The Power of Mindset: DeAnna Rogers' Business Journey

0:00I would say I had a fear like everyone else. It was so I could always talk to people and try to tell them how to get over their fear. But I had that same fear. And I just didn't think I could actually do it. And so I didn't do it because I didn't think I could do it. I didn't feel like I was able to, um, I didn't have that suave talk. I didn't have it, but I have my talk. I have the way I talk to people, but I didn't know how to do that. And, um, and so I kept listening and kept listening. And I mean, Roland, you were my biggest cheerleader. Cause you just kept telling me, you're like, Dana, you just need to go do this.

0:29Um, and I, I listened to the scripts, I read the scripts, but in my voice, I couldn't figure out how to do it, but it was really funny. It's, it's called comfort and it's called, you have to, I call it life fitting. I changed the word marketing because I hate marketing to be honest with you, but life fitting, life fitting is you're living it, right? You're, you're living what you do. And, and so when you believe in something and you want it and you're passionate about it, then you'll do it. You'll life it, right?

1:03Hey everybody, Roland Frazier here with another episode of Business Lunch. And I'm kind of excited today because I haven't had a chance to do this yet. And I've got somebody who I have known, it seems like forever, certainly in all of my current iteration of business life. She has been either out there doing great things or working with us and as a business partner in deals, as somebody that has run multi-thousand people events, as somebody that's doing acquisitions and all of those kinds of things. I want to welcome my good and longtime friend, Deanna Rogers. Deanna, welcome to Business Lunch.

1:49Thank you, Roland. Glad to be here. Nice to have you here. So would you kind of tell everybody, like, this is, I'd like to kind of give them a little bit of your background and then kind of how you got into your current entrepreneurial life. And then we can talk about some of the fun things I want to go through. Can you just kind of give everybody, this is the Deanna Rogers story? Oh, that's boring. Yeah, I mean, I met you probably 18 years ago. I had an event company. I had a company called AMG and Roland was a speaker out there and he actually came and spoke on my stage. I was, I was begging people to be like, please come, please have faith in me.

2:32Roland had faith in me at that time and came and spoke. Um, I was doing events in the real estate space and, uh, working with other event planners. And that was a passion of mine was to have an event company. And then he brought me in. Um, he was partnering with, uh, uh, Ryan Dice at that time. And he brought me in and said, Hey, we'd like for you to help us with this little event called traffic and conversion summit. And so I was able to come in and work with them. And I was able to learn so much over those years and just, just being in the presence of Roland and Ryan and the team and growing TNC and having just a little footprint in that and being able to grow it was so much fun.

3:16And then, you know, obviously then COVID happened and Roland and I were, we're traveling all the time, doing events everywhere and COVID kind of put a pause on things. And, uh, we kind of shifted and, um, Roland created a brand new brand and a brand new company called Epic. And he asked if I could help him and support him and, and kind of, uh, help help him with that company. And I was very blessed and honored. And so I've been working with him in that part of the company for about five, six years now, five years. And, um, you know, it's so funny because I've listened to Roland for over 18 years and I've done all that.

3:52And I know what he does. And I was really afraid to do acquisitions myself. I'm okay with like trying to go out and sell it for people and share it and, and run it. Um, but I wasn't really wanting to go do it myself until one day he was like, Dee, why aren't you doing this? And I'm like, I'm not you. And he's like, no, but you're you. And so, um, I've been bringing some deals to the table and asking Roland to partner with me on it. And he said yes. And so I can now officially say that Roland is one of my partners and that just feels great. And we've been growing since then. That's awesome. So one of the things that I like is that you kind of either, I don't know, did you ever gone through, like gone through the courses that we do, or is it kind of just being around in terms of, this is to me kind of interesting because we've had a few people that work with us go do deals.

4:46And we teach, one of the things that we teach for those of you who don't know is how to acquire companies, usually with little or no money out of pocket. And so it's always cool when somebody goes and does that, that's kind of in our inner circle, not necessarily a formal student, not somebody that came in through our marketing or anything, just somebody that was kind of around and got it by osmosis, which I think is the case with you, but I had never really ask you. Have you gone through like the actual training with an eye towards doing it or is it just that you've heard it so much you were just kind of like, okay, I'm going to go do this?

5:23Hey, Ryan Dice here, co-host of Business Lunch. And before we get to the show, I have an exciting invitation for you. My business partner and Business Lunch co-host Roland Frazier and I are hosting a live in-person event. And if you're a bootstrap business owner who wants to build a 10 million and even 100 million dollar business in the next three years you need to be there. This event is called Get Scalable Live and over the last four years it has transformed from a small gathering of entrepreneurs into the largest bootstrapped entrepreneurship conference in North America. Now I know what you might be thinking you're probably thinking Ryan really another business event is that really what we need but trust me this isn't just any other event.

6:02You see unlike most conferences at Get Scalable Live, you'll have dedicated time to take action and actually work on your business instead of just in your business. Over three days, you'll work shoulder to shoulder with like-minded entrepreneurs to implement what you're learning and get valuable feedback that you're just not going to be able to get during the normal day today. You're going to be immersed in fresh ideas, strategic insights, and you're going to get the support and guidance that you need to actually reach your business goals. So this is your opportunity. This is your chance to step out of the day-to-day to eliminate the noise and finally work again on your business, not just in your business.

6:41And if you implement, I'm confident about this, if you implement just one or two key insights from any of our sessions into your business, you're bound to see a return on investment much higher than what we could ever charge for admission. And by the way, speaking of admission, right now, Business Lunch listeners can save an additional 10 % off of our already low early bird ticket pricing. So just head over to GetScaleableLive.com and use promo code LUNCH at checkout. Again, that's GetScaleableLive.com promo code LUNCH. It is truly amazing what can happen when you step out of the day-to-day and spend just a little bit of time surrounded by other powerful business owners.

7:24And since this opportunity only comes around once a year, you don't want to miss it. Again, the link is getscalablelive.com and don't forget to use promo code LUNCH at checkout to save up to 67 % off the full ticket price. That's all I got. I'll see you in Austin. All right, back to your regularly scheduled programming. It's both, to be honest. It started out with just me being in the presence and being on the coaching calls with you and understanding and listening. And then I would start having questions and I didn't want to come and ask and seem like I didn't know. So I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to go back through myself and I'm going to dive in.

8:01And so I have, I've gone back through the myself and acted like a student and, and worked on my own pace. And I knew I'd been around it a lot, but there was things that maybe didn't make sense to me at that time. And now that I've gone through it as a student, it makes sense as I pay attention to it. So I've so many things I want to ask you. I'm going to start with the acquisition stuff and then move into more business stuff because what you guys may or may not know is Deanna runs a pretty large part of one of three main things of our business. And so she's really been in the role of building teams and doing a lot of things that I think will be of interest to the people that are watching and listening.

8:49From an acquisition standpoint, though, I want to start there. So tell me about the first thing that you did, I want to say it might've been the food truck thing or was it something else? Okay. So just share with everybody kind of how that evolved. And, um, because I, I really want to try to help people see that anybody can do this. And, um, and you know, you just kind of were around it, heard a bunch of stuff and they were like, I'm going to go try that. Um, so will you kind of tell that story and, and let people get a, an eye in on it? Yeah. I think I was, um, I would say I had a fear like everyone else.

9:29It was so, I could always talk to people and try to tell them how to get over their fear, but I had that same fear and I just didn't think I could actually do it. And so I didn't do it because I didn't think I could do it. I didn't feel like I was able to, um, I didn't have that suave talk. I didn't have that, but I have my talk. I have the way I talk to people, but I didn't know how to do that. And, um, and so I kept listening and kept listening. And I mean, Roland, you were my biggest cheerleader. Cause you just kept telling me, you're like, Dana, you just need to go do this. Um, and I, I listened to the scripts, I read the scripts, but in my voice, I couldn't figure out how to do it, but it was really funny.

10:03It's, it's called comfort and it's called, you have to, I call it life fitting. I changed the word marketing. Cause I hate marketing to be honest with you, but life fitting, life fitting is you're living it right. You're, you're living what you do. And, and so when you believe in something and you want it and you're passionate about it, then you'll do it. You'll life it, right? So whether you're going to the grocery store, whether you're going to the dentist and you're sitting in the dentist chair and you're talking to the dentist about what you are doing now, that's called life fitting, right?

10:33And so getting to back to what the story is, is that my husband and I were at a food truck park and we're just sitting there and we're paying attention to what's going on. And you can actually see that the two people running this whole thing. It was a husband and wife team and they're going nuts. Right. And I was over there getting a margarita. They're, they're running like a place where food trucks gather or they're running a food truck or both. No, well, both they had one that she was running, but her and the husband actually owned the whole food truck park. So there was like 20 different food trucks with like a big main stage with like activity with like bands.

11:11Right. And you can see, you could watch and see that these two people were running everywhere. And so you kind of knew who was in charge just because if you're a people work person, I'm, I'm a people watcher. I knew exactly that they had to be either an owner or they were an operator of that park because they were the ones doing all the things. Right. And so I went up to go get another margarita and I just said, Hey, do you own or operate this? Cause what a great, great place. I've never been here before. And this is so awesome. She's like, yeah. And I hate it. And the minute that she said that, I was like, why do you hate it?

11:45This is awesome. This is great. And she's like, girl, this is, this is horrible. And I guess I caught her on a bad day and I was just trying to be overly friendly. And I just started talking to her. Well, she was supposed to be working and she ended up just started talking to me. And I said, well, you know, this is so great. I said, what's your big problem? And she's like, see my husband over there. He's over here. He's doing two jobs during the day. and he comes here at night and he's doing this and dah, dah, dah. And she starts going into the whole story. And she goes, we just need someone to come in and buy this from us.

12:14And we just need to get out. I used to be a hairdresser and now look what I'm doing. And I go, you should find an investor and get someone or a partner into this. And she goes, yeah, if I could only find one, I go, well, funny thing is, is my husband, I were an investor. And I just, it just like came out of my mouth because I've learned this from Roland, right? Like I was like, well, I'm an investor and this is what we do. And she's like, really? And I was like, well, can you tell me more. Should I come back? Cause I know you're very busy. She's like, yeah, could you come back like in an hour?

12:40And so I'm like, okay, I'll stick around. Cause who knows where this goes? And we just started, we hit it off. So my husband and I sit there, we enjoy some music and I go back and a little bit later and her and her husband walk us around and start talking about the whole process of the park and all the things. And I mean, I'm not joking y 'all like two hours from the moment that we stopped to two hours later, she's like getting our information. Let's set up an appointment. Let's figure out how we can work together. And as we progress through this, she kind of wanted cash injection because she needed cash.

13:13We decided we weren't going to do that. But what we could do is help them grow and scale and figure out better ways to make it to where she's not in the business, her and her husband, and figure out how we could grow that. And so we ended up doing a CFE deal at the time that was trying to make it to where we would actually have equity. And it ended up not being that way. We ended up just doing a consulting. We started with the CFE, ended up being consulting. But what was great about was that I was going to have to go and meet with them for two to three hours on a Saturday once a month. And she was going to pay$10 ,000.

13:47Now, where I got that was from Roland because he kept talking about these 10, 10, 10s and all these things. And I'm like, well, our service, our cost is$10 ,000. I've never charged that y 'all ever for someone to do that. I just threw it out there because that's what Roland told me to do and they didn't budge. And so for a year, I was able to go on a Saturday once a month and go out there and work with these people. And I got$10 ,000 a month for that. That's pretty cool. That's how it started. So for, um, for people that don't know, CFE is consulting for equity. So that's where you're going to provide something of value to a business and in exchange, rather than just paying you, they give you part of the business.

14:28And generally it's both. So, um, so you started, um, by saying my husband and I are looking for something to invest in, right? I said, we're investors. And I said, if you're interested in this, let's, let's chat. Which is, which is great because to me, I think that is a fantastic place to start. And, um, and I, a lot of people have a hard time. They're like, well, I don't have money to invest. And it's like, well, if you found an amazing deal, my guess is that you could put together money to invest. I mean, if somebody said, I need$10 ,000 and it's the opportunity of a lifetime and you can get$100 ,000 back in 30 days, you'd probably find it.

15:04So I think starting with the idea that you can do that is hard for people. But it is really like if you start thinking about if you really had to put your hands on some cash money, you could. But investing is much more than money. It's the things that you know, it's the resources you can bring, contacts, connections. And so I want to talk about CPA moms from that perspective. But just to drill down on some of the takeaways from here, you started just, as you say, life-feeding. It's basically in your life, you're going to run into people. And if you see opportunities for people to do better, or even just ask them how they're doing or have a conversation with them, that has led to almost every deal I've ever done, right?

15:58And it might be two steps removed because I meet Deanna at an event and I talk to Deanna and we have a conversation and she says, what do you do? And I tell her and vice versa. And then later she says, you should meet such and such. And she texts me together with them and then we do something or they refer somebody. But it's just being out there and being a person who is curious, I think will drive so many deals for you. So I love that that's how that originated. And then you went from we're investors. It looks like not a great investment. But you had something to offer. What was it that you think, because you said you hadn't done this before and you hadn't asked for that much money before.

16:43So I want to talk about both of those things that you hadn't done this before. What on earth gave you the confidence to feel that you would be able to help her and do something in that time that you were talking with her that would be worth$10 ,000 a month or more to her? Well, because when I was sitting there watching for that one hour while I was waiting for her, I was looking around the whole park and I was finding all the things that if that were mine, what would I do differently? And I'm not trying to... like for example like like when then when she like for example like she had spaces open that there were not food trucks like she could have had more food trucks there there were places for opportunities to sell things that she wasn't selling um when we did the walkthrough with her uh we found out that she was on leased land instead of owned land and that that leased land could could let her go at any given time i would have changed that and they were charging her a ton of money for it, I would have changed that.

17:37Right. Um, she wasn't charging the food trucks enough per month. Like she could have raised that rent easily, like by a hundred or$200 and made a lot more money just by raising it a little bit. And she wasn't cause she, they were all friends of hers. She wasn't treating it like a business. She was treating it like friends of friends and letting them all be there that friends don't pay your bills. Right. And that, that was some of the things. Right. And then just like the bands were there, they had great bands, but it was free. what if you had a VIP section or what if you had a meet and greet? Like I learned all this from you at TNC, right?

18:10Like what if you did things that were special that you could charge for to make more money, but they weren't because it was just all free and it was just open to the public. And I'm like, but there's ways to make money from that. And I knew I can add that. Now you said you didn't get any pushback from them when you pitched and said 10K a month. And effectively it was probably, I think it was that you were going to meet with them. And then also they could have kind of as much phone conversation with you as they needed. Is that pretty much how that works? They originally wanted cash. They wanted a hundred thousand immediately just to even do it to start with.

18:43And I was like, and I actually came to you and talked about it. And then it was like, no, we're not doing cash injection into something like that, but here's what we'll do. Right. And so, yeah, we just, we pushed back and said, this is the way we do it. And if you'd like to get to work above the business, I can help you get there. And that was appealing to her because she was motivated and she was in a bad place in her life for her and her husband working so much that she wanted help. And so she was willing to invest in that help. Yeah. So that's another key, right? We talk about the motivation.

19:13They are either a motivated seller to sell the business or they're motivated because something is putting pressure on them that's not what they want. And you have the ability to potentially offer them the thing that they do want. In this case, it was kind of a freedom from the business and maybe a little bit more profitability, right? Do you know how much were you able to quantify over that 12 months what you were able to do for them benefit-wise? I don't know the exact numbers. I do know that in the first couple of months, because they actually ended up moving, life got in the way with them on some other things.

19:48So things got transitioned and they actually ended up selling. But I know that in the first couple of months, we added rent increase to the food trucks and we got revenue off of it as well. And we increased just that piece. She got an additional, I think she was getting an additional$9 ,000 more on just the rent alone that she wasn't getting. And then we got the revenue piece. I would say she probably got a little over, when it was all said and done, she probably did two to 300 ,000 more than what she was just in that initial part, just a couple of tweaks that we did. So if you think about that, she invested over 12 months, 120 ,000.

20:34And let's say she got back, let's say she only got back 200, right? So 120 to 200, she made$80 ,000, which is basically, I think a 60 % return on her investment with you, but also because she sold it and businesses sell for a multiple, that extra, you know, that extra 80 ,000, you know, net, which was really more because it was 200, right? So, so if we take your cost off, cause you weren't a continuing cost and we say you've added 200, not 300, let's just go to the low. And so you added 200 and the business sold for a multiple of, let's say it was a really low multiple of three, right? That's $600 ,000 more that she was able to get in terms of selling the thing, plus the couple hundred that she got, which netted her 80 profit.

21:22You're about 680 ,000 in value for the investment of 120. It's a pretty daggone good return on your money, right? Yeah. And they were happy. Like they were really happy. And I actually felt good at the end of the day. Like I enjoyed getting to meet with them and get to help them. It was a fun project. It really was. That's really cool. Okay. So the second, let me see. So in terms of the points of disbelief for you, one was, did you have a concern about being able to add the value? So I have the skillset. I love events. So I had that event background in me. So what I was seeing was the event things that I could add.

22:02And I knew for a fact that on the actual execution part of growing and scaling it, I had you if I needed to come and ask. Like I knew who was in my wheelhouse. So I wasn't scared of that piece. So I felt comfortable. I felt comfortable knowing that I could go in and do that. Okay, and you bring up an excellent point because even if you don't have the skill directly, you felt like you had it, but just in case you had some backup people you could go to. And that's something that everybody that's thinking about doing something like this should be thinking about because you have the skills yourself or you can access other people that have the skills.

22:40And there's plenty of people out there who are selling their skills by the hour. And even if it's a thousand, let's say that Deanna had brought somebody in for a thousand dollars an hour and had them spend 10 hours helping her figure out how to optimize this business in the first month. That would have been all of her first$10 ,000 payment. But then all the rest of the time would simply be executing those things and kind of touching base. And let's say that she still needed two hours a month of those people's time at$1 ,000 an hour, which is crazy. It's not going to be that much. I'm just giving you a crazy example just so you guys can see.

23:19She would still be$8 ,000 a month ahead or roughly$100 ,000 over a 12-month period and not have to even have any of the knowledge herself. Just having the ability to make the connection and tell people of what's possible and then find the resources together to bring to the table, that's really the value. So, okay, so that was not so much of a challenge for you. What about the amount of money that you were asking for or the fact that you hadn't done this before in terms of, like, did they ask you, you know, well, how many times have you come in for$10 ,000 a month, Deanna, and help the business like ours and, you know, let us talk to all those people and prove that you've done this?

24:02How did that happen or not happen? Well, I mean, I went in, it's my personality. I'm kind of bubbly and I'm talkative and I'm very chatty. And so I kind of, I leaned in on that piece of my skillset is that I can actually make friends with people. And I just said, look, I only work with people that I really like and enjoy. I don't have enough time in my day to do anything other than maybe one or two clients a month. So if you want to work with me, I'd love to choose to work with you as well. I know that I have people in my pipeline that we can help make this happen if you want to believe in me.

24:36I believe in this, but you got to believe in me too. And it was just really more of, I had to psych myself up. Right. And I did practice in the mirror a lot before I did it. I did. So you didn't really get any of that. Show me what you've done before. Let me talk to people references kind of stuff. Right. Not on that one. I did not because I had already convinced her just with a few things as I was walking around of what I could do. And she's like, oh my gosh, this is great. So I'd proven it. And I'm asking that because I think that that is one, it's one of the things that I hear a lot and you hear a lot, I think, from people who are trying to go into acquire businesses or do consulting or consulting for equity is people are like, well, show us all the deals you've done.

25:15I don't, I mean, I can't think of the last time that I've been asked that question. Not because I, I don't think it's because I'm out there and have a public persona because a lot of the people I meet don't know anything about that. Right. I'm, I'm internet famous. 17 people know who I am, you know? So it's not like I walk out and people are like, oh my God, you're the guy that does the businesses. So, and same for you. Right. So, um, so why do we not get asked that question that terrifies most people that are just starting out getting in this? It's because you go in number one and you're confident, uh, number two, you're confident in yourself.