How To Buy Businesses With Zero Money Down - Adam Lyons - Upsells.com

SPEAKER_01 0:04

This is the Beyond the Story podcast. A show that goes way beyond the story. Adam Lyons, welcome to the show. Dude, thank you so much for having me. I mean, this is a little like well overdue here. I don't know what took me so long, but it doesn't matter. We're here. Yeah, it's good. Good, good to be here. Absolutely. So my first experience with you was uh, of course, through our the best mastermind on the planet, Apex. And you had showed up and poured into our group, which is the Apex Entrepreneurs, and um over delivered. I remember, you know, having having breakfast with you the next morning when you came in and before the day even got started, you had a full room of people eating breakfast. You were pouring into them again. And I go, This guy clearly gets it and knows uh what's going on. We're gonna be friends. So uh, and that was probably gosh, January of last year, I think. Yeah, yes, sounds about right.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Yeah, I was uh I was like the the business world's best kept secret for like 18 years. And now you know now he's come out of a show, he's here. And yeah, yeah. Three years ago, my my mentor challenged me and said, People need to know who you are, you gotta stop hiding behind other people. So here I am.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Gosh, and meanwhile, I've been working on about not hiding for 13 years, and here we are.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yeah, I uh I I definitely enjoy my privacy. So the benefits of being an introvert, but you know, he's like more people need to know you, you need to get out there. So here I am. Who's your mentor? Roland Frasier. Oh, yes, of course. Yeah, a business partner now, not even, yeah, still mentor, but business partner as well. So the one and only.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Yeah, he's a great guy. He's a brilliant mind. He's a business person too, as well. Too. I uh I got the fortune of calling him a friend too. Don't see him too often, but uh, you know, it's good to have guys like that uh on your team. Uh that that's I I made myself a promise.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Like obviously, I wanted to partner with him, but it was really important to me that he brought me into what he was doing versus me bringing him into what I'm doing. People talk about partner all the time, but they don't talk about you know the direction. Uh that's just as important. So I was I was honored last year when he asked me to partner up with yeah, let's tell that story.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

That's a great story, by the way. You told me that when we were in Fort Worth together uh late last year.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, yeah. So um about three years ago, Roland approached me and I've been a mentee of his for eight years. Uh three years ago, he approached me and asked if I would help him uh coach a mergers and acquisition program he was creating called Epic, uh, where we teach people to buy businesses with no money out of pocket, which is really, really ridiculously cool. Um and uh well, no, no personal money out of pocket, no money down, to be specific. And um, it's great. Uh, I've coached over 2100 mergers and acquisitions in the last three and a half years. So it's a lot. And um last year, September, he sits me down and and he says, What's it gonna take to keep you? And I was like, What do you mean? He goes, I want to make sure you don't go anywhere. He's like, I know you're you're doing a lot of deals and you're making a lot of money and and I want to keep you. And I said, Well, I know that you're notoriously stingy with giving away equity yourself. And um, I want to tell everyone you're my business partner. And you know, it's kind of difficult teaching people about equity when I don't have a piece of what what we're doing. And Roland said, That's a really fair argument, and you've been around for a long time, and yeah, you got it. And so we became partners and he gave me gave me a piece of the pie. So very happy, very excited. Love it. That's a uh good guy to be partnered with. Yeah, yeah, he's a smart guy, and uh it's an honor every day I get to work with him to learn something new.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

I bet it's a wealth of of knowledge, um, yeah, and continues to be. That's awesome. So let's back up a little bit. Let's go back to the beginning of the story. Where you know, where you know, when you got out of high school, did you go to college and after college, you get a job? Like, how did all yeah?

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I grew up, I grew up on a project in London. Uh, I was uh one of four white families in our project. So um that was a unique experience growing up. I uh it's funny, I was just telling my my oldest son, I got attacked at knife point, I think, on four different occasions. Um it was it was a wonderful upbringing, it was incredibly stressful. Um, I ended up working in a movie prop company that I loved and they were struggling financially. So I my first touching business was learning from books to try and save the company I worked for as an employee because they weren't good with making money. Uh that ended up with me moving to Africa to try and reduce costs. I ran a factory in Africa for a few years on behalf of that company. I ended up creating a splinter company and running that myself, sold that company early on, um, and then I kind of found myself wandering, not doing much. And I settled on being a janitor, which is kind of what I was beforehand, and making some cash and uh reading about life, not really sure what I wanted to do. And um I ended up getting into dating. And uh I read a book about dating. And my favorite business tip is my number one tip is when everyone zigs you zag. So there was this whole movement of guys that were talking about how to seduce women and how to you know improve their lay count. And I was like, what if we just made friends with them? And so I went the other way. I was like, how about you just make friends with women and uh and you know, don't try and sleep with them. And and I theorized that that will end up better for you, and it did, it did really well. And I ended up getting voted the number one dating coach in the world three years in a row. It was on the Steve Harvey show, the Today Show. They made two documentaries about me in different countries and different languages, and even a cartoon in Taiwan. True story. And um, yeah, I grew that up, but I wasn't making a lot of money. I was still struggling with making money, which is how I ended up hiring my mentor, Roland, who helped me learn about growing businesses and specifically through mergers and acquisitions. And so about eight years ago, I dived heavily into MA growth through mergers and acquisitions, uh, growing in scaling and consulting. Uh, since then, the company's just grown. I mean, I mean, my own company's grown tenfold, you know, significantly more than tenfold. And uh now I coach, consult, and as of yesterday, even um did a uh a lecture at the University of Texas in Austin uh as a professor on business and entrepreneurship and mergers and acquisitions. So there I am today. Love it. And what do you like best about what you do today? Um, I love the I'm the guy that people come to when they think there can't be a solution to something, when they think something's impossible, and they bring it to me and I make it possible. Actually, uh, my favorite story to this day uh is my son at nine years old came home. Uh so this is four years ago. He's 13 now. He's actually in the room with me. And uh four years ago he comes home and he's like, he's crying. Like, what's up, bud? And he goes, they're gonna close the Dungeons and Dragons shop. So we're nerds, we're massive nerds, and we play Dungeons and Dragons. And I was like, What do you mean? And he goes, they're gonna close the store, fix it. I'm like, what do you mean, fix it? And he goes, You fix businesses, fix it. And so I find myself going down to this Dungeons and Dragons shop, which is completely terribly badly run and it's clearly bankrupt and falling apart. And I buy it and turn it around. And so I now own a Dungeons and Dragons shop um that I leveraged into purchasing a commercial building, uh, which alone I bought it for like a low six figures, and that building is now worth like a high seven figures, just the building, let alone the fact that the I have a Dungeons and Dragons shop that pays for it and makes money on top of it. So it's uh it turned out to be a great investment. Um, but that's what I love. I love being able to turn things around that are struggling. It's fun. What would you say the best part about entrepreneurship is? The best part about entrepreneurship, as far as I'm concerned, is the freedom. And the worst part about entrepreneurship is most people never get to experience it. So most people get caught up in the grind and the hustle, and they're still employees just for themselves. True entrepreneurship is about absolute freedom where you really can do whatever you want.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Yeah, and not the truth. So let's talk a little bit about this whole uh business and acquisitions uh business that you're in right now and being able to go in and buy a business for no money down, uh or as you would say, no personal money out of pocket. How does that how does that all all that work?

SPEAKER_00 8:13

So the the summary of it is pretty simple. Um if you have a business today and you don't want to do it anymore, but you are you know trapped in something else until you can get rid of it, it's tough. And a lot of people have no idea how to structure it for sale, how to get rid of it, what to do with it. Um, we Roland came up with something called the rule of price and terms, which is if you want your price, I get my terms, and if you want your terms, I get my price. What that essentially means is I think we're all aware that if you're gonna pay for something in cash, you would expect a discount. If I'm gonna pay for everything in full up front, I'm gonna get a discount for that because I'm paying cash. But the reverse is also true. If you're willing to um get your full amount, the actual amount you want, most people are willing to take that on terms. So, a way of doing it, and there's over, I mean, there's hundreds of ways of doing this, but one way, so that we don't take up the entire time talking about it, is you can just talk to the business owner and say, if I get you the exact price you want, would you be willing to fund the deal? And you'd be shocked at how many people will be very happy to receive an amount of money per month over X amount of years in return for their business. And it's actually less risky in a weird way because the minute you fail a payment, they can take the business back. And I actually know somebody who sold their business like this three times. The first time they sold it, the guy ran it for six months. They received half the money of the business during that time, and then the guy couldn't make payments anymore and gave it back. Yeah, the business was a bit beaten up, but the owner knew how to fix it. So he tidied it up, fixed it, and put it on the market again, sold it again. This time he got like a third of the business money back over a few months, like four months or what have you. And the guy couldn't make payments, and so he took it back, fixed it up again, put it on the market again, and the last time sold it in full for cash. So it was great. He'd got like, you know, almost double what he would have got. And sure, he had to tidy it up a couple of times, but he could because it was his business. He knew exactly what he was doing. So it can really work out in the business owner's favor who's selling it this way. But of course, the buyers don't have to put any money out of pocket, they've just got to make sure they make payments. And the first one isn't due for 30 days. So you've got 30 days to generate some cash before you make that first payment. And where do you find where do you find these deals at? They're everywhere. I mean, the Dungeons Dragon shop was a great idea, like small town in Texas, 35 minutes outside of Austin, 25 minutes outside of Austin Airport, tiny little mom and pop shop. Um, it was losing money every month because they had no marketing or advertising skills. They literally weren't advertising or marketing beyond a banner on the door. That was it. And uh, you know, taking over the shop was really easy. He he wanted cash, it wasn't worth a lot of money. And I was like, look, I'll get you, you know, this much money, but we're paying it out in monthly payments over time. And he was like, okay, fine, because he didn't want to the stress of it, he didn't want the the issues. And I left, I promoted one of the staff members inside of the store to the manager, like the best staff member, fired everyone else because it only needed one person, and then gave them some simple marketing systems, added uh an ad spend, filmed some ads, and and that was it. And now the store grows month after month. Yeah, I was about to ask you, how'd you turn it around? Yeah, it's really simple. I mean, it just running ads. What was really funny is we actually created 12 ads and we ran all 12 for about four months, found the ad that worked the best. There was one clear winner, and then we contacted the local movie theater and negotiated to have that ad play in front of every movie for the entire year for 600 bucks a month. And that's there's only one movie theater in town. Sure. So we took our top ad on Facebook and we had a budget of like 600 bucks a month on Facebook, but now we've got super targeted local audience, people that go out for entertainment in town. So it's it's absolutely perfect. Everyone knows who we are and everyone knows where we are. It grows month after month.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Brilliant. I gotta ask, what what the hell does a uh Dungeon Dragon store offer and do? I'm not, I'm not, I'm not not keen to dude.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

So glad you asked. First of all, no, um, so there are major games that that have like cult followings. So Pokemon you've probably heard of. Yeah, you may have heard of Magic the Gathering, you probably have not heard of Warhammer, and then Dungeons and Dragons. And these these I'd say are the pinnacle of the components of the game store. So Pokemon, Magic the Gathering, Dungeons Dragons, Warhammer have one thing in common. Every month they release new products. And if you're a follower, you buy the new product every month. So the average person is going to have a budget of between 100 bucks to 400 bucks that they spend every month to buy the new releases. So the goal is to have customers, you have their mailing list and you let them know, hey, this is the new release, do you want it this month? Hey, this is the new release, do you want it this month? And then in the store, we have an area where people can play the game. So they can meet up with their friends and they can play. So if you know their family don't want them having 15 people over playing a game, they can use our space for free. And they use that space, and every time they're in the space, they see adverts for the new stuff, which reminds them to buy it. And so they buy it. And then we have classes. So we teach people how to play. Um, so you know, your first hit's free. So we'll absolutely take you through how to play the game, give you some dice, take you through. I should probably own my own copy of the game. I should buy a miniature, I should learn how to paint it, I should buy paints, you know, full paint sets, 400 bucks. And before you know it, you're down the rabbit hole and you're spending one to four hundred bucks a month every month, which adds up for you know, two grand on average per customer per year, every single time at a 50% profit margin. And it's passive once they buy once, they keep coming back. And are there is there a lot of these stores around? There's no, there's only one in our town, and that's the that's the benefit. Uh Austin's got like five, I think. Um, you know, there's a few of them around, but the point is you only need, I mean, think about it. Uh let's just say, let's just say 200 bucks a month or 100 bucks per person per month. Uh mortgage is like three and a half grand a month, I think, where we are. So that's 35 customers covers the mortgage. So, you know, if if you get up to like uh we're at 400 customers, so you do the math on that at an average spend of 100 bucks a head, great money. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

I've I've heard of Dungeons and Dragons. I wouldn't know where to even start to play it, or how does it be think about the percentages?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

There are 20,000 people in our town, a hundred thousand in the county, which is not Austin, right? It's Bastrop County. So of the 20,000 people in our town, we have 400 of them, and that's a hundred bucks each. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

It's great money. Yeah, I'd say, but but you're deeply passionate, like you're all in with this Dungeon Dragon.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

I mean, yeah, I've got five children, my kids are there constantly, and you know, they they haven't thought of it yet, but everything inside that store I own. So like I've already prepaid everything in there. So they haven't thankfully haven't yet been like, hey, can I have this? Can I have this? Can I have this? But like it's all prepaid, obviously, because I had to pay for it to put it in the shop. Um, so probably shouldn't have said that in front of the teenager, but I think he's smart enough to know. But but that's the point, you know, it's as a dad, it's the best thing ever because I can get my kids whatever they want whenever they want it. As a parent, it's wonderful because I'm not only helping my kids play games and attract, and the games have a lot of math and reading. And like my five-year-old, he just complained to me the other day that he's not allowed to play. And I was like, Well, your reading isn't good enough yet. And so he's like, I want to read more, and it's great, it's a really cool motivational tool. Like, all my kids can do math in their head because they have to calculate it for playing the games. So it makes them smarter, it makes them more intelligent, and it's imaginative, they're not using computing, they're actually interacting with humans and practicing social skills, and it's great. It's it's a it's a good set of games and a great little side business. That like I said, it's not even about the shop. I'll be honest with you, I put all the money back into the shop. I don't I don't actually take a profit from the shop, but it does buy me a building, and that building has grown in value, it's tripled in three and a half years. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Yeah, it's so crazy. Well, congrats on that, man. Um, if you're a Dungeons and Dragons fan, you're in the local Austin area or you're in town, you need to stop by Adam's Dungeons and Dragons store.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

I want to see place now.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

I don't even play Dungeon Dragons.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

You gotta come, you gotta come, you gotta come visit. We have we actually have one proud of. We have one of the best art supplies. Um, our art supplies are some of the most technical, definitely in Bass Drop. Like we have a hobby lobby, but our art supplies are more technical. You go to Hobby Lobby if you want like generic paints, but for us, you can get very technical paints, which if you're super into art, like we have the high quality artist colors, the high pigmentation, that kind of stuff. Um, and and we rival Austin for the quality of what we have in our shop for painting, which is another component because there's an artistic element to it too.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Love it. Yeah, all right, I'm definitely doing that. I'm trying, I want to try your cooking and cuisine. I want to check out the dungeon. See, I got I this is the Austin trip already in the works here. I'm gonna make that happen. Come down, come down, come down. So um, by the time we're recording this, you'll be talking at uh Apex again, um, which I mean it never gets old. So I'm not shocked why you continue to get asked to come back and do it again. What do you what are you gonna be sharing with the folks at Apex Live?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Um, so yeah, actually, this one was a request from Ryan. He wants me to share 10 ways to increase revenue in your company. So I'm gonna be sharing, you know, not five, not three. I need 10. 10, yeah. He wants me to share 10 different ways to grow grow a company's revenue. So uh it's cool because it's very tactical. Um, I'm I'm big on strategy and tactics, obviously, because of gaming. And there's a big difference between the two. If you're listening to this, you don't know the difference, it's very simple. Strategy, you could drop me in uh another country in another timeline, right? So you could you could drop me in Germany in the 1200s, and assuming I survived witchcraft because they want to know where I've come from and why I'm wearing weird clothes, I could start a business and succeed using business strategy because it doesn't require any specific technology. Tactics are very uh very technologically based. So tactics is what I would do on Facebook, which won't work in Roman times or in in Germany in the 1200s. On the flip side, a good business strategy, you know, like uh, hey, try a free sample and then upsell into a subscription would work in any time period.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Love it. Well, dude, you're uh it's a privilege to call you a friend. You're an absolutely brilliant mind and incredible speaker. I always look forward to hearing from your energies on point, your delivery is absolutely impeccable. And you pack that with, you know, a laundry list of of knowledge. It's uh it's an absolute winning combo. So uh again, a privilege to be your friend. And uh it's great to finally have you on the show and hang out with you for a few minutes again here um and and uh and and learn from you. Any final thoughts for our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Yeah, I think um, you know, one of the biggest things that we do that could be interesting for anyone here is we run an event called the Working Vacation. It's actually my own mastermind. I don't even think I've told you about it, so that's because I'm really shy about inviting people on it. It's uh workingvacation.com is where you can go. But like I said, we've learned a lot of entrepreneurs don't actually experience that freedom that they think they want. And so we take people on a cruise ship for our mastermind and we make them take vacation while growing their business. So I'll actually get quite hands-on and have my team hands-on, we'll analyze their business, we'll develop a revenue strategy for them, like literally with them, or or help them roll out something they've been sitting on for ages. So they do more in a single week than they've done in months, and force them to take time off, chill by the pool, socialize. They can bring their family and hang out with their family and get good quality family time. And I love the mastermind because I have everyone getting off the boat at the end of the week being like, holy crap, I did more this week than I normally ever do, and spent more time with my family or my friends, or networking, or socializing than I ever do. And they get it. They go, Okay, I get it. I understand how to be free and successful. And you know, that's how I can run 16 companies and consult and have time to help Roland with what he does and be a professor at UT and everything else that I'm doing because I use this system that we share.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Yeah, I I found out about it through Josh Thomas, who was in Miami. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get on the cruise, and I'm like, what are you doing in Miami? He's like, Adam Lyons doing a cruise. I'm like, he is? I feel so left out.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah, I don't, um, I don't, I don't, I I I like people finding it themselves versus me like pushing people to it because um, you know, it is it's actually really affordable as masterminds go. I mean, you know, people used to spend like you know 50 or 20 grand a year, um, and we charge a lot less and they get seven days back to back. Actually, our next one's eight days, which is like four weekends worth. Um, so you know, a four four weekends of mastermind in a year is 50k. But with us, you do but for a lot less money and you do it in one go. And because we're together constantly, you know, like Josh Thomas. I mean, I sat with him for like three hours, I think, every morning because I wake up early and no one else was awake. So I was like, uh, show me a business plan, let's go through it. And we tidied up the plan and developed the copywriting. All right, nothing else to do, we're just sitting on a boat. So it was really fun. Uh, but it's nice because then in the evening when he's like, I want to keep working on it, I'm like, no, we will now party. This is it. It's good. Oh man. Well, when's the next one? Uh the next one's in Alaska in June, I think. And then so we do a summer one and a winter one. Uh, summer's always Alaska because I'm addicted to crab. So I go to catch cans, my favorite restaurant, and uh and get crab. And then the November, December one is uh is a Caribbean one for the winter.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Oh, excellent. Well, may have to do that. I'm more of a Caribbean guy than Alaska guy. So may have to uh get the details from you on uh on that one. But uh yeah, man, I love what you're up to. You uh got your hands in fire, very productive fire, to say the least. So keep doing what you're doing, you're doing work that matters. Your heart shows through the work you're doing because you give a shit about people, and that's what it's all about, you know? That's the key. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me, man. I absolutely appreciate it. Thanks for taking some time out of your day. I know you're a busy guy, so I really appreciate you coming on the show. And always great to see you. I look forward to seeing you again in a couple weeks in Dallas. Thank you, bud. Have a good one. Thanks, brother. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of the Beyond the Story Podcast. Be sure to appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. Be sure to appreciate it. Signing off from the podcast, LaunchLab.com studios. We'll talk to you next time.