S05E17 Aaron Scott Young will Magnify your Wealth

Hey, everybody, you know where you are Expert Talk with me, TGo and today, as always, we bring in experts that know a little bit more than TGo does, you know, okay. Stop looking at me a lot more than TGo does about business, about growing, about living your dream. And today is no different. Today is no different today.

We have somebody really, really special. We brought in Mr. Aaron Scott Young. This is a man who believes that you should build a business. You know, not just something that you work at, and it's not really a business you're working for yourself and working a glorified job. You know, Mr. Aaron Scott Young is here and we're going to hang out with him.

Expert Talk is brought to you in part by PodNation TV. The Podcast to Broadcast Network Expert Talk is produced and distributed by Melrose 11, LLC lights, cameras take action with Melrose 11. Hey Aaron what's happening? So good to be with you. It's all a lot's happening. But right now the only thing that matters is this conversation. So it's so good to be with you.

Thanks for inviting me on. Thanks for coming on, man. I know that, you know, it was kind of a last minute thing and you said yes, and we totally appreciate that. That you would come out and hang out with us because you're definitely a trailblazer we need to talk to. Yeah, but I'm here. I'm all yours, my friend,

all yours. And thanks for asking me. And obviously I must not be too busy if I can do things last minute. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. You know, I have to tell you something funny before we get into this, my business partner Ann was recently at one of your events and we're going to get into that,

but she called me up and she said, they're from Laughlin. We'll see I'm in Nevada. And there's a town here called Laughlin. Yeah. So I thought she owned a casino or something. I didn't know what the heck you did. You know, I'm just telling you, I didn't know. It was Laughlin and associates are lot. You know,

a lot Of people get confused. A lot of people do. So let's talk about this. You've been an entrepreneur for 30 plus years of your life. So basically you started when you were, what? Two, three years old. No. No, thank You very much for that. No, I was 19. I was 19, when I had my first business that had employees and,

and sold that business when I was about 22. So I, I started this, the second recycling business in Portland, Oregon. Portland is a very green city anyway. So when I was 19, I started this recycling business. I met a super cute girl wanting to marry her. Didn't think she'd want to be married to a garbage man. So I sold the recycling business,

took the money in: 1986

which was the vice-president of say I was 29 years old and I was vice-president of a NASDAQ traded multi-national 350 offices around the world. They'd made me their VP of sales at which at the time I thought seemed logical. But now I look back and think, what the heck were they thinking? Thinking I would never put a 29 year old in charge of my sales for all,

for a NASDAQ. Well, you had to be a really creative, talented guy at 29 years old. Well, w W I was somehow we, but we did manage to almost quadruple sales for the three and a half years. I stayed there. And then I pick, and I made enough money in the stock that when I left there in 96,

I started to buy companies and sell companies, and then learned more about taking things. I'd learned from my little adventures and applying them and a really smart guy that I met. Who's he's very successful in another business now, but he was a nuclear fuel engineer. And he, with a doctorate in nuclear, fuel creation, he worked for NASA. And,

and he said to me, one time we were having a funny talk about lots of stuff. And he said, SAR. And I said, what does that mean? He said, same, or I'm sorry, SRA SRA. And I said, what is that? And he said, same rules apply the same rules that apply in parenting, apply in entrepreneurship,

apply in your spirituality and your health care, whatever works. You're going to see that repeated over and over again. And okay, so I gotta stop you for a second. Cause that's, that's really important. And I know there's a lot of people out there I'm asking the man, come on, give me a second. I know you're going to wait a minute.

What, so I got to ask you, you know, because there are people that have not started their entrepreneurship journey. They have not stepped out there, or maybe they have, because we're kind of coming through COVID, I'm not going to say it's over. I don't believe it, but we're coming through it and learning how to adjust with it. You know,

like kind of bad, you know, winter storm in Chicago, we just figured out how to get through it. But there, they started something maybe while they were off, while the businesses were shut down and now they're going back to work. And the reason why they're not sticking with it, or they're not taking that journey is because they don't believe the same rules apply.

They don't believe that these things connect. So can you just kind of expound on that? How does being an entrepreneur being in business also apply in their regular life? Well, I don't, I don't know if the answer that's coming to my mind is really the specific kind of answer you're looking for. But I do want to say this many people that start a business and they start to grow it and they start to hire people.

They get this belief that the employees are gonna steal their secret sauce and they get real fearful of that. And I tell them all the time, as a matter of fact, I talked to your partner and about this. I said, look at the people that come to work for you, who are better at you at sales are better than you at marketing are better at you at it or better you at something.

That's why you hired them because they're better than you, right? In that way. The very fact that they came to work for you is enough reason to not fear. They're going to steal from you. And now it put a pin in that you said there are people during COVID who worked from home and found that they could do a side hustle because they had time.

They had discretionary time. The reason we'll we'll give it up. Going back to work is out of fear. They're afraid to try to make the payroll every month. They're afraid to know how to do the marketing. They're afraid when they've got a security blanket or a lifeline, like a salary, then they take a risk on doing some side deals. Okay.

Aaron, I've got to ask you because you were just talking about people, can, they needed W2, their afraid. You know, we talk about false evidence appearing real all the time here, you know, and y'all know I do. Don't even sit there and say, I don't, you know, I do. We talk about that all the time.

And let's talk about what does that mean? Where is the security blanket when you step out there on your own, how do you do that safely? Well safely. Okay. There's three. There's three keys to becoming successful in business that I've discovered. One is you have to have a good idea. If your idea sucks, it doesn't matter how much money you have.

Doesn't matter if your idea is stupid, it's not going to work. Okay? And so I see things all the time where people are very dedicated to an idea that is a complete and utter a fool's errand, but they're going to pursue it into poverty and that's okay. They will learn their lesson and they'll come back smarter. So one is, you've got to have an idea that,

that the market has an interest in what you're going to do. Right? You've got to have that second thing is you got to have enough money to survive. So you don't have to be afraid. You've got to have time runway to get your plane up off the ground. So the second one is you've got to have adequate funding. It doesn't have to even be a lot of money.

It depends on your lifestyle, right? If you don't mind going small for a while to let all the revenue go to the baby, to the, to the airplane, you will get it off the ground. And, and the 0.1 on that one, one or 2.1 is don't eat all the money that you make. Either. You've got to keep some cash reserves,

right? So you have money to adjust. So first one is, you've got to have a, an idea of the market has an interesting, you've got to have adequate funding and you need to have a plan. You need to have some awareness of how to operate a business. Because as Michael Gerber said in the E-Myth many years ago, most people that start a business are great technicians.

They know how to change oil in a car. They know how to write code. They know how to mow lawns. They know something, but they have no idea how to run a business, which is different than the product or service delivery to the customer. That there's a difference. And most people don't understand that. So if you've got a decent idea and you've got adequate funding to let it grow,

and you have, you don't have to like wander around in the woods, blind banging into every tree and falling down every cliff. Right? If you have a plan that's based in reality, you need to learn it from somebody. You could learn it from somebody like me or from Warren Buffet or from Bill Ackman or from Michael Gerber or anybody else. There's a ton of people you can learn from,

but you need to follow some rules. So you don't have to learn it all yourself through your own pain. You know, if you do those things, you can be less afraid, but there is no doubt being entrepreneurial is not for the vast majority of people. And it is not for the faint of heart, no matter how much they want it or think it's right.

t catch up to my company till: 2010

millions of dollars, just like what happened? Well, we work with small businesses. They all went out of business, which meant we had no cash flow. So we looked at all of our team and we said, so we were doing great. My partner and I, we are kicking butt. We're living in a beautiful homes. I'd built a great big custom home.

Just, I mean deluxe, like I never even could have imagined growing up. And he lived in a beautiful home, also in, up on a golf course. Anyway, long story short is the market crash happened. We looked at our staff. We knew how long it had taken us to build this great team. We knew from other bubbles,

this bubble would pass this. This struggle would pass. So what did we do? We opted to take a 75% pay cut because we are far and away. The most highly paid people in the company. We both short sold our homes, moved into rentals, but we never fired any employees. So part of being a good entrepreneur is being a steward of the business.

It's not just self-serving, as they would say to you on the news, that's crap. Most business owners I know will be the very last person paid. They'll pay all their team before they pay themselves. And if you can't live that way, then you probably shouldn't do it. You shouldn't be everything else has got to be up for grabs. If the golden goose or I should a goose that lays the golden eggs.

If it's at jeopardy for a minute, like a bubble pops, you've got to make sure you feed the goose and, and you wait for your turn to eat. That's what an entrepreneur does. A lot of people are going through that right now. I mean, especially coming out of COVID, you know, they, they learned the hard way because you know, they, especially in America,

I mean, people are seeing this all over the world, but especially in America, a lot of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. And for almost a year and a half, there really wasn't a paycheck. I mean, it was a little version of that. And a lot of the small businesses, they don't live much better than paycheck to paycheck trying to get through it.

You know, some of them don't even have paychecks. They just they're just holding on. People Would be surprised to know, according to the last census, only 4% of business owners, only 4% of the 22 million people that said they owned a business, or self-employed only 4% only break $1 million a year in revenue. Wow. 96% don't get to 1 million. And we hear about these unicorns.

We hear about Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or whatever we hear about somebody who just sold their napkin idea for a billion dollars to Google. Okay. Well, those are stories. Those are, and there were true stories, but it's, you know, it's no different than talk about Jesus or something. He was a unicorn too. Right? So it's, there's only one.

So don't get all hung up on being Jesus. Don't be hung up on being Bezos don't hung up and on, on Musk, just be you in your community. And if you're, if you're at 600, 700, 800, 900,000 in revenue, you're already beating the odds. You're already kicking butt. Feel great about it. If you get to 3, 5, 10, 20 million in revenue,

you are becoming the unicorn. Wow. Okay. We got to take a quick break. Hold on, hold on. And when we come back, you know, basically what you've been talking about is, you know, unshackling, you know, the unshackled owner, we're going to get into that and what that all means. We're going to talk a little bit more about Laughlin because we're not talking about the town Laughlin.

We're talking about your business. And, and my business partner told me to ask you about horses. I'm not real sure where that falls in here, but in the minute we're going to come back and find out. So sit right there. We'll be right back. Expert Talk is brought to you in part by PodNation TV, the Podcast to Broadcast Network. Okay Aaron.

You know, we were sitting here, we were talking about the journey of an entrepreneur, and I got to agree with you brother. It's not for everybody. I get up two out of three of the days going, what the heck am I doing? And why am I not Ms. Goss and cubicle four. Sometimes I, I got to tell you,

but you have, I don't want to call it a principle, but unshackled owner, what does that mean to you? Unshackled Being an unshackled owner means the businesses working harder for you than you're working for the business. The, the, that you've. Now they tell you, when you start, you have to be all in, right? When you start this four hour workweek thing is a nice title for a book.

But, but when you first, you gotta go, you gotta work. The problem is most entrepreneurs never get out of startup mode. And they, they like, they get a lot of juice from being the one who knows the answer to every question who solves every problem that there's people constantly knocking on the door and going, Hey boss, can I just get two minutes?

And then they know how to coach that person. And they like it. That's their, that's their juice. Well, I don't like it. I like a business to get operating where it does not require me other than from a chairman of the board level. So what happened was for years, I would get called into companies, many companies you're familiar with.

And I'm, I'm not gonna say, but I'll just promise you that some of these are companies that you use to find out what, what are all these illnesses that you have? And then you're convinced you're going to die. The one that most kids grow up, I mean, they, they log into at school, the largest internet delivery via the internet of educational content.

That company one that makes, I just say they had three vice-presidents eyes, lips, and face. So you can guess what companies these are, but these are big companies. And I got, I, I would charge 25,000 a day plus expenses to go sit with them. And I always thought it was a huge waste of both of our time because we couldn't do enough.

So I thought, well, what is it that these people really are all struggling with? And what is it that I'm doing? That's made it possible for me to hang out, doing what I want to do and not showing up in an office. And I boiled it down into seven principles. And I offered a class called the Unshackled Owner.

Four years ago. I had 13 companies, including new new car dealerships, a hedge fund manager, a large law firm, a bunch of bunch of interesting companies that were pretty good sized, successful businesses come in. And I, they all paid me their $5,000 and I put it in the bank and I didn't spend it because I knew they were all going to want their money back.

I just knew it. This will be too simple. They're going to go, oh, come on. You can do better. Well, guess what they told me at the end, all right, this was too hard. The class was too hard. Can you make it simpler? Wow. So what I thought was super easy, they thought was super complicated.

Now the great news is once you're in the class, you keep going to the class. And so there's no more charge. Cause my goal is to get them to the finish line. So now I've helped these guys grow more locations, more money under management, more apartment complexes purchased more, you know, whatever, fill in the blank, whatever it is.

And it's very exciting for me to know that my little contribution to the world can be teach people how they can be successful and to scale. Because my ultimate goal at 57 years old is I want to keep more companies in business for more years, making more money. And if I do that, that means they will hire more people pay for health insurance,

invest in, you know, give money to charities, sponsor the little league team. So I don't ever need to be involved with any of that. If I can just help the owner do better. And that's what I'm doing now in my life. So one 57 is cool cause I'm 57 too. So there we are with twins and we're probably going two,

you know, can we, can we veer off the road a little bit? And I've got to ask, and I know people out there are going to go ask him about what does this mean for virtual versus in-person because now we're opening up again. You know, events are opening up again. People are going at the same time, people are going,

you know, I'm never going to a concert again. I may never sit in a movie theater again. I, yeah, I'm afraid. I don't know what else is out there. And every time we turn around, there's a different version of COVID coming around the corner. So what is this doing for corporate America now that we're in this new normal,

em on their payroll. They can: 1099

That's one, two is there is a need for personal interaction. There is a need. People kind of got Zen a little bit, but a lot of depression happened. A lot of abuse happened. A lot of drinking and drugs happen too, and people do need it. And so what I'm seeing is that for events and places where people are getting together,

I think there's going to be an, an increase in not only teaching business principles, but talking about how to organize your spare bedroom at home or some life hacks for saying, you know, active during the next pandemic, you know, where you stay in shape and you don't gain 30 pounds. I think there's going to be a change, a shift in how healthcare is is put out there because there'll be less big groups and tons of individuals.

So there's going to be a shift. I don't think that everybody's going to stop going to the office because there are some places where, and some people who crave the interaction, the live interaction. But I think that's where a lot of hybrids are going to come from where it's going to be events that are live, but they're also, you know, virtually streaming in which we're doing a lot of that now.

really took off in the middle: 1800

including I have one, right? The point is just because things change doesn't mean the other stuff goes away, right? But there is a change and entrepreneurs. Here's the other message to entrepreneurs. Entrepreneur's job is to not be hung up in who, what political parties in office or how angry they are at their governor. Or I hate a mask mandate,

or this is, this is terrible. Or this is phony or forget that crap entrepreneur's job is to look at what is happening in reality and adjust. So their business stays viable and relevant during whatever's going on today because our job is to meet the customer where they are not to drag the customer over to our political opinion or our gripe against gay people in a cake or whatever.

Forget that that's not your job. You keep that private. You keep that to yourself and you go take care of your customer because the customer's the one that keeps you alive. Right? That's what we do with the changes is we adapt. And before I let you get out of here, we've got a couple of things we got to cover. I'm going to get hate mail.

e guy that started it back in: 1972

Well, we're the grandpa of that, of that industry, which is quite big now. But when my partner and I bought it 20 years ago, we expanded it to all 50 states. So now we're one of the largest incorporators LLCs creators in the United States. We do resident agent service. We do something really cool, which almost nobody does, which is called our corporate veil protection.

The thing that makes you makes a corporation or LLC useful is that it separates your personal estate from the business activity. And the separator is called the corporate veil, but almost, I'd say 95 plus percent of the entrepreneurs that I meet destroy the corporate veil. And then they get audited or sued and they go, what happened? What happened? I've been had my feet in the state.

Well, they didn't know the rules and they didn't follow them. So they didn't get treated like a real company. So that's what Laughlin does. And we do events and all kinds of cool stuff. And, but that's the answer to your question. That's, that's one of my businesses that I own, You know, and I'm, I'm going to take a second and talk to you guys could have you're sitting there.

I know I have friends. I have family. The minute you say LLC, C Corp S Corp glaze over the eyeballs. You're not paying attention. You go, come back and talk to me. If you're starting a business, if you're in a business, this young man may not tell you, but TGo going always keep it real. If you're doing it as a sole proprietor or a partner,

you're crazy. You need to talk to this man and protect your assets. That's what it's all about. I want to ask you, you know what we call it RFC. What's your Right Fit Client. Who's that perfect client for you? Who are you looking for? So even though we definitely work with people who are just getting started and we get thousands of those clients,

right? If I'm, if I was going to buy a mailing list, or if I was going to reach out for a Laughlin client, not an unshackled owner client, but a Laughlin client, I would be looking for somebody who's beyond survival. You know, they're not hanging on by their fingernails. So they're three years in business. Maybe they've got one or two employees.

They are, have fairly predictable revenues because those are the people that now understand. They have something to lose. When you're, even though you need us at the beginning, because you forget about your, the painting that your grandma gave you in the coin collection that you've put together since you were a kid and all that stuff that could all be taken away in a lawsuit.

You don't think about that when you're just getting started and you don't have any revenue, you don't realize that it can, it's all there to be taken away if you do it wrong. But people aren't thinking that yet. So I like people that are kind of already kind of chipping along. They've got fairly predictable revenues. They don't have to be big,

just they're not afraid anymore. And they see that they're going to survive this thing. That's a perfect fit for us. You've made it a little bit down the road. They're not, they're not just finding a way through the darkness right now. And if you talk to Ann you'll know that the people that she met when I met her at the event,

most of them are, are pretty darn successful. We have a lot of very successful customers and, and we help them. What we say, start, grow profit and protect. That's what we do. Start grow profit protect. So you've been in business for, you know, you've been entrepreneur for over 30 years. We talked about that at the top of the show,

you've been in business as a speaker, as a consultant, as a trainer, you know, this game called business. What made you choose Laughlin you and your partner to, to buy? I mean, it's a business that was already in existence. You could have went anywhere. What made you choose this? We already had five other companies that were competing with Laughlin when Mr.

Laughlin died. So there's state lawyer called us and said, are you interested in buying Laughlin? And we spent about nine months of due diligence, and then we bought it and then we either sold or kept separate or collapsed into Laughlin. The other companies and took the main reason I was buying Laughlin was because it was 29 years old at the time. And it had a good database.

I had intended to fire all 80 employees and, and use my existing teams, but leverage the name and the longevity. Then I found that there were a whole bunch of good people and we, we did let about 30 of the 80 go. And then we just cranked it up from there. It's a really good company with a really terrific team. Our average tenure now is 14 years at Laughlin.

Our clients stay with us forever. I have clients to go clear back to the late seventies that are still alive and kicking and doing stuff. And it's, it's been a great ride. And you know, now we're taking it public. And so, oh, wow. Yeah, we're we're at the very end of that road. We should be publicly traded sometime by the end of the summer.

I need to write that down and buy me a couple of shares. Okay. So you've mentioned event a couple of times, my business partner, Ann recently was that one of your events, you know, I don't know if you have to be a member of your organization, how do your events work? Is there anything coming up that you know, that the people that are watching should know about,

They could, if they want to go. So the event is called the Magnify your Wealth Summit, Magnify your Wealth summit. And it's for everybody. But especially for people that are, that are, if they want to just learn, it's great. Here's the good thing. If you learn the right way to do it at the beginning of the journey,

you will make a lot less mistakes. You'll get to your goal faster and you'll have more money, but anyway, whatever, they can check it out for themselves. Just go to MagnifyyourWealth.com. There's a video. And the next event is in October. I don't remember the dates middle of October in San Diego, Ann was in Denver. But this one's in San Diego,

Magnifyyourwealth.com. Yeah. MagnifyyourWealth.com. And before I let you get out of here, I've got to ask, I know you're a speaker or a trainer or coach. We talked about that. Is this still something? If somebody wanted to reach out to you and have you come and speak at their group, are you still doing that? Is that still an opportunity?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So there, there may be a few caveats in there, but I still do a lot of speaking even during COVID. I still did a lot of speaking. I speak all over the world. I've spoken on five continents. I mean, I, yeah, absolutely. I still give talks. Remember I don't go to the office Laughlin.

I've I've only been there one time in four years. And that was to tell the team that we were going public before we made an announcement. I mean, had I was a first time I'd been there in four years when I bought it, I was there five days a week and I'd fly back up home to my family. I'd go back and be there all week.

But when you be, when you learn those principles that I teach in unshackled owner, you realize that if you give it all for a couple years, you'll begin to extricate yourself and you own the company, the company doesn't own you, and you never did ask about horses? No, that was great to say that we got asked about horses because I gotta look Ann in her eyes.

But before I do that, how do they find you if they want to hire you or have you come into their event as their keynote? How do they find you go to AaronScottYoung.com or you can write to Kelly. K E L L Y. My assistant [email protected] that's my speaker page. That's also how you can learn about Unshackled Owner.

That's separate from the companies that we own. That's just my, my speaker page directly To you. So we want to get in touch with Aaron and you go to AaronScottYoung.com. I'm not telling Kelly's email address. Again. Y'all gonna have to rewind to see it because she's not sending me hate mail. Cause she got all this junk mail and you guys know don't send this man.

You know, Shaklee invitations and all that kind of stuff. He's a serious dude. Don't don't have him call TGo saying what happened. Y'all if you're serious, contact him. If you're not come back and watch another show. Okay? So I gotta ask you because Ann will hurt me. If I don't get this in here. She said, you mentioned at the event or at one of the meetings that you have horses and she loves horses.

So before we let you out of the hot seat, can you tell me about your horses? So I've got I've along with my second son who manages the whole thing. He's the foreman of the ranch. And we have a small breeding program of Tennessee walking horses and something that we're another breed. That's a heritage breed. We're really doubling down on. Matter of fact,

I own about 1% of all the animals that are registered right now, which is a lot. That's a, that's a big percentage in horse breed. I suddenly called the McCurdy plantation horse, which is an old timey, smooth gated, pull the wagon, pull a plow. And they take you to the dance in town. Nice and smooth where you don't bump along.

They're fabulous animals. As a matter of fact, I was, we were breeding mares this morning, before I came, put on different clothes to come see you. And so we have, we have the horse farm horse ranch, and then I have some other places I can go hang my hat as well. That are, that don't have all the livestock,

but that's what I do. I love it. I've been involved with horses and you can see there's a number of Western. Yeah. Yeah. You got a theme going back there. Yeah, That's what I, I don't play golf. I don't play tennis. We raised horses and we do multi-day. I go, I'll go back up in the Backwoods,

out of cell coverage, everything for four or five days packing in. And it's phenomenal. It's a, it's a great this country we live in is a beautiful place. Most people don't have any idea. What's only an hour out of their neighborhood. That is fantastic. And In Vegas, I mean it's 10 minutes. We got Red Rock. It's 10 minutes outside of the city.

Gorgeous people. Never see it. Yeah. They don't ever go. They don't ever go. If there's not a 7-11 5 minutes away, they don't go. So I totally enjoy that countryside. It's beautiful. And we're lucky to have it. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you, Sir. I thank you so much for jumping in at the last minute and saying yes to this interview.

I've learned a lot. I consider you a friend. I hope you'll come back. Maybe you can come back and do a Q and A session with us a live nine minutes session. That would be awesome. You are fantastic. You name the time and I'm there. Awesome. Well, everybody, you know how we do this? We love bringing experts.

Aaron is definitely one. You want to know, you know, AaronScottYoung.com, check them out. And as always, I thank you for watching. I hope you'll be at the next episode. I'm TGo and I'll talk to you next time.