Hala: [00:00:00] Hey, Brian, welcome to young and profiting podcast. 

Brian Scudamore: Yeah. Happy to be here. Thanks. 

Hala: Yeah, it's fantastic to have you back on the show for those who don't know, you're the founder and CEO of the O two E brands. You're a serial entrepreneur. And last time you were on, we talked about how it just 19 years old, you pioneered the industry of professional junk removal with 1-800-GOT-JUNK, and then you scaled that success.

Hala: And to two more home service brands. Wow. One day painting and shack shine. If anyone is interested in hearing your backstory, I encourage you to go check out number 70. From trash to cash with Brian Scudamore. And in this episode, we're really going to focus on your new book, be your own boss and how to leverage the success as the creator of a business.

Hala: And before we get into it, for those who don't know your story, I'd love for you to just at a high level, explain who you are, what businesses you've started and your experience with. 

Brian Scudamore: Yeah, absolutely. So you and I know each other and have for a while, my background, I'm a very [00:01:00] add all over the place. I see squirrels running across my desk all the time type entrepreneur.

Brian Scudamore: Love watching people grow. And it started with my story of me growing and building a business for myself, but then switching to a franchise model where we could see other entrepreneurs grow something for themselves with our proven recipe, uh, was in a McDonald's drive through of all places beat up old pickup truck 33 years ago.

Brian Scudamore: And I see this junk truck in front of me. Mark's hollow lane written on the side and I'm like, I can do. And that's going to pay for college, but ultimately I dropped out of school, pursued my business full time, and the rest is history. We've built three brands, as you mentioned, and cumulative revenue this year will be somewhere around $700 million.

Brian Scudamore: And, uh, I don't share that as a bragging of the revenue, but more of the size and the scope of the difference. I think we're making with entrepreneurs that we have as part of the brands. 

Hala: Yeah. And I've luckily been able [00:02:00] to get a sneak peek. You know, I run a lot of your social media channels for your personal social media channels, and it's been so awesome.

Hala: Just seeing how, amazing your company works and the company culture that you've instilled. In fact, at yap media, we kind of stole one of your elements of your company culture, your for ages, but we added a fifth one, so it's happy, hungry, hardworking, hands on. And we added honest, 

Brian Scudamore: um, 

Hala: Yeah. So, uh, you know, you really inspired me as another entrepreneur, um, especially somebody that I work closely with.

Hala: So you have a new book BYOB and, uh, your first book WTF, willing to fail, uh, came out a few years ago. What made you, you know, think about writing this new. 

Brian Scudamore: Well, let me start with why I wrote the first book, because I think it ties in and it's interesting as an entrepreneur and you know, so many of them, and I know you're coming to our MIT group and get to speak to all these high growth entrepreneurs who most of them have written books and a lot of entrepreneurs [00:03:00] write books because they feel they have to, or they feel that their ego wants to one day say, check off the bucket list.

Brian Scudamore: I've written. And I think I was a little different that I didn't need to write a book. I am not a great reader, even though I can write I'm so add. And I thought, oh, I'm not going to, I don't have the time to write it up. So the wizard of ads, my coauthor, Roy H. Williams, who does all our radio creative and much more.

Brian Scudamore: He sat down with me and every year we go to Austin to see him at his academy. Brian, you got to write a book, Brian, you got to write a book and every year the answer was no. And he said, Brian, You say your ego doesn't need a book. You say you don't really want to write a book, but this isn't about you. I said, what do you mean?

Brian Scudamore: He said, this is about those that you can inspire you and your teams have built in your franchise. Owners have had some great stories and successes and lots of mistakes. You've learned. The world needs to hear about these stories. You can help other people. And [00:04:00] when he said you can help other people and you can inspire others.

Brian Scudamore: And it isn't about me. That resonated. So after eight years, I said, okay, let's do it. And we wrote this WTF willing to fail 40,000 some odd copies later. And all the emails and feedback and things we've heard from people who've read WTF. I'm like Roy you're right. It did make a difference. And so a little less than a year ago, Roy said, well, it's time for number two.

Brian Scudamore: Let's go get another book out there and make it happen. And, um, so we wrote our second book and it's funny because this is not even the real book. So I was telling you offline that Amazon won't send you. Any copies in a print on demand world. I get the first copy of the same time. Anyone else that orders it.

Brian Scudamore: So it's really just the sleeve over top of, I don't even know what book this is over top of willing to fail. Uh, so I can't wait to get a copy tomorrow of my own. 

Hala: Yeah. So we're recording this April 4th. It comes out tomorrow. By the [00:05:00] time you guys hear it, the book will already be out. So make sure you guys go check that out.

Hala: BYOV so what is it like, what are you teaching in the book? What are people going to find out once they read this book? 

Brian Scudamore: So what I like to do is what the book is all about. The whole purpose is inspiring action for anyone that's dreamed of starting their own. Or maybe scaling an existing business that they can look at two paths that I take them down in a conversational way.

Brian Scudamore: So BYOB often means bring your own beer. So I tell people in the beginning, bring a beer, bring cold latte, whatever you want. And let's have a little conversation for 90, some odd minutes together. I want someone to read it in one sitting and at the end go okay. I've dreamt her running my own business. Now what, what's the next step that they can take towards that dream?

Brian Scudamore: They say 66% of Americans dream of running their own business and think of all the people that never do anything with that dream. I want to change that. So the two paths I take them down. And an [00:06:00] equal discussion back and forth. I think with mentors I've met along the way and people in my journey, I say, do you want a blank sheet?

Brian Scudamore: Do you want to start from scratch? Like I did. Do you want to start with an idea? Build out a brand build out a team. It took me eight years to get to a million in revenue. It took me a long time, but I loved the creative side of building something from nothing. Or you can take the other path, which I think is take something preexisting, a proven recipe.

Brian Scudamore: Many of us, if we want to bake, for example, you bake a cake. You go to Google, you search a recipe. And you find it. You look on the reviews and the number of stars you go. There's a 4.8 star cake. I'm going to go bake it. You follow the recipe, you probably get it right the first time. Certainly the second time a franchise is no different, a proven recipe.

Brian Scudamore: And I talk about people in the book like Shakila. The franchise king, I didn't realize and got to meet Shaq last year. I didn't realize that Shaq has built a half a billion dollar fortune [00:07:00] from franchising. He took what he learned in sports from all his winning teams and said, I know how to plug people into an existing team.

Brian Scudamore: Give them the rules. Let them go and lead them and, and watch them grow. And so franchising to him is very much like still being in the NBA, playing the game of business with a proven set of rules and a formula. So I give people a look at both and it doesn't matter to me what path they take. My dream is to inspire entrepreneurship and others.

Brian Scudamore: And if I can inspire people to make a decision and take some action. The book was worth writing. 

Hala: Yeah. I love that. So I'd like to talk about those two options. So basically you're saying there's this blank sheet startup entrepreneur, where basically you're starting from scratch and then there's the franchise proven recipe when it comes to starting from scratch, like, what are the options available?

Hala: Like what are the types of businesses that you can start from scratch? You can start 

Brian Scudamore: anything. I mean, there's millions and millions of [00:08:00] businesses in this world. Many of them started from scratch. So you can take someone else's idea. You can look at, you know, a show that I've been watching. I'm not a big TV guy, but I've been obsessed with this new we crashed, which is the WeWork story.

Brian Scudamore: And I've been watching that. It's just fascinating that they took an idea of coworking space that was already out there by other brands were doing it, but they did it different. Now did they do it better? I mean, things crashed and burned and now they're still around, but in a new reinvented, You can take an idea and you can put your own spin on it.

Brian Scudamore: Starbucks Howard Schultz, who I got the fortunate, uh, there, the pleasure to meet a couple of times, here's a guy who took the mom and pop coffee, shop business and transformed it and made it the third place. So a blank sheet doesn't mean you're reinventing something from scratch, like an Elon Musk electric cars.

Brian Scudamore: You might just take something. Differently do it better. And that becomes your own business. I didn't invent junk removal. [00:09:00] I added branding to it. I added franchising to it. We became the largest junk removal company on the planet with 1-800-GOT-JUNK, but we did it differently. So blank sheet doesn't mean purely starting from scratch.

Brian Scudamore: And then the, the franchise side is very different. Again, it's many entrepreneurs play to their strengths, which Marcus Buckingham and his book first, what are your strengths deal with? What are you best at if you're not best at dreaming up an idea and branding, but you're great at executing and leading and building teams.

Brian Scudamore: Maybe a franchise is a faster path. Took me eight years to get to a million in revenue blank. Shading it, my first franchise owner, Paul Guy, I just saw him last week in Las Vegas. He did a million in his first full calendar year, a calendar year. And that's because he followed something that existed and he did it better and faster than I ever could.

Brian Scudamore: And today he's got about a hundred million plus. [00:10:00] Across his franchises. 

Hala: That's amazing. It's so true. A lot of people don't realize that franchising is sort of a safer path, right? It's a more proven recipe type of path as you call it. And I read a stat in your book. That was pretty surprising to me. I think that nine out of 10 successful businesses are actually franchise owners.

Hala: Is that true? 

Brian Scudamore: Yeah. So they'll say that one in 10 businesses succeed after five years. Nine out of 10 businesses that are franchises will succeed after five years. The drastic difference they're sort of the inverse relationship is that franchising is proven. Now again, my book is not meant to sell franchises.

Brian Scudamore: People would see through that and go, Brian, I know you're trying to convince me on franchisee. No. I want to convince someone to start a business. They don't have to start a franchise. They could start with someone else. They could start with a blank sheet, whatever it is. We are in a world today that is very entrepreneurial, the gig [00:11:00] economy.

Brian Scudamore: I mean, everybody's running their own business and that's what I want to see. We, we know we will grow and attract plenty of people, whether I wrote a book or not. This is about inspiring people to take the step, to build some confidence, to have some courage, to build a life of their own in entrepreneurship.

Brian Scudamore: If that's what. Wish and dream of, yeah. 

Hala: And I can, I can totally say that your book throughout the whole thing it was to me, I felt like it was mostly about starting your own business and you gave you, you know, other options with franchises, but it was really great for the entrepreneur who also wants to start their own business from scratch.

Hala: So let's talk about the fly wheel of business. You have. Six pushes in your book, vision, people, systems, and culture story experience. Could you break that down for us? 

Brian Scudamore: Yeah. So vision people and systems, I would say are the most important three things that someone needs to think about in starting a business.

Brian Scudamore: So vision. What does it look like? What is the, what is [00:12:00] winning in my world? And when I created my first painted picture and I sat on my parents' dock and their summer cottage, and I wrote out what the future could look like I said, we only had, you know, a million dollar business at the time, but I said, we'd be in the top 30 metros in north America.

Brian Scudamore: I said, we'd be the FedEx of junk removal with clean, shiny trucks, friendly uniformed drivers. I said, we'd be on the Oprah Winfrey show. I envisioned a future that I wanted people to be attracted to like a magnet. And so vision first, if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you. It doesn't matter again, if you're a franchise or not a franchise, you need a vision, an envisioned future that is compelling, that will attract the next part, which is people find the right people and treat them right.

Brian Scudamore: As you know, I fired my entire team of 11 people in 1994 or five years into my business because I didn't choose the wrong people, the right people for me, I didn't find optimistic glass, half full type people. And I had to start again and I own that. I was the leader. It was [00:13:00] my. I did a bad job. I had to start again, find the right people and treat them right.

Brian Scudamore: And then of course, systems, I think you and I are both fans of Michael Gerber's, the E-Myth revisited people. Don't fail systems. Do, how do you work? Not just in the business, but how do you make a strategic decision as an entrepreneur to work on it? How do you build out the proven recipe in your blanks?

Brian Scudamore: To help people scale within your company. So vision people's systems, people work for companies and work with companies, they believe in, they want to believe in stories. They want to believe in possibility. I've got a sign over my shoulder, which you can't fully see here, but it says it's kind of fun to do the impossible.

Brian Scudamore: That's a wall Disney's quote, which to me inspires me every day to dream big. What are the big things we can dream that we could make happen. And then how do we inspire others to have their own big dreams, their own, can you imagines? And so the storytelling within a company is look at [00:14:00] all the great things.

Brian Scudamore: These people in our business have achieved. Now, look, what's next. How can others be inspired to. So part of the reason, again, writing the books after the fact, I realized that storytelling is so powerful. We are in a storytelling age, just look at, you know, where we're doing podcasts, social media. We love to tell stories and good stories go viral.

Brian Scudamore: They spread because people want to tell their own story, things that they can relate to. And story culture, experience powerful. 

Hala: Yeah. So I want to dig into a couple of things that you said here. So you often talk about a painted picture when you're talking about vision. And I don't think a lot of people know what you exactly mean when you say painted picture.

Hala: So what is this methodology, I guess, for your visualization and how can everybody use 

Brian Scudamore: it? Yeah, so now I didn't create vision, of course, but I created the term painted picture. After that day on my dock at my parent's summer cottage, I was in a doom loop. I was at a million [00:15:00] in revenue. In the junk business.

Brian Scudamore: I didn't finish college. I didn't finish high school. I wasn't sure I had the brains or an idea that I could build bigger. And I said, Brian, stop thinking about this doom loop. Stop comparing myself to others who have bigger, better businesses. What could I do if I just dreamed closed? My eyes, took out a sheet of paper and it was like a Jerry Maguire moment.

Brian Scudamore: I just started writing what the future could and would look. I said, we'd be in the top 30 metros, Oprah, FedEx, all that sort of stuff. And I started to imagine this future in all detail in my head, put it down in writing. I took that. They say a picture describes a thousand words. Imagine taking those words, my painted picture and sharing my picture from my head as an entrepreneur with others around me, prospective employees, current employees.

Brian Scudamore: When I did that. About half the company over the next few weeks said, Brian, I don't know this painted picture thing [00:16:00] of where you're going Oprah and so on. I think you're smoking some hope dope. And I said, Hey, I see us getting there. I don't know how, but we will get there. The other half said, Brian, this is compelling.

Brian Scudamore: I see what you see. I believe in what you believe. And that got me excited because those people who stay. Helped us build out this platform, this great company that would become what it is today. We're changing lives because we envision big things. We allow people to think big dreams for themselves, and when you're creating a painted picture, it isn't about how do you get there?

Brian Scudamore: I believe you never think how, when you're dreaming. And so I can take someone like Cameron, Harold, who was our COO, who said, I can't envision it. And I said, yes, you can. If you would go anywhere in the world on a trip, dream trip, who would you go? Where would you go? What would you be drinking? What's the sound, you know, the, the Palm trees, wind blowing.

Brian Scudamore: What is it? The cheering of my ties. He was [00:17:00] able to envision and describe with all detail, that dream trip. He knew how to envision someone just needs to ask you the right questions to pull out what your. 

Hala: So I think that could be really powerful and something that I think could be a good story for my listeners is the fact that you guys did get on Oprah.

Hala: Right? So you made that vision come true. And part of it was because you had greet people and uh, you say that human capital can buy you things that money can't. So tell us about how you got Oprah and how your people played a part 

Brian Scudamore: in it. Yeah. So we have this, can you imagine wall this big wall in the office that was blowing.

Brian Scudamore: We talked about the importance of storytelling. I wanted to create new stories. What are the things that we can imagine? So when Cameron said I can't envision everything, anything, and I showed him that he can, could we put on this deck, this big decal on the wall? Can you imagine with a big question, mark?

Brian Scudamore: It was meant to beg the question. What can you see in your future? That will help the company grow that [00:18:00] might help you. So I put the first, can you imagine up there, imagine being featured on the Oprah Winfrey show with my name below it, we had other people put other big dreams and goals. Tyler Wright, who was our first PR hire.

Brian Scudamore: He used to walk past that every day and he would look at this. Can you imagine on the wall? And he's like, I am going to make that. How are you going to make it happen? I don't know, but I'm going to make it happen. 14 months later, he stands up in our office and he's like, I did it. And he's going crazy.

Brian Scudamore: We're wondering what the heck is happening, the screaming and an open office environment. He got Oprah's people to commit to bring us down to. And we were going to get filmed, hauling away a hoarder's junk. And he found the right story, the right timing to pitch over and over and over. He made it his mission to make it happen.

Brian Scudamore: We were in front of 35 million viewers live on the Oprah Winfrey show. I had four and a half minutes of fame that was taking our company and putting us on a, on a [00:19:00] platform that we'd never. Experienced, but in a way that we had envisioned, we knew we would make it happen. And Tyler Wright, human capital, anyone you invest in who can see your vision, your painted picture, that's pure gold.

Brian Scudamore: And then once you check those off, you start to imagine bigger other things, because it's so fun. As the quilt behind me says, it's kind of fun to do the impossible. 

Hala: So let's talk about some misconceptions with entrepreneurship, because a lot of people think that if they're a good baker, they might be a good baker owner, or, you know, if they're a good marketer like me, there would be a great CEO for a marketing agency, but that's not true.

Hala: Not every technician can also be a visionary leader. So can you talk to us 

Brian Scudamore: about that? Yeah. So Michael Gerber in his book, the E-Myth revisited, Michael and I become friends. 83 84 years old now. Brilliant man. Unbelievable life-changing book. And he talks about the entrepreneurial myth. That just because you're good at [00:20:00] fixing cars doesn't mean you should.

Brian Scudamore: An auto repair business. What it takes to be an entrepreneur is leadership belief in people, developing your people, having a vision, having a plan, having the strategy on how to get there. And so I think that the myth is often that the entrepreneur, someone who becomes an entrepreneur became an entrepreneur for the wrong reason.

Brian Scudamore: They think just because I'd been working as a mechanic, And making money for someone else that I should now go do it for myself, because I'm the best. It's not easy to run your own business. So that's why sometimes people need a proven formula or they need the training, the vision, and so on to blank sheet it and do it on their own.

Brian Scudamore: I mean, you, you started your own business, like, is it easy? No. That, where did you learn everything? You, you had previous experience with Disney. Yep. 

Hala: And Hewlett Packard and NFL business. When I was in my twenties, you know, so I had a few 

Brian Scudamore: rodeos and that failure is [00:21:00] important to me. When I, the book WTF, willing to fail to me, failure is just as necessary of an ingredient as anything else you need to fail, you would not be where you are today.

Brian Scudamore: All the brilliance you bring to this world. If you didn't have a failed business, we need to fail. We need to make little mistakes in big one. And that's what allows us to really shine and grow. 

Hala: So what do you think are the qualities that an entrepreneur needs in terms of like personality or skills? Like how can you tell if you should start a business from scratch, like a blank sheet startup, like you say, or if you should go for the proven recipe, like what are the ways that you can weigh 

Brian Scudamore: that out?

Brian Scudamore: Yeah, it's a really good question. How do I think that it's imagining what your, why is? So as Simon Sinek would say, it starts with why. Why are you building what you're building? Is it because of money? Is it because of lifestyle freedom? Is it creating? What drives you to me? I'm and I [00:22:00] give the example in the book about Lego.

Brian Scudamore: Can you imagine this little Danish company that is just be just grown and grown and grown to be a mammoth of a business across the world? Lego? Everyone knows and loves Lego as a kid. And you know, some adults do, if they didn't provide instructions, if they didn't give a manual a vision of what this will look like, and here's how to build it, they wouldn't have become that massive company.

Brian Scudamore: A small subset of people want to just take the bricks and build something without instructions. That would be me. I don't like following instructions. I didn't do well in school. I didn't do well following. I want to take things and just make it from scratch. Most people want to take something and have a, have a better chance of success by building with instructions or a formula or some guidance and mentorship.

Brian Scudamore: Both are right. I think it depends on the personality. So what back to your [00:23:00] question, what makes someone better for blank sheeting, their ability to want to create? Do they really have that need to almost be a bit of an artist? To invent to inspire. If I look at my why and Simon Sinek helped me uncover my why, which was great is imagined big possibilities and you never know, they might actually happen.

Brian Scudamore: My why is to inspire big possibilities and others. And so I'm a road, less traveled entrepreneur. I don't follow convention. I think I needed to create, I wouldn't make a great franchise. But then you can take Paul Guy. Who's probably making more money than I am and having way less time working than I am, but that's, he's taken a proven formula and wanted to do it differently and wanted to put his team in charge after he built it up and said, you run it.

Brian Scudamore: He built a house in Hawaii, spends a lot of time in Hawaii with his family. They're just different paths. And I think it's owning whatever your path might [00:24:00] be. And the book is meant to be a discussion, to have someone find out. What could be, uh, in their future, which path would work for? 

Hala: Yeah, that makes sense.

Hala: So let's, let's talk about both topics separately. Let's talk about blank sheet startups and kind of your perspective on that and your advice on that. And then let's talk about like finding the right franchise. So in terms of a blank sheet startup, you say there's three main things to remember determination, experimentation and innovation.

Hala: Can you talk to us about. 

Brian Scudamore: Yeah, you need to be so incredibly determined because there's no clear path, you know, it's, it's the, it's the difference between going to Google maps and saying, I'm going to go from Vancouver to Las Vegas by car. You have a map that tells you online how long it's going to get there.

Brian Scudamore: What traffic's like, you've got some guidance. Starting with a blank sheet is I'm not even a hundred percent sure where I'm going. I'm just going to get in the car and drive. You [00:25:00] have to be up for an adventure and you have to be determined to find the answers and to find the way. So it's a tough road experimentation.

Brian Scudamore: You have to be willing to try new things at every turn and make mistakes. You have to be willing to fall on your face over and over again. The number of stories of, you know, firing my 11 person team and starting again, having businesses fail or parts of businesses fail where you're, you're so clear. I mean, I've been so close to bankruptcy where I should've thrown in the towel and many people with.

Brian Scudamore: Because it's an adventure and you just don't know what's next, but it's the innovating from those mistakes. It's how will this make me better? So, an example, when we first tried to franchise the business, we took one 800, got junk, and we made it a student franchise model university students we'd recruit them in January to April.

Brian Scudamore: We'd help them start up from may to log. Train them they'd run the business and then we'd shut them down [00:26:00] for the next few months. And we only had a window there a four months in the summer to haul away junk. They made money, but as a franchise organization, we didn't, we tried to set it up like these college pro painter type outfits.

Brian Scudamore: It didn't work. We failed so miserably. They made money. We did. But we tweak the model and we learned, we learned what it was like supporting people that knew nothing about junk removal that needed to be trained, that needed to be upstarted. We've got a lot of valuable learning from it on a small scale.

Brian Scudamore: Before we went with a traditional franchise model and went across the country, you have to be willing to innovate. You have to be willing to experiment. And, uh, you gotta be so determined that there's no. When you have a franchise, again is a different model. There's other franchise partners who can answer your questions, who say, I've been there, I've done that.

Brian Scudamore: I've made that mistake. Here's what I've done when you're a pioneer and you're out driving down that road and you have no idea where you're going. There's no one there to guide. 

[00:27:00] 

Hala: It's so true when you're you have more of a community? I feel like when you're in a franchise, but let's stick on this experimentation piece.

Hala: Cause I think it's really interesting. And you tell a great story in your book about a company that nobody knows about because you sold it a while ago, a moving company where it failed because you missed the experimentation step. So tell us about that story.

Brian Scudamore: Yeah. I mean, it always causes me a little, uh, anxiety when I think back cause it, you know, when.

Brian Scudamore: And it was a big failure. It was eight years worth of putting so much love and energy into this moving business. You move me. It was our fourth brand. And we were arrogant. I was arrogant going in. I'm like, oh, we've done this so many times before we can do this again. No problem. We pick the wrong space for us and we made some big mistakes.

Brian Scudamore: And so when I wrote WTF and it's a story in WTF at the time that book was going out to get published, I'm like, oh, I wish I could just pull that story out because I know it's starting to fail and it'll be gone [00:28:00] by the time the book hits the bookshelves, but we kept it in. Because I knew we have to be willing to be transparent and own our mistakes.

Brian Scudamore: So here's the mistakes. When somebody calls us to have their junk removed, after it's gone, they go, I feel so relieved. If they have us bring in wow, one day painting and paint their homes, they look around, they're like, oh, this is the transformation. That's beautiful. Or if they use shack shine, we just cleaned their windows.

Brian Scudamore: They look out their window. They're like, wow. I can see again. They're all happy business. Moving, no matter how amazing our movers are, five-star service, just off the charts, we would still find that people were never really happy because the stress really is just beginning. Moving day is stressful.

Brian Scudamore: Unpacking, trying to find stuff everything's lost or broken. Even if you break people, break customers, break things on their own. It's a stressful, stressful business. Mom and dad are fighting. The kids are. In a new [00:29:00] neighborhood going to a new school. It's a stressful time we got out of it. Cause we said, you know what?

Brian Scudamore: It's a commodity based hourly charge type business. We couldn't innovate and do it really that much differently than anyone else. And it's not a happy business. So we, we learned from that failure, whatever business number four is again for us, a new brand. It has to be a happy business. Ripe for reinvention where we know we can provide some real innovation.

Brian Scudamore: We didn't experiment though, in, in you move me. And this was another part of the problem is when we built out 1-800-GOT-JUNK, it took me eight years to get to a million because I was building out the systems, the processes to ensure success in moving. We were, again, I was arrogant and just dove in and I'm like, okay, I got this.

Brian Scudamore: And we built out systems as we go. We built the rocket ship while we were flying. And that just doesn't work. Long-term so many mistakes learn from it. We celebrate the [00:30:00] success. We've got, you moved me on our WTF, willing to fail wall, the junction at our office. We're not ashamed. It was hard, but it taught us something.

Hala: I love that story and it is a great lesson. So I thought we could do something fun right now, Brian, and you tell me if, if we could do this, so I want to do a rapid fire segment in your book. You list several different types of entrepreneurs. And I thought this was super clever, so I'll list them off. And then you just explain to us what type of an entrepreneur that is.

Hala: So the first one is grow where you planted entrepreneur. 

Brian Scudamore: Yeah. Grow where you're planted. That would be someone like chip Wilson, chip Wilson, Lulu lemon founder, a good friend. He grew up in a business where, or in a family rather, whereas mum was a seamstress and he understood what it was like to cut fabric and to put it together.

Brian Scudamore: And he just had this, this was in his brain. The first business he started was Westbeach where they made snowboard gear. It failed. He sold it off. He lost. But then he [00:31:00] grow where you're planted. It was, he still needed to stay in the same industry, but just find his right big idea, which was Lulu lemon. 

Hala: Um, how about passion, project entrepreneur?

Brian Scudamore: So someone I got to meet at a speaking event who I just loved and adored is Tony Hawk. So Tony's passion was what scape. So everything he's ever done, he started as a pro skateboarder who invented all these incredible moves, who won all these tournaments. And so on, he was looking at getting into, uh, he was consulted on a video game project and it was a failed video game.

Brian Scudamore: It was actually a Bruce Willis Armageddon video game, but he saw the technology and he goes, we could make a skateboard game out of this. And he created, um, you know, his Tony Hawk. Video game that that became massive, super popular. Yeah. Right. And so here's a guy who took his passion, everything he's understood and is [00:32:00] entirely.

Brian Scudamore: Has been his passion of skateboarding and he's parlayed that into billions of dollars and everything he's done with his brand. 

Hala: Um, I feel like that's the type of entrepreneur that I am. I basically turned everything I'm good at, into my business so I can relate to that one. Okay. X, corporate entrepreneur.

Brian Scudamore: Yeah. So Brit Morin, Britain co you know, here's someone who comes from a corporate background, who just said, you know, I want to get out and do it on my own. I want to get out of the corporate world and apply my skills. A lot of people do that. It doesn't always work. She's got a great background in Silicon valley venture capital and has done amazing.

Brian Scudamore: So if you can do it and it works for you, get out of the corporate world and take all your training and apply it to your own real entrepreneurial world. 

Hala: And I feel like a lot of people might cross over both like a few of these different types of entrepreneurs. Okay. Cure your pain point, entrepreneur.

Brian Scudamore: Yeah. So Reed Hastings, [00:33:00] uh, met him at a Ted conference and, uh, I just love what he's created and Netflix, because he had such vision. To solve something that was a real problem. So much of your audience might not remember the days of going into blockbuster and renting videos and paying late fees and going to return those tapes.

Brian Scudamore: And it was a hassle, but he knew that one day. And that's why he called it net flex was that he would stream movies. He started by mailing DVDs to people getting their loyal client kind of connection. And when they were ready to stream and the technology was there. Off he went and it cured a point. I mean, you click rent, apple TV, Netflix, the whole bit.

Brian Scudamore: Boom. You've got your movie and you watch it. You don't have to go anywhere and return anything. And what an amazing make it easy story. For how technology made lives easier for, for everybody. 

Hala: Yeah. And it's interesting how he solved the pain point in different ways over time [00:34:00] as technology advanced 

Brian Scudamore: to really completely.

Brian Scudamore: And then, you know, then you come up with different pain points and an entrepreneur has to be adaptable. Now whether you are a blank sheeter or a franchise partner business changes, and you've got to learn how to keep up blockbuster could have owned. Netflix, you know, there they were, they had the space, they were the first mover advantage, but they didn't innovate.

Brian Scudamore: They didn't think differently and adapt. And Reed Hastings came in and pure magic. 

Hala: Yeah. Took it over. Okay. Last one, franchise king 

Brian Scudamore: entrepreneur. So Shaquille O'Neal, here's a guy who goes in and says, I can take everything I've learned from the franchise world of baskets. Right. You've got all these NBA franchises and he's been, you know, winner of so many different championships and he's played on six teams.

Brian Scudamore: He's been able to learn. What's it like being a player? Uh, [00:35:00] leader, what's it like being a champion and he's taken that and applied it to business. So he bought franchises. He plugs in the right people. He knows how to put his vision matched up with great people. And just in the same way, as, as with sports, you would develop your players, develop your team and off they grow it again.

Hala: Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Um, so I want to get into franchises. Uh, before we wrap up this interview, we talked a lot about blank sheet startups. Now I want to talk about for someone who's out there, they're great at systems. They're great at managing people. They want to just go for something that's more secure, less risk, and they're interested in a franchise model.

Hala: What should they do? Like how do they go about exploring the different options out there? What questions should they ask themselves? And how would you suggest they go about making that decision? 

Brian Scudamore: Yeah, I would suggest, well, we talk about the four H's, so they have to be happy, hungry, hardworking, and [00:36:00] hands-on as a franchise owner, if you don't have all four of those traits, I think it's a challenge.

Brian Scudamore: And here's why. First and foremost as an entrepreneur, nothing's ever easy. You and I have had some bad, bad days, but I bet you and I have both smiled through them because we've got a happy, optimistic attitude. You've got to see the world as a franchise owner, as glass, half full, because sometimes there will be rules.

Brian Scudamore: Sometimes there will be obstacles things. Don't go your way. That's okay. You give yourself positive energy and you get through it. You've gotta be happy, hardworking, uh, hungry. And hands-on hungry. We're not looking for investors, a franchise owner in any franchise space. I believe can't come in and say, I'm an investor.

Brian Scudamore: And I just want to collect paychecks. They've got to be hungry. They've got to need this to work. We look at our franchise owners like Paul Guy who came in and did a million in his first full calendar year. He started in depth. He had to make his [00:37:00] interest payments. He had to pay his brother back. He needed this to work and that had him work smarter.

Brian Scudamore: Hard. And he got the right, uh, effects on his business. Happy, hungry. Hands-on uh, you've gotta be hands-on you can't be running another job when you're a franchise owner. This requires everything you put in until it gets to a point where you can then scale and put general managers in place and be less hands-on.

Brian Scudamore: But in the beginning you got to be very hands-on hardworking. Hands-on hungry. Those are those are them a franchise owner needs to have those. Otherwise I believe that, uh, it's not going to be a fit for them. A franchise owner also needs to reflect and say, am I shack? Am I able to come in and follow the parameters of the rules of basketball?

Brian Scudamore: The rules of franchising. Am I able to put in my right people who have way bigger strengths than I do in any certain spot, someone has to be willing to listen. You've got to be [00:38:00] less able to listen to your people. And Shaq was always that type of leader where he could listen to the other fellow members on his team and understand, you know, how they would work together.

Brian Scudamore: So franchising does not Fairview. Starting with a blank sheet is not for everybody. Business in general is not fair. Everybody in my book has meant to start a conversation and a thought process that by the end of the book, I want people to take some form of action and take one giant step towards making whatever their dream is.

Brian Scudamore: Real. 

Hala: So, what about picking the right business? Like if you want to open up a McDonald's or a Dunkin donuts, or like, what should you look for in a franchise 

Brian Scudamore: system? Yeah, that's another great question. I think people need to look for something they believe. So if you're, if you believe in, let's see. Now, do I believe in junk removal?

Brian Scudamore: Do I believe in freeing up the world of junk? I believe in the customer experience of someone going, wow, it feels so [00:39:00] good that my junk is gone. The reason we struggled with you move me is we weren't getting that same customer feedback of oh, Because they knew their hard work was still beginning. So why are you doing what you're doing?

Brian Scudamore: And our brands, our franchise owners come because they want to make a difference with customers. They want that great customer feedback, but I think our franchise owners come to us because they see the rah rah team. Development atmosphere and they go, I can bring in a bunch of young people, put them in trucks and vans develop them and some of them can become owners.

Brian Scudamore: So I think they really like propping up and providing opportunity to others. If it's McDonald's again, do you deal love fast food? Do you love their training? What is it about that business that makes it the right business for you? You got to get in and know the franchise or, and understand what their offering is because the offering generally, isn't just the product.

Brian Scudamore: It's the way they do [00:40:00] things. What's the McDonald's way. What's the shack shine way. And I think that's the bigger question. Someone needs to look at it. It's got to become a passion project. So my passion. Is planting seeds of possibility and watching them grow big ideas, big dreams, you know, you know, the story of Ellen, we were on Ellen.

Brian Scudamore: I was on Ellen last week or two weeks ago. It wasn't something I made happen. It was an idea I got to put down in writing about 20 years ago and we story told around it and said, one day it will happen. And it was hard work and lots of back and forth and pitching over. But one day Ellen caught on and goes, wow, I want Brian on this show because he believes in possibility and implanting big ideas.

Brian Scudamore: She said that was her whole entire life. And we had a connection on that and then ended up turning into a great piece. So that's my passion project, inspiring big ideas and people. And you never know, they might actually have. 

Hala: That's beautiful. What a great way to kind of wrap up the show. So I always [00:41:00] end with the same questions, same two questions, and then we do some fun stuff at the end of the year.

Hala: So the first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profiteers can do today to become more profitable 

Brian Scudamore: tomorrow, ask your people, what can they imagine? So you said owners. So if they own businesses, I would imagine they have teams or peers or customers. I would try and inspire them with vision and say, what can you imagine in the same way we were on Ellen with a big dream to create a, can you imagine movement that movement started with us starting with our own employees and saying, what do you dream of?

Brian Scudamore: What's something big that you can see happening in our business that would change the world, change our business, make you feel. Ask your people, people are everything in a business. And we often don't ask our people. What's important to you. They're not going to say money because hopefully they're making enough money or one day they will.

Brian Scudamore: But what they're going to tell [00:42:00] you is here's my dream. Here's my goals. Here's how you can help. So actionable find out what your people dream of and that breeds loyalty, commitment, teamwork, and the profits will flow. 

Hala: I love that. And what is your secret to profiting in 

Brian Scudamore: life? It's all about people find the right people treat them, right.

Brian Scudamore: It's such a simple recipe. It's not a secret. Uh, we say, take care of your people and they will take care of the customer, take care of the customer, and they will take care of the growth of your brand, your profits. Your opportunity starts with people. People often say the customer's always right? No, your people are always right.

Brian Scudamore: Your people come first. Think first of your people. Find the right people and treat them right. Put your people first. It's so simple. Yet. Most entrepreneurs don't do it because they don't see them as that human capital. They see them as liabilities. They see people as problems. People say, I would love to start a business.

Brian Scudamore: If only I didn't have to [00:43:00] hire people, then you're not an entrepreneur and you never will be in nor should you be. If you love people, great vehicle in which to start a business and make people better. 

Hala: I'm like profusely nodding, because I agree so much with what you're saying. Thank you so much, Brian, where can everybody learn about you and everything that you do go 

Brian Scudamore: to the Google.

Brian Scudamore: Google has got everything. Just put a, you can put my name in it or any of our brands in it and you'll be taken somewhere. So you can go to Amazon checkout BYOB. You can go to a brands.com. Brian scudamore.com. It's it's all there. Find what you're looking for, scour the internet and. Hope there was a nugget in here somewhere that helps someone.

Hala: I'm sure there was. And I'll put all those links in the show notes. Thank you so much, Brian, for your time. Thanks Hala.