From the Gridiron to the Boardroom: Emmitt Smith's Entrepreneurial Journey

0:00He said, you have talent and your talent can take you a long way, but someday that talent is going to go away. then all you will have left is your education. How much more successful would you be if you had lunch once a week with insanely successful entrepreneurs who shared their biggest secrets on how they think and achieve success? Grab your seat at the table because this is Business Lunch with Roland Frazier and Ryan Dice.

0:27Welcome to another episode of Business Lunch. And today's a snackable episode with Roland where he's going to get into some more tactical strategies that you can start using to live a rich and happy life. If this is the first snackable episode you're hearing, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to some of the other episodes that Roland has put out. And if you want to get notified every time we release a new episode, go to the new businesslunchpodcast.com website and we'll send you detailed notes along with every episode. That's businesslunchpodcast.com, www.businesslunchpodcast.com and you can sign up for the free email newsletter where you'll be able to get all the highlights and resources from the episodes.

1:03Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, everyone. I mean, like, wake up. I don't know, y 'all just ate, right? That's that post-lunch. Exactly. Thank you so much for coming out today. Really appreciate you being here. Thank y 'all for having me. Yes, I did say y 'all. You know, we had a Canadian on stage that tried to say y 'all earlier. Probably didn't come across well, did it? He said, y 'all, I'm here to talk about. And he said, y 'all, I'm here to talk about. And he said, y 'all. So you have obviously had quite an entrepreneurial career right after having quite an athletic career. I'd love to talk a little bit about kind of your entrepreneurial journey.

1:44So had you done any kind of business at the time that you went into the NFL and were having that career? Yeah. Yeah, when I think back to my younger years, I started becoming an entrepreneur without even realizing what I was doing. Whether it was taking a lawnmower, going around in the neighborhood and cutting grass, or even in college with my fullback, Darryl Perry, and I formulated a team, a partnership to go out and detail cars and so forth. So we were doing things that at the time to subsidize some of the activities that we wanted to do, whether it's cutting grass and I want to go buy some clothes because my parents couldn't afford to get me the Jordache jeans and all that kind of stuff.

2:33And they had to share their wealth with my brothers and sisters. So I found a way to go and create my own money, if you will. I never forget when I was in high school, I had a job at a place called Lab Television where I learned how to not only work the cameras, white balance and tilt right, pan left and two shots, one shot. And then he brought me into the back room to talk and taught me how to direct a show. So I learned how to do those things just on the side, just to raise capital, just to be able to have my own money, pay my own gas. So the spirit was already there. And that spirit was birthed by one of my top Warner football coaches, Charlie Edgar.

3:21Really? OK. Yeah. I was over his house. First time ever been over standing over a white person's house. literally first time i don't know how many black kids he ever had over his house but i was over his house it was my first time and so in his home he had a 3600 square foot home which was much bigger than the projects which i came from um and his sons timmy and jody i played ball with them and so he was there to monitor my weight so i can play the next day okay so i'm walking around in this man's house and I saw an office in a home for the first time. And I walk up to his office and walk around and I see these papers laying on this slanted board and I'm starting to look at this stuff like, what is this?

4:06And he started to explain to me what he did for a living. He owned his own construction company and he was building houses. He was also building commercial buildings and he started to teach me how to read blueprints and four planes. And from that moment on, I started looking at what life could be like without the game. Now, he told me, he said, you have talent and your talent can take you a long way, but someday that talent is going to go away. Then all you will have left is your education. And how old were you then? I was 11 years old. Wow, that's really early to get such great advice. 11 years old.

4:45And so from that point on, it was all about getting a job. And then it became about when you had your own capital, owning your own business. And so that's how it got started. So when you heard that advice and you're 11 years old, what do you do with it? How do you take that and what happens next? Anything different immediately or just kind of in the back of your head? It was just in the back of my head because football was at the forefront and getting to college was at the forefront. And so when the opportunity through high school, when I had odd end jobs and so forth, I realized that I was sitting next to Sam Bettis, which was the upper class running back at the time.

5:31And his locker was next to mine. And he started getting these college letters. And I'm like, what are those? And I'm a freshman. He's like, these are letters from colleges. They're they're all interested in me coming to their schools. I'm like, really? He said, don't worry about a young fella. You're going to start getting a lot of them. And I got my very first one from the University of Florida. And I was so excited. And then I started getting more. Nebraska, then I started getting more. Auburn, then I started getting, man, I got so many letters. I got sick and tired of looking at letters. Sick and tired of, I mean, boxes and boxes and boxes of letters.

6:08It was ridiculous. I mean, the same old folks. Sometimes Florida would send two or three letters in one week. Really? It got crazy. And so he started to explain to me, you can earn a scholarship and go to college. I'm like, okay. That means my folks don't have to pay? Right. Great. So football became my first business. Right. Without me realizing it, it was my first business. It became also, once I got to college, they started teaching us how to deal with the press. media training and everything else. So I started learning a lot more about, okay, this is bigger than what I'm thinking. So now, did you have any kind of business education, formal or informal at that point?

6:56None. And so you're going in to a very sophisticated business operation with NCAA and NFL, obviously. Yes. How did you go about educating yourself or finding the the mentors and advisors that would help you through that. When you get Pell Grant and you're a scholarship athlete and they only give you$700 a semester, but the Pell Grant is worth$7 ,000 a semester, but they're giving me$700. The rest of the school will get the rest of it. Really? I didn't know that. And I was asking the question of my counselor. I'm like, why is that the case? Shouldn't the whole$7 ,000 be mine? I mean, what does the school need with the other$6 ,000?

7:36They've got all this. I mean, he's like, well, you own scholarship. I go, hell, y 'all can have my scholarship. Give me this money right here. I mean, because what I learned, what I learned, this is when I went back to college after I became a pro, is it was so cheap to go to school. It only cost me like$1 ,500 to enroll in classes and all this kind of stuff for books and tuition. Well, hell, I rented an apartment complex. I rented an apartment and I had three bedrooms. and was just me in it. And it only cost me$400 or$500 a month. So I started, now I'm a pro. So I'm thinking, I'm like, how I could have rented that room, I could have rented that room and not paid for none of this stuff.

8:19Right. So that$7 ,000 could have went a long way. Later, you look back and reflect. But as you're going through, you're asking these questions, just trying to understand why the system is the way it is and why college athletes could not live to the fullest. First of all, they told me I couldn't get a job, couldn't work, and be on scholarship at the same time. That was the NCAA rules back in 1987. Pretty much until just recently, right? With the NIL stuff, yeah. And then another awakening moment is when you walk into Florida field or walk onto a football field period, and you look around in the stands, and you see 22 jerseys all over the place.

9:04And then you start asking yourself, how is that possible? Where's my cut? Right. Oh, you got a scholarship and they making multi-millions off of your jersey? Oh, no. Give me that money. Right. Give me that money. So it's like, give me a piece of it or something. But NCAA rules will not allow that to happen. So you start learning more things and then you're in class and then you're talking about what you want to do and you go through these business opportunities and you're reading the textbooks, but you're not getting the true work experience or the real world experience. It's theory and practice, right?

9:48Yes, yes. And it just was completely different. Then when I became a professional athlete and I was able to get paid, then the world just opened up. So to me, a lot of the things that I went through to that point was training ground for where I was going. And then once I got there, it was just so much, so many great things just flying around your head. You mentioned Jerry Jones, someone who mentioned Jerry Jones earlier. Yes, I did have the opportunity because I remember what Charlie Edgar taught me and I remember what other folks were saying. Don't be afraid to ask questions. and so I started asking Jerry the right questions.

10:33I mean, like, hey, man, I know how much you're paying me, and I know how much you're paying these other 53 guys on this roster, but how much are you really making? You have to ask the questions, and then I started saying, hey, can I come sit in your office during my lunch hour? I want to hear you negotiate contracts. What did he say when you said that? He looked at me like, I never had nobody ask me that before. Isn't that amazing? And I was like, yeah, I want to come do that. I want to come sit down on you. I'll come in. I'm going to be real quiet. I won't interrupt nothing that's going on. I just want to hear you conduct business.

11:09And he said, sure, come on around. And I would come around, talk to Marilyn. His assistant said, Marilyn, can I come in? And she said, go on in. And I would go in and sit down. And I got a chance to listen to him negotiate deals with Paul Tagliabue, with Home Depot and everything else. And I got a chance to know him on a totally different level. He got a chance to know me on a totally different level. He already knew I was on a mission physically from the world of sports. He knew I was on that mission. But what I think happened, it opened him up to, wait a minute, he's thinking much broader. And so it helped me out learning his tactics because when I had to negotiate my contract,

11:58I utilize some of his tactics against him.

12:06And so then this thing called marketing started entering into my world. Then I started saying, okay, marketing, endorsements. Michael Jordan paved the way for all athletes to understand what endorsements could be like. and you start learning these things, how to put yourself together, packaging. And then you meet guys like Roger Staubach, who was a childhood hero of mine. And you start to understand what he's doing beyond the game. And what he did was sort of amazing. Then you meet guys like Magic Johnson. Then you start to understand what he was doing to transform urban America. That's amazing.

12:51To go in arenas where others wouldn't go. Yeah. To do that. And help and make money. Help and make money. Yeah. Then you start to spend time with guys like Micah Jordan to understand what he did and how he was doing his business and conducting business. So I think the entrepreneur spirit has been within me for a long, long time. And so far, so good. What were some of the lessons that you can remember in taking away from some of those early advisors like Jerry Jones and some of the other people you mentioned? Well, the one thing I learned from Jerry is don't stress over the lost deal. There's another deal around the corner.

13:37You lose one, don't worry about it. There's plenty more deals coming. You just got to be in position and be ready because oftentimes what happens is when we lose something, We spend so much energy and emotions just focused on, man, we just lost this. We put in all this energy. We did all of this work. Oh, my gosh, I can't believe they didn't give us the opportunity. Or this, this, and that. And while you're doing all that, this other dealer is just walking right past you. But you're so stuck over here, you miss it. And you're not really prepared for it. So I have taken and have adopted the philosophy that we use in football.

14:18Spend 24 hours celebrating something, but also 24 hours forgetting something to move on and get prepared for the game that's coming up. Now, in football, you have six days to prepare for the next game. Now, that doesn't apply in everything in life, though. That just applies on the business side of it. because in life, you deal with things, human aspects of life that can really slow you down because of a loss of a loved one or something like that. So don't apply that to that aspect of it, just to the business context of what I'm talking about. Get prepared for what's coming around the corner. Right now, we're talking about hyperinflation and everything else.

15:03We talk about stuff sitting out in the Pacific and not coming through the omni-channels and everything. else and we talk about gas prices going up, food prices going up. Yes, yes, yes, yes, that is happening. But don't let it paralyze you from being in position to continue to move forward. So take these signs, understand these signs and try to figure out how these signs can truly impact what you're doing. What do you see from all of that right now that can impact what you're doing? Well, I see that the price of steel is going to go up. I see that the price of wood and everything is going to go up.

15:39So housing costs may go up. Profits may come down. All just in time for the big infrastructure. All just in time for the big infrastructure. So they're trying to get the infrastructure for free. Yeah. They need to get it right. They need to do it right. But yeah, those things happen. And oftentimes they happen when some people are just focused on what they do. and miss out on how the world itself can impact everything that we all do. So from beyond the game, was it 2002 that you stopped? You had the record you were saying earlier, right? I broke the record in 2002. 2002. And so you were kind of thinking beyond the game while you were still in the game.

16:19Oh, yes. What were the first entrepreneurial things that you did once you stopped actively playing? Okay. I stopped actively playing in 2004. Go for it. Retired January the something in 05. One of the first things, I already knew what I wanted to do. So Roger Stalbeck and I had already had a conversation. And he told me, once I retire, please come to him. So I retired on a Sunday or on a Wednesday before the Super Bowl in Jacksonville. So that Tuesday, I was in Roger's office talking about what my next move was going to be. I wanted to follow in his footsteps. I wanted to follow Magic Johnson's footsteps.

17:11I wanted to get into the real estate business, understand the aspects of the real estate business. One of the first things he asked is what side of the real estate business you want to do. I said, I wanted to be a developer. I want to build things. I want to see things. I'm taking what Charlie Edgar put in my head years ago, and I want to apply it right now. So I want to build retail shopping centers. I want to build a big power center. He said, well, have you thought about the brokerage side of the business? I said, yeah, but I'm not sure if I want to be a broker because I see all the developers making tons of capital.

17:46So I'm like, that's what I want to do. Yeah, way more leverage. So, yeah, yeah, but way more risk. too much more risk because personal guarantees, things you have to learn about as you start to go through the process of financing some of these big, big deals. And so I started in that way. Call Magic Johnson and say, I'm about to cut a deal with Roger. Help me understand what I should ask for, what I should. He said, don't leave nothing on the table. Do this, this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this. Yes. He is so sharp. Yes. And so I did. So resources, I would say to any entrepreneur is this.

18:28If you're going down a path that someone else has already gone down, if you know them or if you have a chance to reach out to them, it's better to reach out and get insight before you jump fully in and immerse yourself, before you get too deep or before you make a mistake in your negotiations. And so that's what I did with Magic. And so once Starback and I got together with his development team, I consummated my first joint venture. That's so smart, though, because it sounds like you had talked to Roger before. Way before. Matter of fact, I had invested capital with some funds that Roger, the Starback company, had a fund.

19:09And we invested some money into buying shopping centers and so forth. But you still reached out to Magic to get advice before you sat down in the negotiating chair. I didn't reach out to Roger. Roger wasn't going to tell you. No, I know. That's great, though. That's really smart. That's good. That's good. Okay, so then you did the deal with Roger? Did a deal with a company called Cypress Equity. Okay. And so I started learning how to put these things together. The development deals? The development deals. Okay. What was your first deal? One of the first deals we did was out in Arizona. We did about 125 ,000 square foot shopping center.

19:49We started right before the daggone recession hit. Good timing. Yeah, it was poor timing. Poor, poor timing. But it was a good experience. Yeah. I didn't have any major legacy issues with me. But putting a deal together was more important. And learning how to put the deal together was extremely important. than any loss that we had. Because we were able to get out from underneath it without a problem. So I learned how to get out of stuff too as well. But putting the deal together gave, and I had to learn a lot of this stuff on my own too, by the way. It wasn't like people were just running up to me trying to give me information.

20:34And there's no book. People ask that. There's no damn book. Yeah. Period. Period. There is no book. You have to immerse yourself in it yourself. And the way I did, I went to CCIM Institute. Yep. And I started getting educated in terms of working with the institution in terms of helping me understand the user perspective as well as the buyer perspective. That's right. Did you go through the certification? I went through the certification, got my certification and everything else. I started being able to identify what trade areas look like. In my mind, throughout 15 years in the National Football League, I was already seeing locations before they actually became real locations.

21:14I just didn't have the know-with-all how to put these things together. And asking your teammates to invest in something that you can't really put together yourself is like leading the blind, the blind leading the blind. You don't want to, the team, especially on the field, you don't want those guys losing money with you. No, you don't. No, you don't. If anyone's from Valley Ranch or from Dallas, Texas, know where Valley Ranch is at, there's MacArthur and 635, correct? I lived in Valley Ranch in 1990. I lived in that area, in the urban area, for about five years. So in 1990, I could stand at the top of MacArthur Boulevard and 635 and look directly over to Beltline, which is about a mile one way.

22:00114 is about a mile the next way. Land. And I said to myself, and I told Michael Irvin this, I said, this property right here would be valuable. I think we should put our money together and go buy this property and put some shopping centers on it, blase it. He said, yeah, yeah. And I told him, I was talking to all my teammates about it. And they were like, yeah, let's do it. Well, when it came down to getting the money, it was like crickets. No money, no deal. And plus, we didn't know how to put the deal together, and we were playing ball. Years later, Target's popping up. Marshall's popping up.

22:41Chick-fil-A, McDonald's, you name it. Kroger's, all these shopping centers are popping up right around that corner. That corner right now is probably worth over$200 million. Just by seeing it. Yeah. And then I saw some other sites, and the same thing happened. So having an eye was part of my gift. And the reason why it's part of my gift is because that's what God had blessed me with to play the game of football, is to be able to see things happening and process it fairly quickly on the football field to where it highlights my talent. And I'm able to do what I do on the football field the way you see me do it.

23:24In the real world, that same old vision is being able to see something before it actually gets there. See what the potential could actually be, whether it's potential of a shopping center or the potential in people as well. That's part of my gift. And so all I've done my whole entire life is try to maximize my gift and do it in the most entrepreneurial way I possibly can do it. That's pretty great. So you had education through the CCIM and some bit of modeling through them and through the Staubach, what was it? Was it Roger Staubach Company? It was the Staubach Company. Staubach Company. And that kind of helped you put those first deals together.

24:06Did you have a group of people that you kind of talked to that were peers, like kind of mastermindy or anything like that? Well, through the relationships through CCIM as well as those relationships that I had with the Staubach Company. And then others, as you go to these conferences like this right here, you start to develop relationships around the country. And then when I moved to Arizona, I developed other relationships with other developers. Right. And so learning from various developers and seeing what they're doing as well is one of the things that I've always tried to gain insight on and to model some of the things that we do that I try to do as well from a company standpoint.

24:45And then you said you branched out from a lot of the development deals that you were doing into related things that were real estate related. Can you share some of that with us? Well, one thing I learned by working with Cypress is when we put together our pro formas, the one thing you're looking at is what construction cost is going to be. So you see what it takes to develop a shopping center and you know that there's a lot of construction costs there. and picking the right GC is something that's extremely important. And so, but seeing how much money was being placed in the construction costs took me back to Charlie Edgar in terms of what Charlie Edgar was doing.

25:29So how does a construction company make money and et cetera, et cetera? They obviously make it off of the volume. They make it off of the materials that they buy, especially if they buy it in bulk and they're able to get discounted. what's the name, and they don't always pass the money on to the owner. They always take it to the bottom line. So understanding that piece, I started looking at and hearing in 08, 09, when the market turned about George Bush was talking about infrastructure needs. I was seeing what was happening around the country. I saw a bridge fall down in Minnesota where people got hurt and killed in that case because the infrastructure was failing.

26:11and then the government started talking about how the infrastructure is failing. And so I started saying, okay, if the government is about to, and if you know anything about real estate, infrastructure leads where real estate is going to go. So I'm looking at new roads and bridges starting to happen around Dallas-Fort Worth. And I'm seeing all of this infrastructure work coming in. And I'm seeing these rock haulers and cement trucks and high five, this going up and new roads going up, the new tow road and everything else. And I started looking on a government letting and seeing how big these projects were.

26:45And I'm like, wow, 300, 400 million, a billion. That's like how many African-Americans are in this space? I couldn't find any. None that was doing quality work at that level. Right. There was an opportunity. So I created a construction company to do just that on the infrastructure side as well as on the building side. Fortunately for me, I ran into a guy by the name of Eugene Walker, who worked at a big company called Austin Industries, which has Austin Rosen Bridges, Austin Commercial. Rosen Bridges is exactly what it sounds like. Commercial was also airports, office buildings, parking lots, parking, all this stuff.