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Hello, 2021! We wish you peace, prosperity, and freedom in 2021! This is the final recap of 2020 with the final guests of the year on the podcast.
This is quite an inspiring group of people and we hope it gives you a dose of inspiration to further your launch in 2021!
Carl Gould, 7 Stage Advisors – 7 Stages of Growth
Ellen Rohr, Zoom Drain Franchising – Why Trouble Makers Make Good Entrepreneurs
JD Gershbein, Owlish Communications – How to Use LinkedIn to Grow Your Busienss and Personal Brand
Bill Post, WJ POst Restaurant Advisors – Why 2021 May Be The Greatest Financial Year Ever
Mike Michalowicz, Entrepreneurship Simplified – Why You Should Pay Your Profit First
Austin Evans, Lean Kitchen Co – Get Your Ego Out of Your Way
Aubrey Janik – How to Build Multiple Streams of Income
Lee Huffman, Professional Development USA – Are You Prepared for 2021?
Steve Brown, ROI Online – Is Your Website a Golden Toilet?
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
Before we get started on the podcast today, just real quick, last final reminder, last chance to make your voice heard for upcoming podcast in 2021 is take our survey. If you can click the link in the show notes, it’ll take you right there. It takes just a minute or two. We would love your feedback. Thanks again. Click the link, hit submit, and now it’s time for the show.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
You’ve worked hard to build your business and now it’s time to grow. Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team and a serial entrepreneur and Happy New Year. Welcome to 2021. And we are so thrilled for the new year here. And today’s theme is Peace, Prosperity, and Freedom. I wish you much peace, much prosperity, and much freedom in 2021. And that comes from one of our guests, Ellen Rohr, if you remember her from earlier in the year, this is a final recap episode of our 2020 podcasts on what success means to you.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
So as we’re launching into 2021, I thought this was a great way to recap it and kick off the year. We have some awesome guests coming on for the upcoming podcasts throughout the year. We have some really incredible resumes, experts, entrepreneurs, some top of the line folks. I’m not kidding. These guests are phenomenal. So you’re going to want to tune in and today’s episode are the final nine guests from the podcast in 2020. So first up on the list is Carl Gould, who, by the way, if you’re listening to this early in the week here, Carl is doing our webinar on Friday. So if you haven’t subscribed or registered for that, please do that. He’s doing a free webinar. It’s going to be fantastic. But Carl is the founder and CEO of 7 Stage Advisors. And he shares what success means to him.
Carl Gould, 7 Stage Advisors:
Success for me is really finding what you love doing and what you’re even willing to do and doing that. There’s so many different ways to make money. I was a young guy trying to make a name for myself. I had a young family. I only knew two things in my life, as far as work was concerned. So I didn’t know what the outside world had to offer. Still going to school nights. But for me, I found, as my horizons broadened, as I traveled the world, I realized if you look at the top 10% of every profession, you can make money doing anything. And I have coached some of the wildest, off the beat type companies that I like, what? You can do that? Just ridiculous concepts. I mean brilliant concepts.
Carl Gould, 7 Stage Advisors:
But you never would’ve thought it. You never sat in school as a kid and they said, what do you want to be when you grow up? And you say, I want to do that. That never came to your mind. And, and I work with business owners of all types. We’ve helped 5,000 businesses launch. And we’ve worked with businesses that are a million to over a hundred million dollars. And every walk of life is included in there. There’s no exceptions.
Carl Gould, 7 Stage Advisors:
I never came across a profession where you said, “Oh, well, if you do that, you’re never going to make any money”. Some, obviously more than others, but success to me is finding and being willing to do that work that you love and find out who you want to do it with, and you do that. And everything else is going to flow from that. Because there’s a lot of definitions of what success in life is. Just think about this for a moment. You are going to spend more time, the rest of your life, working than anything else, you will do it more than you sleep. You will spend more time at work than with your family, and you want to have those things settled. I don’t want to make it sound like you don’t, but you are going to spend more of your hours in your life doing your work than any other thing. If you don’t enjoy it, boy, that’s going to be a rough road.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
Thank you for that Carl. And our next guest is Ellen Rohr and Ellen is a serial entrepreneur, a franchise expert and growth catalyst. She is a trades expert. She’s just an all around awesome person. And she’s the current CEO and president of Zoom Drain Franchising, which is now growing across the country. And Ellen is, actually, where we got the show title for today from, and here is what success means to her.
Ellen Rohr, Zoom Drain Franchising:
What does success mean to me? My personal mission is freedom, and I believe that a business can expand peace, prosperity, and freedom across the planet. If there are two people in the world, they’re going to trade with one another to survive. Trade is our natural instinct. It’s how we, as a society, must survive. And there are different ways to trade. There’s government, and I believe in government, there’s a role for it. And there’s charity, believe in charity, but it’s limiting. There’s crime, and you and I would probably both participate if the black market was the only way to get bread on the table. There may be even a place for that. And then there is, government crime, I’m trying to think of it. I think there’s five, but I’m coming up with the fourth one is business.
Ellen Rohr, Zoom Drain Franchising:
So now we’re going to trade with one another. So you have something that I want and I can exchange it for something that you want. And money is this lovely, neutral, medium of exchange. It’s the only way to exchange goods and services that promotes real freedom. The other ways are there and are necessary to some degree, but business is the way that we can expand freedom in a family, in a community, in a society, in a country, in any country. There won’t be true freedom until there’s an economy. That people can set up business and trade with one another. If I were to boil all that down to one word, that’s what I’m looking for. For myself and for the people with whom I interact and share responsibility.
Ellen Rohr, Zoom Drain Franchising:
The people on my team, can they buy a house? Could they send their kids to dance lessons if they want to? Can they go on the vacation that they want to? Can they uphold their principles the way they’d like to, because they have enough money to do that? That to me is super exciting. So the conversations that I like to have are, what do you want and why? And if we can have those conversations with our team members, with each other, then that, to me, we’re marching together on a path towards freedom or being able to do what we want to do.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
Thank you, Ellen. Your wisdom is always appreciated. Next up is JD Gershbein and JD is the founder and president of Owlish Communications. And if you recall, he’s the LinkedIn expert. He’s got fantastic insights and how to use LinkedIn and use it for your personal and professional and personal brand and company brand development. And here’s what success means to him.
JD Gershbein, Owlish Communications:
I think at this point, success means choices. I think choices, whether they’re financial, whether they’re emotional, whether they’re intellectual, we’re used to living in an autonomous state where we don’t have to worry about the restrictions that are imposed on us right now. And whatever has been thrown at us, it’s the classic making lemonade out of lemons. Success means that you’ve made the best tasting lemonade possible, and you have the freedom to continue to make that lemonade, and do what you want, and help people in the process, and be known well. I’m at the stage of my life where legacy means a lot. I’d like to be known for being a good egg. Someone who helps, someone who cared, someone who was a good father, a good husband.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
Thank you, JD. Next up is Bill Post. And if you recall, Bill is the decorated restaurant veteran who started with Levy and was one of the very first employees of that company, eventually became the president, helping start and build over 200 restaurants. He’s been involved with Roti and many other restaurant brands over the years. And here is what success means to him.
Bill Post, WJ Post Restaurant Advisors:
First and foremost, I think you have to be happy personally in order to be happy and successful professionally. So core, I believe of any happiness, is family. And having a strong family core enables you to go out into the world and then have a strong professional core. So I think you got to have your family comes first, always has, and it continues to, to this day. My people will always say that I always am highly respectful and ask questions about how is your family and that kind of thing. So family is the first part of it. And then the professional side of it, it goes back to the whole people. It isn’t so much the ideas about the concepts, it’s the people who execute them. So success, in my opinion, one of the things that I’m most proud of, and I said this earlier in this conversation, is about the people that I have led that I have drafted and that I have mentored. A lot of people around the industry have gone on to great things. And I’m very, very proud of that.
Bill Post, WJ Post Restaurant Advisors:
I guess if there’s a last thing from a success standpoint, it’s maybe being gifted with being in situations where I can always feel like I’m a winner. And that I’m ahead of the curve, seeing things that maybe others might not see a step or two ahead. I think that was true with many of the things that we did at Levy. Some of the things that we did in a shorter stint in New York, certainly ahead of the curve with Roti. And I want to be ahead of the curve with say, cheeseburger.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
Thank you, Bill. Next up is Mike Michalowicz. And Mike, if you recall, is a bestselling author and entrepreneur who shared his wisdom about what success means to him. He’s the author of Profit First, and he’s been inspiring and helping entrepreneurs around the world with over 500 licensees and advisors around the country. And here’s what Mike had to say about what success means to him.
Mike Michalowicz, Entrepreneurship Simplified:
I think success is a kind of a one-two punch for me. Phase one is leaning into one’s life purpose. The process, I do some financial entrepreneurship, but if you’re watching the video on the wall here behind that light, says eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. I’m trying to fix the struggle of entrepreneurs. That, for me, clearly is my life’s purpose. That’s what I’ve defined for myself. The other part is to do joyfully. So living one’s life’s purpose and doing it where it brings yourself joy and others joy, for me, that is success at its finest.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
Our next guest was Austin Evans and Austin, if you recall, has started his own franchise company. He’s been a franchisee. He just purchased an independent ice cream shop in his local town. He is a growing serial entrepreneur, just has a great outlook on life and business. And here’s what success means to Austin.
Austin Evans, Lean Kitchen Co:
I want to be ridiculously present wherever I’m at. So when I’m at home with my family, I’m at home with my family. When I’m here at this podcast, I’m here at this podcast. I can’t stand when people are on podcasts as guests, and they’re over here doing this on their phone whenever the other person is talking and then they’re back on the podcast, I can’t stand that. So I’m present, present here, I’m present when I’m in a meeting, I’m present when I sit down with my parents. Whatever I do, I’m ultimately very present. When I go on my walks, I am present in the fact that I’m with myself and I’m in tune with doing… Super long-winded here, man. But I don’t know, man, I guess maxing out my potential of what I can be in life. I don’t know. So I don’t really know what I would define it as. I’ll tell you, I’m on this like ridiculously constant search for it. And my opinion on it changes.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
Thank you, Austin. I really appreciate having you on the show. Our next guest was our very own Aubrey Janik who works with Big Sky Franchise team. And she has been a franchisee. She now works in helping build out our Fran leadership system building also supporting clients with websites and running her own business as well in helping show others how to create multiple streams of personal income. Really cool story for Aubrey. And here’s what success means to her.
Aubrey Janik:
I think that for me, and it’s changed so significantly from year to year, but I think that I’ve kind of settled at the definition of, I want to be in a position to where I just am able to do what I want to do. I love to work and I feel really fortunate to be in the situation that I’m in now because of the fact that, I mean, I very literally work every single day. Before I got on this podcast, I was responding to emails and doing some work. And it’s nice because it doesn’t feel like work. It’s just something that I like to do. And for me, I think that success would be being able to continue doing that throughout my career.
Aubrey Janik:
And then also getting to a financial situation to where number one, I want to be in a position to where money isn’t a big issue, but number two, to be able to help the people that I love. So being able to be as generous as I would like to be is something that is super important. I mean, you see those TV shows or even on YouTube, you see it of people who like buy their parents a house or by their siblings, a house, and that’s something that I would love to get to that point where I could just do those hugely generous things and not even think twice about it. So that’s definitely, I would say, my kind of picture perfect vision of success.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
Thank you Aubrey for sharing that with us. Next up was Lee Huffman and Lee is the founder and CEO of Professional Development USA, which is a business coaching company. And Lee has built and sold many businesses, as he said, ranging from a few zeros to many zeros at the end. And he shares what success means to him.
Lee Huffman, Professional Development USA:
I’ve had a lot of success, honestly, but I talked about high school winning the miniature conference was my definition of success at the time. And when I got there, it was somewhat of a letdown, but I went off and done other things. And then adding zeros to businesses when I sold them was a big deal. 24 hundred, 24 thousand, 2.4 Million, 2 million, 24 million seems to be a number that I run through life. Then it became helping others build successful businesses, and that’s still there. But today, success is really about creating memories. So I travel around the world as much as I can with this pandemic and I’m still helping people, but I really, really want to take my children with me, take my friends with me, and travel and see things that I read about in books. And so that’s success to me.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
Thank you, Lee, for being on the show and our last guest for 2020 was Steve Brown. And Steve is the author of The Golden Toilet. If you recall, that book, The Golden Toilet – Stop Flushing Your Marketing Budget Into Your Website and Build a System That Grows Your Business. And Steve is also the founder and CEO of ROI online. And here is what success means to him.
Steve Brown, ROI Online:
Success means that creating an environment… We get a job and we want to be happy in our job or whatever, but at some point, if you can get more in control and create an environment to where you can be fulfilled, you get to focus on the things that really bring you energy and that you’re in your best zone. And so if you can start to drive a little bit or create a place where you can be impactful as a unit, as a leader, or as really good at what you do, but you start to dial in to your unique perspective and value. I call that success. It’s a place that you can be fulfilled, delivering what you were designed for.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
Thank you, Steve, for being a guest and for sharing what success means to you. And now let’s go ahead and jump into our three key takeaways for today. And I think, as you listen into it, Ellen summarized this, Ellen Rohr summarized this so very well when she said, “Peace, prosperity and freedom”. So our three key takeaways, number one is peace. Wishing you peace that you find peace in this new year that we are entering into. Number two, I wish you prosperity. I wish you prosperity in 2021. And that things go the way that you hoped them to go personally, professionally, spiritually. And number three, freedom. I wish you freedom. I hope that freedom comes your way and any of the many myriad of ways that it’s able to come to you.
Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team:
And now it’s time for today’s win-win. So today’s win-win is to seize the day. Seize the day. It’s a new year with new opportunities and new plans and new goals to be set. Do not sit idle, make it happen. And that’s our win-win folks. Happy new year. Thanks for being here. And please share this with your friends, family. We’ve got an awesome, awesome next round of guests coming. I think you’re really going to like it. So tuning give us ratings and we’ll see you back here next week.
