MBA2677 Extended Interview: The Million-Dollar Mindset: How David Royce Got Rich Ditching Passion for Problems

23:21And same thing, it's more of a choice. You have to become obsessive about it too in order to keep it going. You got to keep, you know, fanning that flame and all that sort of thing. So much value here. And I definitely agree with you about the skill part. Like if you're good at something or people tell you that you're good at something, you should double, triple down on that. Because in my experience, like, for example, I was a school teacher for 12 years before I became a full-time entrepreneur. I side hustled for 10 years while I was teaching. So anything I do that involves taking a complex idea and breaking it down to something easier, which was my livelihood.

23:57Like I don't get a paycheck until these, if my students don't pass, right? Like if enough of them fail, I'm in jeopardy of my job. My job was on the line to make sure I do this right. So anything in business that requires me to do that, I do well in, whether it's the podcast, whether it's, you know, the program, whether it's public speaking. And it's fun to do well. Like a lot of people don't get it. Like when you're winning, you'll get passionate about winning. You know, like when things just are easier, like, and it's so much easier to run a business where you're pushing the boulder down the hill rather than up the hill.

24:28And speaking of that point, I want to get into, you know, you were in pest control. How much is your product and in terms of like solving a big pain point important in your business? Like a lot of people, they sell really good products, but they're not like really compelling things that they need to have or they must have or it's causing a lot of pain and you solve that pain? Like no one wants pests. Someone wants rats and bugs around their house, you know, like immediately, like I need to solve this problem. Right. So how much is a painful problem to be solved? Important in business? Yeah. So I knocked 60 ,000 doors went out and sold for four summers.

25:08Right. So I had a lot of great feedback from people in terms of what they wanted. And because we originally started with, you know, door to door sales and and eventually expanded into digital marketing and other forms of marketing. I was very focused on what the customer wanted and how we could sell more if we offered different things. So we listened to them, but customers were looking for a more eco-conscious service. When we got to the home, there were spiderwebs and things up on the window seals or the eaves. And we were like, hey, we can actually take these down for you. When I first started, nobody was really doing that.

25:44There were only a couple of companies that were doing it. It was immediately something we could spot and show the customer that even if they had a pest control service, hey, they're not getting this done. We can take care of all this for you. And the customers are like, oh, that's great. Just one less thing I have to do. Another thing was the yard. Structural pest control, it's primarily around the home, and there's different licenses for it. So you have a license for the home. You have a license for the yard. You have a license sometimes for different insects or different rodents. And customers were like, well, I'm getting the home done.

26:11But even the largest companies, they didn't do the yard. And we're like, that's a huge, huge miss. We can do the yard and we can charge even more. As a result, people don't want to go to like a Home Depot or a Lowe's here and, you know, have to go get product and do it on their own. That's the whole reason they're paying somebody else to do it. You know, they don't want to store pesticides inside the home. You know, that's a potential danger. If you have kids at home, you don't want them getting into it. So we really tried to listen. That was one of our competitive advantages. We weren't just great at sales.

26:38We were really great at building out a premium service to be able to say, oh, well, what about this? Or, hey, how about this? We can offer this and that. And it helped us to switch over more and more customers to our service. I love it. And the fact that pest control is reoccurring, like it's a reoccurring business because, you know, you need to up your protection and make sure that you're kind of vigilant. A lot of people don't understand, like, the home is the biggest asset for most people, the biggest purchase, you know. So spending on your home is not a big ask. You know, most people are willing to do that.

27:09And I love this approach of figuring out what other problems they have, what other issues do they want to avoid and solving them for you. Quick story. When I was in university, my dad told me, you've got to get a sales job. So at least you know how to sell. Because I was into IT and I was doing tech support. And I took a sales job, phone sales for MCI, which was a long-distance phone back in the day that went out of business. I remember. Yeah. And my job was to get people to switch from whatever they have to MCI. and I was having a really hard time knowing how to approach this, and then I was watching some of the top salespeople, and they really just focused on how I can be of value to this person, right?

27:51So, I changed the way I approached my call. Instead of, most people would call and say, hi, is this Nancy Smith? Hey, Nancy Smith, I'm calling from MCI or new long distance. That script was really dangerous, right? It really was almost like an instant hang-up. So what I would do, I would just say, hey, is this Nancy Smith? Hey, Nancy, I'm Omar. I'm calling from a new phone company that's in your area. I want to see if we can save you up to$100 a month. If we can't, no problem. But if you can bring me, it'll pull up your bill. Do you have your bill from last month? And then she would be like, oh, this sounds like something I want to be on the call for.

28:26Like, this is something that I'm going to save$100? Hell yeah, right? And then later, I'd be like, yep, this is a new company called MCI. We're trying to be competitive and save you some money. Oh, it looks like we could save you$85. Would you like to switch over? I can just pass you on to my rep. And they should be like, yep, perfect. And it was so much easier when it was just like, I'm trying to give something rather than take something. I'm trying to take your business. I want you to share a few of your favorite techniques when it comes to what do you say? How do you approach somebody to solve a problem or maybe discover a problem they have that you could solve?

28:57Yes. Typically, when I got to Adore, the first thing I did, you know, you always present yourself, give them your name and who you're with. So they have an idea. It helps also kind of decrease the intensity of what's going on. And then I would let them know, you know, because we're already out in the neighborhood. We're taking care of multiple neighbors. And the idea is if we can get you on the same route, we'll give you the service for half price. You know, we'll work and deal for you because we're already going to be here. And that's kind of the initial pitch. and then you know they kind of will look at you and they'll they'll either give you like all right keep going or you know they'll say something even some people will you know they'll also give you kind of the quick objection like oh no no it's no thank you you know just try to get you off the doorstep that's really like a half no it's not a no way because that's kind of the normal reaction most people give to any door-to-door salesperson yeah they want to get back to their tv show or whatever yeah right because you stepped in at a time they just weren't thinking you were going to be there but if you can immediately talk so you know one of the reasons your neighbors over here switched you know it's mainly these eaves the spider webs and the wasp nests up here and so you give them something to start looking at to see visually and to talk about and then you can talk about the yard and how you treat the yard you know and if there's ants or there's some sort of a pest that's been there um and i can you can also ask oh so what have you guys been seeing you know and what's what's really important to you or you have a service they're kind of doing and this and this.

30:17Something your other neighbor really liked is we also do this. And we do that. And it just gives them more information. And they're thinking, oh, my company doesn't do that. Okay, there is a reason why other people switch over because it's just not as complete. Well, I want that too. I'd really like to have that. And if I can get it for half off, and they're already here, that's a great time to do it. There's urgency. All right, I'll give you a shot. Why not? It's also really important to ask for it, you know, at the end. I would usually always close with an option sale. So we're going to be here tomorrow.

30:48And the next day, would tomorrow or the next day, maybe around five o 'clock work best for you? And so the option, both options are in my best interest. And it's in the customer's best interest because you're trying to help them make a decision. And if you say it with confidence, oftentimes they'll just follow that confidence and go, yeah, why not? We'll give you a shot. Right. And I love this approach of like, I'm coming to you with something that you need. like I'm not trying to push something on you I'm actually you know you got to solve this problem here man you know like or ma 'am you know so like and I love this idea of like giving them the options a lot of people don't understand that when people are on the receiving end of a sales conversation they need things to be clear it's very confusing to them so just having the options of like you can continue with what you have and not have this and this and this or you can get half off and come with us and I'm going to make it easy because I'm going to be back tomorrow.

31:43Like those clear options is just easier. It's so easy to say yes to this because there's no effort required. You know, the friction is so low. I often wonder how much do we do this in our day to day website, sales letters, videos, even on a call to action, like on free content, like, you know, if you want somebody to subscribe to their YouTube channel or something like that, I think that these options need to be clear. How do you make it simple for somebody to understand that you can either continue in your mediocre or suffering ways, or you can either have a better life or have a better result?

32:21Yeah. So I think no matter what you're doing, right, whatever profession you're in, you have to be persuading. You can be a school teacher. You can be a doctor. You can be in sales, whatever it might be. You also could be a parent. You could be a religious leader. Whatever it is, you're constantly trying to persuade people. There's so many books out there. Probably not a lot of people go, well, I'm not in sales. I shouldn't go read a sales book. But this is the reason why. You're trying to convince your children to be good human beings, right? Just do certain things that's in their best interest.

32:53And how do you deliver that? How can you be just a little bit more persuasive? And so learning those techniques, it's not just valuable in your job, per se, but it's valuable at home and with friends and everybody. It's a universal truth that works. Yeah, we're chuckling a little bit here because previously we were talking about this. My dad used to do this all the time. He used to convince me of staying home and not going out, and I would be sold on it. I'd be like, yeah, he's right. We should do this. And then later I realized, oh, he just sold me. And I used that in my profession as a teacher.

33:22You mentioned teaching. A period of my teaching career, I taught in Dubai. For those who don't know, the UAE is less than 50 years old, so there's no real culture of education. A lot of the parents of the students I was teaching never went to school. They were literate. So the students really didn't understand the idea of doing homework and why they have to do it. There's also the overarching fact that no matter what happens, they're going to be okay. The UE Nationals are quite wealthy. I always say the worst thing that's going to happen to them is they're going to get a promotion. But I used to use guilt.

33:53I know this sounds crazy. I know people are going to hate me and put it in the comments. But I used to use guilt all the time with my students because that worked in that culture. because they respect authority, they respect their elders. So I used to be like, oh, Muhammad, why didn't you do your homework today? I thought we were buddies. I thought that, like, you know, you make me proud. And he'd be like, yeah, you're right. You know, like, you got to use everything you've got in your disposal. You know, like, you can't just like, and it depends on who you're talking to. That wouldn't work with somebody, with one of my clients.

34:18But the point is, is that, like, I definitely agree with this fact that you have to spend some time getting to know your customer and understanding what they need. In your journey in building your business and making it a half a billion dollar company, how much did you spend on learning more about your customer? Understanding what makes them tick, understanding their problems, whether it's conversations, whether it's research. Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, so much of our research was initially me going out the doors and talking to people. But we would do surveys with all of our customers.

34:51We'd ask them, what else can we do? And we just constantly take surveys, take all the data, clump it into different piles and decide, OK, we've got a lot of people asking for this. Let's look into this and see how profitable is it. Can we do it well first? Because we're very committed to wanting to deliver a great service and be a premium brand. And we thought if we can't do it well, let's not have it be our thing. Like, for example, we really wanted to be the In-N-Out burger of pest control. And by saying that, we wanted to keep it fairly simple. And there's a lot of things you can do in pest control.

35:21You can get into termites. You can get into commercial services. You can get a fumigation and all this other wildlife. Yeah, we're doing laws. Yeah, it's like we really want to be great with families and kids and focus on residences. And if some commercial comes our way, as long as it's basic commercial, we're totally fine. We'll take that on. But we're not going to go do fast food restaurants or something where it's really intense and requires a different level of service. We're always looking for new ways to improve and become a premium. One of the big ones was mosquitoes. You know, and our sales reps, they constantly would tell us what people were looking for.

35:54We would do surveys with all of our employees and ask them. And I think that's one of the trickiest parts is you get bigger and bigger. So Aptiv was my fourth company. And as you get higher and higher up the chain, you know, I'm really just talking to the executive team and maybe some regional managers. At that point, you have to find a way to funnel up all these like epiphanies of genius down at the base level. Right. Like, right. It's most of the best ideas come from those in the front lines. And so you've got to incentivize them. And so some ways we incentivized them in the past. It's like, hey, 500 bucks or 1 ,000 bucks for any idea that we get, and then we implement it company-wide.

36:28We would pay them, but we'd also give them company-wide recognition, and create some sort of a hero story out of it. I want to just kind of take a shot in the dark here. I'm going to ask you if this is right. All right, I'm on the right plane of thinking, right? You built an incredible company that got acquired, that changed your life and changed everything about everything you've learned along the way because of some big things. Number one, you know how to sell. You know how to have a conversation with somebody and find out how you can help them. Two, you're selling a product that people actually want and need.

37:00Three, you're doing it in a way that is low friction. So it's like once they make a decision, there's no work for them. Like they don't have to get out and get the gloves and do themselves, right? Like the implementation of getting what they want, the solution is easy. And then lastly, you have built systems for your business so that you can scale, so that anybody can pick up the system and do exactly what and repeat over and over the winning formula that you've discovered or learned throughout your system. Am I missing anything? I also think the industry I chose was really wise. I found something where you could have 20 % profit margins.

37:35It was not very competitive. One of the jokes I say is that there's not a lot of MBAs running into pest control. you know and so you know if you have some basic business background that gives you a leg up you know and if you're really committed to being the top one percent of one percent it's a little bit easier right like i wouldn't be very good at playing in the nba i'm only six foot four i'm not you know in that in that range and i you know i wasn't in varsity basketball or whatever else and you have to know what your strengths are so yeah i mean i could probably give you a dozen in other ways, you know, that it made sense for me at the time.

38:08I just happened to go to BYU. Yeah. BYU has a lot of return missionaries, and they don't realize it, but they're actually really good at sales. Great salespeople. When they're out there, it's more about the resilience they have. You know, when they knock door to door, they get rejected way more than pest control. So by the time we brought them into pest control, it's like, wow, this is a lot easier. I can have two or three sales a day as opposed to zero for like a whole month, and hopefully get a couple baptisms over the course of the whole mission. So finding the right people, building a culture around that, whatever you have around you, I think it's important to look and go, what can I do with what I have, with the card hand that I've been dealt?

38:49And then working from there. But you've got to know if you've got a good hand. When we first met David, one of the things that got me really excited to have this conversation is that you seem somebody that just loves business. Like I love business as well. Like I love the game of business. I love solving problems. I love seeing how far I can take something. I love seeing results for my customers, whatever it might be. I never heard you mention that, you know, that in a previous podcast episode that you see business as a game. It's your sport of choice. What is your scoreboard? How do you know that you're winning in business?

39:22So over time, I've learned that's really different for everybody, right? For me personally, I loved growth. and you have all your different KPIs that you come with to manage the success of the business. Those are probably the best indicators of how well you're doing. And some of that can be your growth percentage, it can be your profit margin, it can be your efficiencies, that sort of thing. But also, are you building a really great company culture? Is it led by core values? Is it something people are excited about? How is your employee retention? Are your sales numbers truly better than the other competitors out there that are also selling.

39:58So for example, when we had people switch over to our company from another company the previous year, they would sell 70 % more sales with us that, that next summer than they did with their prior competitor. And so things like that, to me, I always wanted, the company was always a reflection of me. Um, I had, it took me a long time to pull my reputation outside of the business of reputation. Um, you know, even enough to sell it. And I think you just got to love what you do. For me, I love growing. Like if, if you're not growing, you're dying, right? It's a pretty common phrase in business. You know, it's like, you can't stand still or you're actually moving backwards and you can't ever rest on your loyals no matter how big you get.

40:38Otherwise you become a dinosaur. I always joke that there's a startup, a scale up and a screw up. Yeah. Right. And you don't want to get that screw up phase, right? You constantly have to be scaling and growing or eventually fall into it. Yeah. And, and we all see there's plenty of business out there right now. We could name off the tops of our heads where it's like, you know what, these guys got big and they just they're resting on their laurels you know it's just kind of a cash cow to them they're not interested in being the next hot thing or the front runner of their industry and for me i always want to be a front runner and i think that's an important point because when i speak to my non-entrepreneurial friends or family members they just don't understand that that that's how it is like you got to keep growing or you will die a lot of people just look at like bezos for example and they're like this guy is so greedy he's constantly like eating up the market like he doesn't have a choice like he has to otherwise he's going to be bradley so he's going to be Caldor?

41:25Is it going to be like, you know, Kmart who downsized? So like, it's very interesting that, you know, as entrepreneurs, we have to understand that it's not about greed. It's about how do I continue to serve my customers at a greater scale better than anybody else? And that's a really strong point that you're making here. And I love the fact that you pointed out that this is different for everybody. Some people want a lifestyle business. Some people want growth. Some people want, they have the vision where I'm going to nose to the grindstone for the next five years because I'm going to sell this company for X amount of value.

41:54Speaking of which, I want to learn about your experience of selling your last company, that transition of this is not me anymore. What do I do with my time? What does my life mean to me now? How do I get fulfillment? Right? Because I sold my software company almost like a year and a half ago. And I had a moment where I was just like, okay, I'm not the webinar guy anymore. Okay, what am I now? Like now that I have all these options, it's almost like before it was easy because I had one option, like just build this business, you know? So what was your experience like when you sold and now you have all these options and now you have all this time and you have to rediscover who David Royce is?

42:31So when we started this fourth company, my goal was to build the first unicorn and pest control. And it's funny how goals work, right? Because you have one goal when you started and it was life-changing. When I sold my first business, I've got an NDA, but Forbes said I sold it for $13 million. That was life-changing to me. It was incredible. I could have probably invested that and lived a very reasonable life or modest lifestyle and not worked again. Then it's like, well, what's next? How do we expand, not just from, say, Southern California, but how do we go into four states and then nine states and then 34 states?

43:10You're constantly kicking the goalposts back further and further, nothing's ever enough. I've learned. It's almost like this endless search of how big can we go? It's like, why do you climb a mountain? I don't know, because it's there. This idea. And the idea of building a unicorn, I have an NDA for this company too, but I could tell you that the average pest control company sells for one to three times revenues. And we were at 500 million, so you can kind of do the math. And I would say that it's not as great as you would think. And a lot of people are like, what are you talking about? Like you made all this money.

43:42Like you're not just set, like you can do whatever you want. And the thing that you really take away and looking back at my 20 year journey in the pest control industry, it's the discipline that you hone. It is the character that you build. It is all the knowledge and learnings. Those are like the real reward. And that's what's the most satisfying. If I go back, if you asked me when were as I happiest. I was actually happiest in the earliest years when I had no idea what was going to happen. If we were really going to pull it off, I almost bankrupt my company the first year because we sold way more than we should have.

44:16And you have to pay the commissions out before all the revenue comes in. But it was so much fun because you're just constantly learning, your mind is expanding. And for me, the reason I ultimately sold, I was kind of bored. I wasn't learn anything new. And again, like I have to be growing or I'm dying. And I felt like I, we've become the third largest pest control company, a residential pest control company, and probably the world. And I don't know that there's much more for me to do here. I'm probably good. And I'm curious, you know, for me, what the next chapter is. I've kind of look at my life, like that was the first act in a play.

44:52And I'm trying to figure out what act two is, you know, I tend to think it's going to be something more creative or philanthropic, but I'm just taking time to be really quiet, relax and think, you know, I bought a new home, I'm remodeling it, going to kind of do that, have some fun. I enjoy the creativity that's involved in architecture. I've always loved it. And then from that point, I'll just, I'll go figure it out. But it is weird in the sense that all those dopamine hits, like you're no longer this machine of productivity, but I was definitely weaning myself off of that. The first dozen years when I was CEO, it was really, really intense.

45:25And I was working 14, 16 hour days. It worked great because my wife was also a securities fraud litigator. She was working crazy hours like that too. And so it worked for us. It's probably not a great fit for everybody. Towards the end, I became chairman with Aptiv. And then slowly I went down to like a 40-hour work week, down to like a 30-hour week work, 20-hour work week, and then was able to sell the business because I had built a great team that could continue with the business and I didn't have to stay with it. I love it. And what about in terms of like what you want to do in terms of fulfilling for lost time you work.

45:59I know when you build a business, like you're building a business and you're working so hard and you're growing it. Are there things that you went back to? You're like, Hey, I want to pick up, you know, a new hobby, a new sport. Maybe I want to do some charity work. What are some of the things that you are so happy you get to do now? Yeah, I think, I think maybe the next phase is probably something more creative or philanthropic. I love helping entrepreneurs. You know, I would love to find a way to inspire other entrepreneurs who are young or give them some sort help them get a skill set. On the creative side, like right now I'm building a new house.

46:29That's been really fun. I've always loved architecture. It's kind of like, hey, we're going to build a house. We're probably going to be in for the rest of our lives. So I've been spending time doing that, but just kind of taking things really slow, trying to get to a really quiet place to think about what's really important to me because now it maybe isn't so much about the money it's, but it can be about another form of passion that maybe I am excited about, or maybe it is more passion driven as opposed to financially driven. Maybe that was just the first act of my life and I'm working on the second act and maybe there's a third act later too.

46:58I don't know. How much did this experience shape who you are as a person personally? Like the whole growth of your business, selling it, all the lessons you learned, how have you changed as a person? When you do something for 20 years, you know, you, I would say you definitely have the grooves that you've built and working 14, 16 hour days for a decade and also learning how to scale something nationwide. There's the discipline that I gained in doing that and the knowledge. I think it is for a lot, a large part who I am. And like I mentioned earlier, it's hard because you have to separate your reputation from the business, but you put so much of your blood, sweat and tears into the business.

47:42Like it is, you think it is you, but it took a while for me to slowly wean myself off it, wean myself off all the dopamine hits on a daily basis, right? You feel like this animal of productivity when you're going through it. And so, yeah, it's funny to just sit still for a second. It's tough, honestly. Like you kind of have to learn what was that like before you really got intense. So when I sold my software company, Nicole, I, you know, exited and it was an interesting time in my life because I didn't grow up for money. Both my parents were immigrants. They worked hard. You know, they provided enough for us, but we didn't have abundant wealth where we're like, what do I do with money?

48:18A lot of people don't understand that when you have some money, when you have some wealth, when you have just excess, that's a problem. You need to figure out what to do with that money. You can't just have it sit in the bank. You have to invest it. You have to figure out how you can save money on taxes. There's a whole different game once you have some money. So was that a learning curve for you? What are some things that you had to learn the hard way? or maybe some things that you realize, okay, now that I'm not building wealth and I, how do I stay rich, right? How do I keep my money and make sure that I don't go back to square one?

48:53Yeah. You know, I think I took the same passion, you know, that I developed over time and worked it into that, where I got really excited about investing. And, you know, I interviewed probably three dozen different money managers and constantly was looking. And ultimately I found Iconic, which I think is the most amazing firm and their whole, the full thesis and strategy and everything that they do is incredible. But yeah, I look at investing very much like an endowment where half of my investments are going to be in alternatives, you know, probably in private equity, venture capital, real estate, secondaries, co-investments, that sort of thing.

49:31And then the other half, you know, primarily S &P 500, you know, a little bit of bonds or fixed income, but it's nice because I don't necessarily need a lot of it to live. You know, I can just put it in there thinking long-term and just let it grow. Is there such a thing of like having too much money? Maybe there's like a point of diminishing returns just like, hey, if I can do it all over again, I would make X amount of money and that's all I need to really live passively and invest. And I don't actually need, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. Do you agree with that? Do you think that that's something that you think about sometimes?

50:04Sure, like for me, like I did question like, okay, I've been, I put 20 years into this. Do I keep going? You know, because then I can make, you know, several billion or however much, you know, it just never ends. And at some point I was like, look, I have enough. Like I have, I can't spend all this. I'm going to give it away when I die. I don't want to create trust funders. That's just not something I ever subscribed to. And so I think that it can be really cool if you are accumulating it, there are ways to go. Yeah, it would be great if I had more kind of like Warren Buffett. He was always focused on keeping the majority of it because he could grow it better than most other people could.

50:39And then he's going to give it away at the end. So same thing. I'm passionate about that. And I don't mind having what I have. But yeah, I do think you have to have some sort of a limit if you want to be happy. I don't think you're there to master money. The money's not there to master you. Oh, good point. One of the things that you mentioned is this Warren Buffett, and he's really good at what he does. And one of the things I find fascinating about his story is he is the perfect example of doing something consistently for a long time and really showing the power of compounding. You know, a lot of people don't know this, but he didn't become a millionaire until 60 or something, you know, like, and from 60 to 84, whatever he is right now, 85, he became one of the richest men in the world over$85 billion net worth, all that kind of stuff.

51:21So like, compounding is one of those concepts that is hard to visualize, hard to understand, it's hard to grasp. You did the same thing for 20 years. You were consistent. You put your time into there. You put all your effort into basically one bucket. And then now you're diversifying, obviously, with your wealth. But how much is consistency and perseverance attributed to your success? Yeah. I mean, I had a professor tell me once that the richest people, the wealthiest, the ones who have accumulated the most wealth, the reason they did so is because they were very just focused and they were able to stick it out in one industry, become really good at one thing and just keep growing and growing based on that talent.

52:04And for the most part, I think he's right. Every once in a while, you hit a really great tech company or something and there's venture capital in it and it just, you can expand like crazy. And in five, 10 years, you've got this massive network that's worth billions. But throughout is most businesses aren't like that. And so, yeah, that's the exception. Yeah, it takes time, you know, and those businesses were obviously more risky too. There's a lot more risk involved versus having some sort of a, you know, kind of tried and true going into it more of a traditional business model and just working at it and scaling.

52:36So, David, I really enjoyed this conversation. I really enjoyed getting to know you even better. One of the things I want to kind of wrap up on and leave our audience thinking about is for those who are just getting started, who maybe are side hustling or have a concept for their business and they're about to make their first dollar. When I even ask this question, I get excited. I feel like, man, what a great time to be. It's like you're going to get to enjoy a TV series that is absolutely amazing, you know, like and I already watched it. So what advice would you give someone who's just starting out, who's just like doesn't know what they don't know and just wants to go for it?

53:09Oh gosh, there's so many like ways to mitigate risk in my mind. So one is like the power of proximity. Find other people who've done what you've done and then emulate, right? Like find other entrepreneurs, build out a network of other people if you can, who've done something. If you're going into like a traditional business model, go get experience, find people who have done that. Maybe there's even like a manager or somebody else that you can talk to in the future to ask advice from as you go out and start your own thing. Develop that competitive advantage. Make sure there's something that's special about you where you're solving a really unique pain point or maybe some additional pain points that the other firms aren't doing.

53:46Yeah. And get educated. Make sure you learn how to identify what a great opportunity is from the beginning. Man, I wish I grew up in today, like today's age. I wish I was in college right now because I would probably realize how less important college is. It's more about having fun and probably building a network of friends as opposed to the information that's there because there's so much information online now. right like all these all the different business podcasts that are out there all the youtube videos the ways to learn how to set up a business how to scale or you know the systems and processes it's it's incredible before i used to go to college thinking okay well they have a library and the teachers are going to teach me and they're the ones with the access to the knowledge learning is a lifetime process like especially in business in business is changing faster today than it ever has before like you've got to stay on top of stuff you've got to get on ai if you're not like on it and using it and utilizing it in your business yet.

54:39So reading is like a really big thing for me. I read a couple of books every month. I would say leaders are readers, you know, it's, you've got, you got to keep reading up on things. So study, research and make it fun. I hope, I hope it's exciting to you to research because that's part of being an entrepreneur. It's being solution oriented, constantly solving things, knowing where to go. It's not so much whether you have the information or not from yourself where you learned it, but can you learn it from somewhere else and save yourself the dumb tax of, you know, making a mistake that you didn't have to make if you just had the knowledge prior or had talked to another entrepreneur who had already made those mistakes.

55:13I love that, David. I love these two points, like surround yourself with people that, you know, you aspire to be around your network, as well as constantly learning and constantly growing. I think the one common factor I found in very successful entrepreneurs is that they love to learn new things. They love to grow. They love to invest in themselves. When we sold the webinar ninja, I had some time on my hands now and I love being a beginner and learning something new. Like I got into poker and I love just learning the game and understanding strategy and understanding like how much is this is luck and how much is this skill and how can I reduce the amount of percentage of luck over time and all that kind of stuff.

55:47And like, even though I'm losing sometimes and I'm failing and I'm making stupid mistakes, I'm enjoying the process of being a beginner again. I'm enjoying the process of learning and being like, oh, I thought I was, I thought I knew everything last week. Now I realize I don't know anything, right? That whole process. I love the fact that you're encouraging people to read and read more books. I think that a book is one of the best values you can get. I mean, for 10, 15,$20, you're learning somebody's life story. You're learning how they did it. And it's crazy that that's even available to us. And when you were mentioning, like, I wish I was around today and growing up today, I often think, what did my parents think about me when I was growing up?

56:24Like, oh, you had Barnes and Nobles. We didn't have Barnes and Nobles. So I guess we all get our fair share or fair crack at success. So, David, thanks so much for your time. This has been a pleasure. I love the fact that you are dedicating your time to help other people and sharing your experiences, sharing what you've learned along the way. Thank you again. And I can't wait to see what you work on next. Thanks so much for the opportunity. I'll end with just one thing. When I was growing, I was struggling with trying to figure out how do you build a company culture? That's amazing. And Tony Hsieh wrote this book, Delivering Happiness, that just like I almost went back to getting executive MBA from Wharton just to figure out how to scale nationally this big.

57:07And the teachings in that book were so incredible. And I actually flew out to Zappos, multiple times to go through their headquarters and learn all about it. Because it's so many great customer service oriented ideals and KPIs and that sort of thing. And I met Tony at a cultural conference. They actually will host three days where you can go in and they'll teach you a lot of their secrets in terms of how they really become customer centric. And I asked him, I got a chance to talk to him multiple times and he goes, or I asked him, how, why are you doing what you're doing? I don't get it. Like all of this stuff is, these are competitive advantages that make you great.

57:43why would you just give it away to everybody? And he goes, well, I just think the world would be a better place if we all operated this way. And it hit me. I was like, oh yeah, I'm really selfish. You know, and it's, I didn't want to give back at that point in my life. And so I think if you've had some success, you know, pay it forward, just like Tony did to the rest of the world. Rest in peace, Tony. Oh man, that's a great story. I love it. You mentioned you love reading books. I just read a book recently called Unreasonable Hospitality. Have you read it? Will Goddara. I love this book. That's my favorite book right now.

58:19I know, I know, I know. It's incredible. We're going to be doing an episode on it, but it's in light of Tony's philosophies and, you know, delighting your customer and going above and beyond. And there's not enough of that. There's not enough of that in the world where it's like, I actually want to show my customers I care and that I want them to have an incredible experience. So I love that we're on the same page there. But thanks again, David. David, it's been amazing chatting. And I'll definitely link up to all your resources and your LinkedIn and all that kind of stuff in a moment. But thanks again, David.

58:49Awesome. Thank you. What a great conversation. I mean, we've gotten to everything from entrepreneurship to sales, to marketing, to strategy, to management development, to business culture, to scaling exponentially, growth systems, processes, all that stuff. So feel free to re-listen to this episode to grab more nuggets that you may have missed because you're maybe jotting down notes or thinking about what he's saying. This was incredible. I mean, David built a team of 6 ,500 people to run his pest control company. He is now unequivocally financially free and giving back and showing up on shows like this so that he can provide the knowledge and experiences that he had to people that are getting started or growing their business that are listening today.

59:33Today, his company Aptiv ranks as the number three largest residential pest control service out of more than 20 ,000 competitors. That's not an accident. That's because what David shared with you today works. So please take it to heart and start implementing, even if it's just one thing that you picked up today. We're going to put the links in the show notes of this episode, 100mba.net slash MBA2677. But you can check out David on his LinkedIn. Just search David Royce. Follow him so that you can continue to learn from him. If you're still with me here in this episode, Thank you so much for making it all the way to the end.

1:00:10You're a completionist. You're a doer. I love that about you. That's why we're in this community together. That's why we're here together. And that's why I continue to do this, because I love serving people that get things done, that want to learn, that want to grow. So like I mentioned before, all the things you learned from David were great. But just think about what is the one thing that you learned from him that kind of switched things on for you? and what can you do to really implement and move forward or move closer to what you want in your business? Even if it's just one action item, like maybe I need to know my customers a little bit better, maybe I should send out a survey, maybe I need to get better at face-to-face sales, maybe I should talk to my customers or even close a few sales on Zoom or even in person.

1:00:51So just take one action to move forward and I guarantee you'll feel better about yourself, you'll feel better about your business and I'm telling you, it won't hurt. It will help and it will help you compound those actions into something great, a great business, a great life. And of course, what we're looking for is building something that is impacting other people. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow, and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

1:01:30By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically, and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free, and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.