Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Where entrepreneurs come to grow it's passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: It's time for your new business journey. And we'd like to ask our panel, when you look back, what was the one decision or moment that most changed the trajectory of your business, and what did it cost you to make that decision? So welcome. Ryan Stana, what was the decision that most changed the trajectory of your business?
[00:00:27] Speaker C: As far as what changed the trajectory of RWC Global was probably after 21 years of bootstrapping the business, deciding to bring in private equity to the business to move us into the future. That would probably be the biggest change that I decided to move our business forward.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: What was the cost of doing that? Because on the one hand, you get the money, but don't you also give up some control?
[00:00:51] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, the cost of doing that was giving up a percentage of the business. I still have my majority ownership, but I think what's key to know is for me, selling off that portion of the business, it allowed the business to grow further. And I believe as the business has grown, you have to start taking care of your employees and taking care of your employees to move the company into the future past my time on this earth. So I thought, what is the best way to do that? And selling off part of that business allows me to have a foundation, also a board that allows to make sure all our I's are dotted and T's are crossed to make this a legacy business?
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. That's great. Joey Stiver, welcome to the show. What was the decision that changed the direction of your business?
[00:01:37] Speaker D: I think mine was actually starting the business itself. In my situation. I was coming out of a bad early 20s convicted felon, and I think society expected me to kind of stay in that box.
Instead, I took a $8,000 credit card, all the debt I could kind of get together at the time, and built my first website. That was all the stock, the inventory, and kind of just jumped both feet in and, you know, took the risk. So I guess taking the risk was the main part of it.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Wow, that's great. And you were a convicted criminal.
[00:02:09] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Is that.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Well, I mean, if you're in that spot, starting your own business seems like it could be a good strategy. Ron. Ron Platt, tell us, what was the decision that changed the trajectory of your business?
[00:02:21] Speaker A: It was when I went to an investor that I was working with for three months to help us launch our company, and they said, if it's such a great idea, why hasn't somebody else done this before? And I thought, well, since we modeled ourselves after AARP, if AARP has 36 million members, why hasn't somebody competed with them? And they said, yeah, we get that, but we're going to go ahead and pass. And I had spent three months going back and forth with these people. I'm driving home and I realize I either have to put up or shut up. And it was a matter of me sitting down with my husband, who's risk adverse, and saying, we need to mortgage the house to start this business. And he asked for a worst case, best case scenario. The best case was that we create a billion dollar business and give 3/4 of it back to society to help them grow. The worst case is our mortgage payments, $1,000 more a month. And he said, we can live with that, so let's do it. And we, we went ahead and borrowed, started the company. And I felt that once I started it, other people would start coming and saying, hey, I want to be a part of this. And that's what's happened. And something we had worked on, which was our insurance product for years, that we were unable to get done. Once we started the company, somebody approached us and said, I want to underwrite that product that you've been wanting to underwrite for the last 30 years.
So it was definitely persistency. And it was a matter of, like I said, put up or shut up. You got to put up your own money sometimes to make something happen.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Absolutely, Elizabeth.
[00:03:38] Speaker E: I was focused on helping people start podcasts and video podcasts. And I realized my true passion was this AI visibility that I've been doing for Gearhart Law as CMO for quite a while. So I had a meetup group that I had started, podcasts and YouTube creators community that I had started with somebody else. And we have a 5,000 person email list. But I decided it was time to give that up because I don't have time to do everything.
So I was really torn about giving that up, but I just couldn't do it anymore. And you know what? The universe provides, right?
So I found someone to do last night's session as a guest. And he's a Descript expert. Descript is video editing software for those of you that don't know that. And I said, you know, this is going to be the last one because I just can't do it. He's like, oh, well, I have groups. Can I take your group over? It's like, yes. So that was awesome because I felt like I took my baby and gave it to somebody who will take really good care of it.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: He adopted. He's amassing an empire.
[00:04:41] Speaker E: So it was a tough choice, but I think it's the right choice because I'm so swamped with so much that I have to do and I do think that it's in safe hands. So.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, that sounds amazing. We're glad to see that happening. This week I'm going to talk about something that may seem kind of minor, but it really did have a big effect on our law practice. And several years ago we switched from hourly rates to fixed fee rates. And that may not seem like a huge deal, but it actually turned out really, really well for us. And there's a couple reasons for that. The clients really love the idea of a fixed fee for legal service. Right. Give certainty to it. For us, it allows us to collect the fee in advance of doing the work. So it reduces a lot of the time that we have to spend following up with people on invoices. So it turned out to be a real win win for everybody and it turned out to be a very good decision for us. So there you go. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast and leave a quick review.
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[00:05:51] Speaker A: Learn more at passagetoprofitshow.com.
