#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards

#206 - Building a Business with Heart and Community

• Jordan Edwards • Season 5 • Episode 206

Share episode

Send us a text

Bennett Maxwell's entrepreneurial journey is nothing short of inspiring, as he transitions from a bustling Mormon upbringing in Utah to groundbreaking ventures in Mexico. Discover the secrets behind his early sales experiences, from candy bars to lawn aeration, and how these formative years in a supportive community provided the foundation for his success. Bennett's insights into emotional selling and the impact of a purpose-driven business model will transform how you view consumer engagement and philanthropy's role in entrepreneurship.

Join us as Bennett unravels the art of prioritizing learning over immediate financial gain, a philosophy that has fueled his diverse career. From mastering essential communication skills to navigating the solar industry, Bennett's journey underscores the importance of skill development over monetary rewards. This mindset not only paved the way for ventures like launching a solar company and acquiring Dirty Dough but also fostered personal growth and long-term success by opening doors previously unseen.

Finally, we explore the transformative power of collaboration and community feedback in building a successful business structure. Bennett shares his evolution from door-to-door sales to strategic entrepreneurship, highlighting the significance of delegation and recognizing one's value per hour. His venture into the gourmet cookie business, sparked by collaboration, showcases the importance of open conversations. Plus, Bennett opens up about the joy of being present and embracing emotional goals, sharing personal stories and insights from his podcast, "Deeper Than Dough, More Than Money." Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, Bennett's story offers invaluable lessons in growth, purpose, and finding contentment in the simple moments.

To Reach Bennett: 
Link will be in the blog: https://edwards.consulting/blog

To Reach Jordan:

Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/



Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.

Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-555/intro-call

Speaker 1:

Hey, what's going on, guys? I have a very special guest here. We have Bennett Maxwell. He is not your average entrepreneur. He's been in solar, he's ran businesses, he's sold, he's doing it all. So, bennett, how did your journey begin?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't know when. I was born in Utah, because we were just talking about the Utah. So yeah, I was born in Utah. I was the seventh of nine kids raised by a single mom, and I guess the last six of us it was every two years five boys, one girl and we got really tight, obviously as a family, brothers taking care of each other, but in the business sense early on, selling candy bars. In elementary, shaved ice on the corner, lemonade on the corner. Junior high, I was doing snow shovels door to door. I was selling lawn aeration door to door.

Speaker 2:

And then, in high school, um, if you want to pay for sports, either, pay for it. You go sell something, so like for football. You have a starving student cards, like discount cards, and I would always sell the most of those. Probably, though, because I was raised in a Mormon community. We were like the you know the poor family in a rich neighborhood. So you go door to door and knocking and saying you want to buy cookie dough for wrestling, we want to buy this, and they just buy it for me, just because it's you, I think because it was me Right.

Speaker 2:

Um, the, the culture that I grew up in was very much like the neighborhood, took care of us, like after a ward party which is a ward, is like your congregation in the um, in the church they bring us all the leftover food, you know, but like everybody knows each other, and they do a fathers and sons camp out and then you know I get adopted by a different father to camp out each, but like you're just in it with them. You know so because you know so everybody. So well, I think I had the most success out of anybody on my sports team selling and then that maybe gave me confidence that I'm like, oh, I'm good at this. Whether I was good at not, it made me good at it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. And you bring up a really important point about picking a bet and I doubt you knew this in high school or middle school but picking a better market. You know what I mean. And that was just your neighborhood, where you're like, okay, if they have extra money, then they'll give the money there. And if you're doing it in a lower income neighborhood they're like we can't afford cookie dough this year we got to buy some other stuff. So it's important to focus on that kind of stuff. But I think the really interesting thing is knowing the entire community and realizing that not just you get your own parents' perspective, but you get the entire community's perspective and if you're open enough to talk to people, it's super important. And when you were younger, was that the money you made to buy things, or did your parents give you money? Like how did that work?

Speaker 2:

That's why I did it. That's why I did it was to buy things Like. One example is the football camp. Football camp was, I don't know, 400 bucks, 300 bucks. It's like, no, I don't have 300 bucks, but you can go sell a sponsorship, like banner. Why didn't know any business owners? I went in cold, knocked businesses. I like 17 years old hey, in order for me to go to football camp, I need you to give me $500 for this banner. And honestly, the first or second person said, yes, I mean, I really. Maybe it's because I play on the like. I know I like to help people and people like to help people, you know. So if you kind of like, if nothing else, just do it for me, like I need this, don't do it for your business, do it for me. People feel good about that and then if it's a pro for their business, they do. But I definitely learned, I guess, to I guess to play that card a little bit on learning how to sell on the emotional front.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. It reminds me of a time when I ran the new york city marathon in 2021 and we had to raise like four grand for colorectal cancer and I had to raise four grand and then my brother had to raise it, so we were raising eight grand and we're sitting there and we're like who cares? Like just call anyone like it's a good cause, like if they don't donate, that that's their fault, like yeah, and you're bringing awareness to a good thing.

Speaker 2:

People want to do good. Most people want to do good. They just don't know how. You know, I definitely am a believer in that which. Not to get sidetracked, but like I do believe businesses should have a bigger purpose to it. How many people would rather pay 40 or $85 for a pair of shoes rather than 80? If I know that if I'm paying $85 and I'm buying Tom's, they're going to, they're donating a pair of shoes to somebody else. You know it's like, yeah, I'll pay the $5 to get somebody else new shoes. Not that that's really going through my mind, but generally I think that people are willing to spend a little bit more, marginally more, just a little bit more.

Speaker 1:

If it's a hey, every cookie you purchase, we're gonna donate a free meal, or something like that, um, yeah, it's just giving people opportunity to give back yeah, the philanthropy component is so much better instead of giving to like the big organization where they're like I don't know where it's going, but like I know with jonah bennett, like bennett's gonna go play football, fantastic. You know what I? It's these little things and like going through that journey, were you ever questioning, like should I? Because isn't there something in the Mormon church where you go and knock doors for like three years like kind of bring people in?

Speaker 2:

It's a, it's a two-year mission. Um, you, yeah, you, you submit, you're saying I want to go, and then they tell you where to go. You, yeah, you, you submit, you're saying I want to go and then they tell you where to go. Um, so I was assigned to Tijuana, Mexico. I didn't speak any Spanish, so they they, they ship you out there. No, you, we did a few weeks of training. You have eight weeks of training and you're supposed to learn a little bit of Spanish and you're like yeah, you were learning the basic words. And then you get to Mexico and you're like wait, this isn't the same language I learned.

Speaker 2:

These guys actually talk fast. You get paired typically with a native speaker almost always so and they typically don't speak English anyway either. So, like my, my first companion that I was with for however many weeks or months, spoke zero English and I spoke zero Spanish, and it's just kind of like figure it out. And then it's very regimen, Like you wake up at 6.30 every day. Every half hour is really planned until you go to bed. You get half a day off on Mondays, that's your preparation day. You get an email home for an hour and then you get a call home on Christmas and on Mother's Day for an hour. So it's very focused.

Speaker 2:

And what are you focusing on? Selling the gospel right, focused? And what are you focusing on? Selling the gospel right but persuading people why your religion is way better than theirs? I think it's silly that I did it now, but I'm very grateful for the experience. You know, telling people my religion is better than yours. But whatever, In order to do that, it's to sell. And they have like the best sales manual. It's called Preach my Gospel. It's like the Mormon missionary training.

Speaker 2:

And then, after when I got into door to door sales, you come home from a mission in Utah. You have 10 jobs, you don't apply anywhere, you just step off the plane and everybody's hitting you up like, oh, you need to come meet with my manager to go sell pest control or whatever. And everybody's like buying for your attention, which is, which is pretty cool, Um, but it's because they know that you just knocked doors in a foreign country for two years. Not only did you not get paid, you had to pay money to do it. So now it's like, hey, there's a bunch of 20-year-olds, 22-year-olds, making 50 grand a year, or 50 grand a summer, 100 grand a summer quarter million a summer. I was just like what the freak. So it really did set me up really nicely to pivot directly into door-to-door.

Speaker 1:

It was the same thing just a different product and that's why in Utah, there's so many door-to-door people, because they're ingrained in that culture of you, because one of the things I realized is because I was in Utah for three weeks in 2020, and they just have like the value base. You can feel it in Salt Lake City Like you can feel like there's no debris anywhere, everything's super clean, it's super organized, like people are respectful and like you get that from the church. Whether you agree or disagree, it doesn't really matter, but it's the value base there is pretty incredible um, which really opens up a lot of doors. So so where did you kind of enter after that?

Speaker 2:

So the first thing I did, uh, pest control for just two months. I got recruited kind of halfway through the summer and I did well, I made over 20 grand in two months. As a 22 year old I was like wow and I was like sweet, you know, this is awesome. Um, and then I also learned how to buy real estate. I mean, I bought my first property. I only made 24 grand and it was enough to get me through the entire year pay for a wedding and pay for a property, because I learned how. I mean you know cheap wedding and I got into a property some house hacking owner, occupied seller pays the closing costs, all of that. And then the second summer I'm like okay, well, Well, let's slow down a bit.

Speaker 1:

Who taught you about the real estate Cause? I feel like that's a very quick progression. You know what I mean. Was it just you, or was it your brothers or like?

Speaker 2:

how do you kind of? It was the, it was the. The people that I was selling with you know you, you have a lot of. You know they're three years older than you but they have three years under their belt making $200,000. So they've learned how to invest. So I was very fortunate to have a really good team on like how to do that. So I mean, I bought my first property was $220,000. You could pay. I put three and a half percent down, owner occupied, but I didn't have credit, you know. So three and a half percent, it's only nine grand.

Speaker 2:

I brought a brother in that did have credit and who wouldn't take this deal. Like, hey, jordan, I found a property, um, you can own 50% of it for $4,500 and we already have a tenant. It's me Like who's not going to take that deal? You know it's not. Like if you set up the deal correctly, anybody will take it. I got fortunate that my brother did, because it's really I was just asking him for $4,500 and a credit, you know, for him to sign on it. But I think you don't need a family member to do that. You can go do it with anyone If you go find the deal. And the reason why I was so cheap.

Speaker 2:

Again, three and a half percent down. And then we had the seller pay the closing costs, which that was just a little bit of advice from the summer salespeople. And then me, youtubing house hacking like how do you get a house for the lowest amount possible? And I, you know, I think I did it. And then fast forward eight years however long it's been, we cashflow like $500 a month. It went up in value $200,000 sold. It did a 1031 exchange into a duplex with 12 bedrooms. We have 13 tenants in there because rented out by room, because it's a college town, make $6,500 a month, a mortgage of 3000. All of that started with that little tiny $4,500 down payment that.

Speaker 2:

I made in the $4,500 down payment that he made. So it really compounds and I guess that leads really good into. I recruited 40 guys the next summer, which is quite a bit like 40 guys that have never knocked doors. I got them to move, to agree to move out of Utah to North Carolina for five months. Oh wow, follow me that. I've only sold for two months but it was a great experience for me as a 23-year-old, or however old I was. I made a quarter million that year and I'm like, holy crap, this is like life-changing. And a lot of that was because I recruited and I think I was more successful than anybody else recruiting, especially like a first-year guy. You know you're lucky if you bring one or two friends. I brought out 40.

Speaker 2:

How did you do that? Because of the real estate. I said you have 10 companies all saying I'm going to pay you $200 per contract and the other one says I'm going to pay you 220. And the other one says 250. And I say, forget about that. I don't care if you make 20,000 or a hundred thousand, but I made 24,000.

Speaker 2:

I paid for a wedding and a real estate property and I took them through it. I said, look, let's say, if I don't do anything to this real estate property like just keep your rents it out for 30 years In 30 years it's going to be worth 800 grand. It's paid off. And I've cashflowed $500 a month, every single month. If I put that $500 into an IRA at a 6% compounding, you're a multimillionaire. And I'm going to teach you how to do that with $9,000. Nobody else is going to do it. So who cares if you make 20,000 or a hundred thousand, if you make 20,000 with me, you're really making a million. That was kind of the pitch and it's true. And it is a thousand percent true because I'm doing it, you know, and I've helped quite a few other people do it.

Speaker 2:

So I recruited based off of not the money, but what are you going to learn? And investment was kind of secondary. The primary was Jordan. You're in college. What do you want to be when you grow up? You know, what are you studying for? I'm going to be a marketing major, I'm going to be a dentist, I'm going to be a doctor, a lawyer, whatever. Okay, tell me how you're going to. How you're not going to be infinitely more successful at whatever career you just told me, if you could learn how to break people's attention within 10 seconds, sign a multi-year contract within 15 minutes and get paid a few hundred dollars when you know you have no idea what's going on in that home. It's like that skill is what I focused on how to break somebody's attention, get them to like you, to agree with you, sign a contract, move on, and I'm like that will help you be a better marketing major, a better nurse, because it's just communication, body language, all of that.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, which is which is incredible, and I love how you pivoted it from. We're not going to play the money game Cause I don't know if we're going to win, but I'm going to teach you the knowledge game, which a lot of people are like wait, what are you talking about? You literally pivoted the subject that they're going to be learning, which is super important Whenever you're selling anything or any ideas, because most people want to get involved in like hey, it's just this, and it's like no, no, there's so much more to that.

Speaker 2:

The issue. If you put it on money, especially with college kids, it's like some people are like, oh, I need to make a hundred grand or something like that, and if they don't make a hundred grand they're disappointed. But it and if they don't make a hundred grand they're disappointed. But it's like well, I'm not, I'm not focused on how much money. You're going to measure the success of your sales career with me based on how good of a salesperson you are and how much knowledge you have on how to invest the money. That's what you're going to gauge that off of.

Speaker 2:

So I was talking a different language than the other nine. The other nine recruiters, right, everybody else was just talking money. And then when you talk about money, it's also a race to the bottom, like no, I wanted to keep my overrides and I can keep my overrides and give them more value. So I'm making more money. They're making more money on it because I'm a better sales trainer than a lot of people, but they're going to make more money in the long time because of the investment and I've I mean even with dirtyough I've done the same thing. If you attract people on just like, this is how much money your store is gonna make versus. This is the impact that you can have in the community with mental health and wellness centers and all of that. Then let's say, store doesn't do as well as it's planned in the first few months or the first year even, it's like, okay, but I have a bigger purpose and a bigger goal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I absolutely the yeah. The best thing is that it's trading. You're lowering expectations and you're having these people get to a place of appreciation for just even meeting you and seeing the opportunity. Because when our expectations are too high and we don do that, your whole mindset changes and it allows you to open up a lot of different doors. And now you're sitting there and you're like I'm appreciative that Bennett's even teaching me about real estate when he doesn't have to. And it's not Bennett sitting here making this money, but it's him here helping me along this journey uh, absolutely it.

Speaker 2:

It definitely played well. Um, and I think that's I mean what I've learned from that. So I did pest control, then I did satellite the next year, then the year after that I did smart home systems, then the year after that I did solar and why did you change throughout these?

Speaker 1:

because, like, obviously, if you pull in even 20 grand in the first summer, you're like, oh, like, why wouldn't you do that again? Like you know what I mean.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, um, rich dad, poor dad, the that that book the rich dad gave Robert Kiyosaki the advice of in your twenties, you got to work to learn, not to earn. Yes, so I thought, and then I also learned about the 80, 20 principle, Pareto's principle that 80% of the outcome comes from 20% of the effort and I applied it to like okay, if I'm going to work for Jordan, I'm going to learn 80% of the leadership skills, the sales skills, the whatever anything that you have to teach me about your business and industry. I'm going to learn 80% of it within the first few months or the first year, right? So if I, if I stick with the same thing for five years yes, I'm year two I'm going to go from 80% to 85, right. Year three, I'm going to go from 85 to 90, but you're getting these marginally increases.

Speaker 2:

I wanted to go and get, I want 80% knowledge on how to run pest control and then satellite, and then Vivint, um, smart home systems. So, two things it was I want to sell a different product and learn a different industry and, but probably more importantly, I want to learn a different sales style from different managers and business owners. Um, so, yeah, it was kind of. It's kind of like what. I've made more money overall in those five years If I just stuck with pest control? Yeah, would I have started a solar company and exited that for way more money than I would have made? Yes, would I have bought dirty dough and scaled that if I wasn't into the changing industries? No, because now I can look back and say, regardless of the industry even if it's cookies and franchising, the skills that I've developed can take a product and do multiple million dollars of sales in the first year alone with zero marketing dollars.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, which changes everything. So I love that idea of stacking the different people and learning from them and each of these, were you going to college during this time or what were you doing in the recruiting slash, bringing and having these different summers?

Speaker 2:

after the, after the first full summer, the 250,000 summer. No, I was not going to college after that. I had one semester left, but I'm like, I'm going to be a pediatrician. I have one semester plus four years of med school, plus three years of residency, plus $200,000 worth of debt, and I'm not going to see my family and it was also because I wanted to be a pediatrician because I thought it was a well-respected job and it made money, but not because of anything else.

Speaker 2:

I just thought that's what was a good decision to make as a kid. So, no, I dropped out, but I was still. But yeah, all of the recruiting was college kids. And then it's referrals as well, which I didn't touch on that. But Cutco is all referral-based. And then that translated to mission. I actually only knocked doors for a month or two on my mission. Some missionaries got kidnapped somewhere in Mexico, so they said no more knocking doors, so it was just. But it was still out on the street talking to people and then visiting every single member of that congregation and asking them who do you know? And so other missionaries say who do you know? And they say, oh, you know, I'll think about it. Okay, cool, Talk to you later.

Speaker 2:

I was trained in Cutco. This is Cutco. Hey, grandma, can you listen to a presentation for me? I get paid $15 to present. You don't have to buy anything, and my structure was I get paid $15 per appointment or commission, whichever is higher. So she listens to me. She doesn't want to buy anything because these are a $2,000 set of knives. Okay, cool, who do you know that I? Can you think of 10 people that could, would be willing to just listen to my presentation, Cause this is helping me out to go on my mission. That was the pitch. Yeah, she's like yeah, I could think of some people. Cool, I hand her a book right there. I say write them down. She's writing them down and then awesome, here's the phone, Call them. When they answer, All you have to say is whatever, Introduce me, cut co. You don't have to buy anything. Just listen to him, help him out. He's going on a mission. And then hand the phone over to me. I'll set the appointment.

Speaker 2:

I did that in missionary work, where all the other missionaries are like who do you know? Yeah, let me think of somebody. Okay, I'll come back later. It was like no, who do you know? Yeah, let me think about it. No, think about it right now. I'm here right now. Oh, yeah, this person. Well, where do they live? They just live taking members to go knock on their friends' houses with me One, because you had to do that for the rules. You couldn't knock on doors because of the kidnapping, but it was just all referrals. And then we I raised $9 million for dirty dope, no experience in raising money um over a two year span, and the biggest lead source for that was referrals. I'm talking to private equity and they say, no, you're too small for us. You know our minimum investment is X amount. And then I say, okay, who do you know that we do fit their portfolio? And that got. I mean, that's how we raised money. That's how I raised money was off of referrals more than anything.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I love that and it's such an underused space and it just it just involves asking questions and then following up with people, cause a lot of the time we'll have those encounters, like you said, and most people the first sign of resistance they're like oh, no, no. And you're like no, it's not a big deal, like who do you know that would want to do this? And it's that wording of like it's just me, like it's not a big deal, like I'd love to help you and we can help these other people. And eventually it helps in sales a lot of the time when people don't even know who you are because they don't even have an association. And then when you get revalidated by their friend, you're like oh cool, grandma likes me, this could work, yep. So where do you think you learned that skill? Was that through?

Speaker 2:

the training.

Speaker 1:

It was Cutco.

Speaker 2:

Right after high school. I only did it for like two, three months, right before my mission after high school. And it was actually right after I read that Rich Dad, poor Dad, because I went in there with my tie. This was going to be my first job interview. It was my first job interview, you know, I had my tie, my little button up, whatever.

Speaker 2:

I'm like holy crap, that's a lot or commissions, and most people make commissions which she's been more than that. And I'm like holy crap, next week is training, it's 40 hours. I was like, okay, well, I can't make commissions, so it's just 15 bucks an hour, right, no, it's, you don't get paid. I'm like scam, I'm not doing this, um, anyways, I listened to the rich dad, poor dad, like about learning, um, and I did call my dad, my. My parents were divorced but you know I I would still see him, uh, on the weekends or whatever anyways, and he's a business owner. So I'm asking, I'm like no, I'm not gonna take the job. Why, it's free training. This is a scam. He goes free, free training. Like people pay tens of thousands of dollars for sales training. Sales is like one of the most beneficial skills you could do.

Speaker 2:

He goes don't take the job but do the training. And I was like, okay, so I did the training and I took the job. But very just flip my mindset of like, oh, sales training. So it was the Cutco sales training. It was a very good sales program. In the um there's a lot. I mean Vivint has one of the it's the largest door-to-door company in the world like sales program. Amazing, there's so many out there. Rich dad, poor dad, was talking about Xerox. He did Xerox machines because of the sales program.

Speaker 2:

It wasn't because it's the best product or because of anything else, but it was just. This is the. They will train you the best on how to sell.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, which is so important, and then the skills become transferable to different areas, like you experienced. So when did you start to get into solar? And then when did you think, wait, maybe I should do my own company?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 2019. Um, I didn't even know you could do solar in the summer, Cause all I was doing is working just the summer, and then you move back and you know you move out in end of april or may come back in august, september, and then I just wasn't working outside of that. Um shit, I just forgot what I was gonna say.

Speaker 1:

No, we're good, no, no, no, you were talking about solar and you were basically solar. Okay, like you would only work for the summers. And then you're like, maybe I should make my own company.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so in the summers I was just used to working the summers. And then I heard solar you can do in a summer and I was like what? I thought it took six months to install and these guys are like no, we'll install in a month, whatever. So I tried it and I loved it. I was working 4 PM to 8 PM, five days a week. You'd make 10 grand a sale and you get a few sales a week and I'm like this is silly.

Speaker 2:

Um, my older brother is 13 years older than me. He bought a franchise when he was 23 or something like that. Signs by tomorrow, always been in business. He says, hey, why don't you do like, if you're making that much money, why are you? Why are you knocking doors still? Why don't you do this online? And it's like cause, I don't know how you know like, is that an option? And that's his background. So he's like let's try it. So he came out with me.

Speaker 2:

I was in Sacramento for a few weeks. We hired somebody out of the Philippines to do a appointment setting. I trained them, just you know, pretty easy. We hired somebody else to get us Facebook leads. Leads would come in. People all the Philippines would say, hey, free solar proposal, whatever. They would get the utility bill so I could create their proposal. They'd set the appointment they would confirm the morning of and then I'd show up.

Speaker 2:

We ran 18 appointments as our test. 16 of them. I got zero no shows, which was amazing because they're confirming them. I wouldn't even leave my house unless they were confirmed zero, no shows. Um, I sold 16 of them on the first appointment and then I moved to San Diego to start my solar company and my brother my younger brother, who's also doing solar with me sold the 17th and then the 18th, never closed and I was like this is silly. So that's kind of what it was. Is I'm door knocking? I don't think I would have done it by myself. I didn't have the confidence or experience. But my brother came in somebody I know love, trust in the business and said, hey, let's do it together. We started it in January of 2020, right before COVID started, but because we were doing online door to door.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we had three months of ramping up on the door to door Uh, and 18 months after we sold, so it was a pretty short live, but it was. We made good money during it and had a little exit as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, which is incredible, and you don't realize it because you just have to share what you're doing. So, whenever you're going through these journeys, like you should share with the people around you because they might offer you different insights, which is exactly what happened to Bennett and his brother, because, like, when you really think about it, most people have a very scarcity mindset, where it's I'm making all this money I can't share with anyone. And then you start talking to other people and you're like wait a second, like there's maybe a bigger opportunity here, which I think is incredible.

Speaker 2:

Talk with any and everybody about everything. I took a startup course after I sold my solar company, um, and he is like one of the big mistakes that entrepreneurs have is they have these ideas and they just sit on them forever, you know, cause they don't want to go tell everybody, unless it's perfect, cause somebody else is going to take their idea. It's like ideas are a dime, a dozen, right it's. It's not the idea of creating a cookie franchise Like they're already out there, it's the work to go do it. You know what I mean. So he's his advice was just talk with any and everybody about your idea. And I did that. I mean I pitched a hundred people on buying a dirty dough franchise before I was a franchise, before I even had the model, cause I didn't know what the model was, you know.

Speaker 2:

So she's like this is what I'm thinking. What do you think? And I pivoted like five different times before we franchised Um, but it all came from just getting out there and talking out. I mean having some vulnerability, I guess, um, which I feel like I've gotten pretty good at like, talking about hey, we are burning $200,000 a month and we have one month's worth of runaway and we're going under. You tell 20 people that you get solutions. If you are embarrassed by that, you don't get solutions and you do go under. You know, like, but I think that saved me by being so upfront. I'm like just any and everybody here's all my problems.

Speaker 1:

Help me, please help me, which is so important, because there's so many times where we just completely missed the ball and we're not vulnerable and we're not able to share because I'm embarrassed that my ego is going to be hurt and they're going to think less of me. But no, they actually think way more of you when you are vulnerable and you are able to share, because then you can move the ball forward. And how do you even get involved in dirty dough? Because we mentioned it a couple of times, but how did that process even happen?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, a guy that I went to high school with here in Utah moved to Arizona to go to college at ASU, and he saw a company called chip and then baked and then crumble. All three of those companies were coming up out of Utah. These really creating a gourmet cookie space that didn't exist previously and he thought, ooh, I want to be the first one in Arizona. You know so what do you do when you're a college kid and no money and you want to start a business? Just sell them out of your apartment. You know so. He was selling out of his apartment got traction, um post on Facebook that he was looking for an investor to open up a storefront. So I invested in 2019. He opened up the storefront in March of 2020, the COVID month, um, and at the end and I'd never even been to the store at the end of that year I was like dude, let's franchise it. I'm in San Diego, crumble just did over 3 million, $3.6 million in this store. You know, like in one stupid cookie store, this is the market, let's franchise it. And he's like I'm done, dude, I'm burnt out. I'm in the store. You know, 80, a hundred hour weeks. It's not making the money I want and I have investors. So now I don't get all the upside but I'm putting in all the work because I wasn't doing anything to help other than add money. So he says I'm looking to sell and I'm like shit, I'm going to lose my investment. Like who are you going to sell to? You know no-transcript, what the hell I'm going to. I'm going to roll the dice back to the rich dad, poor dad, like working to learn, not to earn. I adapted the what is the top sales guy doing that I can't learn? That I can't Right. I adapted that same mentality to cookies and franchising and food. Like I have no experience with this, but what is Mrs Fields doing that I can't learn? Or what are they doing that I can't hire somebody that already knows. So it was kind of the mentality.

Speaker 2:

I bought it at the beginning of 2021, took a year to centralize the production. That's what Dirty Dough Special. We make all the cookies for the franchisees, freeze them. These are stuffed cookies, three-layer cookies that don't exist anywhere else in the world, like a peanut butter cookie wrapped in a chocolate dough with a hot fudge injection. Those are shipped to the stores and we have stores in 25 states right now you could walk in any store, go into the freezer, grab any of the 20 cookies in there, put on a cookie sheet, press start and put it in the oven, press start and that's it. Everything's programmed, everything's already been formulated to cook for the same time, temperature and fan speed. So it was a year of developing that. How do we make this as simple as possible so we can operate out of 500 square feet, one oven, one employee, little to no waste? And then we franchised.

Speaker 2:

It got on a few advisors, brought on a CEO that ran Maui Waui smoothies. Um, got up to 600 something locations and, yeah, we opened up 80 stores in the last two years. Um, way more than way more than I could handle. We've sold 450 franchises. Um, it exceeded my goal. I wanted to open up 30 stores in five years. We opened up 80 and two and it definitely got too much. So I brought on the former CEO of Jimmy John's as their CEO at the beginning of this year and he owns a portfolio brand of restaurants called Craveworthy and they ended up acquiring us just last month.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's an incredible story and it it all comes down to giving your effort and trying something and jumping in and being like it is what it is Because it is scary. In those moments, were you concerned or scared?

Speaker 2:

There wasn't a month, or at least the first year, that I didn't think is this worth it, or should I just give up? And then maybe the second year yeah, we sold like 300 franchises and we're we're flying high. And then the third year it was like crap. Now we have to open up all of those. Um, food inflation was still on the rise anyways, and then it got very, very, very tough. This year has probably been the toughest year ever and just explain how that works.

Speaker 1:

So you basically have the store running and then to sell a franchise they give upfront money. So then you use the money to like keep, kind of keep going, like how does that work?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So you have a concept you get a franchise attorney, pay him 20, 30 grand talk with them for a month and then now you have your franchise disclosure documents and your franchise agreement. Then you can go solicit and sell franchises. When somebody buys a franchise it's hey, you're an entrepreneur or you want to be an entrepreneur, um, but you don't want to come up with a brand and a logo and a product and hope it works out. You want something that's already proven, um, that's worked for other people. So here's a franchise concept.

Speaker 2:

You pay me $35,000 for a franchise fee upfront. Then you, you were going to open up your, your business anyway. So you go pay for all the expenses to open it up. And then, once it's open, we provide continual support, we provide the product, the brand name, help with the marketing, and then you get a royalty and a marketing fee as well. We do a six percent and a four percent. So we take six percent of gross that goes to run the operations and the support, and then the 4% is for the marketing and the tech side. And then the franchise fee is just that one-time fee kind of you know upfront which, yeah, we saw millions of dollars coming in and franchise fees was like sweet. And then we went and spent it all on a huge production facility. Yeah, I'm always great at spending more than I I at bringing in money, and I'm great and better at spending it.

Speaker 1:

Well, because it's challenging. You're trying to float all of this stuff and so many things are moving and there's a ton of variables and you're like I really hope this works. And then you started bringing yeah and like that, how did the money get moving and how did you think about that? And then also I know you brought in you mentioned a few times that you brought in different CEOs and different people Like aren't you the founder? Like don't you want to be the CEO?

Speaker 2:

or like yeah, so when I started the solar company with my brother, brent, he said he made me listen to this book called the E-Myth Revisited. The E stands for entrepreneur and it's the myth that everybody's an entrepreneur and they're not. They're just, they're an employee of themselves. Right, they made a job.

Speaker 2:

They just own their own job is all. But it's typically a shitty job because you work the longest hours and you get paid last. So why do you want to do that? How do you get out of that? What do you want your organization to look like in two years, five years, whatever it is?

Speaker 2:

Build your whole organization chart. So you have a CEO, a CFO, a COO, you have a sales manager. You know you have all of that stuff. And then you start plugging in your head to all of them and it's just like this is so worthless. Dude, it's just me and you. Why are we building an org chart of 20 people if it's just me and you? But the point is I was the salesperson. So in the organization we're going to have sales reps, then we're going to have managers, then we're going to have a regional manager.

Speaker 2:

But how do you go about doing that? Well, I started off as the sales rep. I was knocking doors. I determined these are the hours that the sales reps will work. This is the pitch that they use. These are the objections that they or how to overcome work. This is the pitch that they use. These are the objections that they are the how to overcome objections. This is the commission structure. This is how much they get paid If they bring in people, if they recruit um.

Speaker 2:

You figure all that out and then you promote yourself to the manager. And then you hire your little brother as the salesperson he was our first hire Um and then now I'm the manager. And then what? How does the manager make money? What are their overrides Um? What do they get paid if they recruit? How much money can they spend and allocate to incentives for their sales reps? What areas are they knocking? You know how do you do area mapping and how do you assign areas. Build all that out, then bump yourself up to the regional right and because we did that, it was very, very easy just to go from position to position to position. So a year goes by and dirty does up for sale. I would have never considered buying it, but I'm like, ooh, I'm not really doing much in solar, so that opened that up. So I'm sold on that Um a thousand percent. Like doing that method.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think it's so important because most of the time we don't realize that we're already doing all that stuff. We just think hey.

Speaker 2:

I'm just not organized.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm just busy and it's like no, you spent an hour doing accounting, you spent two hours in sales. You spent three hours in operations. You didn't really do anything, like you're maintaining. But people don't realize that every single time they jump on a new thing, they put a new hat on, like and you need to realize that when you're an entrepreneur, so that you can hire people to fill those roles, so you can keep progressing into the role you really want to do, it helps if you know your value per hour.

Speaker 2:

I took a startup course and he says blanket statement right, it was like 500 bucks an hour, which I'm like, really Like. You're worth $500 an hour. So if anything costs less than $500, I'll source it, but I'm like anyways. But he's also typically coaching venture backed funds. I already knew how much I was worth an hour because I'm a door to door commission only sales rep. I knocked 20 doors. 10 of them answer, six of them are set appointments, five of them show up. I close three of them and one cancels, I install two. How long did it take me to do all of that? 20 hours and I made 20 grand. Okay, I'm worth $1,000 an hour.

Speaker 2:

So now I can say do I want to do this legal work or do I want to pay this attorney $375 an hour? I know 1000% that my time is more valuable. If I'm knocking doors, selling solar, this is different Now. This is now. If I'm selling franchises, how much am I worth? And I'm worth way more than a thousand dollars an hour if I'm on a franchise call Um. So it makes it really easy to say let me just sell franchises and then let me hire the rest, because I'm not the best operator. I love coming up with the big ideas and starting with the SOPs and go, and then I go to the next project without finishing it. You know typical ADHD, but I recognize that. So it's like okay, let me do what I like starting things, selling things and then handing it off to somebody who will actually see it through.

Speaker 1:

But. But that's so important because there's so many people who see the entrepreneur of like they open up an automotive shop and they continue on this and they just do that same job over and over and over again. But they don't realize that they're doing sales. And if they just had a sales guy and a manager and the automotive guy, then they wouldn't have to do all of that and they can just make the money passive and they can kind of sit there and relax.

Speaker 2:

And like yeah, I was going to say bookkeeping on that Like that's a very low end task that most entrepreneurs are doing themselves and it's like, but you can outsource that out of the Philippines or India or anywhere for five bucks an hour and if you don't have enough money to pay $5 an hour to free up your time to build your business, you don't have a business that's worth building. I mean, maybe that's harsh, maybe that's not true, but it's like really, though, if you, if you can't find the $5 an hour to hire somebody to free up your team, to free up your time, to then go make $30 an hour for your business, or 2000, like you don't have a good business.

Speaker 2:

What do we even do it here? But it's scary. It's scary to make that first hire and be like man. I could, I commit to $50 a week. You know 10 hours a week.

Speaker 1:

That's the other thing, though, that people don't realize is, with a lot of these virtual assistants, you don't have to hire them for 40 hours, like you can hire them for 10 hours, or you can hire them on a project basis or you can hire them on this Pay them a hundred bucks a month to keep your books Right.

Speaker 2:

But I mean, any entrepreneurs listen to this like go look at all. Go look at your calendar for the last week where you spent your time and think, could I have hired anybody to do this for less than $20 an hour? And the answer is yes, then it's like okay, we'll go do that today and then next time, next week you're not going to be doing those tasks and then you can fill up your calendar with higher value items and for entrepreneurs, that's typically meeting with an investor or on sales or a strategy expense. That's all the fun stuff anyway. That's what we want to focus on.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, and people don't realize that, and we're so bogged down by all this operational work that it's like you got to sit there and take that step back and actually plan what you want to do, which I think is so important, and you seem to have done an incredible job on that.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm definitely winging it and I'm changing, like, what I want and why I want it. Um, you mentioned earlier the expectations and I, and I like lowering the expectation. Um, would you agree, expectation and a desire are like the same thing, right To to want something, to expect something, to desire something. So I've been getting very big into Eastern philosophy and Buddhist and Buddhism. It the, the phrases or Buddha said all suffering, no desire is the root of all suffering. So if desire and expectations are interchangeable, which I think they are, expectations are the root of all suffering. When, then, it's like, what that crap? That's everything that I'm, you know, it's all about goals.

Speaker 1:

It's all about goals.

Speaker 2:

It's all about more and better expectations and holding and it's like, yes, it is if you want to suffer more. But, like, look at your life, look at every time you've ever had suffering and tell me how that didn't relate to an expectation, that if you didn't have that expectation and you were just open to whatever the hell life brings, that you would have avoided that discomfort. And I think that is very true.

Speaker 1:

A hundred percent. I literally spoke to my group about this on Monday where we were literally sitting there and I'm like what's an expectation that you had? That literally let you down. And one of the kids goes uh, I didn't win president's club this year. He's like I won it last year, I won it the year before, but I didn't win it this year. And I go did anything change? And he's like no, I was actually really down and really depressed and really upset. I'm like did you make less money? Like did any of that factor change? And he's like no, I actually made more. And I'm like so you just weren't validated by an outside source. And he's like yes, and I'm like does that matter? And he's like not really. And I'm like, okay, good now that this is done.

Speaker 2:

if you just appreciated it, you would have been so much happier with the experience he probably wouldn't have even connected that, though, unless you walked him through it a hundred percent, he would have just been like shit, I'm just gonna be disappointed next year that I don't make president's club. But now he's gonna be like, oh, who cares? Right, I mean, it's cool. I'm not saying don't have goals, have goals, goals, but don't tie your self worth and validation If you reach those goals or not, because at the end of the day, like so it's like I have these goals because I'm a business owner, but at the same time I'm trying to let go of all expectations. This is where I'm going, but I don't care if I get there or not. I'm just along for the journey and I'm not perfect at that, but I do think that's the most easiest way to live with the least amount of suffering.

Speaker 1:

A hundred percent. And it's like, even if you like, no matter what you do, if you just remove expectations, it's like okay, and that's like in regard to, like the gym if I go to the gym every day, am I going to be absolutely ripped? And it's like most likely you'll be in better shape than you are without it. But, like, if you have the expectation that I'm going to suddenly have a six pack, that's not likely. And now it's like, and then you're down on yourself.

Speaker 1:

And now, you don't even like the gym. So it's these things of like. How do you take the step back and realize like I'm just grateful that I'm here and like I have a mentor of mine. He's 79. He literally goes, goes. Jordan sounds like you're breathing and I'm like I am, and he's like isn't that amazing? And it's just his older perspective being like it doesn't matter, like you're going to deal with stress everywhere you go. We all have too many things going on, we all say yes to too much. And it's like just accept where you're at, be okay with that, Be wanting of change and look for change and be open to those opportunities.

Speaker 2:

But don't put yourself in this place of like misery and being so upset and disappointed like trade it in for appreciation, absolutely, I had this thought last night, cuddling with my five-year-old that she's going to sleep, and I've been very into mindfulness of, again, if expectations cause suffering. Well, what causes expectations? Thoughts? Can you have discomfort in your life if you're not thinking? I don't think so. I mean other than like physical discomfort if you get burned or something, but like the discomfort that you go through every day on stressing on like how am I going to pay rent next month? How am I going to hire this person? What am I going to say in this meeting in five minutes?

Speaker 2:

All of that is in the future, or you're judging yourself on the past, but the brain's thoughts are in the future or the past. Anyways, I'm there with my daughter and I'm just like holy crap and I'm clearing my mind. So it's like in this particular moment that I'm not having thoughts. I'm in an in a home on a mattress, cuddling with my daughter and I have zero stresses in the world. Isn't that the perfect life? And then I'm like I've always had that, though. I've always had the ability to do that, I just didn't know how to do it. You know, I'm like wait, I've been able to cuddle my daughter every night forever, but I've never appreciated it because as I'm cuddling her, I'm still checking emails or something like that.

Speaker 1:

You know um, and so really gravitating away from that, yeah, and it comes to that presence, because when you're present, you're happy, and that's why people like scuba diving or they like activities that they have to be super, super present in like, and when we're not present and we're trying to do 10 different things, that's when we get stressed and overwhelmed. That's that's why I like these podcasts, because it's like sit here, look at the camera, talk to someone. It keeps you present and it keeps you active. Bennett, you are absolutely amazing. Where can people learn more about you? And we're definitely going to have to have you on again. I feel like we just got started.

Speaker 2:

I have a website. It's just my first and last name, bennettmaxwellcom. Has links to all my social media. I have a podcast deeper than dough, more than money um, about getting away from material goals and onto emotional goals, cause I do believe, as human beings, the only thing we're after, the only thing that drives behavior, is an emotional state that we're after, but yet we don't set emotional state goals anyways. Um, and then has the links to, you know, crave, worthy dirty dough. If anybody's interested in checking out some franchising Awesome.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Jordan Edwards

Host