Black Entrepreneur Blueprint 524 - Jay Jones - Almost Losing It All My Blessing In Disguise Story

[00:00:12] Welcome to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, the number one podcast and resource for black entrepreneurs. I'm your host Jay Jones and Black Entrepreneur Blueprint was created specifically to educate and inspire black entrepreneurs to launch, build and grow successful sustainable businesses.

[00:00:32] Join us as we help build an economic power base in the worldwide black community by building and supporting black owned businesses. If you're currently an entrepreneur or want to be an entrepreneur, you're invited to join us each and every week here at Black Entrepreneur Blueprint.

[00:00:50] Welcome to the BEB family and get ready to elevate your entrepreneur IQ. Welcome to the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint episode number 524. I'm your host Jay Jones and today we have another outstanding and informative show in store for you.

[00:01:14] Today we're going to be doing a rebroadcast of one of our most downloaded and impactful shows from April of 2023 titled Almost Losing Everything, My Blessing In Disguise Story. Now make sure you guys lock in if you're not able to take notes, just go to the website

[00:01:33] blackentrepreneurblueprint.com click on the episode number and you'll be able to see all the show notes and you'll be able to see the eight things that I learned from this experience not almost losing it all once but almost losing it all twice.

[00:01:49] So let's get ready for today's content. Today's show topic is Almost Losing Everything, My Blessing In Disguise Story. Almost losing everything, my blessing in disguise story. So we know as entrepreneurs we face many obstacles and challenges in our journey and if we don't

[00:02:08] listen to and follow the signs we may be headed for a crash landing. Now but what if that crash landing was actually a blessing in disguise? So on today's podcast I'm going to talk about almost losing it all and the eight lessons

[00:02:23] that I learned from that experience and how I use those lessons to rebuild my ideal business and lifestyle. So I want you guys to tune in and listen to these lessons that I learned and hopefully

[00:02:36] you won't have to lose almost everything like I did actually twice to be able to benefit from my experiences and these lessons. Now before we get to today's content let me just share a few things with the Black Entrepreneur Blueprint family.

[00:02:50] First and foremost I want to welcome all first time listeners to Black Entrepreneur Blueprint. Welcome to the BEB family. Please stick around until the end of today's broadcast and I'm going to share all my social

[00:03:02] media contact information and resource links such as the link to my latest book Unlocking the Power of ChatGPT The Ultimate Prompting Handbook for Beginners. You can go to unlockingchatgpt.com and if you're interested in learning how to use ChatGPT

[00:03:21] for profit and productivity please check out the page unlockingchatgpt.com. With this technological revolution guys either you're going to ride the wave or you're going to get swallowed up by the wave so make sure you check out unlockingchatgpt.com.

[00:03:40] Also don't forget BEB Academy it's our online learning portal where we have all types of resources to help elevate your entrepreneur IQ. We have all types of content inside the academy. To get three days free access go to BEBacademy.com or just go to the website blackentrepreneurblueprint.com.

[00:04:01] It's on the front page of the website. So we have resources such as online courses, master classes, PDF downloads and all types of content to help elevate your entrepreneur IQ. And it doesn't matter if you're a current entrepreneur or you're a prospective entrepreneur

[00:04:17] and you need to get clarity on things to help you move from point A to point B. Now let's jump into today's content and the title of today's show is almost losing everything my blessing in disguise story.

[00:04:31] So many times as entrepreneurs we don't want to acknowledge that our business is failing and it actually may be the time to pivot or to go into a totally new direction. But what's more common is we end up failing by trying to save a business that literally

[00:04:46] can't be saved. Now this can take you to rock bottom and possibly make you lose it all. And literally that's what happened to me I almost lost it all not once but twice.

[00:04:58] Now today I'm going to talk about the second time I almost lost it all and the eight things that I learned from that and hopefully you guys will learn from that too. I talked about earlier in the year 2023 about doing impactful, the most impactful content

[00:05:15] that I can create. And I know there are many of you out there right now that are probably trying to decide if you need to pivot or if you need to quit. And so I know that's a very hard decision especially when you start your business because

[00:05:28] your business is like your baby and you never want to throw your baby away but sometimes guys that business can drag you down a hole where you may not be able to dig out of.

[00:05:39] So what we really don't realize guys is that certain doors are closed because a better opportunity awaits us and you need to use that internal or that instinct, that little voice inside your head to be able to determine what to do.

[00:05:54] Trust your instincts is something that I have learned to do for a long time. When I don't trust my instincts many times I end up making the wrong decisions. Alright guys it's story time so here's my story about losing everything or almost losing

[00:06:09] everything for the second time which actually in hindsight was a blessing in disguise and I'm going to talk about the eight things that I learned that may help you in your entrepreneurial journey.

[00:06:21] So if you've heard this story before bear with me but there are a lot of first time listeners and people that haven't heard this since I'm on episode 461. So I know some people jump to different episodes, some people listen to them in chronological

[00:06:37] order but years ago one of my best friends and I started a mortgage business back in the early 2000s. That business at the time was started with just two of us, two cell phones, I mean two

[00:06:52] office phones and a fax machine and we were in this small thousand square foot office on top of some deli right. The office used to stink like I'll be damned because of some of the food it was like an

[00:07:06] international type deli and they had all types of different food so that's where we started the mortgage company. Now in subsequent years we grew that mortgage business to over 50 employees, multi millions

[00:07:18] of dollars a month in revenue and we were making money like hand over fist so the going was good. Now for those of you who were adults or remember this in 2008 there was a financial collapse

[00:07:33] all, not all but many of the major investment houses went out, Smith Barney, Salomon Brothers, a lot of the major investment houses went out, banks were going out of business and it was all because of the loans that a lot of these banks were selling.

[00:07:50] They were predatory loans, option arm loans, high cost loans and what happens is in the financial sector and just like many other sectors it's monkey see monkey do. So if one lender comes out with a loan product and they're selling the hell out of that loan

[00:08:06] product then other lenders are going to kind of mimic that and create their own like minded or like product. And what happened was if you had a pulse back in 2000, the early 2000's you could get a mortgage.

[00:08:20] It didn't matter we had no documentation loans so if your credit score was good enough and when I say good enough it didn't even have to be super great you could add a 580 credit score and some lenders would give you a no documentation loan, no income, no assets.

[00:08:37] Okay that's called an NENA, no income, no asset loans. You know stated income meaning we're not going to verify your income just put on the application state what your annual income is. And so it was the wild wild west back in the day.

[00:08:51] Now luckily for us we didn't sell a lot of those type of loans even though they were very profitable because we knew that they weren't good for the end user. So we had loans with a 3 year prepayment penalty you know the rates, interest rates would be

[00:09:06] going up like crazy on the option arms so in the so 2000 when we started that wasn't bad but come 2007, 2008 these loans were proliferating everywhere. So every lender and broker was selling these type of loans. So long story short when the crash hit the credit started tightening up.

[00:09:30] So I've had customers with 780, 800 credit scores that couldn't get a loan and I mean the credit literally was constricted so as a mortgage broker if you can't get loans closed you can't make commissions meaning you're not making any money.

[00:09:46] Now we had a $10,000 plus a month rent in center city Philadelphia. We had our weekly payroll was over $100,000. We had commissions to pay out to our loan officers and our telemarketing managers and telemarketing team.

[00:10:02] We had group managers, team managers that got overrides and so just like with any other business there's overhead. You know literally we were in the process of opening up another branch office in Maryland

[00:10:16] and thank God we never pulled the trigger on that because we would have owed for that lease too. So we started the mortgage business, we were making money like crazy. My business partner and I grew it to a multi-million dollar business and in 2008 everything fell off the cliff.

[00:10:34] Now what you have to understand I always talk about multiple streams of income. This is something that drove that concept into my brain because the only income stream that I had at that time was my mortgage business.

[00:10:48] Now we talked about expanding and we were in the process of actually opening up a REMAX real estate franchise. That wouldn't have made any difference because that whole sector, the real estate sector had fallen off the cliff. Real estate agents were losing their, weren't making money.

[00:11:05] Appraisers weren't making money. Nobody in the real estate industry was making money. And so what happened was it came to a point where my partners and I started putting our own personal savings into the business, hundreds of thousands of dollars a piece to try to

[00:11:21] keep the business afloat. Now you have to remember at that time we didn't know that this was a true financial crash. We thought it might have been a blip in the radar and after a couple months we'd be able

[00:11:33] to get back to the way things were but that never happened. And so literally since that was my only stream of income basically I started, since I wasn't making money but I still had a mortgage, I still had car payments, I had responsibilities and expenses.

[00:11:52] I was taking care of my mom. Everything kept going but my revenues. So you guys know if you're in this situation where you, what's the old saying? You got more month than money? Yeah, you in bad shape. You can't budget when you don't make enough money right?

[00:12:09] You can cut down and pare everything down you want and you can pare it down to the bare bones but if you're not making enough money to cover your nut you're always in a deficit. And after about a year pretty much I was in a deficit.

[00:12:23] I had blown through pretty much all of my savings which I never thought I would do and it got to the point where my wife was like look I know you got a family at work because

[00:12:34] when you're a boss and you have people that are dependent on you and your business to feed their family, that's a serious responsibility. So that's why we were trying everything to keep the doors open because we knew and we

[00:12:48] loved our employees and we wanted to make sure that they could eat. But it got to a point where my wife said look you got a family at work but what you going to do about this family here at home?

[00:12:58] You had bill collectors calling, you know we're going to repo your car. There was a foreclosure notice I came home on my door one day and it got super bad. So my kids were young so it didn't affect them but the stress that it put into the

[00:13:14] Jones household between my wife and I was unbearable. And remember guys this is the second time I almost lost it all. The first time was years before that, that's a whole other story. And so now I'm sitting there looking what am I going to do?

[00:13:32] I only have one stream of income and I don't know how I'm going to get out of this mess that I'm in. So what we did was we told our employees that look in two months we're shutting this thing down.

[00:13:45] So you don't even have to come to work if you don't want to. If you're trying to close some loans that's fine but we're not going to be able to pay you after two months. So you can take this time to look for a job.

[00:13:57] Now we didn't want them to go out empty handed. We wanted to try to give them a little bit of runway so they could try to transition into a new position. Now remember banks aren't hiring, other mortgage companies aren't hiring.

[00:14:11] The financial sector pretty much is going crazy so they would probably have to go into a different sector to get employment. But it was bad all around. I'm telling you it was crazy. And that instance in 2008 changed the whole mortgage and financial regulations.

[00:14:30] So a lot of these Dodd-Frank acts, you also had the National Mortgage Licensing Service NMLS came into play. So mortgage loan officers and brokers had to be licensed. So it was a drastic seismic shift in that industry and we actually got caught up in that.

[00:14:51] The money was good while we were getting it. But when it came to a stop it literally came to a halt instantaneously. And so that's one of the things that having multiple streams of income will definitely help.

[00:15:05] And I want you guys to think about this also with the pandemic. Now you may have lost your job or your income got jacked up during the pandemic. If that didn't teach you anything it teaches you that you need to have multiple streams of income.

[00:15:23] And what we're talking about today guys is almost losing everything my blessings in disguise story. So this sounds pretty bleak right now right? Yeah trust me I lived it. It was real bleak.

[00:15:34] And there's some of you right now that are listening to this that may be in a similar situation. You may not be as in dire straits as I was but you may be in a similar situation where you can't afford where you live.

[00:15:49] You can't keep your bills on. You're struggling to pay your light bill. You're hiding your car around the corner so it doesn't get repoed. All of that type of stuff. Been there done that.

[00:16:00] Looking at the ceiling all night while my wife and kids are sleeping and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to keep the lights on. Been there done that. So anybody that's going through it I empathize with you but listen to these eight tips or

[00:16:14] eight lessons that I learned from this second time of almost losing it all. And I hope it's inspiring for you and I hope you take this and if you're in this situation that you use it to propel you to a better situation.

[00:16:30] So let's talk about the eight lessons that I learned and you can use these lessons even if you're not in as dire straits as I was but you definitely can use these lessons. Lesson number one.

[00:16:43] I learned to accept that I had to close my business and walk away. I learned to accept that I had to close my business and walk away. And I mentioned earlier guys that your business many times feels like your baby. You don't want to throw your baby out.

[00:16:59] What do they say? Throw your baby out with the bath water. So when you create something from scratch, something that you dreamt of in your mind and now it comes to fruition and all of a sudden it's not going well and you have to

[00:17:12] scrap it that's a very hard thing to do. Lesson number one. I learned to accept that I had to close my business and walk away. So you have to be a realist. You have to be realistic about where you stand and the probability of success.

[00:17:27] So you want to take into account once again the economic climate also the climate in your industry and other factors. And so you're either going to have to pivot or quit. So when I looked at the factors surrounding my industry, the economic factors in the country

[00:17:43] number one were against me. In my industry the factors were against me because credit had tightened and nobody could close loans. So it looked like it was pretty much no hope and it didn't matter how long we held on,

[00:17:57] we didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. So the question between my partners and I were do we pivot or do we quit? We tried to pivot. That didn't work and then we quit.

[00:18:11] The pivot came when we closed the business and then one of my business partners and I and another guy, we started a loan modification company. And a loan modification company was or is a company that tries to help people that are

[00:18:26] in foreclosure get their terms of their mortgage modified and we charged a fee for that. Now that's what a lot of mortgage companies were doing because they had this office space, they had loan officers that were on the phone so they tried to switch gears real quick.

[00:18:44] The problem was the guy that we bought in, one of the other new guys we bought in that was supposed to be handling the back office, we were getting monies in but he wasn't providing the services that we said that we were going to provide.

[00:18:59] So after literally two months when I found that out I was like yo I'm out. I said I can't be getting money from people and we're not providing the services. So I had my attorney draft up my resignation, took me off of all the corporate documentation

[00:19:14] they had to refile and I was a ghost. And I'm glad I did that because the Attorney General, State AG actually came in and shut them down about a year later. So lesson number one, I learned to accept that I had to close my business and walk away.

[00:19:31] So you have to be realistic and assess where your business is, is there light at the end of the tunnel and the real question is do you pivot or do you quit and then go regroup. That's lesson number one.

[00:19:44] Lesson number two, I made a decision to do something about my situation. Now I know this sounds super simple or simplistic but I made a decision to do something about my situation and when you make a decision guys that entails action. That means going to work.

[00:20:03] So you can think about things, oh yeah I'm going to get in shape next week and I'm going to do all types of exercise plans and a diet plan. That's thinking, there's no action behind that. Thinking doesn't cost you anything.

[00:20:17] But you have to make a true decision that comes with doing work. That action is required to make a true decision. So number two, I made a decision to do something about my situation. It's funny, my kids always tell me, they say dad, something's going on with us.

[00:20:38] We'll call you for a solution based answer but if it's mom, we're going to call her if we want to cry and get it out of our system, we'll call mom. They not going to call dad because dad, my first thing is alright here's the problem,

[00:20:53] what's the solution, what are the steps to a solution? And my girls are like sometimes dad we just want to cry about it now and then boss up later but when we need solutions, we know who to come to.

[00:21:04] So the second lesson I learned was I made a decision to do something about my situation. I took action and I'm going to tell you the action that I actually took. Number three, I wrote down what my new lifestyle was going to look like.

[00:21:18] That was the first action. I wrote down what my new lifestyle was going to look like. What's important to me, what's not important to me and what I wanted that lifestyle to look like. I wanted a lifestyle that had freedom, flexibility and unlimited income potential.

[00:21:36] I wanted to be able to work anywhere that I wanted to as they call it be a digital nomad. So that's the type of lifestyle I wanted to have.

[00:21:46] I wanted to be debt free and I wanted to be able to enjoy life and be able to work on the projects and things that were fulfilling for me, that I had interest in. So that's what number three was.

[00:21:59] I wrote down what my lifestyle was going to look like when I created this new version of myself. Number four, I wrote down what I liked and what I didn't like about my old business and I tried to create that sweet spot for my new business.

[00:22:18] Number four, I wrote down what I liked and didn't like about my old business and I tried to create that sweet spot for my new business. So the questions I had were what does my ideal business look like? And I based that around my lifestyle.

[00:22:34] Remember, you base your business around your lifestyle, not your lifestyle around your business. So how many people do you know that may have high powered jobs, attorneys, big time executives that work 80 hours a week, they make a ton of money but they can't even enjoy their money

[00:22:52] because they don't have the lifestyle they desire. They don't have the time. And so I wrote down what I didn't like about my old business and tried to create that new sweet spot in my new business. And here's some of the things I did not like.

[00:23:08] I did not like having to go into the office every day, right? I didn't like having to manage 50 plus employees. I didn't like having an office rent for $10,000 a month. I didn't like having a weekly payroll of over $100,000.

[00:23:27] I didn't like the constraints of not having flexibility with my time because I'm in the office 7am to 7, 8, even 9pm sometimes. So those were the things I did not like. So what my goal is now is to create a sweet spot with my new business.

[00:23:46] What does my ideal business look like? And here's some of the things it looked like. Some of the things I wanted were, as I mentioned earlier, I wanted freedom and flexibility. I didn't want to have employees.

[00:23:58] I wanted to be able to work anywhere at any time as long as I had my laptop and an internet connection and I wanted to have unlimited income or revenue potential. And I also wanted to work on projects and things that I had interest in or were fulfilling

[00:24:14] to me. Okay? So number four, I wrote down what I liked and didn't like in my old business and I tried to create that sweet spot for my new business. Remember you want to build your business around your lifestyle. So if you like to surf, right?

[00:24:30] And you want to catch those waves, that means you're going to need freedom and flexibility. So always remember that if you're trying to be happy guys, build your business around your lifestyle, not vice versa. Okay? So that was number four.

[00:24:48] Lesson number five I learned and we're talking about almost losing everything, my blessing in disguise story. Lesson number five, I formulated a new game plan and focused on the process, not the results. I formulated a new game plan and I focused on the process, not the results.

[00:25:08] This is something I tell my kids all the time, embrace the process and the results will come. Alright, what are the daily, weekly and monthly tasks that you must complete to bring your ideal business to fruition? What do you have to do every day?

[00:25:23] So we'll take it to an example in sports. Let's use Kobe Bryant for an example. So he wanted to be the greatest basketball player that ever played, but in order to do that, there's steps to that. There's a process.

[00:25:37] So daily he may shoot a thousand jump shots a day, 500,000 shots a day. 500 free throw shots, whatever it is, the process and getting the process down. Once you get that down, the results will take care of themselves.

[00:25:54] Alright, so formulate a new game plan and focus on the process, not the results. Okay? Once again, what are your daily, weekly and monthly tasks you must complete to bring your ideal business to fruition?

[00:26:10] A lot of times when we look at what we want to create in this new business, the task looks daunting because we're looking at the end version. When in actuality, what we need to focus on is the process, the steps to get there.

[00:26:25] And once you embrace the process, as I said, the results will come. Okay? Kobe became one of the greatest basketball players of all time because he embraced the process of becoming great. Not that he was thinking about it all the time, but what were the little steps, the

[00:26:45] consistency, the things that he had to do, his tasks that he had to do daily, weekly, monthly or whatever that would get that final result? Okay? So that's number five. I formulated a new game plan and focused on the process, not the results. Lesson number six I learned.

[00:27:05] I became intentional about my business. I became intentional about my business. You see, many times we run a business and we're not intentional, but with me, all the moves I made for my business, there was a reason behind every move.

[00:27:23] So I didn't, wasn't just out there willy nilly trying to figure things out. There was a reason behind it. Okay? I'm going to build this platform because I know that I'll be able to connect with my audience at any time by doing another podcast.

[00:27:38] And this is just an example. Oh man, podcasts, it takes a long time to get traction. I get it. I know that. But I became intentional about my business. Everything was done, was done with a reason behind it. Not just some haphazard type thinking.

[00:27:54] It was done with a reason and that you need to be intentional about your business. And when I say intentional, that also means how much time are you spending in your business? The more time you spend in your business, the better your business is going to be.

[00:28:11] So another Kobe-ism as I'll call it, he talked about how he outworked people. So he talked about his schedule and once again, this is, this is the process. So he said, okay, in the summertime he would get up and I think I got the hours right,

[00:28:29] just bear with me because you'll get the concept. He would get up and work out from six to eight in the morning, come home, get some breakfast, you know, relax for a little bit, go back. I think it was 11 to one. Okay.

[00:28:44] Come home after that, rest a little bit, get some lunch, go back three to five, come home from that, relax a little bit, get a light dinner. Then he'd go back to the gym seven to nine. Okay.

[00:28:57] So literally he put in eight hours a day when most other players aren't doing anything in the off season, they may be doing light workouts, but he said, even though I wasn't as good as some of those players, he said, it's impossible for them to catch up.

[00:29:13] He said, now just think about that consistency, you know, every, you know, off season every year. So literally after five years, three years of doing this, he said, it doesn't matter how much they work out in the off season.

[00:29:26] They'll never be able to catch up to me because it's the consistency. It's the process, embracing the process to becoming great. And so even if somebody every summer, you know, was busting their hump, they can't, they couldn't

[00:29:41] catch up with COVID because this was something that he did in his process that separated him from the rest of them. And that's why he's one of the greatest players in the game today. Lesson number seven that I learned, I created a realistic budget for my new business.

[00:29:58] I created a realistic budget for my new business. Many times when we start businesses, our income projections, sales projections, and even our budgeting is way, way off. So having had several businesses prior when this one collapsed, I said, when I come back

[00:30:15] out, I need to have realistic, a realistic budget and projections for my business. And I'm going to tell you how I made my comeback and all that good stuff at the end of this story.

[00:30:26] But number seven, I create a realistic budget for my new business and I use the concept of thirds. So a lot of times when you start making money in your business, you use all the money up,

[00:30:38] you put it in hip pocket national instead of reinvesting it in your business. And so my philosophy or my budgeting was, I'm going to take a third of my profits, put it in my pocket. I'm going to take another third to reinvest in the business.

[00:30:53] And the other third, I'm going to put into a savings account or reserve account. Okay. A third, a third, a third. And so if you know that you need $5,000 a month and you know, take home to be successful

[00:31:08] or pay your bills, that means that you got to generate $15,000 in revenues. If out of that 15,005 goes into your pocket to handle your bills, another five to reinvest in the business and the other five was savings or reserves, whatever you want to call it.

[00:31:24] Now your numbers may be different, but that's something that I did a third, a third, a third. You always want to reinvest in your business when you're making money because you got to feed the beast.

[00:31:35] If you don't feed the beast, the beast isn't going to feed you right. You know, a lot of times when you get in business, if you're making $10,000 a month, the first thing we want to do is put 9,500 in a hip pocket national and then reinvest $500 back

[00:31:50] into the business. And the next month you wonder why you're not making that money. So you have to be consistent. So create a realistic budget for your new business. And lesson number eight that I learned was I executed. You have to execute. Okay.

[00:32:08] I have a checklist of stuff, right? So I checked off everything I needed to do to move my business along, to get it to the point where the business was a sweet spot for me.

[00:32:19] I was making money and I was making money the way I wanted to make money. So I always break down, uh, break down stuff in the tasks. I have primary task, excuse me, critical tasks, primary tasks, and secondary tasks.

[00:32:33] So if you look at your business and you're saying, Hey, I want to create this type of business, ABC marketing company or whatever. What do you need to start the business? Who's going to do those tasks to get these things done? You need a website, right?

[00:32:50] You're going to need a domain name. You might need somebody to do your marketing. You might need to create your products or services, whatever it is, whatever type of business it is. You need to write down everything that you need to do.

[00:33:04] And in that list, you determine if it's a critical task, a primary task or secondary task. A critical task is a task that must be done before you move to the next stage of building your business or whatever you're doing.

[00:33:19] A primary task is an important task, but you can move to other things without having that done. And a secondary task is exactly what it is. It's something that can be done at any time or later time.

[00:33:33] So a critical task could be something like creating your business plan, right? So you need to have a business plan to give you a roadmap. So that could be a critical task. I can't go any further until I create this business plan.

[00:33:49] Another critical task would be getting a domain name. Now you can do other things, but that's something that's critical. Getting your domain name, your corporate entity, EIN number, your LLC or whatever type of entity you're starting. Those are critical tasks. Okay? So number eight, I execute it.

[00:34:10] And when I execute, I always have a checklist for my businesses and I checked off everything as I needed to move through once again to get to that point. And what we're talking about guys is almost losing everything. My blessing in disguise story.

[00:34:27] Now before we get to the last quarter of the show, and I'm going to tell you exactly what came from me almost losing it all. I just want to share my social media contact information and resource links and I'm going to keep it super simple.

[00:34:41] Everything that I talked about at the beginning of the show and what I'm going to talk about, you can go to my website, black entrepreneur, blueprint.com black entrepreneur, blueprint.com. If you're lazy, just type in beb connect.com.

[00:34:58] It's going to take you to the same website, beb connect.com. So I mentioned at the top of the show, my new book is out unlocking the power of chat GPT, the ultimate prompting handbook for beginners. You can go to unlocking chat, gpt.com also be be academy.

[00:35:15] I mentioned that go to the main page of the website, black entrepreneur, blueprint.com. You'll see be be academy. You'll also see brand builder elite academy. So if you want to build an e-commerce business selling physical products, brands or digital

[00:35:30] products, brands, it's on the front page of the website. Click be be academy.com also pound for pound. One of my best programs out there pinpoint and monetize your genius. Your genius is the intersection of your passion and your talent.

[00:35:45] The problem is most people don't know how to monetize that. Okay. The highest and greatest form of entrepreneurship is being able to monetize your genius. That is on the front page of black entrepreneur, blueprint.com. That's where you need to go.

[00:36:00] Now, if you want to reach out to me, anything long, hit me on my email address at Jay Jones at black entrepreneur, blueprint.com. J a Y J O N E S at black entrepreneur, blueprint.com. Facebook black entrepreneur, blueprint Instagram. I have two Iggy accounts.

[00:36:18] The first one is Jay Jones for real. Jay Jones, Jay, a Y J O N E S. The number four R E A L. Second one is black entrepreneur blueprint. Twitter. You can connect with me there.

[00:36:29] Jay Jones, zero zero one J a Y J O N E S zero zero one LinkedIn. Connect with me there. Just type in Jay Jones, black entrepreneur, blueprint, and also YouTube. Don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel family.

[00:36:44] We have additional content on YouTube that is not on the show. So go to YouTube, type in black entrepreneur blueprint and hit that like and subscribe button for all you first time listeners. A new episode of black entrepreneur blueprint drops every Monday morning, 5 a.m.

[00:37:01] Eastern standard time on all your major podcast platforms and YouTube. The easiest way guys is to go to my website to connect with me. Black entrepreneur, blueprint.com. Hit the about button and under my bio. There are all of the links to my social media contact information.

[00:37:19] You can just click the link and you know, connect with me on any of the social media platforms. All right, let's get back to the last section of the show. So as in today's title, almost losing everything. My blessing in disguise story.

[00:37:34] The question is, well Jay, what's the blessing? And the blessing is this. Entrepreneurship is the intersection of your passion and your talent. And the highest and greatest form of entrepreneurship is being able to monetize that genius.

[00:37:56] So when I told you guys what I wanted, what was my ideal lifestyle, what's my ideal business or the characteristics of that ideal business being broken down to the point where guess what? I can't go any further with the mortgage business.

[00:38:12] Then I had to open new doors and the door that opened for me or that presented itself was the e-commerce business. And so I always say e-commerce saved my life. So after the mortgage collapse, I was actually doing some consulting work for some media companies,

[00:38:33] you know, making a little bit of money here and there, but always trying to game plan my comeback. And once again, I gave you the eight lessons that I learned and I implemented those eight

[00:38:43] lessons and I came back with something that I thought would make sense for me. And so I came back with e-commerce and people, my wife, my kids, a lot of my friends thought

[00:38:55] I was crazy because my first product brand that I bought to market, which I still sell today was actually a hair flat iron business. And so what I had done was I created a brand of flat irons and I'm a bald headed black dude, right?

[00:39:11] I know nothing about the flat iron business except when I saw what my wife was paying for a flat iron. And I'm going to share this real quick with you because I think you guys need to understand

[00:39:21] where opportunity comes from and also what doors can open if you're paying attention. My wife was going to work one day, her flat iron broke and she was like, oh my God, I'm going to have to go to the mall after work and get a new flat iron.

[00:39:35] And I was in there shaving that morning and I just asked her, I said, well, what does a normal flat iron cost you? And she told me $150 to $200. And I said, what? I said for this? And she was like, yeah, it has to be ceramic plates.

[00:39:49] It has to have high heat. It has to have this, that. I said, hold on, this is crazy. So I go on to Alibaba.com and I already been researching e-commerce. Even before the internet, I used to bring products over from China and resell them.

[00:40:05] So when Alibaba came into effect where you can find manufacturers, that was a game changer for me, a no brainer. So I ordered three samples from three different manufacturers and these flat irons look very similar to hers.

[00:40:20] So I had my wife and my daughters try them for about six weeks. And at the end I asked them, I said, which one do you guys like? And they all picked the same one.

[00:40:29] So unbeknownst to me, I didn't do this in the correct order, but I had already trademarked or put in play a name brand and a trademark application for the product. Now I didn't even know if the product was going to sell.

[00:40:44] So what happened was I got that, I got the flat irons in my first order was I believe 100 units. So I had my brand name on the physical flat iron. I had a electronic closure, magnetic boxes, very high end boxes.

[00:41:01] And the beauty of this was guys landed from China, the manufacturing facility I contracted to my door. The cost was $5 and 15 cent per unit. Now I was selling these for $129. So the profit margins are ridiculous.

[00:41:21] So when I first started selling, I got 100 units and then I started running a pay-per-click advertising on Amazon. So if it's costing me $5 and 15 and I'm making $129, I got a whole lot of room to drive traffic.

[00:41:38] Even if it costs me $25 to get one sale, I'm still making crazy money. So the beauty of it was from the June of that year all the way until the end of that year, I made $272,000 gross at about a 70% profit margin, which was like $140,000 and change

[00:41:58] in hip pocket national. And what that did was that basically saved my life. It saved my life because now I was able to focus on things and I had what we call passive, nothing is really passive totally, but semi-passive income.

[00:42:15] I ship my product in Amazon, I run my pay-per-click advertising, people buy it, I get paid every Friday, right? Well, I think it was every other Friday or something like that at that time. And it was crazy. I was making money hand over fist.

[00:42:32] What that allowed me to do was add additional products to that brand, create additional brands and it gave me the freedom and flexibility and unlimited earning potential that I wanted. Remember I told you guys what did my ideal business or lifestyle look like?

[00:42:50] So at the time, my daughters were in middle school and I think my oldest one might have been a freshman in high school. And so as they continued through their high school careers, they're three years apart, so they were in high school together for one year.

[00:43:07] They both played field hockey, they swam, my oldest was on the track team, student council president, the youngest was vice president, very good academically and athletically and they were in a whole bunch of groups, organizations and clubs.

[00:43:23] And the beauty of having the business based around my lifestyle was that I was able to be at all of their field hockey games, home games, away games, AAU games where we used to travel, summer scrimmages and everything.

[00:43:38] And their parents, the kids used to laugh and say, hey dad, such and such mom wants to know does your dad work? And the beauty of it is yeah, I work but I have passive income coming in.

[00:43:50] So it allowed me the freedom and flexibility to do what I wanted to do. And that's what I'm trying to get through to you guys. So the answer to my question is what was the blessing in disguise?

[00:44:03] The blessing was that God shut doors because he knew there were other doors that were better for me. And sometimes we're fighting against what we know is best because when you create a business, as I said, it's like a baby and you don't want to throw it out.

[00:44:19] But sometimes you either have to pivot or quit. I tried to pivot with the loan modification business. Guess what? It didn't work. I had to quit. So now I was in a situation where I couldn't go back into the mortgage business at that

[00:44:33] time because it was nothing to go back into. Right? So we have to understand and listen to that inner voice guys. Listen to that intuition. It may be time for you to pivot or it may be time for you to quit.

[00:44:49] But almost losing everything allowed me to live in my genius. And right now I'm doing things that I want to do. I'm focusing on projects that are important to me, that fulfill me and I'm able to live the lifestyle where I literally can work from anywhere.

[00:45:06] And so if the mortgage business didn't crash, I probably would have still been hustling, wearing suits to the office every day. You know, I may wear a suit like once or twice a week. You know, now if I have a meeting.

[00:45:19] But beside that, I'm in jeans, you know, sneakers, shorts, whatever it is, whatever the weather is. And I'm very comfortable and so I don't need to project a specific image because I'm not trying to impress anybody. Been there, done that. Oh, I worked at Merrill Lynch.

[00:45:37] I worked at Dean Witter. People were so impressed with that. You know, I had my own mortgage business. I was running the show. People were so impressed with that. I don't care what they care about.

[00:45:49] All I want to do is live in my genius and be able to serve the people I want to serve and be able to provide good quality products and services to help people move from point A to point B. And with Black Entrepreneur Blueprint, that's what I'm doing.

[00:46:04] I'm helping my people build successful, sustainable businesses by giving them actionable steps and resources to move from point A to point B. And this is my service. And so when you're working in your genius, which is the intersection between your passion

[00:46:21] and your talent, there's no other feeling like it guys. So me almost losing everything made me find a way to make a comeback. So God shut certain doors on purpose because he knew I needed to go into another direction.

[00:46:36] And sometimes it takes catastrophic events in your life to make you make a major shift. So how many people have you heard of that had gotten fired from a job and then ended up starting a business and becoming very successful?

[00:46:51] And I did a show years ago, an episode. I can't remember the number, but it was called Pacify by a Paycheck. And what the show talked about was how there's so many great businesses, ideas, and entrepreneurs out there that never get started because they're pacified by their paycheck.

[00:47:13] Now, when that paycheck stops, just like doing COVID, then you have what I call reluctant entrepreneurs. These are people that wouldn't have started a business if they had another job, right? Then there are other people who always wanted to be an entrepreneur who said, you know what?

[00:47:29] I got laid off. I'm not making any money. Let me go start my business now. So sometimes guys, we have to listen to that tiny voice inside of our head. Listen to our intuition and know when it's time to stop.

[00:47:44] You've got to know when to pivot or quit. And if you quit, don't feel like a failure. That just means that this business didn't work out. What you do, you use the eight lessons that I learned. You formulate a new game plan and you get back out there.

[00:47:59] You know, like I said, that to me, I thought was a catastrophic occurrence when the mortgage business crashed. And that's what it felt like as I was going through it. But in hindsight, it was a blessing. It allowed me to rebuild.

[00:48:14] It's almost like tearing a whole house down and rebuilding from the ground up, designing that house specifically for you. Sometimes that has to happen. So you'll go into the right door. Doors are being shut on purpose, guys. And that's just telling you it's the universe is the creator.

[00:48:33] It's your God force telling you this isn't for me. But there's another door over here that's perfect for you. Now you have to help create that, but you have to be cognizant of when it's time to

[00:48:45] quit or when it's time to pivot and do not feel like a failure if you have to shut your business down and start all over again. But this time you're that much the wiser because you understand what worked and what didn't work.

[00:49:02] And as long as you take those lessons and you build upon each other, then you're going to be a more successful entrepreneur. I've started over 17 different businesses and I say this all the time. Five of them were abject failures. Five of them were so-so.

[00:49:16] Five of them were good. And two were multimillion dollar businesses. I've learned every step of the way. And I pray that you stay diligent in your pursuit of entrepreneur success because we know the road is not easy. But I need you to follow your instincts.

[00:49:35] Follow your instincts and listen to that little voice inside that tells you what you need to do next. And please never feel like a failure if you have to shut that business down because all

[00:49:47] it's telling you is, hey, this door is closed, but there's another door with your name on it that's going to take you to heights that you've never even imagined. Now I say this each and every week as we close the show guys.

[00:50:02] And I say it because it's true, but we get more and more downloads because of you, the BEB family. I appreciate you guys so much. Please continue to spread the word about the podcast. Also about the new revised website, blackentrepreneurblueprint.com.

[00:50:18] We want that website to be the resource for black entrepreneurs worldwide. Blackentrepreneurblueprint.com. Also the ecosystem, the online courses, the new book, Unlocking the Power of Chat GPT. Go to unlockingchatgpt.com for more information.

[00:50:39] Everything is designed guys to elevate your entrepreneur IQ and to help you build a successful sustainable business. Not something that's going to be a fly by night business, but a successful sustainable business. Remember guys, it's not about me. It's not about you. It's about us.

[00:50:56] It's about building an economic power base in the worldwide black community by building and supporting black owned businesses. Love you guys. See you same time next week. Peace.