Burn the Ships: Bankruptcy, Comebacks & Building LeadHackers ft. Alex Machuca

0:00Please welcome the one, the only Alex Machuco. Thanks Alex for flying down today. That was an amazing introduction. I really appreciate that, man. You know, you're a buddy and colleague and someone I look up to and someone, you know, we're continuing to build a deeper bond with. Yeah, I was just like, remember when I said this to you after the first one, I go, Joe, I didn't expect to like you this much. You know, I get that a lot. Welcome to another episode of Coffees. I got to bring it for you, bro. It's likewise. You're one of my favorite people in the industry. Easily, man. That time we had in New York was fun.

0:31Yeah. great times i got to know you and uh alex i like to start the show off what's your morning routine every day i saw you ask this question to jason perkins on bonzo and i was like dude you know what my morning routine is i wake up i brush my teeth and i get right on my computer and get to work i don't have a morning routine that is my morning routine uh i don't have a morning routine i don't have a i don't have a night routine and it's because i work from when i wake up like within minutes of waking up i am on the computer that's sometimes someone's morning routine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, everybody's like, yeah, you know, I drink tea or like I meditate.

1:07It's like, no, I get right to work. I do it. And, and, and you know what? It's exactly what I want to do. Uh, I, I, I want to be working all the time. You know, I work till midnight, one in the morning, every single night I wake up at six, probably get like five hours of sleep. I wake up, I do it all over again, but I don't look at it as work. I look at it as building. I love to build things. You're a builder. Yeah. That's where we connect. Now you pulled off a viral cultural moment with Techotopia, but what didn't go viral behind the scenes that nearly broke you? Oh my God. Well, the company itself, man.

1:44You know, it's a blessing in disguise. And I could go into that for a while because it really, that company broke up some important friendships that I had. And, uh, you know, I ended up getting the crap end of the stack in, in that deal, but it actually, at the time I thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Uh, but it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me because, um, I had, I'll never forget. And shout out to my wife for this, who was my girlfriend at the time. I had about$2 ,000 left in my bank account. And I came across this video of this guy named Jeremy Haynes.

2:20And I was like, this guy is so cool. He's doing this marketing company. Like I want to do a marketing company. And so his course was$2 ,000. And so I went to my wife and I said, Hey, I really want to buy this course. It's$2 ,000. She goes, do it. I'll cover rent. And in the next 90 days, I scaled my marketing company to 50 K a month, eight months in, we had a hundred K a month. And two months after that, 11 months in, we had half a million dollars recurring in revenue a month in under 11 months. And so that was my first, that, that was right after Taco-topia. So Tacotopia was kind of my first, wow, I can go out there and make quite a bit of money.

2:59I could raise sponsorship money. I'm really good at this. It turned out, I mean, COVID really kind of put the stop. It was a brick and mortar, right? And so people can go outside. And so that went out of business. And when it was going out of business, I stumbled into marketing and it became just a career. I mean, it completely changed the entire way that I looked at the amount of money possible that I could make. You know, you spend your whole life like, oh, I want to get a job and make 100K a year. It's like I was making 5X that a month. And it was in a very, very fast amount of time. Now, you're chairman of a holding company, CEO of a media firm, advisor to several brands.

3:44what's the cost of carrying that many tiles and what do you keep private and uh keep private to stay sane what do i keep private to stay sane you know i'm pretty open about everything and i'm always looking for opportunities i don't look at like these are like my wife says this to me all the time she's like i don't know how you have this many friends like i i couldn't possibly keep in touch like that sounds exhausting it's like dude when i'm bored i'll send you a text yeah it's fun for me. Like I enjoy talking to people like I'll text, I'll text you about stuff all the time. And I do that with other people who just are, it's not even about like, okay, I'm trying to connect with this guy because he has something that I can benefit from.

4:27It's just, we're into the same shit. Yeah. We're into the same stuff. Right. And so entrepreneurs, I feel like gravitate towards each other. And for me, I'm just really, really good at keeping in touch with people. And I'm always trying to help any way I can providing value in some way. Like, you know, I was just telling your buddy, I was over at Rocket Mortgage two weeks ago and their recruiting department, they were recruiting like cavemen. They were manually sending out these LinkedIn messages. I completely automated it for them in like 20 minutes. I love doing things like that because there's a lot of information out there that people don't know about that if they did know, they would be able to 10x, 20x their output.

5:07Yeah. I mean, you're a servant at heart and I love that about you. It's like you just want to give and help. Yeah. Now, you've mentored some giants, and you've been mentored by giants. What's one lesson you resisted at first, then realized it was everything you needed to hear? That's a great question. I know exactly what a good answer is. Delegation. You'll find this a lot when people are first starting their company. You want to hold on to everything tight because you don't trust anybody else to do it correctly, right? And that took a long time. That was the difference for me being as soon as I, it was at 100K a month, I couldn't get past that.

5:49It was because I wouldn't delegate. And then I started delegating. I opened up an office, hired 12 of my friends, and that's when we made the push to half a million dollars a month. So if you could find somebody to do something 70 % as good as you, that's a win. You could teach them the other 30%. Yeah. And that was a lesson that I wish I had listened to earlier. delegation and and actually being like letting the reins go which is a difficult thing to do when you've built something special right when that's your baby and so i'm sure you probably experienced some of that when you're first starting out delegating was hard when i first started and now if you ask anybody like i'm a master yeah same right i'm a master like i don't know anything else to do but delegate right yeah you know if i could delegate my brushing my teeth because when you when you control all the variables it's so hard to lose that control right it's so hard to lose that control how'd you lose how did you like just accept losing the control well just speaking to mentors like speaking to people who were further along than me with their agencies.

6:59And, you know, it was just like, hey, you gotta, trust me on this. It was just kind of like taking a leap of faith, right? It's like, this guy could royally mess things up. And at the time, you know, it seems so monumental to where like, if he makes this mistake, the whole company could go under. It's like, dude, companies are not that, you know, delicate, right? Like they survive mistakes and customers forgive. And, you know, that's a really important part of it. And so being able to understand that from experience, like, all right, I'm going to mess up a lot. I think that's what a lot of people kind of, it discourages them.

7:35They're like, well, I don't want to deal with like an upset client. It's like, dude, then don't start a business because you're going to have some people that are unhappy. You can't make everybody happy. The question is, are you going to make more people happy than you are that are disappointed to you? And how far away can we get from the people that are unhappy? How big of a difference can we make, right? But you're always going to have unhappy people. And if you accept that, it's unavoidable, right? You do right by them. Like with lead hackers, it's a completely different landscape than when I had my lead gen company.

8:07When I had my lead gen company, there's a lot of unhappy customers. Lead hackers, it's a self-service software platform. It's so easy. Like we have people, this is, I'll give you a version of when somebody cancels with us, it's not your fault. It's my fault. I didn't try hard enough. I didn't put in the hours. I didn't pay attention. Like they blame themselves because it's true. It is a self-service platform, right? You're kind of taking the onus off of you, but it's night and day. We rarely have unhappy customers with lead hackers, which is amazing. So I know I'm doing something right. Which is great because for my company, I can refer people to you and I know it's on them if they screw up.

8:44Yeah. Yeah. And you could check their call reporting. You could see exactly. And that's the other part, right? Like we have, there's a lack of, and you know this in the mortgage industry, there really is a lack of accountability from mortgage brokers in a sense that they will blame, they'll do anything except look in the mirror. We know that, right? Like, so especially as a service-based business, somebody who's serviced over 3000 mortgage brokers, it's never their fall, right? But what I love about lead hackers is we just pull up the call reports. It's like, hey, here's how many calls you made.

9:18Here's how many calls Scott Seltz has made, who's closed 40 plus loans through lead hackers. Scott Seltz makes the same amount of calls that you do, five months worth in a week. That's the difference. That's why you're not closing anything. Simple math. Simple. Yeah, it's super easy. It's like, there's no rocket science here. It's all transparent so you can actually see it. And now these people have to actually look at themselves in the mirror now lead gen and ad strategy are about precision but how much of your own journey was built on chaos gut instinct and just grind all of it all of it every part um you know i i'll never forget my dad one day said hey I'm done paying your bills.

10:05I can't anymore. He cut me off. And at that point, that was the day I grew up. I'll never forget that day. Growing up, when I was 16 years old, my parents lost their house. We ended up living in a family friend's basement. And from about 16 to the age of 21, I was a victim, which is the most toxic thing you could be in your life. you blame everybody else for your problems i was like oh my my credit's bad it's my dad's fault it's my mom's fault they don't have any money i can't go on spring break with my friends they don't have any money what like a spoiled little brat and you start blaming everybody else for your problems and the problem is when you victimize yourself and you blame someone else you are robbing yourself of the power to do something about it yeah and that's what i realized at that age.

10:52I was like, all right, I got cut off. I can do what I normally do and just spiral, or I can actually just wipe this dirt off and go out there and do something about it. And then I went on the journey, and it was a long journey, and the journey always takes longer than you expect it to take. It's never an overnight success. I've had multiple failures, multiple failures, multiple failed companies. And that's normal. You have to get comfortable with failing in order to be successful. For me, I know that the reason I know that I'm going to be ultimately fulfilled in life is because I tried. And the most important thing is that one of the most important lessons was you can't lose if you don't stop playing the game.

11:40And I know I'm never going to stop. And so it's not a matter of, if it's a matter of when, you know, I have my exit, I sell my company, right? Like, it's an inevitability. If I just keep at it and don't stop, I could probably do it in the next two years. But even if it's 10, as long as I know that if it's going to take 10 years, I know that I'll do it because I'm just not going to stop. You're relentless. Yeah, there's no, other, I burn the ships. There's no other option. Now, you've raised capital. You've launched brands. You've advised leaders. What's the most humbling L that you've taken that recalibrated your direction?

12:23Going bankrupt. Going bankrupt. Filed bankruptcy? I filed bankruptcy. How old were you when you filed bankruptcy? This was a few years ago, Joe. This was after Link Crest Media. and you know this is you all right you remember when we first met oh yeah yeah you're like i remember that that was part of your failures that was yeah so that was one of the hardest conversations that i had ever had i was really yeah yeah because i was really looking forward to this call with you right and uh you brought dave jimenez on the call who by the way shout out to dave jimenez that's my absolute boy i just spoke to him on the phone yesterday i love dave jimenez he'll call you out and we're talking about how much we love you and yet dave jimenez called me out.

13:05But what was funny is at the time, I thought that he was a customer who got completely screwed over. That wasn't the case. He was just unhappy with the service. But there was customers who really, really got it bad. And I'll never forget this. And this is the first time I'm talking about it. So this is a Joe Chalabi exclusive. I've never talked about this. When I went bankrupt, I had 135 clients at Linkrest Media, okay? And part of our deal was we're booking appointments for LOs. We didn't have the money to pay the appointment setters to book the appointments for LOs. And so I was like, all right, my attorney goes, listen, just send everybody an email, tell them you're going bankrupt and give them my number.

13:47You don't have to deal with anybody. I was like, no way. The only thing that you take with you your entire life is your name. And so I want to stay in the mortgage industry. Hardest two months of my life, I said, okay, I'm going to make 10 calls a day. I'm going to call every single client. I'm going to apologize to them. I'm going to take accountability. I'm going to tell them that I can't deliver on the appointments that they've paid thousands of dollars for. But what I can do is give them leads, right? So I would call these people and say, hey, look, here's a situation. You know, I let you down.

14:23I'm sorry. I owe you 20 appointments. I don't have money to pay the appointment setters but how's 50 leads because an appointment is essentially a lead right yeah dude i called 135 people i sold every single one of them on the leads a lot of them became customers for lead hackers only two people told me to kill myself people were generally like they were generally like it it shows me the type of character that you have you didn't have to call me. And you chose to call me and get in front of it. And I can only imagine how difficult this conversation is for you. And I just appreciate your honesty.

15:05And I appreciate that you called me. And you would be so surprised, man. Most of the people were super, super nice to me, super sympathetic. And a lot of them became my customers for lead hackers. And during that hard time that I was going through, right? Shortly after that, that's when you and I had that call. And I remember, man, it was devastating because I was like, oh, here it comes. I know I have some unhappy people there that don't like me. I'm going to run into them one day, but I want to be able to hold my head high and know that I did the right thing. And so when you and I got on that call, it was it was like such a gut punch to me and then after that call i had a webinar with nexa mortgage and at the same time right my father had gotten sick he had a uh an aneurysm he had like a blood clot in his head he was in icu for like 40 days and so you didn't know this at the time but i was going back and forth i remember talking to you at the hospital yeah that's right okay yeah yeah and so you know i'm like shit well that deal fell through and at the time my dad's out of work.

16:12We had to figure out how to pay their mortgage, right? I go to LO Summit and I get on stage and I give my presentation for Lead Hackers. It was the first ever presentation I did. That one presentation made me enough money to pay for my parents' mortgage for the whole year. And it was just like, I'll never forget this, Joe, because I know you're a religious guy. after I got off that presentation, I walked outside. And this is like really emotional for me. You know, my dad's in the hospital. My mom is also in the hospital. She had like a blood clot in her, not a blood clot, but a, uh, a clot in her arteries.

16:51And so it was really rough time for me. I'm going through a bankruptcy. Both my parents are almost dying. Right. And that happens. Dude, I walk outside and I walk into the street and I just look up and I go, thank you, God. All of a sudden, lightning, like a small lightning bolt happens, and it just starts pouring rain on me. It was the most euphoric thing I've ever experienced. I mean, I couldn't believe it. I was like, no way. You just got to talk to God, experience God on both fronts. And I just started laughing. Like, I can't believe this. You know what I mean? It was awesome, man. It was a crazy experience.

17:31Man. Man. And I was going to ask, what's the moment you nearly quit? I'm sure that bankruptcy moment was. You know what? I never wanted to quit. Here's why. Have you read Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson? I don't know if I've told you this story. No. So he talks about this guy. He talks about the four-minute mile and how nobody thought you could run a mile in four minutes. The guy broke it, and then everybody started breaking it the next week because they realized it was possible. And he relates that story to this guy named John Reese, right? John Reese is the first guy ever to make a million dollars on the internet in 24 hours.

18:05In one night. He's the first guy to ever do it. He made a million dollars. He did a bunch of stuff with Tony Robbins after that and got famous after that. So I'm reading Expert Secrets. I'm reading about this guy named John Reese. This is when Linkrest is going down. I mean, we're sinking. Yeah, sinking. And so I'm reading this book. All of a sudden, I get a knock on the window. It's this older man. And I'm like, oh, God, is that a pissed off customer? He comes around, walks in the door and goes, hey, what's up, man? I'm John Reese. I go, what? He goes, yeah, I saw your ClickFunnels Award. I'm friends with Russell.

18:39I was like, no way. So I bring him to my office. I pull out the book out of my backpack. I'm like, dude, I'm reading about you. I start trauma dumping on him, telling him about all of my problems with my business. How did you find your office? I'll tell you. So I'm trauma dump on him. He goes, you got a whiteboard? this guy proceeds to spend the next four hours with me dissecting my business on a whiteboard right he was the guy who told me to call everybody he goes i guarantee you they're not going to be upset i know you're afraid to do it call everybody so i go this is after hours at work so i go my team's never going to believe me that you were here he goes no sweat dude i live upstairs i'll come back tomorrow and he comes back the next day stays with me from 1 p.m to 1 a.m he's one of my greatest friend like mentors like we go to lunch he's the coolest guy you will ever meet and if you look up stuff he used to be one of those famous gurus like frank kern he used to be with those guys didn't like the attention he has uh i hope he doesn't get pissed at me for saying this he's got a little bit of social anxiety and so when you look up like if you type his name in john reese online you're gonna see rumors about him like yeah he uh he fled to ukraine or like he just these crazy rumors about where he went because he fell off the face of the earth.

19:57It's like, no, man, he's just hanging out with his dog in his apartment in Scottsdale. He's just hanging out like he just doesn't like the attention. He's one of the smartest guys that I've ever met. That guy, and I've met, listen, I've had dinner with Hermosi, Josh Snow, Adi Yatar, like really, really, really successful entrepreneurs. John Reese is the smartest guy that I know, period. It's not even close. And he has an innate ability to make the most complex things sound so simple. He's unbelievable. And if you come to Scottsdale, I'll see if I can introduce you to him. But I'm telling you, you put that guy in any business, any business, he'll dissect the entire...

20:43He was like Rain Man on that whiteboard. I couldn't believe it. Wow. Now, you're building infrastructure for brands but what part of your own mindset had you did you have to rebuild before you could really help others effectively imposter syndrome you know what i realized is everybody else is just figuring shit out on the way too right like i i as soon as i started getting in those rooms i was like these guys don't know what they're doing nobody really does you know what i mean like you're you're just everybody's just figuring it out on the way yeah and when i realized that it was very easy for me to say, okay, I can do this.

21:20Because I know that this guy's figuring it out on the way. Everybody is. Like, I can do it. That was the... That was the breakthrough moment. Yeah, the realization. Now, if you were to ask the younger version of yourself, and if the younger version of yourself walked in today, what would you be proud of? And what would he call you out on? Wow.

21:48geez what would he call me out on working too much probably yeah and he would say he's proud of me for taking care of my parents and for who i married i'd say that's what he's that's what he would say he's proud of me of but being not yeah i know listen i i i know i'm you know i'm having a kid soon in a week my biggest fear is that I am not going to spend a lot of time with him. That's my biggest fear because I work so much and it's like an unhealthy addiction how much I, I work. I work cause I love it. Right. And some people are like, Hey, that's, that's weird. You need work life balance. It's like, that's kind of is my belt.

22:39Like work is my hobby. I happen to be very lucky in that sense. right they actually enjoy it right a lot of people don't and so my biggest fear is not spending enough time with my kid because i the the job's not finished like i but i never will be you got to put in the time with the kids right now from here i'm going straight to my kids and straight to their activities like that's what i live for yeah well i don't work in an office and so i work from home currently yeah but so that's nice present yeah and again that's my fear is you Obviously, I'm going to be present, but I worry because I know that if I'm not in my office or in front of my computer, I feel it.

23:20I feel a little anxiety, like I've got to get back in there. I don't want to feel that because I know it will bother me. I'm going to spend time with my kid. I just don't want to feel like I'm being pulled into the office because right now I'm always being pulled in that direction. And it's easy to go. It's not going to be easy to go anymore. A couple last questions. What's a personal goal you have for yourself, a family goal that you have for the family, and a business goal? Great question. Well, family goal I had for the family, retire my family. We've already done that. Between me and my brother.

23:59we've retired our parents they don't have to work which is the whole reason you get into business right for me it's like i want to retire my parents i've already done that uh personal entrepreneur goal is an exit i need to get an exit under my belt i feel like that is a a badge of honor it's kind of like a rite of passage for an entrepreneur and so that would be my other one is i need to have an exit um it as far as the family goes i've been able to you I've been very fortunate to my parents don't, they don't need anything. They can, they were just in Ireland. You can go enjoy the rest of their, the rest of their lives and have fun.

24:35Love that. Last question. When you're in front of, when you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you? He's probably going to tell me that I could have done better. Right. I don't think, uh, I think the one thing about God is you're never going to, like, you're never going to feel like you're worthy enough. Right. Right. God is is perfect. Right. And we're human. We sin. But I hope that, you know, my goal has always been take care of yourself and your family first and then you could take care of other people. Like I have a passion for helping people. I have a, you know, if you look at my Venmo account, man, I'm, I'm constantly donating like dog sanctuaries and like, I'm a big dog guy.

25:24And, um, but yeah, that would, that would be it. You know, I want to, the reason I want to have an exit is cause I, I, I would be interested in philanthropy and nonprofits. And I think that would make your heart feel good. A lot of people don't do it because it's difficult. taxing on your heart because you're helping people who are in sad situations, you know? It takes a strong person to be able to do that. And I hope that I'm strong enough to do that one day to where I'm really, really heavily involved in helping other people. And then I can look at myself and say, okay, I know that I'm at least, like, I'm not terrible.

26:03I'm not going to say that I'm worthy of being in front of those pearly gates. But at least I know that I did what I could, right? I think that's... Now, if people want to get in touch with you, Alex, how do they find you? Reach out to me, LinkedIn, Facebook. Weird spelling last name, kind of, not really. Some people spell it with a K. It's Emma's and Mary, A-C-H-U-C-A. If you want to follow me on Instagram, it's Alex Machuca HQ. and yeah that's it just Alex Machuco on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram perfect thanks Alex make sure guys if you're wanting to expand your business you start getting some leads under your belt and he is the man the myth legend behind getting you the most effective leads at the cheapest price possible let's go thank you thanks bro appreciate you

27:07Thank you.