lot of people come through that really are striving to make that that change that you made. And some of them can't make the long term journey. And then you have to see some of that.

You have to see all of it. You have to see all of it. And so, you know, you balance the extreme lows of death, of overdose, of suffering, of abandoned children, of grieving parents with the high of. The ones that make it and the ones that do it. And so when you see them get their year sobriety, their two year sobriety coins, you know, you see them reunify with their children, you see them get back into the workforce, be good parents. You know, you you watch their families who you met at a time of distress when they came into treatment are able to, like, relax and put their shoulders down a little bit over time. And you see those relationships repaired. And so it's there's no it's very it's black or white. These situations typically end up terrible or amazing. Very few in the middle. And so you have to focus on the positive and, and work your way through a lot of the negative stuff and kind of. Develop a tolerance to it.

Yeah, I can't imagine. I mean, it just sounds tough.

It was tough. Yeah. Which was at the time, there were a lot of reasons why I sold my business. And 13 years on the front lines, when fentanyl showed up in America, which was probably 2013 or so. A lot of people don't understand this, that that the addiction crisis started with OxyContin in the mid to late 90s. On the backs of that, the cartels took advantage of pharmaceutical companies creating opioid addicts, and they started flooding our streets with heroin, real heroin and and then as things progressed, they they changed the game. And in 2013, around 1214, fentanyl showed up and replaced heroin as a drug in America entirely. There's not a bag of real heroin on the streets of America in any section. It is all explicitly fentanyl now, and so everyone today understands this enormous overdose death crisis. It hasn't always been like that. That happened after the introduction of fentanyl. And, um, and now today and for some years already, overdose death by opioids, specifically fentanyl is the leading cause of accidental loss of life. It was probably 5 or 6 years ago. It surpassed car accidents in America. Statistically, you're more likely to die of a fentanyl overdose than a car accident. And so when I was so close to the sun on that, there was weeks where I couldn't make plans Monday through Friday because I was at funeral services every night, like every single night. And how do you pick and choose which ones you go to and which ones you don't? There were nights that I was leaving one to go to, another to go to another, and people were just dying at scale. And so it was that over time that it wore me down. I got tired, and there certainly was part of the I think that that a lot of people start businesses and owned businesses like they're going to own them forever. But businesses, like everything else, are cyclical and have a life cycle to them. And and that was a piece of influence for me on what made the decision to sell.

So I've never, uh, used drugs in my life. Like I can't relate, I think, to, uh, and, and the thing that I'm probably most appreciative of is that my grandpa, who is like my the guy I was most afraid of growing up as a kid, he was like. He was like the man of the family. He was a captain in the Oregon State Police. And so I always wanted to follow his foot tracks and, and, and I thought it was going to be a cop. I was number three on the list as a cadet my senior year in high school to go into the OSP program, and they only hired two that year. And thank God. So, so so I ended up having to go get a sales job. Yeah, right. The best.

Thing that ever happened.

Ever happened to me. So, so so, look, um, I don't even understand end like I get I get that there. There's differences, but I don't really structurally understand fentanyl versus heroin versus.

It's 50 to 100 times more potent than fentanyl. Is 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin is. And it's inconsistent. Heroin was a consistent product, meaning that I would do this bag of heroin, that bag of heroin, that it would all have the same effect. Fentanyl, this they all look the same. This one might have the potency of this, that one has the potency of that. And then that bag has this potency and that's the one that's going to kill you. And so it's every time, every single time you use fentanyl it is Russian roulette.

And is it is it like heroin comes from.

Poppy plants? Yeah. Poppy plants. It's made in a lab. It's synthetic. It's a chemical. It's a chemical. It's synthetic? Yeah. It's a that's.

Why it's flooded. Because it's easier for them to make it. And and there's no quality control. Correct. So it's whoever happens to make it and however they make it.

Yeah, but I mean the messaging from, from the government I guess, is that it's coming from China and distributed by the cartels.

Wow.

Yep.

So, you know, it's, uh. Yeah, I can see why you'd be like, oh, now we got. We're. The streets have been flooded. It's one thing for somebody to have an addiction and have an impact their life. It's another thing for someone to to, like you said, play Russian roulette every time they use. Right? Yep. Yeah. So, look, it's a crisis. There's no question. In fact, one of the reasons that Grant and I, um, partnered and acquired and started with Ten Health was to get everybody off of drugs, like, like, like we are huge believers that all this stuff that's been prescribed in the medical space is just contributing to that problem.

The one, um, kudos on the ten health care program. I've been with Gary for quite some time now and you guys have changed my life. I have the whole setup in my house. I got the oxygen, I got the red light, I got the whole night. Um, and so for everyone, real deal. They didn't pay me to say this. It's been absolutely life changing. Um, but the entire medical system is jacked, and so it's it's really corrupt, and it's really messed up in America. You know, you look at, at the health care system, the insurance companies and big pharma and then the government, and you have these four monsters that are that are in cahoots and playing in the sandbox together. And then we trust our lives to them. You know, it's it's, uh, I've been in health care my entire adult life and got some stories to tell.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, I just I look at I'm a little mind boggled, you know, it's like, uh, being in health care. They'll tell you as an adult that you can't make the choice to buy something like testosterone or something without your doctor intervention and without all these approvals, and you can't ship them across state lines, and they'll go, but they'll let a 14 year old. Start taking stuff that will change their hormone disposition.

Not only that, but not only that. But you have children much younger than 14 years old being prescribed stimulant medication because they can't sit still and their, you know, attention deficit by attention. You know, ADHD and this stuff. And the parents, most of them that are that are trusting the health care system and putting kids on these medications don't realize that Ritalin and Adderall are pharmaceutical grade crystal meth. I mean, it's it's methamphetamine. It's I don't know how else to say that it's crystal meth. I mean, if you drug tested one of these children that's on medication they would drug, they would test positive for the same thing that if as if they had been abusing crystal meth. And so I mean, it's just the, the, the pharma driven health care system, um, Americans need a real education on what it actually is innocent. Yeah. It's not always in your best interest. No.

And I think especially, uh, I think a lot of people suspicions perked up with this whole vaccination thing. I mean, it's just crazy. It's just crazy. And this isn't a political thing. It's just that, you know, I, I just, I, I don't trust.

Well, it's it's not a political thing, but one of the giant problems that we have here is that our health care system and health care conversations have become politicized. Yeah. Since when did politics get into my health care? You know.

And to tell you.

That if you don't.

Do what they tell you to do, you can't travel, you can't go to work, you can't go to school, you can't be involved in the community. I mean, this country went a long way away from where I thought I'd ever go in two years. Yep. When Covid hit, like, literally like resting, people were walking on the beach in California, but allowing riots to go on in Portland like I lived in Portland. I'm like, how is it that you could go out and have no issue rioting? But if you go to church.

The Covid stayed there only in the restaurants and the churches. The the riots were protected from the Covid. So it's only science. Brandon.

Well, exactly. Dude. Exactly. Well, we both have the same view on. Yeah, we saw that. Yes. Um, so look, let's get back to business first. Business. So so first of all, you know, congratulations, um, on recovering. Congratulations on being committed to helping others do it. And congratulations on. It's hard enough to build a business, let alone all that influence dramatics, passion, pain. It's really hard to build a business. Any business where that's involved as a normal data point every day. Yep. It's one thing to have it on occasion, but to be living in it every day. So you build these businesses up. So talk a little bit about from from your three bedrooms, right, to 325 employees. Like what are some of the things on that journey as a business owner? Because I talk a lot about breakpoints, you know, 3 million, 8 million, 15 million. Like, what were your personal kind of professional and financial break points while you scaled and grew your business to 55 million?

God, we could spend all day talking about this. Um, you know, it's I remember employee number one, like the the decision to hire the first guy to help me out doing some of this stuff. And for me, I had I've never had a job. I mean, I was a drug dealer and a and a stickup kid until I got sober and then and worked at construction a little bit and then started this business. And so I was, I was learning how to fly the plane in, you know, at 40,000ft for all of it. And so, you know, I, I started sales and, and seeing needs and services and things that, that this population needed. And so I started to meet those needs which grew my business. And then I started to build and hire team members. And before I knew it, I just kind of figured it out. And in 2011, I think, yeah, 2011, I was 3 or 4 years in, I, I cleared my first million dollars. Wow. And so net profit, I made my first million bucks, you know, not bad from 21 years old homeless heroin addict getting sober with two pairs of clothes, sleeping on a couch to 26 years old. I made my first million. And you know, as I grew, there were a lot of things that I had to figure out. I had to figure out how to create systems. You know, when I had one facility, it was a totally different animal. And I there were so many unexpected things from when I opened to I.

Tell, like, I have the rule of three, right? So my rule of three is you never go from 1 to 2. You go from 1 to 3, and then 3 to 9 and then 9 to 27. And that's true for hiring people, and it's true for opening new facilities. I love that.

I've actually never heard that before, and I.

Love that. That's just from the. All the my own, you know, buying 130 businesses and then franchising and and licensing and then and then all the research I did on the thousands of industries that we broke down from 2009 to 2019. Anytime I saw the average business owner go from 1 to 2, they'd go broke. Yeah, because it's easy in your mind to go. I can rationalize to until the second one's not working and it pulls you off the one. But if you have to go to three, then you pause and you're like, well, I don't have the resources to go to three, and I certainly don't have the team to go to three, and I don't have the systems to go to three, so I better build on that before I go to three. Yeah. And it causes you to think differently. Same with an employee. You can always hire one person. But now if it doesn't go right you're like, is it me? Is it them? You need context and contrast. You hire two and one's doing great and one sucks. You're like, it's not me, it's the employee I got to get rid of. Yep. But every time you just do a one off thing, you don't have any context or contrast. And it's easy to rationalize it. But it's hard to execute it. Absolutely. So you went to two and you're getting banged around a bit.

And, you know, I think a key leading characteristic to entrepreneurs is optimism. Because I got banged around as being modest. I got my ass kicked every day growing that business. And I went from 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 and 3 to 4. And all of a sudden, you know, five years, six years have passed 20, 16, 17. And I have a real business. I have hundreds of employees, I have multiple multiple sites, and I'm doing big numbers and revenue, and I'm making a ton of money. And I don't know the first thing about a leadership team, about an org chart, about KPIs, about systems. You know, all of that was a foreign language to me. No one had. I didn't have any mentors. I didn't have any teachers or anyone to learn from that had participated in business at that level. And mind you, I'm, I live in New Hampshire. I grew up in New Hampshire. I'm not just one of the biggest companies at this point in the state. That's not a national chain. And so I just didn't have really people to learn from. And I had 20 something direct reports at that time. I had everybody, I had HR, finance, each facilities executive director, admissions, marketing. I just, you know, I had everyone reporting to me. I had just all kind of mid-level managers and no, no, no C-level and no top tier executives. And so one of the things that's interesting that I did, you talk about those little moments, like being number three for the police, uh, school or whatever, that change your life forever. I always, like, did my best to put myself in the room and put myself around the best people. And I would describe myself, and I would describe most successful entrepreneurs as a sponge. Right? I like to ask more questions and listen more than I like to talk, because I'm able to get a lot of value that way. And so one of the things that I did was I bought an incredibly expensive to me at the time, home in New Hampshire, and got into this neighborhood and hear those, like, tattooed former criminal guy that owns drug rehabs moving into the most prestigious neighborhood in the state. 2017 I'm walking my dog and, um, through the neighborhood and I see one of the neighbors, guy named a wonderful man, one of the greatest mentors and teachers I've ever had. Um, and his name is Joe. And I see Joe and he's all happy. Joe talking to him. He says, man, man, I just closed my deal. I said, what do you what do you mean, you close your deal? So I just sold my business for and it's his business. But it was a much I had a nine figure exit. So did he. His was much larger than mine. He did very well. And he told me about it and I was like. And it just sparked. I'd never met anyone that had sold a company before. I'd never considered selling my company before. I never I knew nothing about it and it just gave me this, this crack. The door cracked open, this little P call into like, oh, there's a lot more for me to learn here. This guy just sold his business for hundreds of millions of dollars. And so I just asked him, I said, Joe, you know, would you be willing to have lunch with me? I just want to ask you some questions and and learn more about this. We got lunch the next week, and, um, and that really opened the door into my self-education process of learning business at the level in which it takes to participate in private equity, M&A and all of that. And eventually it was his family office that invested the first three rounds. And so it was the best thing that ever happened to me. And, um, he bought I sold them, uh, I sold them 10% for, at a $40 million valuation for 4 million bucks. I sold them shortly thereafter, another ten for five, and then I sold them. Uh, and then the business valuation went up to 80 million, and I sold them, uh. I forget the percentage is 18.75% or something like that. It's like, um, I took another 15 million off the table.

So let's talk about that for a second. You know, you, uh, most business owners don't understand what happens when you take a slug of money off the table. Yeah.

You could sleep at night, you mean.

And and your confidence level. And all of a sudden. Yeah. Because it seems easier when you build faster because you're not.

Absolutely does it? Absolutely does. It gives you confidence and it gives you speed. Because when I was built, I never took a dollar of investment money or a dollar a debt. I started the business at the beginning of the recession of 2008. Banking was shut down. And so I just got used to making money, earn the money and putting it back into the business. And so you talked about like having nine figure value. There's a lot difference between having a business that's worth nine figures and having that liquidity. And and so everything I had was in the business and all the money that was making, I was living a very modest lifestyle for the numbers that I was touching and all the money that the business was making, I was putting right back in. So every single problem that the business had, every HR issue, every time we got sued by an employee, every regulatory issue felt like I was dodging headshots in the matrix because I'm like, fuck, if this one sticks, I'm dead. And when I was able to take that money off the table, I was like, okay, I can I could take a hit in the business and not have to, like, move out of my house like I can. I have a contingency plan with this money that's off the table. And so that certainly helped. The other thing that I don't think a lot of business owners understand is the value add of bringing sophisticated people to the table, the value. All in all, he gave me, I think, uh, $24 million. He gave me 24 million bucks, um, to in those three parts put together, that is nothing compared to the education that I got in the several years that we were partners. And the experience that I had with that, that that was invaluable. It really was.

This. And this is the basis and the genesis for why we started, uh, our business, you know, uh, to be that resource for people before they have to take on the dilution. Yeah. And, uh, my frustration is we help people and then help them achieve some huge results, and they don't actually recognize or acknowledge that.

So I'll tell you, let me speak on that for a second. He gave me $23 million. He was in the business for a little less than two years. We spent together and we sold it for 115 million. He walked with an additional 23 million. He put 23 million in. He walked with 56, doubled his money in less than two years. People look at that and I tell that story and they're like, damn, you gave up a lot. I'm like, did I, did I? Because I don't know if I ever sell that business for 115 million. Without that partnership, I didn't have the information that got us over the finish line. I wasn't prepared to do that in 2019, when he looked at me, a young entrepreneur, and believed in me and wrote a multimillion dollar check into my business and then took the time to educate me and mentor me and teach me these things and guide me and answer every. I would call that guy. I'm not. If you're in my Rolodex and I'm learning from you, I am not bashful. Like I will call you. And I called that man so many times like, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? I'm thinking this. I want to go left, you know, just. And he was part of my think tank for that two years and so. You know, God bless him.

And he.

Should make that.

Money. And you can't like for anybody that's never been through the process. Most of sales processes fail.

People don't. I tell them I run a coaching group where I coach entrepreneurs. I get 80 people that own mid, mid, you know, mid-market sized businesses. I tell them that all the time. They think that they could just bring the market to sell it at any given time and make, you know, all this money. I'm like 90 something percent of businesses that ever go to market fail because you're not ready, you're not prepared. You don't understand what you're dealing with, and you're dealing with the most sophisticated business people on planet Earth. Like, I don't care what anyone says. Those guys in those private equity companies were significantly smarter than I was. And thank God I had the the help and the team with me to navigate that process. I mean, that process. I decided to sell the business in March of 2021, and we closed in December. It was a ten month process, and it was it was every waking minute of the day for ten months.

And the the quality of earnings audits, the going under the covers.

The due diligence.

You're having somebody who's been through that, who can organize the business before it happens. We did.

Yeah. We with the guidance and and the team that we put together, which was my partner Joe, myself. And then the other thing that people don't understand is incredibly important is your advisory group. And so, uh, we had the right investment banker, we had the right M&A legal team, we had the right tax people, and we had the right group. We were able to create such a competitive process for that business that we had. We went out to a buyer list of 100 and something people we received like 40, uh, indication eyes, they call them indication of interest. Like, hey, we've we've looked at your deck. We're interested. Here's a range of valuation that we believe your company falls under. And then we narrowed that down and took, uh, Eloise from like, the top 15. And then we we took management meetings from nine out of the 15 groups. We dismissed six.

I just want everybody to listen to this because here's the thing. I. I tell this to people, I don't know that they believe me, but I'm going to repeat it. I say the difference between the bullshitters, the oh, I've got an internet company that can make you millions and scale and grow you. And there's more of that bullshit, like, I can spot these guys a mile away. I tell people three questions you want to ask anybody. You're going to get advice for question number one, what's the most amount of money you've ever made in a year? Question number two, what's the biggest thing you personally have ever built, quantified by revenues, number of employees and profitability? And question three what's the biggest exit you've ever had in your life? Because I've seen people build $100 million businesses to only get 10 or 15 million. And I've seen people build $30 million businesses like me who got 150 million. So I want to learn from the ones that actually engineered it.

Yep.

The best. Right? So I tell people, the truth is when somebody has done something, they never forget it. Like you're talking about something that happened in the past. True or false? When you go through the grind and you're in those moments wondering, is this going to close? Is it not going to close? Oh, we should have crossed that t oh that I didn't get dotted. Oh, that person that I didn't get a release from is going to sneak back and try to get a piece of the deal now and leverage me like like when you go through it, you never forget a detail.

100%.

From everything. That's all. I can rattle it off. You said like you said, my, I remember my first employee I hired and now you're talking about the transaction. Yeah. And the micro details. You can tell because when somebody when you go what's the when you ask those questions, I was like, oh, I can't really talk about it. That's because it's bullshit. Yeah. Because anybody that's done it, it's going to be proud.

To talk about 100%.

And and I tell people that's how you flesh out the more details somebody can give you, it means they actually did it. And this is true when you're trying to hire leadership and they're like, oh, I built a company from 10 million to 100 million. I know all about it. And you're like, great, talk to me about the year you did ten. What did you do next and what did you do next? And if they can't tell you they didn't do it. That's right. They weren't that close to it 100%. So I love this conversation because man, it's like looking through a microscope. Right. And and you and I have been through that colonoscopy. Yep. Without getting put under. Yeah. Because you're wide awake while it's going on because you're paying attention to it and you can.

Die at any time. It's like, remember that game where they pick the bones out of the bodies as a kid, and if you hit the walls, the buzzer goes off. Yeah, that's what every day feels like. Like every day just feels like this thing could blow up at any moment. At any moment, you know it. To finish saying we, we we successfully managed to bring that down to two groups, and we didn't award exclusivity to both of those groups until they both had finished due diligence in the business. And so that was just an unbelievably masterful technique that I was I can't take full credit for as a part of it. Um, and so we had to reimburse the runner up, the person we left at the altar, uh, a portion of their fees. And if we didn't go with them and we. But we got through the process.

Money well spent, by the.

Way, money well spent. Because the entire time they're looking for leverage. And so we kept leverage. We kept them in a competitive process until seven days before we closed.

I try to tell business owners like, I like, they're like, oh, no, I got my guy. I'm like, you're already.

You're already screwed. You're so screwed. I got a guy in my coaching program, I could strangle him because he's already tried to sell the business one time and had a failed process, and it was to a strategic it's in the food and food and beverage industry. And they they came back in the process. I'm like, you know what? You know, this isn't for us. And they left it alone, stuck them with $1 million bag of fees, shove legal, etc.. Right. And and he came back whooped. And that was about a year ago. And now recently he's like, no, this other strategic they want to buy me. No. You don't understand. They're serious about it. I'm like, buddy, do you know what an off market deal is? Do you understand what. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why do people like off market deals? Well, because it's not competitive and you can get it for a good price. So what do you think you are right now? You know what I mean? And I just, I cringe at anyone that's going to sell a business in most situations that isn't going to take it out for a competitive process.

Well, how are you.

Going to get maximum value? How do you know what it's worth? You and I have an auction process.

Those guys are getting bullshitted, and they're and and they don't want to pay fees. They're d and cheese. Yeah. And they got it all figured out. This is the problem with with entrepreneurs. I've had a little bit of success. They think they've got it all figured.

Yep. They don't have the first clue.

And that's why 90 some odd percent of those deals fail or they get so crammed down on it at the end and they're looking at that initial check. They give their business away.

Yeah, because they've spent the money before they get it. That's right. And they get starstruck. They see stars and and you know, becoming becoming a chief executive officer, a builder of businesses, a strategy guy that can build something that commands that much value was one skill set. I would say equally equally as difficult and equally as different was a skill set of becoming a guy that could package that business and successfully sell it. And the problem is, is that that most CEOs or business owners, entrepreneurs, founders that I've dealt with, they don't understand that they're not well equipped for this process just because they've successfully built a business. This is an entirely different animal. It really is. And so I was grateful for that first process to have the advisory group and the partnership group that I had with me, and that's really what we I mean, we we crossed on that exit like we did. So good for the market and for what that business was like. We really did well. And we had two horses at the end. We picked one, uh, and then, you know, like everything else, nothing goes right. The group that we didn't transact with ended up coming in and recruiting like half of the leadership team. This is so, so this is litigation threats and all this crazy stuff.

This is the thing I try to tell business owners half the time when they're like, oh, I got a strategic and they want to buy me and they just.

Want to sniff.

Sniff under your hood and.

They.

Should steal and poach from you and find out any ideas they don't have. And you're stupid enough to give them the data room because you don't know what you're doing. Yep. And and you don't have the right non disclosures non competes non solicitations. You don't have all those elements because you're working with some hack lawyer in your hometown. Look dude you and I both know and we've seen it all. And so for this show building billions with Brandon it isn't just about building $1 billion business. And I and in my book nine figure mindset, this book right here, it's coming to market in September. You should be pre-ordering that right now. We'll put a link in on where you can order that from. It talks about how to get your mind right. Here's what. Here's what. When I was building my first business, I was I mean, everyone said I couldn't do a high school graduate. They said, you know, at least likely to succeed. And there I am. I get my first million, I raise, and then I go out and get my buy, my first million dollar business. And the next thing you know, I'm 130 million in businesses. I acquired and and I've raised $38 million and I listed on the American Stock Exchange at 29 years old. If you try to tell me anything at 29 years old, I would have said, dude, I came from nothing. I've got a public company on Wall Street. I've acquired all these businesses. I've raised all this capital. I'm innovating this space. What do you know? That's what you. That's what, 29th at 31, Warburg said. Hey, thanks for all your hard work. These documents that you didn't know what you signed. We just liquidated your company and fuck off. Yeah. And by the way, you get nothing because we had an internal rate of return of 18 to 22% before you get anything. I woke up one day. I was at the peak of my career, May of 2001, and I was at the lowest point of my life. In June 1st of 2001, like literally a two week window where I was at the absolute peak, like everything in my life seemed like it was going to go through the moon. And then two weeks later, I was relieved of command with my company being sold without me being able to do anything about it. Wild things can change fast in this game, and that's why when you use that analogy of the buzzer, like every day, you're living like that. Yeah, all the way until you find that's why that exit consummating the exit and that wire, I.

Oh, I talk about that dude.

How so for me, I was.

There for me. I was in Spain.

And my bank got the wire, got down to two minutes before it was cut off. And it still hadn't got the email confirmation yet. Tell me about the window of time where you waited that last ten hours for that wire to hit the account we had.

You know, I don't know why in my head, closing was going to be much more dramatic than it was. It was a I was with nobody. I was with my my now chief operating officer that's still with me, uh, Lori Boudreau and we were in my conference room and we got on a call and the lawyers were on, and the buyer was on, and and, you know, they just ran over some stuff and they said, all right, you know, we're ready to close. And everyone kind of sounded off and said, yep, clear to close. And said, Eric, you you clear to close? I said, clear to close. And it was like a six minute phone call, and I we got off the call and I remember that just the I probably the deepest breath I've ever taken in my life. And I was like, oh. And then I got Merrill Lynch for banking and one of them. And so I got the online, you know, app or whatever it is, Merrill Lynch app. And all day I'm sitting there looking at refreshing, refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. This is what I was. I was eating refresh. So it was five and then 5:00 hit and I was like, no wire. And it was like 630 at night. And I kind of given up. I'm like, all right, maybe it's coming the next day, you know? And I just picked up my phone and went thing. And it went from a good sized number to a, Holy shit, I've never seen that much money in my life, you know? And that thing hit and I was like, wow. Wow. But, you know, one thing that's not talked about often is what happens after the sale. And I think I know I would assume that you have had similar experiences, like I made it a couple months. People are funny. People are funny. They think that like getting a boat and and being on the beach and going out to restaurants and like not having anything to do and not having anywhere to be is being kind of retired is like the jam, you know what I mean? I was 36 years old with tens and tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars in the bank and a house in Miami. I'd already bought my jet. I'd already bought a big ass 95 foot yacht. I had, you know, a giant house up north, my my beautiful home here. And I didn't have a care in the world. And I made it like a couple months. I was going out at night and, you know, doing all this stuff, blowing money and and lit, like, living for the, you know. And I was I woke up one day and I was like, this sucks.

I think this is.

Terrible and I learned a lot about myself in those months. I was like, I am not a guy that can just do this. I need a mission. I need to be doing and building and growing and doing something. And so, um, you know, I did Bradlee's podcast a while back, and he was making fun of me a little bit because I was like, you know, Brad, I'm I'm certainly got more money than I've ever had in my entire life, but I'm working as hard, if not harder than I've ever worked in my entire life. And he's like, you're doing it wrong, brother. I'm like, that might be your perspective. I feel like I'm doing it right because I love I love this shit, I love.

Brad, but let me tell you something. That's just that. That's coming from somebody who has not actually experienced what you and I experienced. Good point, because I sold my business, but part of the deal was I did a 36 month integration and took the billion dollar company to 4.5 billion. Then I had two years left. And they're like, you way overachieved. Just do special projects for us. So then I was like, okay, so I made it about a year.

And I was.

Running around with all my billionaire friends playing golf. Go into your eating every night. Gained £35. Yep. And one day I met Natalie and I were flying back. I get emotional talking about it and I had that meltdown. I was like.

This sucks.

I was at a lower point. Then when Warburg sold out from underneath me. Yep.

I did my brother.

With all that money.

In the bank. I feel you and. And the stresses of. You want to see almost every relationship that you've ever had change. Yep. It's all your business 100%. The fucking loneliness of that. And then you're miserable and you got all this fancy shit, and it looks great from the outside. Who the fuck wants to hear you complain? Who wants to listen to that? Like, who do you talk to? You're like, what am I going to call some one of my buddies up and be like, you know, this, this hundred million is really terrible, you know? And so it was really lonely. It was really depressing. I was miserable, um, and, and I just made the decision. I was like, I, I am a guy that has to wake up and have a mission and go build every single day. And at this point, I'm convinced I'll probably do that until the day they bury me.

Because you and I are so alike. I mean, we we I just love it. Yeah. Uh, the I had that meltdown. I'm talking. It was a meltdown. Yeah.

No doubt.

I bawled like a little baby. And my wife, uh, girlfriend at the time.

Because. Because in that moment. And I did, too, in that moment for me, I realized that all of this is very cool and I'm very grateful. But it's not what I thought it would be. Yeah. And it's not what most people think it would ever be. It's much different. It doesn't do what most people think it's going to do. And that moment of truth and epiphany for me was painful. And yeah, I mean, well.

And and part of it is too is I've gone backwards that analogy of the the doctor game and the buzzer going off. It's the boiling frog theory. You don't really even if you're not, the stress of building doesn't seem that hard. All of a sudden when you realize I like I did it and now I'm the I'm. I might. Pissing my life away like I don't deserve it now because I'm not contributing anymore. Yeah. And and so that happened at the end of 18. And that inspired us to figure out what to do next. And that's how we found Grant. Elena. I took all my business stuff and said, I'm I'm going to go. I had done ten years of research to do something bigger. The other thing was, is like, I actually got to a place like, do I really want to go do it again? And then that's when I took the year off. And then I felt so because it was my life's dream to go change small business. And so we activated, went and saw Grant and Elena at Growth. Con did all this research on different influencers and what they did and who we might align with, and they didn't know who we were and and went to that and then approached them. And then here we are later, literally. It was 48 months ago. We generated our first revenue June of 19, and we did $200,000 in June of 19. It was me, Natalie, and one other gal that works for us. June of this year, we did a, uh, 13.5 million.

That's so cool.

So in four years, I've built something with Grant and Elena and Natalie. Five times bigger than what I spent 14 years building. My EBITDA this year will be 20% larger than my revenue was the year I sold. Amazing. Imagine.

Imagine how.

When you actually can channel and get in the.

Flow the the experience of of like as you were talking about earlier, about people that know the details and have been on the battlefield and, and gone all that. You know, I'm experiencing the same thing now in the company that I'm building. You know, we launched, uh, we started it a year ago, maybe 13, 14 months ago, and generated our first dollar of revenue, which for us means a patient admitted and treated on New Year's Day. And we've, you know, we're in our seventh month of operation and we're in the black. We're producing even though we we have our second and third locations in development. And so the second time is so much faster than the first. You know, one of the I heard a quote and I'll mess it up. Uh, but it was really impactful to me and it came to me at the right time, because when it was when I was going through that transition and it said, you know, it's really dangerous for a man to climb a mountain and get to the top and not have another mountain to climb. Um.

That's a that's a good quote there.

And I was like, damn, I need a mountain to climb. And so, you know, the things that have become important to me today are relationships and people, time and and winning every day. And I think about winning every day as not, you know, money and success and all these things count in that. But like, did I live a day today that I could be proud of? You know, I went when I was like playing tennis and going out and staying out till three in the morning and spending money on stupid shit and and having a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun, but I wasn't really proud of it. You know what I mean? It was a proud of what I was doing every day. And, um, and so now, like, you know, um, I'm grinding, I'm working, and and you are too. And building something to be proud of, like what you just said about the revenue growth in your business. Like, that's something like, damn, that feels good. That feels good. Better than having the money itself. You know.

I think that's where I think that's an interesting thing that we'll end the show with is, is it's the conquering.

Yeah. It's the.

Journey. It is not, it's not, it's the hunt and and it's the journey. It's not when you arrive at the destination. Because what you just said about that mountain.

Yeah, it's, it's I, I roast guys on um, in my comments on Instagram all the time. I'll speak up and they always say some. And it speaks to, to the psychology of people at whatever level you describe them at. And they say things like, oh, with all that money, you're not happy. I said, brother, you're the materialistic one. You're the one that thinks money to make you happy. I love the process. I love the game. I love the hunt, the kill. You know, I'm here because I'm having a blast. And so.

And I know, I know for because I can just already tell how how much you and I vibe. The other thing is to you look at all the people you surround yourself with and you want to go create that for them. You want them to get to experience 100%. Yeah, that's for me, a big motivation. How many thousands of people can I drive in their success equation to be able to reach the level that I reached? And I'm just smart enough to know that if I get thousands of them, I'm going to be a billionaire. Yeah, you'll.

Be doing you'll be doing okay yourself.

Well, look, Eric, uh, what a great interview, you know? Thank you, thank you.

I appreciate you having me.

Yeah, absolutely. And I know you and I are going to do some things together. Uh, we don't know exactly what that is yet, but we are definitely going to do some things together. Hey, if you liked this interview, if you found it informative, um, educational, interesting. Leave a review, you know, share it. Uh, like it? This is what inspires me to continue to do these shows, and it's what inspires a guy like Eric to show up and come spend time with me. And maybe you learned a lot if you were listening into this thing, you know, in the process from two guys that have been there and done it and, uh, that, that our pocketbooks will show that we're not bullshitters it's not what we say, it's what we did. And so if you want to know how to get your mind right, to get your money right and achieve a nine figure exit, then you first got to achieve a nine figure mindset, because it really is going to be about what's going on. Going on up there. Thank you for joining me, Eric. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for joining me on another episode of Building Billions with Brandon Dawson.