Are you ready for an open discussion with the best of the best and the best of what's next? Welcome to the Tony DUrso show. Join in on a great conversation today with some of the world's great influencers as they showcase great advice and techniques that made them the game changers they are today. Now here's Tony DUrso. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Tony Steuer

Tony D:

Welcome I'm your host Tony DUrso. I interviewed some of the most successful people in the world and I thank you for joining us. This show is dedicated to helping you turn your vision into reality and here are some successful entrepreneurs who provide insights and guidance you can use to move along your vision path and you can listen to all of my shows. I'm most podcasts platforms. If you have Apple podcasts, AKA iTunes, please subscribe and if you like what you hear, a kind review really makes my day. Now before we get going, here's a big thank you to some amazing sponsors of our show. Please stay tuned for an important message from Candid who's going to help you and meet, get a photo-ready, smile for the holidays coming up as a significant message from ClearBanc who's changing the way entrepreneurs raise money with equity-free capital. Listen for a vital message from MintMobile that makes it easy to cut your wireless bill down to just 15 bucks a month. More info on them just to head, so please stay tuned. Lastly, check out this message from Privacy at last. Great protection when you buy your stuff online. Today's show is about Get Ready Planner and Expert Dojo with Tony Steuer and Brian Mac Mahon. Let's see what we can learn through the success of others. Here's some info on Tony Steuer. Tony loves helping others make sense of the financial world in a way that's easy to understand. A recognized authority on financial literacy, he on a mission to establish a path to financial preparedness and has created roadmaps for this in his many award-winning books. And by the way, at the end of this interview, I'm going to do a summary recap of what we went over. So stay tuned for that. Here we go.

Tony D:

Welcome to the show, Tony. So great to have you on with us today.

Tony S:

Tony, thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here.

Tony D:

Thank you. The honor is mine and finances are near and dear to everyone and you've got an interesting way if that's a good way to say it. An interesting way of looking at finances. Debt includes everybody, even the kids. I can't wait to dig into this and share your results, your information with our audience. But before we do that, Tony, we'd like to know how did it all start for you? What's your backstory?

Tony S:

Well, I started out as an insurance agent and gradually from there I got into consulting. The majority of my consulting was for financial advisors and they constituted my clients. So in working with them over the years, I found that one of the common issues they faced is having their clients have all their information together and easily accessible and working with people. That was the common trend that I noticed is that people have a hard time rounding up their financial documents and understanding what their financial documents are.

Tony D:

That's very interesting. And so from the insurance, you then seg-wayed into helping people organize and take care of their finances.

Tony S:

Correct, I found that a lot of people weren't that interested in just talking about their insurance and it was surprising, right?

Tony D:

Yeah. Go figure. I mean we love talking about insurance we need. So I think we have no choice but to talk about it. However, it does seem to be a subject we want to talk about and get out of the way rapidly. Finance is a different story. We have to talk about it whether we want to or not. And I know people that their better halves don't want to talk about it, don't want to discuss it, just want it to be good, don't like discussing it. So it's kind of sometimes a pain point, I think for people. Maybe for a lot of people, that's a pain point. And so that in itself makes people not want to organize and get things in shape. So how do you cross that little threshold First of all?

Tony S:

I think the best way to approach it and what I'm advocating for is simplifying it and making finances approach you by. I think people are so intimidated by the financial world that they have a hard time getting started. They just don't want to deal with it or they've had so many bad experiences with the financial community in terms of services and products that it does become a pain point rather than something they'd like to engage in.

Tony D:

And how do you handle that? Do you, in your little list of notes here, you even put and make a point that finances can be an emotional stick to the script, be professional even though you're dealing with family members and going over things, how do you cross that? Because you're, you're the man of the house. You have to tell everyone to be quiet. And how do you deal with these stressful moments where perhaps because of tight finances, perhaps people aren't getting what they want and, and it could even be a melee. How do you, how do you cut through that?

Tony S:

Well, there are two basic things that you have to look towards and that's the communication of course. As we both know to be a long-time married, communication is key in managing your family finances just like it is for the rest of your marriage. The other key is education. Once you know about something, you tend to feel more comfortable with it. So I think taking the time to all become educated in your family will help everyone to better have a money conversation.

Tony D:

That's a very good point. Okay, I get you on that. And one of the things that you talk about in your book, you have a book called Get Ready, A step-by-step planner for maintaining your financial first aid kit. Is create a binder for your documents. Let's talk about that, please.

Tony S:

Sure, so the concept of the binder is twofold. One, it's just so you know where you have your documents on a day to day basis. The planner walks you through which documents to gather, where to put them and all that. The second part of it is that you have the binder available in the event of an emergency. So if you have a five-minute evacuation order, like a lot of people did when there were the wildfires in the hurricanes and everything else, you can readily grab all your financial documents because it's the last thing you're gonna want to look for in the event of an emergency evacuation. But they are critically important. The other area with the binder comes in really handy is if something does happen to you, your family knows how to handle your affairs, they're able to access all of your financial accounts.

Tony D:

That's an interesting point there, Tony. So in this binder would I have my bank account information, my username, password, bank account number, things like that

Tony S:

Optimally or you could do it digitally. However, I found that a lot of people still like having the physical binder that they can look at is a lot of us have not gone paperless. A promise of a paperless office has not really occurred for most people. So you had that physical binder where you can look up that information to have all the information gathered comes in really handy. So you would have your bank statements in there, your declaration pages from your insurance policies, you know, whatever you can think of, you'd want to have it in there.

Tony D:

And actually for the savvier or digitally or for the more technically adept people, you just put it on a USB drive and it's very easy, very convenient to slip it in your pocket in an emergency. It would just be now a matter of everyone in the family knowing where this binder is, what's in it and why it's so important.

Tony S:

Exactly. And that's where the communication comes in the key that you're able to communicate through a family financial meeting. What's in the binder where the binder is located and you point out is you do want to have it on the USB and optimally you would also want it backed up to a cloud account with iCloud or Dropbox or whatever service you use.

Tony D:

I got you. And in this binder, I see that we should list all our assets and who is the contact person for that asset phone numbers. This, of course, our home, any property we have in anything of value, safe to safe deposit box information, things like that.

Tony S:

Exactly way it doesn't go and claimed in the event something happens to you and also you're able to work with it. Let's say you do lose your home in a wildfire, which you know, unfortunately, a lot of people did appear in California over the last two years. It's happened multiple times is that you're able to access all of your accounts because you have your account number and all the information that they ask you when you call it the financial institution.

Tony D:

Got it, I'm going down the list here of all these points that are in your book, just take a look at them. This next one may be out of order, but we're going to take it up anyways. Does this include, well, it would include any 401ks you have? It would include any IRAs and CDs you have, investment accounts, etc. And one of the things that you mentioned here is that your retirement plan, but I think that's a little separate from what goes in the binder or could you elaborate a little bit more on that?

Tony S:

Well there are two facets to it. First of all, is recording your actual retirement plan assets and separating them out from your non-retirement assets. I think that's a little bit easier for people to have that in a separate section. And that could be your IRA's, your pension plan, your 401k and I would include keeping a copy of your social security document in there so you know where all the retirement assets are. So if something happens to you, your spouse is able to access your retirement accounts because they know that they exist. And those are a little bit different generally because there will be an administrator for the majority of retirement plans. And then you have just got the knowledge out there.

Tony D:

I see. It's in a way it's like having your life on a stick, having everything about you. Right?

Tony S:

Bingo. It is having everything about you. And I think the appeal in this day and age with all the hacking and data breaches and everything else, there's some comfort in having a physical copy that only you have access to or your closest ones have access to.

Tony D:

I Got you. Now I'm gonna ask you a hopefully a very unusual question you've never been asked before, Tony.

Tony S:

All right.

Tony D:

All right. I get it. And I can think about it now. You've written a book on this, but it's so simple. That begs the question almost. What would I get from reading your book to help me do this? Because it sounds like I got everything. Are there pitfalls? Are the things I wouldn't think about? Is there a logical order or progression I need to be mindful of why would I need your book for this?

Tony S:

Well, I think for all those reasons that you state is the book is designed to take you through on a step by step basis, not only to get the actual information, there are lists, there are worksheets, but it also gives you philosophy and a reason for doing so. So it puts you into a step-by-step philosophy of how to do this and why you're doing this and what you're looking for. So for example, I say record your social security information. There's also information in there about how to access your social security statement. The most important thing I feel is towards the end of the book where it talks about bringing it all together as well as setting up the financial calendar because the key is, this is not a static one-time thing that you'll be doing. This is something that you're going to need to continuously monitor and update as you go through life because things change and they change sometimes rapidly.

Tony D:

Great point. This is Tony Steuer. Get Ready Planner and you can find out more about him and the planner at tonysteuer.com and I'm going to spell that, Tony, we all know that that's our most favorite word, Tony and right the last word. The last name is Steuer, S T E U E R.com. tonysteuer.com this is the Tony DUrso show. Where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead the chat continues about Get Ready Planner and Expert Dojo with Tony Steuer and Brian Mac Mahon, but first, it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. This is the Voice America influencers channels the inspired. Hey guys, let's talk about the holidays. I know, I know. It's crazy. It makes me cringe to talk about it. It's not always a fun time of the year for everyone and especially for some who don't want to go through another holiday season taking closed mouth photos while everyone else is bringing ear to ear. 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Tony D:

All right, we're back on the Tony DUrso show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let's see what we can learn from today's interviews. Today's show is about Get Ready Planner and Expert Dojo with Tony Steuer and Brian Mac Mahon. Tony Steuer, most recent title is Get Ready, a step-by-step planner for maintaining your financial first aid kit. His work is featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, US News, World Report among others, and by the way, at the end of this interview I'm going to do a summary recap of what we went over, so stay tuned for that. All right, and now back to the chat with Tony. Tony, I now get it. Why we need to read your book because it's such a no brainer but it requires a thought process and most people, I'll bet you, I'll bet you right now most people don't have this life on a stick. They don't have this get ready planner and we need to read your book to understand why to be able to educate those in our family or those concerned as well as make sure we know what to put in because face it, if you just put in, you know your bank account information without anything else, that's not going to be very valuable to anybody that's got to carry the torch in the event of an emergency. So I believe this book goes over everything in detail to make sure you don't miss something because in an emergency it's that one thing that's missed that can really be a big problem. What do you think?

Tony S:

100% that's exactly it. There's a saying in the first aid world that the best first aid kit you have is a first aid kit that you have with you. So if you pack your first aid kit properly at a time and this, that. It is you're creating a financial first aid kit. You're going to have everything you need when you need it.

Tony D:

Well said. Tony, what about organizing our life? Do you, and this book, I guess it's synonymous here. Does it go overtaking more control of those dreaded debts? Our personal life, our living expenses are taxes. This is a much bigger world than just organizing some stuff. Do you have a handle on these areas?

Tony S:

I definitely do is the book walks you through creating your own personal financial dashboard so you know where you are and knowing where you are consists of knowing what your cash flow is, creating a budget. If you feel like you're creating a budget, budgets don't work for some people. Creating a personal balance sheet, creating a retirement tracker and then it gives you, the retirement tracker tells you of course if you're on track for retirement or not, but it guides you in the direction of what questions to ask your different financial service providers that don't provide you with advice on picking the best mutual fund. However, it does give you guidance for the questions that you want to ask when looking at mutual funds and how to get started. I think that's the most important thing for people is to feel like they are in control, that they have some knowledge so that once they're able to ask better questions.

Tony D:

Good points indeed, I got that very important. This is a great subject and we really need to raise our awareness upon it because again, I do not believe most people have this in place and this well organized. Yet it is so important. You know, just a little case in point, something totally different. Layoffs, I never expected to be layoff. I was always, I thought indispensable and perhaps I was. However, a new company comes in unknown to you, buys the company, lays everyone off and puts their people in place. You didn't expect it. So my point is an emergency may happen and we've seen it on the news over and over. We don't think it's going to happen to us yet. If it does, then what? So you have to be ready. And I believe, and I remember this from years ago, training on ships, just very little just for training. Not that I'm a sailor or anything like that, but if you prepare for the worst, you wind up never having the worst because you're so well prepared for it. I believe that when people go on ships, there's all these various WQ SB and training drills and things that people do in the event of an emergency. And if you're so well prepared, that emergency doesn't happen. That's really the takeaway here. And with this get ready planner, if you are so well prepared, it's not going to be a disaster. We all know stories perhaps of people that have passed away and the family doesn't know. I know a family, someone passed away, has property and wealth all over and literally the family doesn't know where it is. Not even a joke. They don't know where his wealth is. They don't know where his property is because he didn't have his get ready planner he didn't do it or someone didn't do it for him. So if you have an older person in the family or someone that's maybe not technically up to it or just old fashioned or just believes it could be all in his head or you know, stuffed at the bottom of the sock drawer helped that elderly person. So everything does get organized so that in the event of an emergency, it's not a disaster. If you have a right as an heir, then you should have access to those documents and that information in such an event, and I believe you have other information about organizing for heirs, Tony,

Tony S:

There sure is. In fact, there's even a special section for heirs called stepping in and it's a list of steps to take if somebody passes away because it's an area that most of us don't have any preparation for. And so it says all the things that you need to do, look for bank accounts, pay taxes, pay bills, whatever needs to happen, it doesn't cover everything. Of course, I tried to take people through the basic steps that they should take so that they have a roadmap to follow because as you point out if an emergency happens, you know, most of us are just looking around waiting to see what we should do. However, if we have a list of steps to take, it gives us some comfort because we have a starting point. And once you have a starting point, finding the next step is a lot easier.

Tony D:

Well said, Tony well said, and this brings in, as you call it, a financial readiness. You're ready and you're on the ready and if you change bank accounts or information, you just go in and update the information so that it's always handy. Is there anything else by the way that we need it? We've covered a lot of topics, maybe a little bit in order, maybe not. Is there anything else of great importance that you want to make sure our audience understands?

Tony S:

Well, I think the most important thing for people to understand is that this is something that you can do. Everybody has the skills that don't take any special skill set. This is within everybody's reach. It just takes your time and your effort. If you can go out and research a new television or a new automobile, you can take the time to research financial products and make the financial products work for you. Instead of you working for the financial products.

Tony D:

This is the Tony DUrso show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead the chat continues about Get Ready Planner and Expert Dojo with Tony Steuer and Brian Mac Mahon, but first, it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. Change starts here. Change starts now. Join us; The Voice America Influencers Channel. This podcast is brought to you by privacy.com you want to keep your money safe. Who doesn't? We all do. We'll check this. privacy.com lets you buy things online using virtual cards instead of real ones. Now we all buy things online. That's just our way of life today. But as you know, protecting your identity and bank information on the internet is just sometimes just untenable. We just can't do it. We need help and that's where privacy comes in. You and I both know that anytime we buy anything online, we give access to our personal information to merchants and their partners and their partners and their partners and their partners. And that's without your consent. When they get hacked or any issue happens, boom, all your information has gotten, you know, security protection isn't always the most fun topic. You know, it's so important to ensure that your online presence is safe and secure. Well, privacy.com is a free tool. Did you hear that? It's a free tool that makes it super easy to manage your financial lives without having to worry about it. And there's such great stuff like you never have to worry about canceling a subscription again. Do you know how many times do you find that you're getting charged for something and like choose that company? And then you realize that some subscription or some free trial that you signed and you had to give your credit card and other charging you, that all goes away. That headache that, siphoning off the money that happens, it just all disappears and you can set spending limits for yourself to help with budgeting and all sorts of great stuff. I am so impressed at this product. You want to take control of your finances. Who does it well? How about setting a spending limit? Like if you like ordering too much take out. You can set a limit. You can set a budget, you can use this tool to help you, especially when you have those cravings. One of the things that I liked the best about privacy.com is unlike credit cards. privacy.com does not sell your data or charge interest or annual fees. Can you believe that? This is incredible, your information, stay safe with them. Guys, there's a lot more, and just check it out. Go to privacy.com/tony that's P R I V A C Y.com/tony sign up and start shopping and as a special treat for my listeners, new customers are automatically going to get $5 to spend on your first purchase. Totally free just give you $5. Come on who doesn't want five bucks? That's free money to use on any underscore, any unlined purchase. Go to privacy.com/tony and sign up now. You remember that privacy.com/tony and you get privacy and peace of mind check it out. Here are the stories. Be motivated, inspired. Join us today Voice America Influencers. You're listening to the Tony DUrso show with key influencers. We'd love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send questions and comments to Tony at tonydurso.com now back to Tony and his guests.

Tony D:

All right, we're back on the Tony DUrso show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let's see what we can learn from today's interviews. Today's show is about Get Ready Planner and Expert Dojo with Tony Steuer and Brian Mac Mahon. And by the way, at the end of this interview, I'm going to do a summary recap of what we went over. So stay tuned for that. And now back to the chat with our guests. We've talked about this at the very beginning, maybe a little bit here and there. We may be dealing with an asset holder that doesn't like to share information because the person is guarded just naturally, you know, again, it has everything in the sock drawer and we're also could be dealing with younger people that may be more emotionally involved when it comes to financing or anyone. What would be my question on this, Tony? How do you deal? We talked about this a little bit, but I feel that there's still something we left on the table here. I'd like to discuss in terms of making that importance real. And do you officially call a family meeting of, you know, shut off the TVs and radio and the stereo, the noisemakers and say and actually have an established time to meet to discuss this?

Tony S:

Exactly. And that's where I put it is that you need to run it like you would a business meeting, keep it professional just like you would with a business meeting. You are in essence running a small business. You have income going in, you have money going out, you're trying to save for capital improvements. So, in essence, you are running a small business so you want to treat it as such and have an agenda, stick to the agenda, make sure all the stakeholders are there, that they're all present. If you're having a business meeting to talk about whatever sales in the Northeast, you know, two of the members aren't going to be watching YouTube during the meeting. I mean at least not at the meetings I've attended. I mean that may happen, but if you're a Google, that may happen. But elsewhere, you know, my son is not going to be playing or watching YouTube during our family and financial meeting. Do you want a new play station for the holidays? You need to pay attention and be part of this conversation and find out whether or not we can afford a PlayStation.

Tony D:

This is Tony Steuer talking about the Get Ready Planner and you can find him at tonysteuer.com. I'm going to spell that again because I like how it starts. Tony S T E U E R.com tonysteuer.com. It will be in the show notes. Tony, thank you very much and I urge the audience, get this book, get ready, a step-by-step planner for maintaining your financial first aid kit. Don't leave it till forever because that emergency can very well happen. Sometimes something was going to happen and you're going to say, I am so glad that I have this get ready planner and my USB drive as well as in a little binder or whatever. I think it's very important. Take another second, a moment to think about this and I really hope that this helps you and thank you, Tony.

Tony S:

Thanks, Tony. It's been a pleasure. I appreciate the opportunity. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Brian Mac Mahon

Tony D:

And now we have Brian Mac Mahon join us. Brian Mac Mahon is a serial entrepreneur investor and has owned companies in over 35 countries. He's also the owner of Expert Dojo, which is the fastest-growing startup accelerator in Southern California. At Expert Dojo, early-stage startups receive investment success, coaching advice and specialist's help in all areas of their business growth. Welcome to the show, Brian. So great to have you on once again with us.

Brian:

Thank you very much. It's great to be here again,

Tony D:

And by the way, for the audience as well. I just listened to your TED Talk, so inspiring, so true, so amazing. You guys got to go to Brian site, expertdojo.com navigate around, look at his bio, check out his Ted talk. It is so good. But do that after you listened to this show because Brian is going to tell us a little bit about what's on the Ted Talk, but you got to go watch that Ted talk to get up more. So we have some new members since the last time. So let's take it from the beginning. Brian, tell us how did it all start for you? What's your backstory?

Brian:

And you know the good thing now because it was a little while since we spoke before and like every business we've evolved. So before when we spoke we were more a training company, we had some small investments in companies and we had these great aspirations based on the Ted talk that you were talking about. And that Ted talk was all about why 95 /96% of startups fail. It was about how slanted the ecosystem is towards the very specific founders that go to very specific schools and happen to be related to very special VCs. And those companies tend to be very successful while everybody else gets to be in the, I just failed bogus. And I wondered back in the day, was there just a way to at least be a part of trying to fix that? And to do that, I needed to understand. So when we first spoke, I had just come at a, we started Expert Dojo. We had created know a laboratory for entrepreneurs. We had studied them. We had tried to find out what was causing this terrible failure rate. We'd spent nine months collecting an immense amount of data. We haven't charged startups anything nor had we provided them with anything other than the workspace itself. And, but we came out at the end of it knowing that we can just help build better entrepreneurs. And actually, that's probably a little bit egotistical to say we came out of it knowing that entrepreneurs could be better and we just needed to level the playing field a little bit and help them do that. And today, if I fast forward kind of where we are now, we're in a place where we've got, you know, 33 investments in companies. We're investing in another 20 between now and the end of the year, we will be investing in another hundred and 20 companies over the following 12 months. And we are absolutely 100% all in, in the startup ecosystem to try and see if we can equal our playing field.

Tony D:

Absolutely amazing Brian. And so many places to go with questions. Let's take it from the beginning for a company that would like to see about working with you or growing like a startup. Let's kind of go through the process a little bit, maybe in summarized form.

Brian:

So it used to be when we had the training Academy that I would have said, well for a small fee we can help you. And, and then kinda the nice thing about where we've taken the company to is we're the ones who give money these days. So we make investments into companies of $50,000. We'll do that into local companies. And there are some companies who we just absolutely adore and they don't need $50,000 where we will take an advisor stake in those companies and we work with them alongside our accelerated companies. And then we have an international accelerator. So if you're from India or Canada or Brazil or Mexico or Israel or the UK or one of our preferred countries, and actually any country, it just so happens we're going to those countries to look for startups. Then we will actually make hundred thousand dollar investments into your company and then bring you over to the US and help you scale and grow into the U S. So really we're one of the few people you're going to speak to where we, you can't pay us, we give money to you. We just have to absolutely adore what you're doing.

Tony D:

I'm astounded that is a big change from the last time. I'm so glad to have you on for an update. Your company invests your money or well others as well into the startups that you believe have a very good shot at making it, but it's just more than believing they have a good shot. You actually invest other resources into making a company very successful.

Brian:

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean the resources are, look, it starts with the money, but genuinely there is a lot of money around it is possible to find money from multiple different sources. Where it gets really interesting is you know the space that we have here, which is about 8,000 square feet on top of the Santa Monica Mall, which our startups can use and the events that we throw for the startups. So this evening we will have a female founders event and we'll have 40 of the biggest female investors in Los Angeles and Southern California all coming here, all wanting to meet startups, all looking to find the next huge company that comes through M R whether it's the other investor festivals we have or whether it's the mentor evenings that we do or whether it's the mastermind groups that we pulled together with all of our startups or whether it's the training that we do for startups are even the marketing events that we do for them on a weekly basis to help drive their business forward. You know, of these more fin to one group of people that want to help make a company successful. It's pretty hard for companies to do it on their own. So you really need to be surrounded by the right resources to make sure that you do it properly. This is the Tony DUrso show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead the chat continues about Get Ready Planner and Expert Dojo with Tony Steuer and Brian Mac Mahon. But first, it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. We don't follow, we lead. Join us the Voice America Influencers Channel. Hey, are you still using one of the big wireless providers these days? Well, if so, have you ever asked yourself, what are you paying for, you know, between expensive retail stores and inflated prices and worst of all those hidden fees? Let me tell you something, you're being taken advantage of. Why? Because they know you'll pay. I was paying nearly $200 a month for my cell phone is like what? And now enter Mint Mobile. Mint mobile provides the same premium network coverage you're used to, but at a fraction of the cost because everything is online. Mint Mobile saves on retail locations and overhead and then passes those savings directly to you, you guessed it directly to you. You know, I switched so easily and my phone bill went down the 15 bucks. That's a one and a five. This is a dream come true and you know what, they're still being profitable and they're just passing on a great save, this is what it should be. We should, I just love it and every plan in case you're wondering about that 15 bucks, get this. Every plan comes with unlimited nationwide talk and text. That means you can talk and text 24 seven and you can use your own phone with a mobile plan and you keep your same phone number along with all your context. The only thing that goes away is the price just drops down like crazy. Just like I've said before the last time. Hey, ditch your old wireless bill and start saving with Mint Mobile and by the way, I did say it only cost $15 a month. That's amazing! To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month and get the plans shipped to your door for free, go to mintmobile.com/tony that's mintmobile.com/tony cut your wireless bill down to 15 bucks a month. Do what I did. M I N T M O B I L E.com/ TO N Y mintmobile.com/tony and enjoy your life with all those savings. This is the VoiceAmerica Influencers Channels. Be inspired. You're listening to the Tony DUrso show with key influencers. We'd love to hear from you via email. Be sure to send questions and comments to tony at tonydurso.com now back to Tony and his guest.

Tony D:

All right, we're back on the Tony DUrso show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let's see what we can learn from today's interviews. Today's show is about Get Ready Planner and Expert Dojo with Tony Steuer and Brian Mac Mahon. In 2017 Expert Dojo brought 400 companies through their startup programs and made four investments. They're planning to bring 2000 companies through their program this year and make 25 investments. And by the way, at the end of this interview, I'm going to do a summary recap of what we went over. So stay tuned for that. And now back to the chat with Brian

Brian:

And we like to think that at least we're making the right efforts to try and support the companies beyond the money and all the way to helping them get a company to be successful.

Tony D:

Now here's a key question right off the bat. My entrepreneurs, our audience is the business people that are audience Brian, they're from all over the world. Do they have to be here at Santa Monica in California, United States to take advantage of other parts of the world? How can a company an entrepreneur, solopreneur, whatever, how can they take advantage of what you have?

Brian:

So here's the beauty of how this is all put together because we have a local accelerator and we also have an international accelerator. We're in the very enviable position that we not only will find local companies in LA for the first time for the year but for the second half of the year, we'll take a company that's based in India based in London or based in one of the other locations. We'd give them an offer, we'll hand them cash, we'll help them set up a bank account over in the US will help them meet with tax attorneys over in the US and lawyers so that they can actually set up their business over here. We'll then make sure that we introduce them to the right marketing companies, the right follow on investment companies. We make sure that they have a structure to get started. If they need to hire people, which most of them do, we will help them hire people as well and really put together the entire everything that they need to actually help break into the US and be successful.

Tony D:

Brian, how does the company apply and how do you, and what're the criteria you use to approve someone so that those in our audience can determine right away, do they apply, do they qualify or not? And what are some of those steps?

Brian:

The first answer is easy peasy. The second one is a little bit harder. So the first one is you just go onto our website and just apply under the international accelerator. So if you're local, if you're local to LA, you apply onto the local accelerator. If you're an international company and you're outside the United States, then you apply on the international accelerator. So as long as you exist somewhere in the world them applying is very simple, you're going to be asked to upload your data, upload a video, upload a little bit of information about what you're trying to accomplish and what makes your company special, but all very straightforward things for any startup to do. Now the second question is a tiny bit more complicated. Now, look, we're all emotional beings, but we do base most of the decisions that we make on a logical thought process. So I would say if you'd have asked me the same question five years ago, I would've told you that my three criteria are fortitude, user experience, and the ability to scale. Fortitude, because we know being an entrepreneur is almost an impossible task. And being able to break through the walls, being able to break through the disbelief, being able to break through your family members, your friends, your partners and everybody else and actually be able to come out the other side and say, I made it is a hell of a hard thing to do. So I used to always put fortitude as the biggest, biggest, biggest thing. And then I bought user experience as number two. Now user experience means there are a hundred people creating a Skype for example. But what is it that makes tens of millions of people use Skype, the company, right? Are there are a hundred people creating another zoom room. But what was it that helped zoom room breakthrough on the same technology that everybody else had access to? Right? It's a very specific experience that they're building or what makes Patagonia great. What makes Tom's shoes great? What makes Nike a phenomenal brand with an incredible why? So we look for companies that are able to create a very specific experience, which is so human-centric that you can see it from a hundred miles off. And then the final area is we want a company that can scale. Right now we don't need it to be that it's a Snapchat or a Facebook, but we need it to be that it's a company that's able to scale beyond the physicality of the people. So for example, if my company relies entirely on me and I have to meet with every single person and I'm a service company and I can get maybe a hundred $200,000 a year in revenue, but I can't grow that. I can't hire people. I can't outsource that. I can't do anything. Then on one side of it, that's great and congratulations. That company is an awesome company that, you know, whoever created it should be very proud of. But on the other side of the coin, it cannot become a venture-backed company that can scale in the future. So it needs to be scalable. Now I'm going to go back to my first point, which is fortitude. If it was five years ago, I would've said those three factors are the most important factors, fortitude leading the rest today. I will say that I have swapped out fortitude for execution. I want founders with a proven record of executing success. It does not need to be executing success as a startup founder. It could be executing success in other areas of their life, but I want to see the execution because success leaves clues and so does failure and as soon as much as night follows day, you will see that if somebody has a strong success background, a strong background of execution, then the chances of them being able to do it again is far, far higher.

Tony D:

This is Brian MacMahon, founder of Expert Dojo, and you can find him at expertdojo.com and of course, we all know dojo is DOJO. Brian that is absolutely amazing. Now in terms of, I get how you determine what would be a good criterion for your company to work with and invest and so forth. Does it matter how long someone has been working at their business to show that it's workable? Is there, what's the bar these days? You know, does it have to be fully workable? And it has to have been through a beta test. It has to have some physicality to it. It can be all software kind of go in some of those, cause we have people with all sorts of different businesses and all sorts of different ideas and they're probably wondering is my idea good enough? Not to guess for you, but you may say it has to be developed to a certain point for your company to look at. So perhaps you could comment on all of those points.

Brian:

Look, we've invested in companies off a powerpoint presentation and we've invested in companies that have been going for a long period of time. And this is not like the challenging thing for entrepreneurs, I think even more so than me is that this is not a black and white answer. It's a gray answer. And the gray means that you have a certain amount. So like if I was going to put it black and white, I would say if somebody has been trying a business for eight years, then the track record and execution are not that strong. Right? So they just failed my executions. However, if I used that in a black and white answer, then I would not have said that Airbnb would be a good business because Airbnb had been doing what they had been doing for the past, I think eight years or nine years before they break through with venture funding and now they're one of the most successful businesses in the world, so there are always criteria to look at and there's always something to do. I do believe though that the majority of times if you've been working on something for a tremendous period of time, then you've ticked the fortitude box, which means that five years ago I would have thought that you had a good chance of being able to break through, but you've also semi-failed on the execution box, which means today I'm going to struggle to convince myself that if you couldn't execute eight years ago and what's the difference between executing today?

Tony D:

Good point. Very, very well thought through. Thank you. Let's go into what's the startup world like these days, Brian, and what can one expect? What's going on? You have your fingers on the pulse. Kind of walk us through that a little.

Brian:

So this is an exciting time without any question. This is the most exciting time that there's been in the past. Oh my God. Ever in Los Angeles especially, there's never been a time that we've had more. We've had more startups that have actually been in a place that they're trying to change the world. We've never had better developers. We've never had better everything. Like we're in a place now, which is just phenomenal. We got more developers. We've got a more culturally diverse environment. We have more venture capital and money. I've never seen so much money as we have around here right now. It's just a phenomenal, phenomenal time. And we're seeing better startups coming through because of that. Just an incredibly, incredibly strong time.

Tony D:

Brian. Very interesting on all of these points, and again, your success and helping others and their success are what's amazing. And you're planning to bring 2000 companies through your program this year and make at least 25 investments.

Brian:

Well actually we're looking to make a lot more, we've got 25 more investments to make between now and the end of the year. As I said, next year we're going to do at least 60 investments and we're now talking about doing as many as 120 investments. We want to have the early-stage space within Silicon beach and the entire Southern California and be able to really invigorate early-stage startups, give them that early capital to help them get started. Led them to become the entrepreneurs that they knew they could be. They just didn't have the money to really scale it up quickly.

Tony D:

I got you, Brian. We have again as mentioned a lot of entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, businessmen in the audience. What would you like to say to them? Some feel they are comfortable and good perhaps at the income level they're at, some others perhaps feel that they could use the investment to scale and grow. Take the floor, what would you like to say to our audience?

Brian:

So, I'd like to speak to everybody, the non-entrepreneurs as well as to the non-entrepreneurs. Everybody should be an entrepreneur at some stage in their lives. It seems a terrible shame to have this incredible ability to create phenomenal things. And then just to work for somebody else forever. And I understand that there are requirements that we have to do. There's food that we have to put on the table. There's, you know, things that we need to pay for. But it's also a terrible shame not for the world to share with the abilities that we have. I mean, the next Tesla wouldn't be here and cars wouldn't be changed forever if we didn't have Elon Musk. You know, the same with Henry Ford, the same with the Wright brothers. The same with everything. Phenomenal that happens in this world that helps us become stronger. So I do think entrepreneurship phenomenal. And I don't believe that it has to be an all or nothing scenario. It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. You can start as an entrepreneur, you can start side projects. There are a million ways to be able to experiment with the creativity that you have. And I think once we make that jump to being able to say, I am an entrepreneur, I am going to start a business. And that part is to find out like what is the big problem that you can face? Like what, what's out there that we've noticed that we can do it better? What's the widget that's not perfect that we can make it a little bit better than it is today? And is there an audience that's actually going to want to use that? And then you bring up a huge point, which is; do we even want to be a business that has a lot of money, invests into it and becomes the Uber or the Lyft of tomorrow, not necessarily mean to go through that entire journey is incredibly difficult. And once you go through the funding rounds, the more and more equity you lose in your company because investors keep on coming in and investing more in. And the less you own your own company and the less you own your own company, the less of a chance that you have that you're actually going to be in control of your company. When it gets to the very edge, and that includes, you know, IEP and initial public offerings are, you know, literally just having a company that's doing a few hundred million dollars a year. And a great example of that is lyft. If we look at one of the founders of lyft, the biggest founder has got less than 1% of their own company. It just so happens that they're very good or they wouldn't be in a controlling position, but they only have 1% of their company. So even with the huge valuation that they have, they still have small amounts. Many, many, many people fail that actually, you are in a far, far stronger position to be able to create a company whereby you're bringing in a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand a month. You have a great business making loads of money. You're going to Cancun two, three, four, five times a year. You have staff working for you, life is good and you're enjoying it and so which is the better dream? There is no better dream. The only one is the one that gives you the life that you wake up every single morning and you think, I am not stressed with money. She's extremely important and I'm living the life I want to live through entrepreneurship. That's good news. The bad news is now for the first five or six years, you ain't going to live. In the first five or six years, you're going to go through hell, but that's what we do. Like we go through this. This is like a rigorous army training. You're learning how to be a Marine. You're doing what other people are not prepared to do so you can live like other people will never be able to live in the future. And there's something very liberating about arriving in an office at eight O two in the morning when you were supposed to be there at eight o'clock in the morning and not having to apologize to some pipsqueak boss who just happens to be there because you didn't have the kahunas to go out there and start something yourself. So I'm a huge advocate of entrepreneurship. I truly believe everybody can be part of a strong entrepreneurial team. I think you need to be careful that you don't do anything silly, don't all go giving up your jobs just so you can start something tomorrow. Make sure you do it in a very normal and good way so that you have the best chance of being successful. And make sure that you milestone it from the very beginning. So line out how much revenue you're trying to receive by month from who, how many clients, how many prospects, how much I reach, and then break that down all the way back to today.

Tony D:

Absolutely amazing. Thank you. I think you've said it all. I don't think I have another question for you.

Brian:

I got nothing left. That's it cause I made the point that everybody should be an entrepreneur.

Tony D:

I'm going to ask you for perhaps in closing a sentence or two or three, a short paragraph. What's your vision for Expert Dojo? You've changed so much, you've gone so much. You've got, you've talked about an incredible future ahead. What's your vision that you see for your company, for yourself?

Brian:

So I would like to, I mean look, if I quantify it, our plans are to have 500 companies equity in 500 companies over the next five years. And our plans are to democratize the entire investment space by allowing investors to invest through Expert Dojo and then be able to invest directly into the companies themselves. Now even though we have, we have our own funds and our own money, which we see far greater potential to be able to do that. We love the crowdfunding space and believe that we can become a part of it in the future. So like that's the physicality, the statistics while people can look at and what I would really like us to be remembered for and the evidence will either show this or it won't show this is that we were there for the little guy. We stepped in and we showed normal people how to start great companies by equaling the playing field, by giving them opportunities when no opportunities would have been there by helping shine a light on a path when there really wasn't a path to get started on and bringing through entrepreneurs that the world would never have seen before. Now we all have great lofty aspirations is where we want to come to and we'll be measured in five 10 years. The same as everybody else should be, but definitely, the path we're on today is to try and achieve that.

Tony D:

This is Brian Mac Mahon, founder of Expert Dojo and you can find him at expertdojo.com Brian, thank you so much for your update and for hanging out with us today.

Brian:

Thanks buddy listen, I'll keep coming back as long as we're talking about entrepreneurship and what's happening in the world. I'm back anytime you want me.

Tony D:

Sounds great. We will have you back again.

Brian:

Thank you. So thank you, my friend. Tony's Insight

Tony D:

Hey guys, thanks for hanging out with me while I featured a few elite entrepreneurs who took their vision to reality. I really hope this was as inspiring for you as it was for me. I learned so much. The insights are so valuable. How did you like to interview Tony Steuer? He started by finding a need. Sound familiar. He found a need and worked out a solution and made a good living at it. Tony helps people get started with handling their finances. He helps people deal with their pain points. I like that. And one of the keys is communication. The other key is education. Taking the time for everyone in the family to be educated on the finances helps ease the pain points that usually come up. Create a binder for your financial documents. That's very wise and I did mine already immediately after this interview. Do you have all your key financial documents ready to grab and go in an emergency or if you are unavailable for some reason, can someone in your family pick up and take care of things? This is very needed for everyone. And remember those assets you need to make it easy for assets to be found and accessible by another family member. Unfortunately, I've run into this with several people where someone passed away and no one could find their assets. I've seen this several times. This is a situation we don't normally think about it, but it's time to start thinking about getting your life on a stick. That's a great idea. The life on us that, and I love the idea of creating your own financial dashboard and I urge you get Tony's book and learn all you need, not only what you need to put together, but there's more to your financial state. That his book will help you such as insurance options you have before you, I haven't finished reading his book yet, so I advise you to get this info and get in shape now. Hey, the more you are in control of your finances and your life, the more you control them. Think about it. This is not a conundrum, so please do this for the safety of your business. This helps entrepreneurs grow our business. I love the financial ready plan and I love the family financial meeting. Have you ever held one of these? Again, his site is tonysteuer.com TONY S T E U E R.com. Tell me how that helps you. And now Brian Mac Mahon. It's amazing what they do for entrepreneurs and startups. Wow. The help and resources they invest to help you with your business. I can't say enough about how cool that is. Brian investor meets investor festivals, mentor meetings, masterminds, training, marketing events. This is indeed like being a kid in a candy store for your business or startup. I like how they can help companies no matter where they are located in the world. If you have a foreign company, how would you like to get their help to get a US bank account and build a strong business? Can your company scale? If so, you gotta check out everything Expert Dojo can do for you. Are you executing success? Do you have a pattern of getting things done? Learn from this whether you qualify or not. This is what businesses look at to determine if they want to work with you to help your business grow to the next level and we all want to go to the next level, right? Is your idea or business good enough? If not, would you like it to be good enough? Then I recommend checkout Expert Dojo can do for you. Check out their site and soak it all in. Do that and tell me how this is working for you. And Brian gave a great message for you at the end of this interview. Does this give you more ideas for your business or more ideas on what you can do to start a new business? Hey, are you making several hundred thousand dollars a month? That would be cool, right? Tell me, what'd you think of Brian's message? Are you doing all of these points now? Does this motivate or stimulate you to build your business to a higher level? And again, his URL is expertdojo.com dojo is DOJO, there's so much more I got out of these interviews. What did you get? I'd love to know how you use this information to help you in your business or career. Tell us, tell the world, tweet at Tony D U R S. O. Now grab hold of your vision. Decide you're going to either start something great or take it to the next level. Come on, you can do this and you have to decide first. It always starts with a decision and get my vision map to help you along the process. The ebook is still online at tonydurso.com. I created my empire in just a few years. That's all it took. I had the vision map as my guide. You could do it too and please follow me on social media. You can find most of those links on the homepage at tonydurso.com. You can also get the Vision Map there. I know I just said that. Now, if you have iTunes or access to any Apple device, look up my name, Tony D U RSO, and subscribe to my show, a kind review there. We'll get you tremendous appreciation back in return. Thanks and remember, success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds be righteous. Join me on the next episode of the Tony Durso show. We hope you've enjoyed this week's edition of the Tony DUrso show with his key influencers. Be sure to tune in again next Friday at 4:00 PM Eastern time, 1:00 PM Pacific time on the voice America influencers channel.