Made to Win: How to Turn Your Passion and Grit into Success with Jim Markham: An EOFire Classic from 2020

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like CEO School. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active. And we'll be talking about being made to win, how to turn your passion and grit into success. To drop these value bombs, I brought Jim Markham into EO Fire Studios. Jim is an award-winning serial entrepreneur with an innovative mind and a passion for his craft. And today at Fire Nation, we'll be talking about thinking long-term. Ask yourself, what can you do today that will position you five to 10 years down the road.

0:37And we'll talk about finding your niche. What can you create that doesn't yet exist? And so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Jim and our sponsors. If you're looking for highly vetted US-based fractional virtual contractors, then check out Belay. Belay is exclusively offering Fire Nation their latest ebook, Delegate to Elevate, for free. Learn how to reclaim your time and save 15 hours per week by mastering the powerful tool of delegation. Text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123 to get started. Outbound Squad, hosted by Jason Bay, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

1:19Tune 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. Jim, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know. Hi, John. It's an honor to be here with Fire Nation. Entrepreneurs on Fire is one of my favorite podcasts. Yes. One of the things that most of the listeners would not know is when I first moved to California, I played checkers for a living for about six months.

2:01I learned to play checkers from old men in a barbershop back then. It was a guy with a wooden leg taught me how to play checkers. And of course, the people I'm playing learned to play checkers in jail. So I'm blonde, fair-haired, Southern accent. They underestimated me, and I made a pretty good living for a while. I love that, Jim. Thanks for sharing that story. And Fire Nation, as I shared earlier in the introduction, we're going to be talking all about how you can turn your passion and grit into success. So Jim, you have quite a story, my friend. I mean, right now you're hanging out in Hawaii.

2:39You've got a beautiful place in Newport Beach. I mean, life is good. Give us a snapshot of your early days. It is a great life. Many interviewers would call my life a rags to riches story. I grew up in New Mexico with an alcoholic mom. We were very poor. At age 15, I ended up getting married. I had a child. I went to barber school to support my family. I started cutting hair at 15 at$1.50 a haircut. Wow. Fire Nation,$1.50 a haircut. I mean, think about that. Think about back to your first job. Think about to your beginnings. I mean, this is the process that we are going through as we're on this entrepreneurial journey.

3:23And what I love about Jim is he's not done. In fact, he's not even close to done. But let's kind of go back to those humble beginnings. You were there,$1.50 a haircut. How did you make your first leap? How'd you go from where you were just making a buck 50, being like, well, hey, if I do 10 a day, that's 15 bucks, to I'm going to take a leap and I'm going to take a chance. Tell us about that. I was pretty good cutting hair. and I ended up making a pretty good living. You know, it was really good for me to be working as opposed to just loafing. And I started, I went to a hairstyling school to learn to be a hairstylist, a men's hairstylist back then, no doubt.

4:05And I went from cutting$1.50 haircut to$5 a haircut, which still wasn't a lot of money, but it was more than I was making. I figured out very early that I could cut hair and I ended up winning a silver medal in the hair olympics the national haircutting championship and several state championships then i i was looking around i kept saying what else can i do and i of course i read a lot of books which i'll get into in just a second uh i called i read in playboy that jay severn was charging he's a celebrity stylist 50 a haircut well i thought i'm the national champion how can he be making 10 times more than me?

4:46John, here's my Markham money-making tip number one, or as you call them, bombs. If someone you admire is making more money than you in the same profession, learn from them. I picked up the phone and called Jay Swan. I said, Jay, congratulations on your success. I'm an award-winning stylist charging$5 a cut. You're charging$50. How can I learn from you. Jay said, you have to pay me a thousand dollars to find out. At that time, that was two months income for me before the airline ticket and hotel. Fast forward two weeks, I'm in the salon, cocky and arrogant, very confident. He would say, Jim, your technique is better than mine.

5:32What he said was, we're going to have a friendly competition. We're going to cut one head of hair. You're going to cut one half. I'm going to cut the other half. Use your razor on your side. I'll use the shears on the other. And we'll see who's better. At the end, we both knew whose side was better. And it wasn't mine. I became Jay's protege and Sebring distributor in the Southwest. Things were going great until August the 9th, 1969. Now that day was a turning point for you. And the reality is, Fire Nation, not many of us can actually put one date in mind that was our absolute turning point. You know, sometimes it's kind of this slow-moving course of events over weeks and months.

6:16We're like, oh, yeah, like, you know, those three months or that year, that was really a turning point for me. But, Jim, you have a day that was a turning point, August 9th. What happened? Some of you listeners might remember that was a fateful night. Jay and Sharon Tate were killed in the Charles Manson murders. If you've seen Tarantino's film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it's a fictional story about those events that included Jay Sebring as one of the characters. In fact, I helped consult on the set with a hair salon, with the decoration, which ended up, most of that ended up on the cutting room floor.

6:54They didn't use it, but it was really fun to work on the movie. Man, I mean, I had no idea that that movie was so much based on fact and not even having any idea that you actually gave some advice for that. That must have been a really cool experience for you in a lot of different ways. But let's kind of talk specifically, like how did those Manson murders back on August 9th, 1969, how did those murders affect your career? You know, I was living in Albuquerque. I had a Sebring franchise salon there. And I heard on the radio that Jay Sebring was killed with Sharon Tate. And I immediately knew that I'd be going to California.

7:35And I did. I moved to California. I took over the Sebring business. They asked me to do it because I really had been the mechanic doing all the education around the U.S. opening salons, Sebring shops. But I took over the Sebring business. I bought his car, the black Porsche. I lived in his house for a while. That was Sharon Tate's old, not Sharon Tate, Gene Harlow's old home. It was so scary for me. I couldn't stay there alone because raccoons would run across the top. I would think it was somebody came to kill me and I was just spooked to death. But I took over Jay's celebrity clientele, including Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Johnny Carson, and Frank Sinatra and many, many others.

8:16John, for a country boy from New Mexico, it was overwhelming.

8:22Now, at one point, Jim, you switched gears. You switched gears from what you were doing into product development. Take us through that process. Tell us that story. When you're cutting hair, you can only make so much for haircut. And that's pretty much it. When I went to California, I started charging$50 a haircut. And I cut all these celebrities' hair. But you really only limit it on how much money you can make. So I realized that right away that product sales and product distribution is where the money was. One of my mark of money-making tip number two is think long-term. Ask yourself, what can I do today that positions me for five to ten years down the road?

9:07So thinking about it, not cutting hair, it's product development, and I always loved working with products. I had the ability, John, to analyze products and create better ones that outperformed the old ones. I loved doing it. I still do. Always have. Jay was a great hairdresser. I saw my future in creating and distributing products. I sold Sebring to start my own line called Markham products in 1972. Second product line. So Fire Nation, I really hope you're listening to these Markham value bombs because he keeps dropping them. You need to keep picking them up because there's a ton of value here.

9:47But one thing that I really want to make sure that you're getting Fire Nation is the fact that, hey, when you're doing something like cutting hair, like when you're doing something like mowing lawns. You can only cut so many hairs a day. You can only mow so many lawns a day. There becomes a limit where you just have the ceiling. The ceiling is there. And that's why Jim was just like, hey, time to switch into product development. That way, while I'm sleeping, products can be flying off the shelves. While I'm eating lunch, products can be flying off the shelves. Product development is key, Fire Nation.

10:21And if you think Jim is even close to being finished, drop and value balance, Fire Nation. You got another think coming. We got some great stuff coming up as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. No one accomplishes anything great alone, but perhaps you've experienced this too. Delegation and managing a team, especially a virtual team, can be the toughest thing you'll do as a business owner. Well, good news. If you're looking for highly vetted US-based fractional virtual contractors, then you've got to check out Belay. No more throwing away your time on managing details, scheduling meetings, replying to emails and processing reports.

10:53If there are tasks and projects you're holding onto, it's time to delegate them so you can free up time to focus on the things only you can do. Get out of the administrative weeds and back to growing your business with Belay. They've been helping entrepreneurs scale and succeed for over a decade. It can help you find highly qualified virtual assistants, bookkeepers, even social media managers. And to help you get started, Belay is exclusively offering Fire Nation their latest ebook, Delegate to Elevate for free. Learn how to reclaim your time and save 15 hours per week by mastering the powerful tool of delegation.

11:25Text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123 to get started. Tech is great. It can help us grow and scale our businesses in so many ways, but it can also be clunky, time-consuming to manage, and expensive. That's why I'm excited to introduce you to HubSpot CRM, the best platform to speed up your sales and scale your business without blowing your budget. HubSpot's all-in-one CRM helps you automate tedious tasks, keep track of all your deals in one place, and make sure your whole team has access to the same data. No need to worry about the management and cost of a massive tech stack. HubSpot gives you everything you need all in one place.

12:04Plus, with fast activation, HubSpot makes it easy for the entire team to get up to speed, saving you precious time. And best of all, you can try before you buy. No commitment, no hidden fees, not even a credit card is needed to sign up. Get started for free at HubSpot.com. That's HubSpot.com. So Jim, we're back. And when we were talking about the beginning part of your journey, you told us about how you were really focused on the men's portion of the haircuts and hairstyling and salon markets. Why and how did you transition to the women's market? I started out as a barber. I started cutting men's hair.

12:42I went all my awards cutting men's hair around the country. And Jay was cutting men's hair and cutting all men. But when I got into the product sales, that's where the money was. And it didn't take me long to realize that the bigger market was a women's market. Women buy 80 % of all products. They buy it for the men, they buy it for themselves. I think you need to know who your customer is. Look at your market, know your demographics mark a money-making tip number three is find your niche where is the white space in your category what can you create that doesn't yet exist that's really important john what most of your listeners probably don't know is that most hair care products contain animal ingredients that means they are made from hoofs hides and animal organs for for abba i develop products using natural-based ingredients from plants, leaves, fruits, nuts, and berries.

13:42These outperform formulas using animal ingredients. If people have the choice, they will nearly always choose plant-based products. I founded Avapir Natural in 1989. I created the first cruelty-free vegan hair product line. It was actually a big success, and we sold it in 1997. One thing that I love about what you're sharing, Jim, is the fact that you need to find a void that's not being currently filled in the marketplace. You did that multiple times throughout your career, but hey, what'd you find when it came to ABBA? You said, hey, there's a lot of people that are making very similar products.

14:17We're all using the same strategies, techniques, and et cetera. What if I did this that was different? And what if I did something that when people had the choice between the two, as long as they were comparable in quality, they're always gonna choose mine. And you did that with ABBA. And that's why you had such success back in 1989. And after ABBA, you thought you were going to retire. But you didn't retire. I mean, you know, you could have gone off and just lived full time in Hawaii or Newport Beach or just got on a yacht and traveled around the world. But you didn't do that. What happened? Well, it's interesting.

14:51It started with a phone call. My wife, Cheryl, and business partner, her best friend had ovarian cancer. and she called me and she said, Jim, you've got to make me products I can use. I can't use any of the ABBA products. They got ingredients I can't use, which is to my surprise because I'd done the ABBA products. And I said, okay, send me a list of ingredients that you cannot use. So her doctor sent me a do not use list of ingredients. I went into the lab and started working with new ingredients. It was really challenging at the time. What I created was the first products that were sulfate-free, salt-free, carcinogen-free, because this was for Cary.

15:33At the time, Cheryl and I'm looking around and trying to figure out if we want to come back or not, but we thought perhaps we would do, since we did Cary's products, we'd do them for cancer survivors. What we did was we went to Cosmoproft Italy, and we noticed that there was a color boom going on worldwide. And all the companies we saw, L 'Oreal, everything was growing 20, 30, 40 % a year. And we thought, wow, this is interesting. What a great category. And we realized friends of Carrie's and friends that we sent, uh, friends that were testing the product that we developed for Carrie says, what is, what's in this product?

16:09My color's lasting longer. We thought, wow, I don't know. This is a coincidence. So, uh, we, we almost didn't do it. When I researched the marketplace, I saw L 'Oreal was a top selling shampoo, had a top-selling shampoo for color-treated hair called ColorVee. ColorVee was, you know, prominent out there. It looked like it was doing well. But we kept investigating. We thought, well, we're going to try it. And we took a leap. We changed our marketing plans for cancer patients. We did a little tweaking, and we made it exclusively for color-treated hair. We thought that's our unique position. And we launched Purology in 2001.

16:482001. We quickly became the market leader in professional color care. We created the category. I am known as the creator of sulfate, salt-free products. Your listeners may not know it, but in the beauty business industry, this is legendary. Fast forward seven years to selling Pureology to L 'Oreal for$280 million cash. We actually had 12 different companies We had venture capital companies. We had strategic buyers trying to buy Pureology. We did 12 dog and pony shows. And we ended up selling to L 'Oreal because they made us a deal we couldn't refuse. So, Jim, you've decided to move forward and become an author.

17:34And you have written a book called Big Lucky. So, break it down for us. What was the inspiration behind Big Lucky? Well, you know, friends for years and colleagues have been saying, Jim, you know, we, we, the ones that know me say, I know where you came from. I just don't know how you got from where you were to where you are now. And that was an interesting and difficult process. And, uh, we, we kept saying for a while, you know, we're going to write a story. We're going to write a book. We're going to tell it, but I didn't want to do it until we really had a complete cycle that we've gone from having nothing to having a little something.

18:12And, and we finally decided that we would do it. My life story is woven with successes, but also a lot of failures. I didn't get here easily. We thought there's a lot of people that get in the same spot and don't know what to do. We put that down so we could have lessons that they could follow and maybe hopefully not get into the same predicament we did. Mark a money-making tip number four. It doesn't matter what industry you are in. The principles are pretty much the same. You need to have passion. You need to believe in what you do and love what you do. Very important. Of course, you've got to understand the finances, the pricing structure, the cash flow analysis, budgeting.

18:58And also, you need to surround yourself with good people. To find good people, ask questions, look at their experience, their drive, and listen to recommendations. Some of your competitors or friends can give you some great recommendations, and they're right there, easy to get. Find your niche. Look at your competition and see where there's holes. Find where you can set yourself apart. That's really important to set yourself apart. And there's always some way to find it. Everyone has a hole or an opening if you look hard enough. generally. Now, Jim, you've had a very inspiring life. And I know that Fire Nation is going to read this book in droves because they're going to want to learn more about you and your successes and your failures and the mark of money tips and all of that jazz.

19:46It's going to be a blast. So for these individuals, Fire Nation, who are going to consume your content, who are going to read Big Lucky, if they could do one thing differently after reading your book, what would it be? Most people I find quit too early. One of the biggest lessons you can learn is do not quit and that you are made to win. God made us to win. He didn't make us to lose. We choose to lose, but made to win means you work hard, you go after it, you keep working, and you will win. I think that's an important lesson to realize. You're not made to lose. There are mentors everywhere. I was lucky that Paul Newman took me under his wing.

20:30He knew I was a fish out of water. He treated me like an equal. He taught me many life lessons that have helped me throughout my life. I never charged Paul for his haircuts. He always gave me something that had more value to me in return. I remember one day I was cutting Paul's hair at his home in Beverly Hills. Of course, his wife, Joanne Woodward, walked in. Paul jumped up and said, hello, lovely lady, and kissed her, hair going everywhere because he had a cape on, hair going over as he jumped up. And I thought to myself, here's one of the top celebrity in the world, a male sex symbol of the world, treating his wife like this.

21:11What must a mere mortal like me do? Find your mentor. It took me reading books to learn that I was capable of winning. I read many self-help books like Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking. But that's where I learned that we're all made to win, reading books. I think books are a great way to do that, and I had an opportunity to do that. And that's how I got one of the main reasons I got to where I'm at now. I think remember you are made to win. I think that's maybe the most important thing you can read or understand.

21:52Jim, way to end with a bang, brother. So much value, so much knowledge, so much awesomeness that you shared through this entire interview. Give us the one call to action. Where can we go to find your book, Big Lucky? It's on Amazon. We have an audio book and an ebook. It's Amazon's number one must read for a memoir entrepreneurship self-help. It's really taken off well, but that's where you can do it. We'll have a print book in about a month, but the audio and ebook is available right now. 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 JM and JLD today.

22:39so keep up that heat and if you head over to eofire.com and just type Jim in the search bar his show notes page will pop up with everything that we talked about today links, all that jazz and of course go to Amazon, get the audible book, get the print book it's going to be a great way for you to learn a lot more about Jim's journey, his learnings his successes, his failures big lucky. Jim, thank you brother for sharing your truth, your knowledge your value bombs with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. John, it was really a pleasure, brother. You do a great job and everyone loves you, man.

23:20Continue on the good work. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Jim. And if you're ready to rock your own podcast, well, I have a free podcasting course for you where I teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free. visit freepodcastcourse.com, freepodcastcourse.com. I'll catch you there, Fire Nation, or I'll catch you on the flip side. If you're looking for highly vetted US-based fractional virtual contractors, then check out Belay. Belay is exclusively offering Fire Nation their latest ebook, Delegate to Elevate, for free. Learn how to reclaim your time and save 15 hours per week by mastering the powerful tool of delegation.

24:03text fire that's f-i-r-e to 55123 to get started 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 Thank you.