Back To Business Basics
For Marine Corps veteran Mike Demo, exiting the military was rough. Although he excelled at various jobs like sales he had failed at other ventures. These life lessons have taught Mike the importance of clarity in your path in life. He shares a few simple secrets to ensuring success in business. Create your set of core values and create a three word mission statement. These simple steps can create clarity and purpose and be a guiding light for every aspect of your business and life. Very similar to the Marine Corps values of Honor, Courage and Committment or the Air Forces Integrity First, Service Before Self and Excellence In All We Do, keeping these simple, short and impactful keep them always at the top of your mind and at the center of what you do.
Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intentional-disruption/id1475032396
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-demo/
Battle Buddy Podcast Links:
Transcript from Episode 45 with Mike Demo:
Keith McKeever 0:05
Buddy with Keith McKeever. Welcome back to another episode of the battle buddy podcast. I am joined by Mike demo. And we're going to we're gonna drop some drops of fodder today. I've got some, I got some questions loaded up. We've talked a little bit before this. We talked a few weeks ago. I tell you what, man, just the free information that you just gave me. Just to just kind of frame things in the right way was was amazing. And that's the direction I wanted to take these questions, because I know there's a lot of other people out there who run businesses that could really just because this is so simple. It was really simple stuff. But it took a little bit of brainpower to think about and frame it out. But we'll get to that in a minute. So go ahead and tell us a little about who you are, what your military journey was, and what got you today.
Mike Demo 0:55
Thanks, Keith. So Mike d-mo, I spent eight years in the Marine Corps Reserves. My MLS has no civilian equivalent. So in English it's battlespace manager. I was the air battle Commander for the battle of Volusia. Oh 405. And my Marine Corps career ended, I had my meritorious staff package set up and the reset program because they wanted me to go officer. But after my last deployment, they said, you know, if you feel a certain way, you know, go talk to Doc, talk to Doc Ed's man anger issues, I was a little pissed off about stuff. And this is in oh seven, and then really figured out pts. And yeah, they diagnosed me as bipolar instead and told me, you know, sign out of the unit, you're gone. So my transition was like one day and back into the civilian world. So that was pretty cool. Is what it is. And I came along. So I come from a family where we're, I'm the third generation here, the first generation when they got back from World War Two, every one of them except for my grandpa actually own their own businesses. And those businesses were good, they had them until they retired. But when they did, and we talked about this before we recorded, second generation, it didn't work out. And those businesses ended up closing, which, to me is it's a shame because you know, I use the pharmacists as an example, if you've got your local small town pharmacist that does compounding medicine and everything like that. They retired, they go out of business, there's not somebody else that just got out of pharmacy school that's going to go and pick up the reins, you get your CVS or Walgreens, whatever have you and you lose that connection to the community. That's a lot of what I'm working on now is the acquisition of local small businesses trying to keep them locally run locally owned. And like we were talking about a little bit earlier, I'm trying to help veterans fill in those gaps. So a rough stat is 80% of businesses, when owners ready to retire has a partner dire divorce wants to move whatever have you. Like, they might try to put them up for sale, but 80% of them do not sell, which means they close down, and the community loses that resource. So I'm trying to help veterans skip the startup line, and actually start off in businesses that are cashflow positive from day one, because we're all gonna make mistakes. But it's a lot easier to make mistakes when you're profitable, than when you just put a lien on your house so that you get the startup funds to try to get stuff going. So even since our first conversation a couple of weeks ago, that's been something that has really gained a lot of traction. And, you know, I'm excited for what that's going to do not only for our community, but for the communities that our folks live in.
Keith McKeever 4:01
And there was a lot of small businesses I I'm sure you've seen it, anybody who's listening is seeing it over the last couple years, if you just stop and just think for a second in your town, how many small businesses have just shut the doors because of COVID? Because they weren't prepared for whatever the case or you know, even the second generation is just rare because you don't there's no guarantee that your kids are ever going to want to do the same thing. No. I mean, it's rare for me, I'm a second generation realtor. It's very rare. I can probably count them on one hand and in my local area of people that I know that that film that same category, but most people just they want to go Blaze their own trail, do their own thing. You have your own passions, and you can't blame your kids for that. And so you got to find somebody either shut the doors and walk away, liquidate all your stuff or you find somebody that can take it over and run it don't have the what the desire, the passion to do so.
Mike Demo 4:56
And that happened in my I mean most immediate family. So my stepdad was one of the premier builders of luxury homes in Fairfield County, Connecticut. So you always hear about the Gold Coast of Connecticut, your Greenwich, new Canaan's, and, like, dude, the houses that I helped build as a kid. And you're talking like 10,000 square foot, this is like in the 90s, going for multiple millions of dollars. And on a, you know, 150 foot run of house, eighth of an inch is about all he was allowing for a tolerance, like really well built houses that are going to survive. But he was always stressed out, he never learned how to properly delegate and have a crew foreman. So when you have two crews, and you're the person running it, you're running back and forth, it's frantic, he was picking up the checks, he was cashing the checks, he was doing the payroll, he was looking at blueprints at night, after he got home. He ended up dying, had a heart attack on the Job said that 65 dead. There was nobody to pick up the business, never told me how to do it. And we ended up having to sell off his assets at maybe 10 cents on the dollar to help cover final expenses and everything. Which side note drives me nuts, because I've been a registered financial advisor for almost a decade now. And had been saying that but you know, those are even things like small business owners like you don't know. Like, it's crazy. We, we have so many conversations about like this, here's one of my clients was having, we're talking about before, we're like having the right people or when I think you said it was your grandpa, you know, when the one partner dies, make sure you sell out your shares. Well, that would have been just two key Life policies that each partner pays with the other person. So when one passes away, the insurance proceeds pay out the other family. Like there's just there's a lot of stuff and my medical client, he does great work for veterans with hormone therapy. And I started walking through the exercise. And I appreciate you showed me your homework there, by the way. But he's like Mike, did they just don't teach you this in medical school. And this is a guy that brings in decent seven figures. And the same stuff you and I were just talking about, like we're starting from square zero. And that might be the Marine Corps and me were break it down to build it back up. Now maybe that's still stuck in my DNA in some way.
Keith McKeever 7:28
So I'm gonna break it down Barney style, right? Well, that but you also
Mike Demo 7:31
like, let's start from zero and reimagine what this is going to be because your results up into this point. And you know, I'm turning 40 in a couple days, I thought I'd be in a different place than I was, but life had different plans. And that's cool. You have to be able to say, Alright, that's all well and good. But from here forward, what does it look like? And starting from that core? That's where we start to see the growth and acceleration and start to build. So like, I don't know, do you want to share a little bit about what that exercise was? Because it might be informative for everybody?
Keith McKeever 8:06
Yeah, actually, I was, um, there was, there was a few things. That was one of the questions I wanted to get into was, we talked a little bit about finding purpose, you know, that kind of evades a lot of people. And you had mentioned three word mission statement. And so what is, I guess the first question on that is, what is the importance of that three word mission statement?
Mike Demo 8:27
In a word, ironically enough, it's clarity. So if you look at a major corporation, they've got a paragraph of here's the fluffy things that it's just
Keith McKeever 8:39
feeling in the heart, right? Yeah. Our strings. Yeah, no, majors in
Mike Demo 8:44
the rooms love it. But what the heck does it mean? What do you do? Like back in that movie, The 300. Spartans. What is your profession if one word, you know, Orville Redenbacher? Their thing, it's popcorn. That's what they do. So having a three word mission statement gives clarity to the organization's purpose. And then gives you a stepping off point for what we're going to talk about the next part, your five to seven core values. Now, there's so many that people put down what are the things you want to see in your top people? What is the culture of your organization? Oh, again, here's another page. Let's break it down again. You know, maybe Barney saw I like that camp. But what are the five most important things? And what? What does that mean to you? Because eventually, we're going to transition your entire team to being completely in alignment with that. Or we're going to find people that are in alignment with that. Yeah. And I know when I was deployed on my Iraq deployment, I ended up taking over for the Active Duty, reservists, they brought me in, I took over the Active Duty Crew chief role and then actually ended up taking over the officer bill at the senior air director. And I let them know that my goal was to make sure that everybody on my team knows how to do everything and level them up. So I had PFCs, that were doing a senior NCO job, I had them doing the junior officer billets, you know, actually controlling aircraft as A e two e three. It's an O 103 job. But, you know, just to be able, if we all understand the mission and what we're trying to get accomplished. And we all have the same guidelines to work off of, we can be massively effective, no matter what the situation is.
Keith McKeever 10:50
Absolutely, because you never know when somebody is going to step up. Well, you know, in a battlefield environment, for whatever reason, or even in a corporate environment, if somebody just leaves for another job, whatever, having people cross trained is extremely important. You know, or just even having people trained, like, you know, like your father in that in a business, it's bouncing around like a ping pong ball, you know, but it's, it's hard for a lot of people to give up and delegate and give up certain things. I think all of us probably struggle to one to one degree or another. With that. I know I do. It's an incredibly difficult thing to do. I will say the one thing I give up, is I have my wife, she's my editor in chief. And anything I write, she has to look it over. I had that public school education, my spelling is not always 100%. It's not as good as Grammarly or my wife. So you just got to find a certain things.
Mike Demo 11:47
Yeah, Jarvis is great for that, too. I think they just rebranded it, but it's, yeah. So software to help with that my wife was an English major, too. I wasn't a joker like, I can talk like an adult. But if you see me type, God, it's terrible. So, yeah,
Keith McKeever 12:03
well, you absolutely know your strengths, know, your weaknesses, you know, figure out what you can take off your plate, which I know is is such a difficult thing for a lot of people. I know you talk to a lot of business owners to this, this probably I would assume one of the top things that that you probably hear is how do I, you know, how do I give up task A, B, and C, so that I can focus on D, which is what I really like.
Mike Demo 12:29
And that's something that I ironically, do cover. And most of the time, we think that word should come from the top down. jakka willing has a really good point about leadership from the bottom up as well. So one of the exercises I run people through is, I want you to write out exactly every task that people should do in your organization. Now, have them also do the same thing, here's what I do to do it, you're gonna see discrepancies. Have them try to do it your way and get the feedback on what doesn't work, because there's only two reasons they're doing it another way, one they weren't taught, or two, your way doesn't work.
Keith McKeever 13:12
So only one of those true,
Mike Demo 13:15
it's gonna I mean, there might be another variable, but that's usually pretty much it. So let's work through. Okay, so this is what we're doing. Now as a collaborative effort. Let's find me efficiencies, you know, I had my fancy, Lean Six, you know, little certificates and all that stuff. But you could just read a book, Scrum. It's available on Amazon, it's like 15 bucks, you can literally read how to do this optimization, and find me efficiency so that that task that's taking this person an hour, Micah down to 40 minutes, doesn't seem like a lot, but over the day, that means I can do one or two more tasks. Like I've got a client who does all of the paperwork, and then sends it to his assistant to type it into the system asks a simple question. Why don't you just either do voice note, or by like a remarkable to where you read it out. And it saves it as a PDF or Word document, whatever you want. Instead of writing it on paper and then having it transpose just do that. Invest $300, or whatever it is, and don't have that problem again, how many hours would that give you back?
Keith McKeever 14:29
On average, I've got back here. I'm not gonna dig about rocket book. I got a special pen. You can write on it. Take your phone, I think there's a QR code. If I remember at the bottom, it will scan the whole page and upload it to programs like Evernote or write in your dropbox things like that. Just write it out, scan it, it uploads it and then you just wipe it clean. It done.
Mike Demo 14:49
But again, this isn't something that an unsuccessful business is doing. This is a guy that's bringing seven figures a year
Keith McKeever 15:00
Well have efficiencies in our business, there was no perfectly ran business. Now, there's always something to improve, there's processes to improve, you know, performance to improve all those kinds of different things. Right? You know, but you got to have the clarity first. Because I think that was really helpful. I know for myself, not not trying to get into myself, but your podcast, just got it. And I wrote it down. And a few days later, I went back and I looked at it, because I have just left one real estate company for another have gone so low, I was on a team before. And, you know, I've got a lot of clarity and a lot of different things. But this really kind of helped take that next step, in clarity for me to be like, Okay, it's written down, actually, it's on a sticky note on my monitor right now, it's written down, and it's right in front of my eyes, and I can look at it every day. Just like your goals, they should be written down somewhere. And they should be perfectly in alignment with your core values, and your mission. And all of that, if it's not, well, you're just swerving on the road. I mean, you're just you're all over the place. You're gonna it's gonna take a lot longer to get where you need to go.
Mike Demo 16:17
Yet, it's being written things that I've you can't see on here, but I have a piece of wood it's about four feet long, that has success as a mindset carved into it and painted. That hangs on my wall. You know, again, you know what, what is it? You know, cuz faced ton of adversity, like I just talked about my exit from the Marine Corps. That's not even a top three black swan event. Now business completely failing because I didn't have the structure and programs. And, yeah, it's almost talking with my wife about ahead of this podcast is, you know, in the military, we have this don't quit attitude. And hardheadedness is kind of baked in like you will not quit, like if you're doing a ruck march, don't be the one that quits, don't be the one that quits. And then don't ask for help, which started to change a little bit late for me. But we had the conversation about, yeah, but if you're doing the wrong thing, even harder, it's not going to help, it's going to make it worse. And that's what I did, I completely just burned in working 100 hours a week, not taking time for myself, not thinking about that. And like I just I fell apart, I had as close to a nervous break as you could. And my business results followed. And that's one of the hard things when I start to onboard a client, we have the conversation about how is their business going and the things that frustrate them. But I care about the entire individual. My mentor taught me faith, family fitness and finance. We need to have all those in harmony in order to make sure you're successful. Because everyone always says don't take your work home. That goes both ways. And if you don't have the systems and processes in place, in your business, you probably don't have them at home, either. And I've been guilty of this, too. Oh, we've all been guilty of that thing. But dude, not having the date night, not dedicating time to your kids. Not dedicating time to yourself. Those things all come into play. Like I did a podcast just 123 weeks ago, where I literally said, Hey, there's times when you should not unboard people. Like, oh, there's all these people that want to work with me great, don't. Why? Because you're not locked in yet. It's okay to tell somebody, I'm not ready for you. You can even tell I'm a big fan of just dumb levels of accountability. Like, hey, I'm in the process of revamping to make a better experience for you. Is it cool if we start next month? Who's gonna be like, Nah, dawg, I'm not doing that.
Keith McKeever 19:07
Now, the right person is going to appreciate that transparency and honesty,
Mike Demo 19:10
and the wrong person. wasn't somebody you want to work with anyway? Exactly. But I've had conversations with people that their billable for me would have been 10k a month. Anyone going to turn down 10k A month like just generally speaking, probably not. And I told this individual. Now to be clear, I am not interested in working with you. I'm helping you through this process, because I want to see you succeed. It was somebody in the tribe, by the way. Turned down $100,000 A year basically wasn't a fit.
Keith McKeever 19:53
Yeah. You know, it's a hard lesson to learn as a business owner. I had a couple of clients over the last few years that I was just telling the guy like Last night, we had a worse awards banquet, and having some drinks afterwards. And I was telling this other agent, I'm like, Look, one of the most valuable lessons I've learned in nine years in real estate I learned in the last two years, if you have red flags, the first time you meet a client, walk away, don't do it, don't, don't let yourself get suckered into. Yeah, it's gonna be stressful, but I'll deal with it. For the commission, I'll deal with it for the sale, you know, like, don't do that, I have red flags and thought, now it's not gonna be that bad. And it was to two different two different sales. They were, they were related, they were moving out of state. And it was like, they actually loved me, like, they really loved me. But it was so stressful on my end, trying to communicate and all these other things that happened, but we'll go into that. But I was like, Alright, I need to pay attention to those little hairs on the back of my neck, those red flags that pop up, just don't, don't take those kinds of clients off, it's not worth the stress, you gotta you gotta find that balance, like, work with people you want to work with be purposeful.
Mike Demo 21:07
So we didn't, we didn't talk about this on the last last time we chatted or even beforehand, but on the financial side, like said, been a registered advisor for about same time you've been in real estate, brought in maybe half a billion dollars in assets for clients. And there are people that just don't call won't work with. If they do call in. I'll send them an email back with what they need. But I will not. I won't do that. Because energetically, there's not a fit. And I was helping a financial advisor with this about a month ago, a little bit newer to the business, but he was a vet. So I know there's not going to be billable on this one. Let's just have a conversation and ask the question like, Who do you serve? Well, I mean, look, look, I get it, you've got your seven, you've got your 63. Everybody does, like it's all the same. My billion dollar asset managers in my $1 million asset managers all have the same license, they all have access to the same products. Who do you serve? Well, I don't know. I don't want to cut anybody off. And that's when we were talking earlier about, like, all the stuff that I just told you like, literally, hey, let me share my screen and show you this is the exact framework or work off of ready, willing and able, here's how this all works ticket. Because I work off of a blue ocean model where there's plenty of room for everybody. That being said, there's plenty of room but I want to own this one little space. And I started working in they're like, do you want to work with you know, let's just broad demographics. Men or women? Women? Okay, well, that's about 150 million. liberal conservative if it matters to you. Yeah, pick one. Alright, 75 million. How old? Okay, that's X million. And then in this particular area, that's X million, and then you break it down. All of a sudden, you know exactly who you want to speak to, as a client. And it's somebody that you'd want to have come through your door every day and have a conversation with, you know, one of the things we always talk about is like the lack of tribe, once you leave the service, your customer can be your tribe, if you do it, right. Like they're the people that you want to connect to. And I end up breaking down this guy, it's like, there's probably a half a million people within 50 miles of you that you could speak directly to so instead of that broad message that gets lost in the static, have an amplified message that cuts right through if you do that, you're going to see results and he has
Keith McKeever 23:50
and every single business can do that. You know if you're solid we're gonna be more broad than others throughout if you sell tires, to consumers, you sell it to everybody everybody has a car not like it's not necessarily
Mike Demo 24:04
in a sweet shop. You're not selling whatever the Chinese knockoff tire is you're selling a really good Pirelli. Well, yeah. Tire for motocross.
Keith McKeever 24:15
But if you're, if you're in an antique store, then your target demographic is people who are into antiques, whatever that looks like. Yes. But I mean, I can imagine in my mind what that looks like. You know, my wife is an aesthetician, so she does facials and waxing and all that stuff like, Well, her target is obviously women. You know, women who you know, have the disposable income to take care of their skin, want to take care of their skin. See the value in it, you just you just you just target those things down. You figure out what that call it avatar? Yep, yeah. And figure out what that is and judge it well, just like the the core values in your mission statement. Always in the back of your mind, always judge it right
Mike Demo 25:00
It's a good, it's a good compass to be able to work off of to know if you're going in the right direction. That's, I mean, that's basically it. And, you know, so many people in our community tried to do it the way that I did it, when in my 20s, where I ended up, you know, qualifier that whole thing. And I wanted to make a ton of money, but also help other people grow and develop themselves. And if there's relationships I have with people that worked with me, back in 2006, like we're still in contact, and that's really cool. But I burned out because I didn't have the systems processes and I was starting from zero. The same thing applies in business, you know, going back to what we were talking about, like, talk about that auto shop. Oh, I want to open up my own garage. Okay, my dad's a mechanic, he opened his own shop. That's actually where I learned how not to do business. Ironically, he would let people leave without paying for it. But that lift is eight grand that those tools if you're not going to the snap on drug dealer and going to Harbor Freight it's been 1000s of dollars at Harbor Freight I know this
Keith McKeever 26:08
snap on drug dealer. Oh, man. Some brands just have a cult following of some sort. Nothing mechanically inclined to person but I even know that that you know,
Mike Demo 26:20
do but they make good stuff. Don't get they do you're gonna pay for it. You're gonna pay. I mean, Sears went out of business. So crushed Winslow bit harder to find nowadays, but it was like the same thing. Now. I'm just thinking my dad had a really nice adjustable wrench that somehow made it to my garage. Three H ratchets are dead. It's mine. I have his 10 mil too, because those are hard to find. So you know what? A good time Mel's hard to find just, it's cool. Yeah. But it's just being able to, like, do you want to go through all the growing pains? No. Are you still gonna go through growing pains?
Keith McKeever 27:03
Yep. Oh, absolutely. But if you can avoid some, if you can take a step past one or two, you know, because a free advice or somebody you know, helping you out, it's gonna make the ride a little smoother, right?
Mike Demo 27:15
So I'll give you an example. Keith, in my box, these are the companies I'm actively looking at purchasing $1 million or more top line revenue, a minimum of $200,000 profit seller discretionary expenditures, whatever you call it. Why do I want that. Because when I'm going to go into the books, and then go visit the facility, I'm going to see where the areas of opportunity are. And mine is organizational structure, sales and marketing. That's my Zona genius. It's what I do best. So I'm going to look for the business that I can add value to. And then that $200,000 By the way, I don't want another 40 hour job. That $200,000 gives me the ability to pay somebody a really good wage. So I'm in Connecticut, I'm probably paying 75k to be my office manager guru, if they already have that even better, happy days, I'll probably give somebody a promotion and a little bit more money and have them manage things. But that'd be like a four hour week business for me. Maybe five, checking on them, make sure things are going the right way.
Keith McKeever 28:23
Keep a finger on the pulse know what's going on. Commander's Intent. Yeah.
Mike Demo 28:27
But that business, if you're looking to get started, let's say like, I like the trades, because like said my stepdad was in building, my dad's mechanic, like I understand people that are the best at their trade, that end up being in business for themselves. I get that because that was my entire family. And those people, I'm either going to buy their business or help them grow their business, so they can sell their business. But you don't have to have a ton money to do this. If you figure an 8% interest rate, I know half a million dollar business over 10 years, you're gonna pay like 10 grand a month in financing, that we're up to 120 grand a year. If you've got $20,000 in net profit 120 grand of it goes, that's 80 grand. If you pay somebody 50 grand to run the business, you take them 30 grand, or if you do it yourself, you're making 80 grand, like that's cool too. And that's if it just stays flat and you add no value to the business.
Keith McKeever 29:37
But
Mike Demo 29:39
you didn't have to put anything down per se to do that. Like there's ways to do this. You know, seller financing. Well, Darryl, finance, I don't care what the rate is because as the person selling a business, you're either going to get your top line number or you're going to get to pick the terms of how you get paid. I'm okay paying somebody 100 Your sale amount, if I get to determine how they get paid for the exact reason we're just talking about Keith. So if this business is spinning off 200 grand a, you know, half a million dollars, a million dollars, what I'll buy the business, it's cool, fun, we're good. First payment comes in three months. What happens and I'll put a rider in there where if I default on payments, you get the business back plus whatever I paid for it. But yeah, no, we'll pay you out. Or maybe, you know, one of the things I was talking about with Key Bank with their, you know, lines of credit, use that I don't care what the interest rate is, just give them a little bit of money now and then do that. But the person that's selling the business is literally going to get paid back for their business from their business. Let that sink in for a second. I'm not mortgaging my truck, my house. All that stuff like one of my new business partners up in Ohio, leveraged his house to pay for his company startup, one of the first things I'm going to do is figure out a way to pay that loan back with a loan that's secured by the business itself. You should never have to have your house where you live with your family under threat because God knows Black Swan event, you don't want that.
Keith McKeever 31:27
That's a lot, a lot of risk. And you should maybe you know if that's the only option, if that was the only option for somebody, maybe you should reevaluate what direction you're going to things. Because that's not a good idea to over leverage your assets.
Mike Demo 31:46
I mean, that's what everyone does. I mean, that 2008 financial crisis, you know, over leveraged, not having equity in your house, because you know, thing, like VA loan, but for people that didn't serve like being able to finance 125% of the appraised value, your negative equity in the house. That's basically what you're doing when you leverage your house for your business and how much stress you bring in. Like, just think from the mental side, because I've been there when you've maxed out all of your personal assets. And you still have to make payroll, that's Sox like that my stepdad used to have to try to figure out how much money was floating in his account. Because he didn't just have proper processes. Like, if you can not do those things and know, hey, if I just tread water, even if you don't take a paycheck, that business is still going to be successful and grow. And then you could take a paycheck. Like that doesn't have to be the financial struggle to go with the mental struggle of learning and ramping yourself up. And that's one of the things going forward that I'm going to be working on is helping bring veterans under my wing, if you will, and let them buy in their local communities, because like we were talking about before, the local businesses have been decimated. And if they go away, like actually my dad was here earlier today, the local parts store Levine's they've got locations in every town around here, very local Danbury, Connecticut. It just sold. It didn't sell to somebody from here. It's sold to a national chain. So those local dollars, they go away, you know, Brand X automotive parts or Callahan or whatever it was from black sheep. They're not buying the Little League T shirts to support the team. They're not a pillar in their community
Keith McKeever 33:49
and definitely not invested at all in the community. No community in the town goes straight away. Yeah.
Mike Demo 33:56
They're only a solid quarter though. All those corporations roll up to, you know, the big city. And that's where you see like these companies go wrong. And you wonder what's going on in corporate America? Why do they give a damn what Twitter says? Because the people that now own them are all centralized in one area. Like you're in the real estate field. How many houses in your area is Blackrock bought under Blackstone? Probably a lot. There. It's gonna be up around here. Like that. That's what they're doing. And yeah,
Keith McKeever 34:30
we're the probably one of the top five most affordable markets and probably in the country, top 10 or 15. At least, you know, you could spend 100 and $140,000 on 1000 Square Foot. Ranch Home with full basement. half an acre half an acre like LA it's, you know, I mean, we are an extremely affordable market at all my pitch for people to move to Peoria yet but you know, it's affordable We have seen a lot of outside investors a lot over the last couple years. Well in
Mike Demo 35:05
what's wild for your market if people were smart about it with the way that work is going remote, you can do it from anywhere. Which is why I tried to have my wife allowed me to move to Texas, but that didn't work.
Keith McKeever 35:22
But God country do you tell her?
Mike Demo 35:24
It is and I'm working on some Landy there in Wyoming? Yeah, that that will be happening in the next couple years. But like, you don't need to be stucked anywhere like I haven't commuted to an office. I built in office, it's fine. It works. Like Dota, Peoria, why not? Yeah, you could,
Keith McKeever 35:47
you could work for a company. A lot? Well, you know, all across the Midwest, where the affordability is amazing. low traffic, quick and easy to get around super affordable. You know, we may have high property taxes, but still, when you're not even close compared to
Mike Demo 36:08
Don't tell me about high property taxes. My bill comes in over 1000 bucks a month, man. While Yeah,
Keith McKeever 36:15
somebody might have a worse than Illinois. But you could you could live here and work in New York, Chicago, DC, Miami, you know, work but work from your home, you know, right here and not have to travel? Or maybe if you do I mean, you know, we do have an international airport. Well, they call it International Airport. But Chicago is not that far away. Neither St. Louis, you can't could travel if you need to, you know, and so I don't know, you have a good point. I don't know why some people live, unless they have other connections. If you don't have connections go somewhere cheap.
Mike Demo 36:50
And everything that I just walked you through, that can be done remotely. Like one of the businesses I'm looking at acquiring in the next quarter is in Ohio. I don't live in Ohio, doesn't matter. Now, it helps to have somebody I trust in that area. But what can you do through your tribe and community to maybe have a partner that's somewhat local? Or just do it via zoom? You can do it. Yeah, you know,
Keith McKeever 37:19
if you don't want to take on too much risk, find someplace that you can travel to by air, you know, a couple hours away on a drive, you know, so you could go there. I mean, you know, I think probably visit at least periodically, you know, make a site visit or something like that, if that was important to you as business owner, but
Mike Demo 37:36
but, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, find something that you're passionate about. And then like just an example, website, bizbuysell. Yeah, it's free to sign up for it. Just start looking, the numbers will start to make sense to you. Figure out what you're okay, making, like if you're gonna work in the business. You might be okay. Like, depending on where you are with 50k 100k, whatever the number is, but you'll start to see that the numbers work. And these are businesses that have been around 510 15 2040 years. So they're through some of the, you know, babies the hurdle.
Keith McKeever 38:15
Well, they don't have staff, they've already got marketing advertising done. They've got brand name recognition, maybe did varying degrees in all those for sure. You don't know how, how well they've done it. But some of those things could be semi established, or they could be well established. It could just be that you know, somebody just like, You know what, I'm 80 years old now. I'm going to retire. It's time for me to hang it up. I don't have any kids that want to do this. And somebody approaches me with the right deal. It gets me out of this. I can go retired, moved to Florida, and hang out with the Gators.
Mike Demo 38:48
And that's one of the secret weapons that I guess sharing on a podcast is not a secret, but I got it from somebody that does blue ocean type things to go talk to the people have a X, Y and Z. H fat company's been around since 1980. Oh, that's about 40 years. Amen. Are you looking to retire? Because I love this business. And I'd like to have a conversation with you about it. Like up here in the Northeast. People are leaving in droves. Gone see later retiring. And leaving the state are the two top reasons businesses are for sale up here. So it's a good incentive. But take a look at their numbers. You might be giving what they call like paying multiple of earnings. So it doesn't really matter what the gross number is. It matters what actually filters down usually it should be between 15 and 20%. That's why my Buy Box is at least a million dollars in the least 200 I could go a little bit lower or a little bit higher on those. If I see that there's an easily fixable thing that's holding them back. But find the one that fits you know maybe where you are, maybe it's, you know, they profit 125k, you take home 60 It's fine, do it, take a look. But if you're passionate about signing the front of the check instead of the back of the check, and if you've never done that, it's so much better. So much better. He does have a lot of additional responsibility because your organization and culture is going to look like you. So, shameless plug, you might want to have a guide or consultant to help you through the process. But in general, there's well established practices. If you do that, you're going to be successful, if you just held water that business was already doing, okay. You find the things the previous owner wasn't doing well, and fix it. And then you start to see the growth in scale.
Keith McKeever 40:51
Which is never, because like we said earlier, nope, no, business is perfect. So there's, there's always room for improvement. I was just thinking about the local restaurants in your town or, you know, any other small business that you've ever gone to. Maybe they don't offer, I don't know, maybe they don't offer cheeseburgers, you know, but unless their food's good, but you just want a cheeseburger don't offer it. Or maybe they just don't offer the brain to tolerate that you want. Whatever, that's some things you could fix. Or maybe they just, you know, maybe the food is great quality, but the service is a little lacking. Well, try not to stuff find a person that can do that can motivate lean, trying to improve that turn around and increase your profits.
Mike Demo 41:33
So that's true, Keith. Now there is an opposite side of that. Like the Cheesecake Factory menu is too big. And there's only
Keith McKeever 41:42
one kind of cheesecake you need. It's just cheesecake.
Mike Demo 41:43
Yeah. But going back to your point with the three word mission statement. A lot of businesses have business lines that don't match up, they might be better off spun off into their own thing. But business owners try to try to innovate and expand but it's not like they have been taught what to do were brought somebody on board to help them with the decision. They just tried to figure it out. Like hey, like I have a family friend. He was one of the best Italian chefs in the area, hands down. Great Northern Italian food. Set it at a sushi bar to his restaurant. Oh, that makes no sense. He likes sushi. There wasn't a lot. There was an opening in the market for sushi. That's cool. You're Italian restaurant? No, that makes no sense. And that business folded because it was trying to be too many things to too many people.
Keith McKeever 42:36
And you'll start another business on the other side of it. Yeah, leave our name different company could be sad people put up some drywall. I'll say no and not in the town I grew up in there's a famous chicken restaurant. Right behind it that people own the same place in his little like dive bar. They actually share the same kitchen. But in there, you get like onion rings, pizza, burgers in the main restaurant, you can also get burgers. But it's like fried chicken, green beans mashed potatoes, like those kind of things. I mean, it's more of a family atmosphere, bar atmosphere, literally in the same building just separated. You know, you could walk through the kitchen, I guess if you're an employee, but that's it. How are we different lines up?
Mike Demo 43:17
I'm looking at it been open? Forever.
Keith McKeever 43:20
30 years, 30 plus years?
Mike Demo 43:22
I think that's gonna stop.
Keith McKeever 43:26
I don't know, I would just go to school with their kids. I don't know if their kids are involved the business or not. But probably statistically, at some point in time, they probably close down their doors, unless they find somebody to approach him.
Mike Demo 43:37
They find somebody passionate that is willing to take over the supervisory role. Yeah. I'm not saying Keith, I'm just saying. Ask him to what their numbers look like, you might have yourself a little side hustle
Keith McKeever 43:51
and have to think about that much for the chicken game. You're
Mike Demo 43:56
going back to my point, you don't need to be you just need to find somebody that is at a point. And the business has to make enough money where you can pay them and still get something for yourself. If I own 10 businesses where I bring in 50 grand a year. So half a million dollars if I'm paying somebody to run it, and I just need to talk to them an hour to a week, Hey, are we doing what do we need? And there's some stuff like from the agile mindset, the there's things called level 10 meeting we can I know where I'd like 45 here, so we could do that at another point. But like the weekly standup meeting just to see hey, all in accountability from all parts. What worked? What do you what didn't work and what are you working on this week? And everybody does it and you can see, all right, this is jacked up that checkup and it's pure accountability where, you know, the HR manager didn't bring in enough people. So sales are down because he didn't have enough people making phone calls. But they were under the assumption that this had to work this way, because you said this. And they're trying to do onesie twosie when the actual manager just needs all of the candidates, let's rapid fire this in a group setting. Like, there could be so many different things. But that's an hour a week, then you spend an hour a week with the person running the business for you. That's two hours a week. I'm running 10 businesses, making 50 grand each. I'm spending two hours per business. Can you tell me if I'm wrong, but that's working 20 hours a week to make a half million dollars a year? Yeah, good point. Done. So
Keith McKeever 45:43
now that wouldn't suck, I think I think most people would like something like that. So yeah, that's um, man, there's definitely a lot more to unpack and a lot, a lot of logistics and that stuff. So also, anybody who's who's interested in that, I'll just throw the banner up there right now, they can connect with, with Mike on LinkedIn, I'll be up there. It'll be in the show notes too, for anybody listening. But I wanted to go back to that. The core values in the three word, mission statement, any any quick advice for people to set that stuff, you know, something actionable they could do today with a sticky note, like I did and, and get it written down and up on their computer.
Mike Demo 46:24
So when I give you the guidance, the core values could have been five to seven, put it there five, you don't have to get to five, if you authentically feel that you can do it in three, do it. Make sense? Just do it. The reason the mission statement has to be concise. It's just like Commander's Intent. Everybody needs to know immediately, what do we stand for? If you have a business where people walk in or if it's on your website, here's what we do. Like if you go to my personal website, Michael Deema, calm. I have it set up. So on the banner when you pull it up on mobile, because I just designed it for mobile at this point. It says, bro, Mike Deema.
Mike Demo 47:12
That's what I do for people. That's it. You know, there's a lot of things that go with it. But if you break it down to his essence, that's what I do. Now, did I know how to build the website properly? When I did that? Not really, you know, sometimes University has helped you out? I'll be really honest that, you know, Was it intentional? No. Did it work? Yes. But that's it. That's what
Keith McKeever 47:38
you said, Put the check on the wind column for that, right? Yeah. It's not all still works. It's still a win.
Mike Demo 47:44
Yeah, but just so everybody knows, here's what you stand for. Here's what you do, because ABC Corp can be whatever you want it to be. But when you step in the doors, what do you do? What is your mission, and that's it. And then hey, these are the things that we believe in one, two, and three, maybe down to seven, but like 123, whatever it is, and things that you're passionate about. And then of the people, you know, in the Marines, we had the same speed of the leader speed of the team. So as a leader, you had to be on point, you had to be the best at it. So that you couldn't get all the other people with, you know, that's an important thing. Same thing, these are the things that you as the founder believe in, and everybody that works here is going to be on board with that. And that doesn't mean you're firing people right away. Because it's, you know, it's not their fault that you didn't create this intent until now. Usually, it's like a three month process I take my clients are were at those weekly meetings, the leadership team is going to check in all right, Bob, Sue, Fred, you know, for each one deadline, are they a plus a plus minus or minus? That's simple. It's not personal. And then it's not all their dirt bag, because they're a minus on these things. Hey, what can we do to help Bob get on board? Like what can we do to help him cool trait and bring him in? Show him why this matters so much to us.
Keith McKeever 49:07
Right? How do you how do you motivate him and teach him? If it's a motivation issue, motivate if it's skill issue, teach.
Mike Demo 49:15
At the end of the day, you as the leader you're responsible for people fail, it's usually not their fault.
Keith McKeever 49:24
Yeah, and good leaders will be able to recognize those things and do what they need to do to make it a team be successful. Yeah, I know, there's a lot I can think of even in my business, other real estate teams in my area. From my perspective, perfectly well oiled machines. Yeah, like they, they're just good. They're good good at what they do. They're my competitors. And I'll say that up out loud, of competitors in my market that are extremely good at what they do. It's a reflection leadership
Mike Demo 49:54
and an a process and intent. Yep, absolutely. Didn't financial management, it's the same thing. Like there's, like I said, there's people like one of the groups I work with, manages General Motors, pension, and 401k plan. It's a lot of money,
Keith McKeever 50:12
a lot of accounting numbers.
Mike Demo 50:16
But they have a process for all roll that now take away like one of those major accounts, the best people that I have, have a standardized process on LTM wealth in Westchester, New York, I interviewed with them back there. The guy that is like the head of operations is a marine, didn't work out commute and everything was for me to get down there. But they have a synergy of all the things somebody will need. So they're the one stop shop for their people, they manage billions of dollars, because they have an efficient process to handle whatever it is their client needs. them there's the person that works at Northwest mutual that was told to go ahead and prospect your friends and family to sell my insurance policy, even though you don't have an insurance license. And results vary. But they all essentially have the same things to offer. It's just the quality of what they offer, and the processes and systems and clarity behind what they're doing.
Keith McKeever 51:20
Yep. So just gonna, you know, the lesson for today is just get that clarity of a lot a lot to unpack for sure in this episode, but
Mike Demo 51:29
yeah, man.
Keith McKeever 51:32
Good. That's what I expected to bring a lot, a lot of heat, right, whatever it was a setback in the beginning, before we go, but get that mission statement. This is the you know, this is the action item. Pay attention, everybody. Get your mission statement dialed in. I guess even if it's I mean, I do love the short and condensed simple that is that is much better than the paragraph. Because if you have to write a paragraph, write a paragraph. But I would highly suggest you look at it much shorter option, you know, and then find those core values and get yourself on the path of being centered at least, there's a lot more to can go into. This is just the basics. And then of those core values, I'm sure there's some good examples out there. I will do a little research. And if I can find some I will throw those in the show notes as well. Some some sites on some great diversity words that people might not think of that might inspire them to be like that. I like that one more than another. And give me a good one. We'll fire away. What was your branch of service again? Air Force, which core values integrity first service before self excellence? And all we do? And I will tell you my first two core values are integrity and service.
Mike Demo 52:41
The Marine Corps is honor, courage commitment. I can't do the general orders. By the way. It's been way too long.
Mike Demo 52:53
Now, don't don't ding me on that. But like I just thought of that. honor, courage, commitment. That's it. Does it need to be more?
Keith McKeever 53:03
Now I you know, the Air Force slightly expands on those but it is basically integrity service and excellence.
Mike Demo 53:09
It's because they're more of a corporation, man.
Keith McKeever 53:11
I mean, you know, we were a little different. We're a different breed. Okay. Yeah.
Mike Demo 53:17
I'm just salty that the Air Force recruiter never called me back, man. It's all good. You know,
Keith McKeever 53:23
like, a few years ago. I'm sure he just got tied up on the golf course. Yeah, he was doing something. Probably not related to the job. Totally not. No, no. Most likely got tied up on the golf course. Yeah, I think world class golf courses. You know,
Mike Demo 53:42
I don't blame them. I shoot a good 90 on the front. Nine. So it's all good. Yeah, the only way I'm hitting a pin at 300 yard just with the rifle. Sorry. Not gonna happen.
Keith McKeever 53:56
I will not comment as to how many swings it will take me to get a ball 300 yards. It's not pretty. And depending on how much I've had to drink, you may not be able to count on two hands. I am not I will never be confused with the world's greatest golfers, that's for sure. And then Mel case,
Mike Demo 54:15
you wouldn't be able to count through two hands anyway. So who cares?
Keith McKeever 54:19
Yeah, yeah, doesn't matter. That's why I play golf scrambles where we play basketball. And I always tell people, you're gonna one out of me. That will make one hit
Mike Demo 54:27
today. One day, all you need is one golf shot to go back. That's it.
Keith McKeever 54:31
Absolutely. You know, actually, first time ever said that was at a local course. And we started on hole 17, which had a big pond water feature. It was just right over to the green. And I was joking with them. Literally the first hole we started on. All three of them hit the water. And they're like, I guess it's you. And I said, Well, I told you I had one. Let's see what happens. Three feet from the pin through my golf club up here. I was like, that's a guy I told you to get one
Mike Demo 54:59
now gonna happen again today. It's it's okay to peak early. You know that that works. Yeah,
Keith McKeever 55:05
you know what we're late? I mean, it was this whole 17 we had to get started on it. We just seen a 17. Yeah, just depends on how you were frame it. We started at the end anyway. Yeah, that's that's my golf skills
Mike Demo 55:18
that you know. And I mean, I know, double clicking the mouse on this thing. But if you have the passion to do it, there's people that will show you like, there's a lot that we just covered. And there's actually a lot more behind all of what I just said, like I walked you in this basically our through the first two, three items on the list. That's 60 Plus for action items. But
Mike Demo 55:47
I bet no, you know, it's weird as they don't teach those. They don't teach all those things in business school. Now teach them I mentioned earlier, they don't teach you in bed school, for sure. Pretty sure attorneys don't learn at law school, actually run your business like a business. My degree at UConn was organizational studies and entrepreneurship. I'm actually going to be one of their speakers this year for veteran entrepreneurs on how to skip the line and do exactly what I'm saying.
Mike Demo 56:18
I didn't learn any of that there. Definitely not I didn't learn Scrum. I didn't learn about agile, I didn't learn about Lean Six Sigma. I didn't learn any of those things. But thankfully, you know, you go overseas a couple times that government will pay for you to get a degree. It's fine. Yes.
Keith McKeever 56:36
I'm so good at Yeah, definitely get it. Okay. She take advantage of it if you got those benefits, right?
Mike Demo 56:42
Yeah, I don't even know where that diploma is either. It's somewhere in a box over there. Don't care.
Keith McKeever 56:48
That school has record of it anyway, you don't need a paper copy. They need it. Yeah. So anyway, Mike, I appreciate you being on the show and dropping this knowledge. And I think that's some great actionable items for people to start with, to get themselves on the path to being centered. So once again, find my demo on LinkedIn, it's scrolling at the bottom, it's in the show notes, connect with them, reach out to them fire questions at them. I know you'd be more than happy to help anybody. So any any last words?
Mike Demo 57:21
So I mean, there are other places to reach me. I mean, if you're on Facebook, and you're in the vet tribe, I'm there. That's Amin Keith met. So there's that he said the website it is using the phrase Barney simple again, like you see these websites that are really long, really complicated. Mine gets to the point real quick. Are you looking to grow your business? Are you looking to sell your business? I can help with either. It doesn't have to be rocket surgery, it can actually be that simple sometimes. So if you're interested in skipping the line, I helped three other veterans find ways to finance a business without any money out of pocket this week. I didn't ask them to be a client. I just help them do it. So feel free to reach out. I'm always on there helping veterans. So glad to do it, man.
Keith McKeever 58:06
Awesome. Well, we appreciate that we need more people out there helping veterans grow. So we help people be successful. And we don't have people ending up on the other end of the spectrum. We all know where that goes. So
Mike Demo 58:21
I've been there. We could do another podcast on that. I've been there. I've been there we
Keith McKeever 58:26
are. Yeah. I'm sure we could we've there's more than enough examples out there of people doing that. So that's the power of this of this podcast is given the free value and give people something actionable to take take away. So hopefully, it'll go from here to here. They go from here to here. So
Mike Demo 58:47
that's for sure. Jeremiah, the worst podcast ever. I didn't we mentioned that. I've talked about all that.
Keith McKeever 58:54
out you don't care? Yes. It does. So your podcast is attentional disruption. Yeah. And I know it can be found on on all the platforms just like Mike and I was gonna have it in the show notes as well. It's fun. So anyway, I appreciate you being here, Mike. Yeah, brother. It's always a pleasure, man. We'll do this again. Yeah, absolutely. I've gone Alright, everybody, there you go. Make sure you check out the battle buddy podcast.net Our website for all resources, you can listen to the episodes, check out the guests and all that. You can also, you know, submit a guest requests, things like that. So check it out.
