From Near Bankruptcy to 45 Countries Worldwide - Scaling the Unscalable with Joe De Sena: An EOFire Classic from 2020

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD herein. Welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like Duct Tape Marketing. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active, and we'll be breaking down from near bankruptcy to 45 countries worldwide. We're talking Scaling the Unscalable with Joe DeSena. Joe is the founder and CEO of Spartan, the world's largest obstacle, race, and endurance brand, and has demonstrated his entrepreneurial drive since his pre-teens. After building a multimillion-dollar pool and construction business in college and creating a Wall Street trading firm, to set his sights on ripping 100 million people off their couches by creating the Spartan lifestyle.

0:41And today, Foundation will talk about how the fact of the matter is if you're not progressing, you're dying. And the only thing that matters in starting a business is sales and making sure that your customers will love your service or product. Then they will recommend it to their friends and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Joe and our sponsors. Is this your year? Visit thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2 ,000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability. It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee.

1:13Schedule your free consultation today at thrivetimeshow.com. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, the monthly ep with Jason and Ethan, where they share hacks, tips, and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts. Joe, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know. I don't think anybody knows this about me, right?

1:51Joe DeSena, founder and CEO of Spartan, hates burpees. I hate cold showers and I hate salad. But don't you do most of those every single day? Every single day. I have a policy where things that I don't like, I have to do. So like if I'm feeling a little tired and I'm just not feeling it, then I work out harder. Love that. And so I just, you know, human being, can we get right into this? Well, let's get right into it. You know, I spent some time with some Stanford professors, some different professors from around the world. And they've said to me, the number one motivator for a human being is the avoidance of discomfort.

2:27And so let's just assume that's true, which I believe it is. At all costs, we avoid discomfort. We do it subconsciously. So if you and I, for example, wake up at 5 a.m. and we're planning on working out, our brains will tell us, wait a minute, you got to go get a glass of water. Wait a minute. You got to go answer some emails. Wait a minute. You need a cup of coffee. We don't need any of those things. We just don't want to do the workout. And so we're avoiding discomfort at all costs. And I just flip things on its head and I said, wait a minute. It's more uncomfortable for me. Joe to Senate, Joe, it's more uncomfortable.

3:00This is what I tell myself, my mantra, if I don't do those things, if I don't do the hard stuff. And it took a few years, but if you're able to flip it around 180 degrees, oh my God, game changer. Fire Nation, as I mentioned in the intro, we're talking all about how Joe went from near bankruptcy to 45 countries worldwide, how he scaled literally the unscalable. And it is through mantras like he just shared that he's been able to do so much. And Joe, just like you like to cut right to the chase, I do too, brother. So let's start with what most people care about, money. How long did it take to turn a profit with the Spartan Race?

3:39It took me 15 years to turn a profit. And so anybody listening that has any kind of business savvy is going to say, Joe's an idiot. Why would you possibly spend 15 years working on something? I don't know. I just loved it. I believe in it. I just had a lot of passion towards it. Hey, Bezos is still trying, right? Bezos is still trying, but he's done okay. He figured out how to monetize it a different way. True. And so, you know, and then here we are, right? Like I was with Donnie Deutsch, you know, Donnie Deutsch. Right. So I was with Donnie, I was having lunch with him. I don't know, let's call it a year ago.

4:15And he said, you haven't taken any money off the table. You own 80 % of your, you have to take money off the table. And I thought, I don't want to take money off the table. This is going to be a billion dollar business. I don't want to take money off the table. Death is my exit strategy. And I have to say the other day, if Donnie's listening, I should have listened to you. I should have taken money off the table. Donnie, Donnie, you do listen to Entrepreneurs on Fire. We know that. So let's talk about the difficulties of scaling the Spartan race, like get down to the specifics. What was hard to scale about it?

4:46I go from zero to 45 countries. So that that's hard. just putting on one event is hard and making sure you can handle the logistics. We got six tractor trailers showing up, unloading those tractor trailers, building one obstacle on the side of the mountain. If anybody on this podcast, anybody listening to this or like has ever done a kitchen renovation, okay, think about how difficult they have TV shows on how to do renovations, right? Pretty hard to do a renovation. I do 30 renovations simultaneously on the side of a mountain during a rainstorm. That's what I do. That's what it's like building an obstacle, one obstacle on the side of the mountain.

5:24Forklifts, men, women carrying heavy equipment, trusses, cranes, you name it, right? And so it's hard to scale that because here's a great story so you can grasp this. It takes like 14 days to set this thing up and break it down for one race. now when you're in 45 countries and you're putting on 325 events there's stuff that gets in the way like i said a rainstorm a snowstorm how about how about the pope decides to not let us into our location because he's anointing a new saint that week right throw a monkey wrench in your program i don't want to get in the way of god so we you know we we deferred to the pope and they gave us 14 hours to build our course.

6:12The race is going to be on in 14 hours. Get your together, go. And somehow my team got it done. And so we're running into those kinds of challenges all over. So when you say, is it hard to scale? You know, if it was a factory where everything was organized and there was processes and, you know, steel came in one side and cars came out the other side, But that's different than like all these things that go on that are out of our control. Let me think, six times a week. We're putting on six events. When we're not in the middle of a pandemic, which is a whole other thing we should talk about, six times a week, I'm dealing with this somewhere in the world.

6:54Now, you're steering into different avenues away from obstacle course racing. Why are you doing that? And obviously, this is maybe where we can talk a little bit about COVID-19 and this kind of new world that we're living in. Well, before COVID, we said we've got to answer some questions authentically for our consumers. The questions that I've been asked for 20 years is, Joe, this thing is awesome, but I need to know how do I eat? How do I think? What do I wear? How do I train? Right? And so we have to answer those questions authentically. So the way to answer them in some cases are digitally making merchandise, selling nutrition products.

7:36So we said we've got to expand beyond the race and we've got to help people sprinkle some Spartan into their lives. Right. Train better, eat better, think better, learn what to wear, proper gear, etc. And and the shame for us is they were all nascent businesses for us when the pandemic hit. We talked about them a lot. We talked the big game. We're going to get after it. I was on podcast. This is what we're going to do. I just wasn't there when the pandemic hit. I just wasn't where we needed to be. The good news is our team pivoted immediately and we're a lot further ahead than we were 45 days ago.

8:17But we have not we have not achieved perfect success in relation to what we're dealing with. Well, how big is the overall OCR industry? What's this current size? And obviously, what do you foresee it's growing to after everything settles down here? And where do you foresee it heading towards? We go beyond OCR. When we think about the races, we also do trail. We do kids. We bought a little race that's probably the oldest, most grueling mountain bike race in the world called La Ruta. Oh, yeah. So so it's more than obstacle racing for us. When you define endurance, there's about 50 ,000 events globally.

9:01It's like 100 million people competing. If you define it just as obstacle racing, that number is probably closer to seven and a half million of which were about two, two and a half million between Tough Mudder and Spartan. and um i don't know if that'll ever get you know maybe let's say maybe it'll go to three million three and a half million but trail trail's a big business because not everybody's ready for an obstacle but they want to run in the woods um mountain biking's a big business so we're we're we're not pigeonholing ourselves just with obstacle racing we're we're an endurance brand one thing that you've been able to do really well is make sure that people come back to do more and more races with you, with Spartan?

9:46How have you accomplished that? And what the heck makes Spartan so special? I mean, who doesn't want to be a Spartan, right? 2 ,500 years ago, 300 men marched to Thermopylae. They marched like, I don't know, 150 miles carrying a sword and a shield. And they held off 10 ,000 plus Persians, right? And all other kings and queens around the world would say, those Spartans, they like going to war. It's easier than their training, like the discipline, the stoicism. So I think everybody from school, teaching us from the movies, from whatever it is, deep down inside wants to have a little Spartan in their lives.

10:26So we're really lucky. We're really lucky with the name. And this is a lifestyle. This is much bigger than a race. I don't know if I answered the question well, but. You know, I think of Gladiator and I think of the movie 300 and, you know, people look at those movies and they're like, wow, like that's untouchable. Like that's just not in the realm of possibility in 2020 and beyond. Yet that's kind of what you're bringing to people. You're bringing that touch of Spartan. You're bringing that kind of opportunity for people to explore that side of themselves that, you know, some people wake up in the morning and they're like, you know what?

11:03I was born 3000 years too late. Like I was meant to live, you know, in like the BCE era. Like that's just where I was supposed to be. And, you know, again, we all kind of have a little spark in us, you know, how much we're going to let that out, you know, it's going to be different for every single person, but you give people that opportunity. And because of that, they keep coming back for more and more races. And Fire Nation, we have a ton to cover when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Are you ready to grow your business now? What if you could learn the proven systems and processes that have been used to grow thousands of multi-million dollar success stories at Thrivetimeshow.com?

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13:27Get early access to HubSpot AI today at hubspot.com slash artificial dash intelligence. So Joe, we're back and let's be honest, you started a business when it came to Spartan. I mean, you started a business. What do people need to know when they're starting off on their journey of beginning a business? I think we started more than a business. I think we started an industry, but I think what people need to know when they start a business is there's only one thing that matters and that's sales. You got to make sure you're bringing in revenue. That is your oxygen. That is your blood pumping. And you got to make sure that your customers really like it.

14:05Whatever that product is, that service is that you're selling, you better be selling it nonstop and you better make sure it's so damn good that they're recommending it to friends and they can't get enough of it. Because without that, you're just wasting your time. You're constantly raising money. And so I think that's what we saw right away with this thing was people couldn't get enough of it. They were crazy about it. They tell 20 friends. They wrote brothers and sisters and cousins into coming out and doing it. So we got lucky. This is a very viral product. and when you have that, then all the other stuff is just the nuts and bolts of doing business.

14:45You know, the accounting, marketing, this thing, that. I'm not saying all those things aren't hard, but you got to have a product and you got to be selling it nonstop. What would you say to people that would reply by saying, Joe, I don't think I can go 15 years before I take a profit. What would you say to them? Get a job. Get a job. I mean, business, there's no guarantee. you start a business, you're going to make money. Like if somebody is guaranteeing that, take that deal. But, um, this is, this is hard work. And, uh, and just when you finally, can I curse on this thing? I know I already cursed a little, just when you finally figure it out, you get hit with a pandemic.

15:26Like, I'm sorry. If you, if you're not ready for this, if you don't have the stomach for this, if you're not ready to bleed to the death, cause that's what it's like having a business. I had a job once. It was great. Great. Get paid every week. Finish early. Maybe even take a nap on the weekends. Oh my God. Get a job. I want to get a job right now. If anybody's hiring, let me know. Joe, you started a business. You started an industry. And the reality is you did go from a small business to a large business. How did you make that transition? What does Darwin say? Darwin says, not the strong, not the smart, but it's the most agile.

16:04And so I just love adapting and moving and adding and growing. Otherwise, why are we doing it? I don't understand. What are we doing? I'm not looking to stay static. If you're not progressing, you're dying. So, all right, we figured out obstacle. We figured out the United States, go to Canada, figured out Canada, go to the UK, go to Slovakia. Let's go to South Africa. But guys, we haven't even figured out the UK yet. You want to go to Africa? So yeah, I just keep pushing and pushing and making everybody uncomfortable. It's the art. It's the art of being comfortable in the uncomfortable, right?

16:39We're going to always be out over our skis. We're going to be trying new stuff and hopefully growing. And we're going to make mistakes. We make mistakes. We stop the bleeding. We move on. Go to the next thing. You have a methodology of fire ready aim. Now, Now, I got to be honest, I was an officer in the army for eight years. I was a tank commander in Iraq. So those words are a little scary to me. They kind of go against my personal government training. But at the same time, I've been an entrepreneur now for eight years. So I think I know where you're going with this. But break down that methodology.

17:12Hang on a second, because I'm going to change your whole way of thinking here. Let's make believe as a tank commander, you were able to continuously fire. You had unlimited ammunition. Just play with me for a second. And you were able to fire. And then from inside your tank with little dials, you could then move the cannon. What is it that you fire? The ammo. Sabor rounds. The Sabor rounds. As you fire them, you could turn little dials and you could then hone in on the enemy, turn the thing to the right, turn it to the left. And of course you would do that. So like a heat seeking missile, kind of.

17:46Beyond heat seeking, you could actually make adjustments as you go. You could get information. Nope. Don't want to hit that bad guy. I'd rather hit that one over there and make a left turn, make a right turn. So like my methodology is much smarter than the 1900s methodology of, you know, aim, ready, fire. Like if you sit around and aim too long, you just don't move. You don't do anything. And so here in this new digital world where you can make adjustments on the fly, you fire, you commit. We are going to Slovakia. We're going to do this. But, Joe, we haven't. I don't understand. Don't we have to put together a business plan for what?

18:22For what? Find a location, commit to a date, tell everybody in Slovakia Spartans going to be there, and start selling tickets. We'll figure it out later. But Joe, we don't have obstacles. So ship them over from Germany. I don't know. I'll figure it out. So I played with you, and I agree with your methodology. I mean, going back to my days in Iraq, if I could have fired my Sable rounds and then made adjustments on the fly and make sure that, hey, I know exactly where that's going. I know the targets it's going to be hitting on the fly, being agile, moving quick, that's absolutely the way that we would have gone because, you know, speed wins everything when it comes to war.

18:58Like if I blow up your tank before you blow up my tank, then I win that battle. And that's the whole point of this. Now, of course, you know, we're taught the whole ready, aim, fire, because, you know, friendly fire is a very sad and scary and real thing when it comes to war. But in your world, with that opportunity to say, hey, let's just jump and then we're going to have that parachute be formed and deployed on the way down. That's the way you get to play this entrepreneurial game. So speaking of which, you've been able to develop a lot of loyalty, a lot of customers over the years, Joe. What's the lifetime value of a customer?

19:34Do you mess with those type of metrics? You know, I never really paid attention to it. My team, we've got a whole marketing team. We've got data people that dig in and take a look at that but I've been doing business for 41 years now I'm 51 years old I've been doing business 41 years and again you know my first business was cleaning swimming pools my first customer was the head of the organized crime family the banana family he gave me sat me down I'm like nine or ten years old and he said listen three lessons all you're gonna need to know you'll crush business he said number one if you say you're coming eight o 'clock you better be here 7 45 on time is late right okay got it and when you when you're taking lessons from the head of an organized crime family you sit down and you listen right and you don't write anything down he doesn't want any notes anywhere and you should make sure you don't record it second second thing he said is if you're going to clean the pool you got to go above and beyond you're going to clean the the shed you're going to scrub the tiles on the side you're going to straighten up the lawn furniture you might even cut my grass you're going to go way above what i'm paying you for and number three you're never going to ask for money.

20:43You're going to be, you're going to do such an unbelievable job. I can't wait to pay you because I don't want to lose you. So don't have your hand out asking for money. You add value to the relationship first, and then you'll get your value. And, and, um, those three lessons just changed the whole game. And so a lifetime value, a customer, like he recommended me to a hundred customers. They each recommended me to seven, like I had 700 customers by the time I graduated college. Right. And every year they were paying me$1 ,500,$2 ,000 each. And so, So, yeah, I mean, I want to keep a customer for life is my philosophy.

21:18And, you know, sometimes they'll pay a little less. Sometimes they'll pay a little more. But I don't want to lose my customers. Customers always write. So, Joe, I want to end with a bang here because we talked about a lot of great stuff. Right now, we're living in quite strange times with COVID and getting over everything that's happening. My audience, Fire Nation, you know, a lot of them know your brand. A lot of them love your brands, but break it down for us. How can we today connect with your brand? How can we participate in your brand? How can we support your brands right here in 2020? I did something special for you.

21:54I created a link, which John will send over to you. I think it's spartan.com forward slash nutrition. Spartan.com forward slash nutrition. And I've got, I'm going to sound like a late night salesman. And I apologize. I've got a hydration product and an energy product that's going to blow your mind. So here's what I want to do for all your listeners. If they use the code Joe on fire, I'm going to give them 50 percent off. Five zero. Yeah. Five zero off. Wow. Wow. Joe on fire. OK. And you talk about the life. Yeah. You talk about the lifetime value. any customer who tries this energy and hydration there never there's no need to use anything else this is from sparta greece this is this was hippocrates and socrates socrates and all the spartan warriors i'm not bullshitting you this was their ancient nutrition this is why they could hold off the persians for i don't know how many three days i think they held up the persians so it's a combo pack it's 50 off spartan hydration spartan energy box and um you're awesome.

23:05I'm doing it for you. That's amazing. Cause fire nation, you know, this you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with JDS and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And of course your call to action fire nation, head over to spartan.com slash nutrition. You use that promo code Joe on fire. You're going to get 50 % off this product. I've actually already bookmarked it myself. I'm going to do it as soon as I get off the mic here because this is the kind of stuff, Fire Nation, that's going to improve your overall just activities in every way, shape the word.

23:44You want to write more, you're going to be hydrated. You want to run more, you got to be hydrated. You want to just operate at a better level, you got to be putting the right things in your body. So Joe, what's the final takeaway you want to say to Fire Nation before we let you go? I think along the lines of fire ready aim, okay, this is a really important message. We're all trapped in our homes globally right now. It's going to sound self-serving. It's really not. You need to go online today and you need to sign up for something hard somewhere in the world. I hope it's a Spartan race. I hope it's a Tough Mudder, a trail race, whatever, but it doesn't have to be.

24:22It could be the New York Marathon, a 5K, a 10K. You need to sign up for something hard. And what's going to happen is something I call a Spartan paradox. All of a sudden, it's going to force you to go to bed early, put down the glass of wine, stop eating the cookie, wake up early, train hard. Your whole life is going to change because you signed up for something hard. So get it done today. It's not a Spartan. I don't care. All right. Just go do something. Sign up for something hard and commit to it. Joe, thank you for sharing your knowledge, your value, your truth with Fire Nation today. For that, brother, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side.

24:57Thanks for putting me on fire. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Joe. And are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Well, if you are, then check out our free podcasting course where I teach you how to create and launch your podcast. You guessed it. For free, visit freepodcastcourse.com and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Is this your year? Visit Thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2 ,000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability. It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee.

25:36Schedule your free consultation today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Tune in for convos with leading sales experts and top performing reps to help you land more meetings with your ideal clients. One of my faves, the monthly app with Jason and Ethan, where they share hacks, tips, and tricks. Listen to Outbound Squad wherever you get your podcasts.