Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this, our penultimate episode in our series on Mid Career Pivots into Entrepreneurship, we talk to a person who's actually done it, our friend Leonard Black, who will share more about his story and what to consider if you're thinking of doing the same. Let's get started. Let's get some money from New Money, New Problems. It's the New Money New Problems podcast, a show for successful professionals searching for the tools they need to navigate financial opportunities and obstacles they've never seen.
Negotiating compensation, Purchasing your first investment property. Helping your family with money. The highs and lows of, uh, entrepreneurship. New Money brings new problems that require new solutions. Join us as we work through them together.
I'm Brenton Harrison, and this is the New Money New Problems podcast.
Hello, my name is Brenton Harrison of New Money New Problems and your host for the New Money New Problems podcast. Thank you all for being with me as we took that little break in our series to update people on student loan dues for last week's episode. But we are back in our series on Mid Career Pivots into Entrepreneurship. And I'll tell you, the series has changed a lot since we started it. Uh, I am pleasantly surprised by the positive feedback that we've gotten from the episode for bad reasons. Right? Like, people are happy about it because they hate their jobs and they're considering doing something different. But we'll take it if it means that we're giving you some value in your current circumstance. When I initially talked about doing this episode, we were going to do the first half talking to my friend Leonard that I referenced before the intro. And the second half was going to be talking with a friend of mine who does coaching for people who are in similar circumstances. But in recording some of these interviews, ah, number one, I'm very interested in the topic. So they've gone a little longer than I expected. And also the answers have just been really good. So I wanted to isolate some of these bits of information and give them their own platform. So in this episode, we're going to talk to my friend Leonard Black. And Leonard is the actual reason that we started this episode series. I talked to you about the fact that we've heard from a lot of people who have considered doing this over the years, but Leonard was the first person, uh, that was a friend of mine who actually took the leap in a way that was very calculated, very measured, and in a way where I thought that other people could get some value from it. So in talking to him, he was more than willing to share his story and Some insights into where he was mentally at the time and how he went about the process with his lovely wife. So after I finish talking, you will hear Leonard Black sharing a little more about his journey into entrepreneurship.
Leonard, welcome to the New Money, New Problems podcast.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Thanks, Brenton. I'm glad to be here.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: Uh, I shared in the intro.
You are the person who made me decide we need to do this series, right. So we've had conversations, uh, about, like, the number of people who are interested in entrepreneurship, but your journey from interest to completion, or I should least interest to, like, actually taking the leap is something that I thought was very instructive. So I appreciate you being willing to come on.
[00:03:09] Speaker B: Definitely. Thank you for having me, for sure.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Before we get into the transition itself, tell our listeners a little bit about your background.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Yeah, so I'm, um, probably the stereotypical person. You know, I went through school. I grew up in Detroit, Michigan, went through high school, went to college, graduated college and had, uh, or was told like, hey, go get a real job. Went out, did the corporate route for a while, um, did several years in corporate America, then went back to business school and got my master's and in typical fashion, went into consulting or management consulting there after that and continued. And, um, after a few years of consulting, transitioned back into corporate America. Um, and so my entire life was kind of textbook in the sense of, hey, grow up, get a good education, get a good job, you know, continue to expand and learn. But I will say, through that experience, um, though it was textbook on paper, I was secretly, I guess is the best way to put it, secretly trying to figure out, well, what else was out there for me. Um, I come from a background of my, um, of entrepreneurs. My grandfather was an entrepreneur. I have aunts, uncles that are entrepreneurs with varying levels of success. So that was always kind of in the back of my mind. Um, when I was in B school, I actually had an entrepreneurship class that introduced me to a lot of the concepts that I'm putting in place today. Um, and just recently transitioned out of corporate America summer, um, of 24 into, um, franchising as an entrepreneur as my first step. And I did something a little unique in that I actually purchased an existing business from a previous owner under the franchise instead of starting from scratch. And so today I am running a pool maintenance and repair business. Um, that has nothing to do with any of my career background. However, it is, um, I'm leveraging quite a bit from that background to actually apply to drive growth of that business.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: So we'll get to what I've talked to you about with Leslie Cuban. So if you're listening, you've listened to the start of this series. Um, we actually met Leslie through Leonard. So she assisted in his process. And she mentioned, you know, Leonard at the start of this would have never thought that he was going to be owning that particular franchise. So we'll get to that there. In knowing you for a long time now, longer than I realized, you know.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Um, there has always been something that I've complimented you on to other people, even in your corporate, you know, career. I said, leonard is always interested in hearing information, and then he will decide what to do with that information. And it came from, you know, I used to joke with you. I'm like, dude, you take more interviews than any person I've ever met, even when you love your job. And you said, that's the best time to take an interview because now you have all of the leverage. You don't have to leave because you like it. What do you think sparked that level of curiosity and how did it serve you in the interest in transitioning to entrepreneurship?
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I have to definitely thank my parents and my family for really kind of embedding in me having a natural curiosity. Um, I further think that that is what allowed me to see success in my professional career as well as having that curiosity. To your point, I think, um, the idea of being curious about making a move and moving into entrepreneurship was really because I wanted a new challenge. I think that curiosity leads to continuous learning, obviously, and always wanting to kind of grow. And so I think that that is kind of my mantra, is that I'm always learning. I look at every day like, what did I learn today? I asked my kids, what did you learn today? Because we should be learning every single day. And if I feel as if I'm not, I move. Um, and that's really what it was. In my corporate career, I had about 20 years of experience by the time I left. And over those 20 years, I literally was having conversations with people around things that were happening. And I worked in some pretty hefty roles as relates to working directly for presidents of the organization of the business unit, CEOs direct reports, um, to other C Suite staff, um, as a direct report. And one thing that I started to say in this past year and a half was, everything is feeling like deja vu. I've seen this play out before in this way. Um, this is what's going to happen. Um, and it did. And so it was a point in the past two years. And thinking about my family situation where it's like, alright, I want to do something different, so let me investigate and to do something different. That's where I really got serious about.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: The entrepreneurship route I have referenced in this series and in the podcast in the past. That to me, one of the most pivotal points in my career to this point was realizing I am having the same planning conversation over and over again. And it's not that that's not valuable to be able to speak to, but my knowledge base is getting stale. And that was the thing that kicked off my desire to get more training. You know, it's just like, I don't want to be sitting here 20 years from now and I may be having the same conversations, but I'm having them because it's the only ones I can have. I want to be able to have more complex planning conversations.
So you, which you should, you know, humble person, you, you're understating a bit the level of success you had prior to and what you walked away from.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: So I want to just say for the audience, he was walking away from a significant career. So what were the first steps where you said, we are going from thoughts to action. How did that process begin?
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah, um, frankly I have to give all respect to my wife. The first thing was getting aligned with her on what our priorities were as a family. Um, and really what it was was that we sat down and we kind of had a kind of a heart to heart conversation. She has a fairly successful career as well. She's um, in professional services and um, the legal field. And so that's very demanding for her. I had a very demanding career and we reached a point with our two young children where we were starting to make choices to spend more time doing the work we felt as if we needed to do versus taking that time to actually spend more time as a family. And so that was the first trigger to us, uh, reevaluating, really realigning on what our family priorities are. And all right, how do we, how are we able to actually provide for our family and deliver on those priorities without sacrificing, creating opportunities for our kids to have, whether it be multi generational, whatever the term you want to use, I just simply say to have some level of comfort and do the things that we enjoy to do versus having to do. And so that was really what was the pivot point was having that conversation. And then from there it was really a conversation with my wife around. All right, what's important for us, what became important. Like I said before spending Time with family. We also very quickly determined that we needed to further diversify our, um, revenue streams. I mean, we had some diversification. We have investments and a variety of other things and you know us well and you know, you know, there are certain things that I do do and there are other things that I don't do until I'm ready to do it kind of thing. But, um, and even taking your advice on you need to diversify, recognizing that, yes, we need to diversify kind of our income stream so that we can be successful, successful later on to do the things we want to do. So all that being said, it first started with aligning, uh, with my wife aligning on what was important to our family and then determining, alright, how could we achieve that? And quite frankly, the long term vision with entrepreneurship is that I wasn't getting into this to buy myself another job. I learned that from one of the early conversations I had with a successful franchisor here, um, in Atlanta.
And with that nugget, I took it as, all right, making this move, I need to make this move and not buy myself a job, but instead create stability and wealth for my family in a very different way than what I've ever seen before in entrepreneurship.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: This is the New Money New Problems podcast, a show for successful professionals searching for the tools they need to navigate financial opportunities and obstacles they've never seen. We'll be right back.
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So you have three, I would call them three main options. You can start a business from scratch. You can buy an existing business, you can start a franchise. You kind of did a blend of 2 and 3. How did you land on that option?
[00:12:49] Speaker B: Yeah, so to your point, um, I was making good money. I mean, we had a fairly stable financial portfolio, um, very strong financial portfolio, um, with a lot of that coming from, um, my income along with my wife's income. And so in the decision to walk away from that, we had to Have a very clear plan on, well, what did that mean to the household situation, the financial stability, our balance sheet. It was really important for us to kind of maintain our balance sheet the best way possible.
I came from a background of corporate strategy, business strategy and also M and A. So I really just put on my hat for my corporate career and said, alright, let me apply this to my financial household is that if I want to grow my financial, um, portfolio for my household, where do I go, how do I do it? And through that analysis, that's how I landed on. Instead of starting new from scratch, buy existing, but to mitigate my risk with buying existing and not knowing kind of how the market may move buy existing franchise. And that was because I could leverage all of the great processes and the stability of a franchise model, but also kind of take what's existing today then to the next level while being able to replace some of my income. Now granted is not all of it yet, but this is a long gameplay, this is not a short game.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: In talking to Leslie, she mentioned the buy in requirements, the net worth requirements for a franchise.
Um, and you can share to the depth that makes you most comfortable. But how did you go about the process of coming up with those requirements?
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Um, it was so, I mean, you know, I feel as if I have a fairly strong control over our household balance sheet. My wife and I do. I mean we have just internally, even outside of our conversations with you as our planner, we have quarterly touch points just looking at our portfolio and thinking about what we need to do. Um, so I would say frankly from a financial health, my wife and I were very clear on that before we even endeavored in this. It was really a matter of what was the risk tolerance that we wanted to take to that financial portfolio with making a decision. So I say that to say the options are obviously, um, getting outside investors as one way to do it. Um, another way to do it is getting financing through a bank, um, or debt or loan. And the third was self financing this. And so what we determined was we had the flexibility because of the strength of our portfolio to actually self finance. We chose that route because we wanted to mitigate our risk as much as possible with having debt out there, whether it be to a bank or to another, and not knowing kind of where this business would go. I'm not saying that we're always going to self finance this, but we were fortunately in a position to where we could self finance this in a way that allows us to get our feet wet, understand what this business is and really hopefully create a leverage point to where, alright, if we want to go financing for the current business, we can do that, extract out our cash that we've self invested and then invest in the next thing. Again, the long play, it's really around taking that money, um, and reinvesting into other things. And know that. And not to be long winded here, but I know that there's a lot of philosophy out there, and this was a big thing during the real estate growth back in the early 2000s about using other people's money. I believe in that. But. But also in my career I've learned that you have to have a thoughtful approach to how you do that because you can get caught up really quickly. Especially when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, um, for a small little family of four here in Atlanta, Georgia.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: We had a conversation when you were, you know, hey, this thing is rolling from deciding to do it to, you know, this is now our franchise. How long was that process?
[00:16:54] Speaker B: So our process was longer than probably most, um, simply because we had a lot of negotiations on the deal, um, to get to the right point. So I would say from a timeline perspective from when we got serious about saying, yes, this is the franchise we want to do to the point in which we got to close of the deal, I would say probably 12 to 16 weeks from that point. Now, my due diligence, my investigation, or my wife and I investigation, our kind of research was another six weeks before that. So it took a total of about six months from the idea of, all right, let's go figure out what's out there generally in the market. To six weeks going by and saying, all right, this specifically is a business we're particularly interested, or these are two businesses we're particularly interested in to another 12 weeks then saying, all right, now we own a franchise.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Now tell us how long since you closed. What have you learned? Good and bad? What's been the journey?
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So let me first say everything I'm about to say, um, is all predicated on the idea of, um, I would not change anything. I think this has been an exciting venture for me, um, and my wife and our household. It's been stressful, but a different kind of stress and actually a fun stress, um, challenging stress. So, um, what's been exciting about the job is waking up and feeling a different energy than I did when I was in corporate America. You know, um, feeling though there are times that are challenging. You know, I have staffing challenges all the time like most people do. Um, I'M always managing cash flow, especially considering I'm not trying to, like, bleed out cash on the expense side or put in a lot of cash, um, from our own personal assets, just to fund a lot of things as well. So it's about. Managing cash flow is a big thing. I, um, would say that those are all been good things because I've learned a lot, but equally so I've been able to apply a lot of what I've learned through my professional career to my day to day, whether that be improve operations, thinking about marketing strategy, thinking about overall growth strategy, and kind of what to build versus what to actually just kind of maximize, um, efficiencies of. And so that's all been good. I would say the thing that was more surprising to me than I give credit for in those early days was how lonely it was in those first few days. I went from a place of working, you know, whether it was I was remote or in office. I always kind of had a team I could work with, um, and always kind of had somebody to kind of connect to.
Those first few weeks getting in, I just didn't know anybody. And it felt different than starting a new job because there's like, I got some serious responsibility. I got a team that I need to be able to provide payroll for on a weekly basis and make sure the cash is there. I got marketing, um, plans I need to develop very quickly in order to get kind of leads coming in, all of that stuff. And so I say all that to say that felt very lonely, um, in the beginning, because it's like, it felt very different. And I had to learn very quickly how to build out my board of advisors, just like in a corporate job, my board of advisors, to help me navigate some of those things, um, so that I didn't feel as if I had to do it all, though I do a lot. But I had to kind of build a team around me to help guide me to say, all right, this is something that you should probably think differently about and go after. Or yes, these challenges that you are experiencing. Experiencing are very common challenges. And here's kind of what I've seen in my experience as an entrepreneur as.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: Well as you built out that board of advisors who have similar experiences or have things to share, you're a little deeper into it. Is there a lesson that you now know after having that counsel, even though it's been a short period of time where you're like, oh, man, that has made a tremendous difference in terms of what I'm dealing with?
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah, the Word of advice is that don't get stuck in analysis paralysis, or don't get stuck on waiting for the perfect answer before making a decision. What I've learned is that trust your instinct. You're obviously here for a reason, and just go after it. But learn from that experience and make changes quickly.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Is there any advice you have to someone who is not yet in entrepreneurship, but they are where you were, where it's like, this is the moment where I gotta put up or shut up.
Are there any personal elements of that thought process, that place where you found yourself, where you say, you know what? If you're hearing this internally, you need to listen to that voice more seriously than you are now. Any advice to that person?
[00:21:40] Speaker B: I would say if you hear that voice, that this is an option, go for it.
Simply put, and I say that because, you know, take my profile. Not everybody has my experience and everything like that. And I'm not saying that everybody should, but I will say, no matter what your career background is, whatever your experiences are, whatever your educational level is, if you're hearing that voice, try and take the leap. Because there's a set of skills that you have that, if you think about this, um, you can leverage in a way that you probably never expected to and just take the leap, because otherwise you wouldn't have that little tick on the back of your neck. You wouldn't have that little kind of bug in your ear to say, hey, what about this? Do it.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Wise words, wise man. I, um, am complimentary of all guests that come on the podcast. There are very few where I'm like, a decade deep into the relationship, and, you know, the compliment stays the same. So, Leonard, I appreciate your time. I appreciate you for being a guest on the New Money, New Problems podcast.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Definitely. Thank you, Brenton.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Let's get some money from New Money, New Problems. This was the New Money, New Problems podcast, a show for successful professionals searching for the tools they need to navigate financial opportunities and obstacles they've never seen.
[00:23:05] Speaker B: Let's get some Money.
