My Favourite Failure: Collapse of my business left me unable to pay for my daughter’s open heart surgery - Brian Will

0:00Let me ask you a question. If someone wanted to access your company's devices or premises, how difficult would it be? If they had a helping hand on the inside, could they get it done? The answer is probably yes, which is why we're working with the National Protective Security Authority and the National Cybersecurity Center to share their secure innovation campaign. They can see that state actors, as well as competitors and criminals, are looking to steal from UK startups. You're probably aware that your cybersecurity needs to be rock solid, but a lot of startups forget about insider risk. Take one company the NPSA told us about who had a disgruntled member of staff.

0:38A state actor charmed them into stealing the company's flagship software, which they then took to the state-owned business instead, costing the company billions. If you want to get a better handle on your security, the Secure Innovation campaign can help. Check out npsa.gov.uk forward slash innovation and download their free quick start guide. There's a link in the show notes. That was my first company. It grew to a few million dollars in revenue. We had maybe 50 employees over seven different offices. And I was making a little bit of money until everything fell apart. But the good news, as I tell people all the time, is every bad thing that's ever happened to me turned into something better.

1:23You know, it's the old one door shut, another door open. Brian Will is a seasoned entrepreneur who sold several businesses, but his first one was a baptism of fire. Brian had a difficult childhood, was a D student who failed high school, got kicked out of home at 18 and joined the military. He had a chip on his shoulder and struggled with discipline. He lost rank twice. Was he ever going to make it?

1:56Brian left the army, but things weren't easy financially.

2:26And so I got started mowing grass. And one thing led to another. And people kept asking me to do more and more jobs. And about six years into it, we had built a decent little company. And somebody came along and asked me if I wanted to franchise it. And I said, sure. I mean, I don't know anything about that. But let's try it. And so we started franchising the company. And then about a year and a half after we got going, we had seven franchises. We had four more sold. And one of my franchisees got into an argument with me. and didn't want to pay his franchise fees. And he hired a lawyer who found a discrepancy in my franchise documents.

3:03And so he got two other franchises to go in with him and they sued me. And so now I'm in the middle of a lawsuit. And then my personal business, which was doing all this big construction work, we got fired and they were 80 % of my business at the time on that side of the company. And so I'm getting sued by my franchisees and my biggest customer fired me and my whole world collapsed. And that's when that company fell apart. Brian learned something vital about building a franchise business. The problem with franchising is if you're too small, which I was at the time, your franchisees actually have more control over you than you do over them.

3:41In other words, if three of my franchisees decide to sue me and I've only got six, that's 50 % of my company suing me. Where if I have a thousand and three decide to sue me, nobody cares. So I was small enough that I got caught up in being sued by a few of my franchisees. And that's what essentially collapsed that company. That's why franchisers today try to grow really, really, really fast and get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of units because they know they're going to get sued. But if you've got hundreds and hundreds of units, if a few people sue you, it's okay. When you've only got five units and you get sued, it's a problem.

4:15I know it's different in the States, but Brian has been sued a lot in his career. So much so that he thinks it's an inevitable part of business. He now has a principle of trust but protect, which seems sensible. He also learned a couple of other business lessons. One, do not get into a position where the majority of the work that you're doing in your company is centered around one client. Because if you lose that one client like I did, it can take your whole world down. and there's too many business owners out there that they have one client. They think they own a business. No, they really own a job because if that client fires you, you haven't a business anymore.

4:54That's a huge one that many people, you'd be surprised how many early entrepreneurs are in that position. And the second one is because I had come from nothing and we were making money. Every time I made more money, I started moving my lifestyle up. You know, I had a Mercedes and a sports car and a motorcycle and a place at the beach. And And unfortunately, what I didn't have was any money in the bank, savings, security, credit lines built up. I had nothing to back me up financially. And when the rug got pulled out from under me, I had no place to go. I had no money. I had no cash. I had nothing.

5:29And too many business owners, once again, either live at 100 % of their lifestyle or 105 % of their lifestyle. And all they're really doing is setting themselves up for a huge problem. because you have no idea when something is going to happen in your business that can take you out. And the most recent example I always use is COVID. Look how many businesses failed in COVID because they weren't financially set up to be able to handle a downturn like that. I called it washing out the week. It did. It washed out a lot of businesses who weren't able to withstand the downturn or the shutdown. And it was out of their control.

6:07It had nothing to do with whether they were good at business. It had nothing to do with how smart they are. They literally just weren't able to stand somebody coming in and tell them they have to shut down one day. And we have no idea what's going to happen. In my case, it was a client that shut me down. In 2020, it was the government that shut us down. Who knows what's going to happen next? So you always have to be prepared financially in your business for a downturn so that you can't get hurt. Brian today is very chill about failure. He says bad things roll off him because whenever something bad has happened to him, it has led to something better.

6:39But I have to say, if I'd been in his shoes with what happened with his daughter after the landscaping business, well, it would have tested anyone to the limit. I bounced 130 checks at the bank that month because I couldn't pay the bills. I couldn't pay my health insurance because I didn't have any money. And so after 60 days of not paying my health insurance, I found out that my daughter needed open heart surgery and I didn't have health insurance to pay for it. So that was quite devastating. I ended up losing my house and my cars and literally had to sell every single thing I owned, even down to my furniture in order to pay back the bank and the bills and the vendors, and then had to go find someplace else to live and start over again.

7:20So I went from nothing to building this company that did relatively well, thinking that you're successful, to losing everything, having to sell everything and start all over again. And now you're faced with a serious medical condition with your child. So it was, it was, it was a rough time. You're telling me, but I think what happened next is what taught Brian to be a bit more philosophical when he experienced a failure or something he thought would be really bad, like not being able to pay for his daughter's heart surgery. She had something called ASD, which is atrial septal defect, which is a giant hole in your heart.

7:54So the blood doesn't stay in there. It just washes in and out of the chambers. And so but you had to add open heart surgery in order to get it fixed. But the story here, as I said a minute ago, because I had lost my health insurance, I couldn't get the surgery done right away, even though we had a cardiac surgeon that wanted to do it. But he wanted to cut her from the neck to the belly button, break her rib cage open, fix the problem, and then sew her all back together. If you've ever seen anybody with major open heart surgery, you can imagine the scar. Well, because I didn't have the health insurance, we couldn't do it.

8:26So, we had to wait. Well, when we started waiting, I ended up starting to sell insurance. And in the process of selling insurance, I met somebody who said, by the way, have you ever met this Dr. Burke down at Children's Miami Hospital? And I said, I've never heard of him. So I looked the guy up and he had pioneered arthroscopic heart surgery. Only 300 patients had ever had it done. So we contacted Miami Children's Hospital, submitted my daughter's records. She got accepted as a candidate. And instead of having major surgery, they went in with a one inch incision and fixed her heart. So if I hadn't lost the insurance company, if I hadn't lost my insurance, I wouldn't have sold insurance.

9:06I wouldn't have met this person, wouldn't have met Dr. Burke. And my child today would have a scar from her neck to her belly button where today she doesn't. So it's just one thing led to another and it ended up being better. Amazing turn of events. It took two years, but their insurance company eventually decided to cover the surgery, but they still couldn't afford to fly her down to Miami to get the surgery. They then found an organization of volunteer pilots called Angel Flights, who said they'd fly her down for free. Fast forward 15 years, Brian sold his company, became a pilot, and he now flies for Angel Flights as his payback.

9:44The world can be tough, but it can also be beautiful. And in that statement is what Brian thinks is the key to winning as an entrepreneur. Most entrepreneurs have failed. Most successful entrepreneurs have failed. Go read about all the biggest folks out there. Even Steve Jobs, you mentioned a little bit ago, he got kicked out of his own company. He started another company that was failing before Apple brought him back. And so I think what the military brought me and what you find in a lot of successful entrepreneurs is that you just don't quit. You don't have the option of quitting. You just keep moving forward.

10:17I remember when I was in the military and they'd wake us up at four o 'clock in the morning and start yelling at us. And you're like, I don't want to do this anymore. And they're like, I'm sorry, you don't have a choice. This is what you do and you're going to do what you're told. And so you just push forward no matter what. Well, when you're in business and you're experiencing a failure, a downturn, you got to push forward. You can't collapse. You can't quit. You can't say, I don't want to do this anymore. You got to go forward. And if you'll just keep going forward, you will eventually win. Too many people just quit and that's why they fail.

10:47What do they say? You haven't failed until you quit.

10:56Brian Will, who showed a hell of a lot of Will. Thanks for listening to this episode. I've been your host, Dan Murray-Surter. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend. I'll see you next time.