Ep365: Brandon Bornancin – Do Whatever It Takes to Make Your First Million

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning in our community. We know that to win in investing, you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. And I bet you're exposed to investment risk right now to reduce it, go to my worst investment ever.com and download the risk reduction checklist I've made specifically for you. My podcast listeners based on the lessons I've learned from all of my guests, fellow restrict risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz, from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guest, Brandon, born Anson, Brandon, are you ready to rock?

Brandon Bornancin 00:43
I'm ready to rock.

Andrew Stotz 00:44
I felt that from the moment you got on.

Brandon Bornancin 00:47
Rock and Roll, baby.

Andrew Stotz 00:48
Let's do it.

Brandon Bornancin 00:50
Always in all ways.

Andrew Stotz 00:53
So let me introduce you to the audience. Brandon is a serial entrepreneur. He's currently the founder and CEO of one of the fastest growing SaaS companies in the US seamless.ai. He's a motivational speaker and 18 times sales author obsessed with helping sales professionals maximize their success@seamless.ai he has helped hundreds of 1000s and counting companies flood their calendars and generate millions in sales using artificial intelligence to find anyone's emails and phone numbers. Well, Brandon, take a minute and affiliate for the tidbits about your life. Yeah,

Brandon Bornancin 01:33
thank you so much. truly appreciate it. This shows awesome. And I'm grateful to be here to share my worst investment ever. Thanks, audience for tuning in. Background dude grew up poor family was broke, hated being poor, hated, being broke, hated being made fun of hated being underestimated. Unexpected, you know, not as smart as the other people not as fast as the other people not as rich as the other people, you name it right. And just as I was growing up, use that fire to do whatever it takes to launch my own company when I was 18. That did $12 million in sales. Watch my second company a 22 that lost $4 million in sales and took me bankrupt and $100,000 in debt. Throughout those two journeys, I learned that the sales list is the number one thing to your success. And then I ended up going and selling for IBM and Google where I did $100 million in sales, because my lists and using artificial intelligence, a platform that I developed and then realized, hey, by becoming a millionaire, and driving so much revenue, if I could do it, anyone can do it. And went full time. I'm on my third company right now with my team called seamless.ai. And yeah, we have about 250,000 salespeople, marketers and entrepreneurs Connect opportunity and positive impact billions.

Andrew Stotz 02:55
It's awesome. It's amazing. And maybe we should have more attempts at making kids outcasts and frustrated in life. You know, think about it, that's a huge part of your story is kind of overcoming that, you know, some people's stories, you know, I did everything, right. I everything worked. But here, you know, what I hear from you is that, in fact, I had all these challenges. What is it inside of you that made you overcome those challenges, whereas there's other people in this world that you know, are facing similar types of challenges? And they're, they're frustrated by them?

Brandon Bornancin 03:31
Yeah, I think I just learned that by doing whatever it takes, like, this is my most recent book, I wrote it in 22 days when the governor shut down this state of Ohio, where we're headquartered in the States. And right when you shut it down, I wrote this book, whatever it takes to teach everyone that the pandemic and COVID is going to be an absolute nightmare. And it's going to last way longer, it's gonna be way more difficult. And you have to develop the habits to maximize your success in business, relationships, life sales, you name it. And I just learned that at a very young age that, you know, they're all these different habits, like not listening to people's limiting beliefs. Don't let anyone tell you that you can do something, go all out expansion and always, always like, all of these different habits. There's over 150 habits in that

04:24
book.

Brandon Bornancin 04:24
I've learned over the years that have helped me optimize, optimize, optimize, and become a nine figure entrepreneur. And I'm trying to just take your company to IPO and become a billionaire and use the money from becoming a billionaire to make a bigger make a trillion dollar impact on the world.

Andrew Stotz 04:43
That's amazing. Well, I guess you know, mine's from Ohio. think alike because I grew up in Ohio. And basically when when the when the when the pandemic hit here in Thailand, it's a little bit different. Now the pandemics in full force. We've all seen the impact. We had 95 deaths out of 70 million people. Wow. So it is had hardly an impact here. But the point, the point that I felt is that the harder that they hit, the harder that they shut down, the harder I'm going to work. And I went out and did something different where I said, I'm not going to hire anybody right now. But I know that a lot of young people are coming out of university aren't going to get jobs either. So I decided, maybe we could do a barter. And since that time, in the last 12 months, I've had 100 interns work with me. I've trained them in every way I can, but they've helped me write my courses and write my products and expand my business. So that was my, that was my best year ever. It's nothing compared to what you're at. But it's, it's,

Brandon Bornancin 05:41
that's, that's incredible. I haven't experienced that, like I, my, the end of my first company, and the start of my second company was in the financial mortgage crisis in the United States. And it was an absolute nightmare, family was going bankrupt. No one was buying new products and services. And I was selling this very high ticket. I thought in mobile text message marketing was going to be the future. And all these b2b advertisers would want to buy this 100,000 a million dollar software and I was wrong. It's very difficult to sell, couldn't sell because they didn't have the list. Now luckily, that pain, and that failure led me to build a platform that helps you automate list building, find everyone's emails and cell phones. And now it's, you know, we're on path to IPO. So I can't complain, you get it? That's another habit, right? Whatever it takes another habit is, don't look at the things that happened to you as bad things. And woe is me and the victim playing the victim game. That's another habit. Like all of these things, like you got to look at anything that you experience in life from me losing my mom to Alzheimer's when I was 21, to Alzheimer shit, almost devastating my family, then going into my family going into bankruptcy because all timers and because of the financial crisis, because we had all this real estate, like just a shit show of things, me losing $4 million, after I made 12 million and then going bankrupt. Like, you just look at these things you'd like, Okay, what is this silver lining? What can I learn from this opportunity? How can I make? How can I make myself the best that I could be from everything that I went through? And that's a big learning?

Andrew Stotz 07:21
Yep. Well, we need that inspiration in these times. I have one more question that I want to ask before I get into the question of the podcast. And that is, you know, I, when I studied in university, I thought that sales and marketing, it was just kind of fluffy stuff. I mean, anybody knows how to do this stuff. And therefore, I studied finance, because I thought it's, you know, it's really something, you know, it's hard stuff, you know, and all that. But, and then when I went to work, I built a successful career as a financial analyst in Citibank and other banks here in Thailand. And what I didn't understand at that time, was how important the whole sales process was, because I just wasn't that aware of it. I mean, I knew what was going on. And I was good at at optimizing it. But it didn't really understand the struggles that the salespeople went through until I became a head of research at that time. And then I had to work with the salespeople. And I always say that the salespeople are like, soldiers on the front line research is providing them the ammunition, they have their guns, we don't provide them the ammunition, they got nothing to fire. And when they're not firing, they're getting fired at. And that's why they come back, and they're pissed off at us. So I started to understand it, then I started my own business. And I realized, Oh, my God, I've got to do sales, and create my products and run my business. And it became a bit overwhelming. I know a lot of my podcast listeners or financial types. And I just thought maybe you could give us a few tips about, you know, what we should do to bring our sales to another level. And I'm talking about myself, as well as you know, other listeners on the podcast.

Brandon Bornancin 08:58
Yeah. I mean, I think that no matter where you go through, you could if you've got the right attitude, the right mindset, the positivity, the coachability, the hard work that whatever it takes, you could accomplish anything. Hmm. And that's the most critical thing in the world. is I mean, before I, you know, we'll get into the worst investment advice ever. But, you know, these are critical strategies and habits like knowing the list will help you become a millionaire billionaire, you name it, like, that's the most critical thing. And then what are the habits to sell to that list or market to that list or build that list and connect with that list and connect the opportunity like all of these things, and then whatever challenge you run into

09:43
you just

Brandon Bornancin 09:44
no matter what, please stay tenacious, do whatever it takes to be successful.

Andrew Stotz 09:47
Great. Great. All right. Well, now it's time to share your worst investment ever and since no one ever goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up And then tell us your story. Okay,

Brandon Bornancin 10:05
so worst investment ever. No one's ever done this on this show before. By the way,

10:12
are you ready for this?

Andrew Stotz 10:14
Let's rock.

Brandon Bornancin 10:15
Are you ready? I want to know the audience. Are you guys ready to rock? Andrew? Are

10:18
you with me?

10:19
Are you ready?

10:20
Oh, yeah.

Brandon Bornancin 10:22
Awesome. So Andrew, what do you think the most expensive thing is for someone out of everything that you go through in life? What is the most expensive thing in life that you spend on and you've interviewed? hundreds and almost 1000 people on their worst investment ever? Right? Like, throughout your lifetime? What do you think people spend? Or like spend their most money on?

Andrew Stotz 10:49
I'm guessing it would be first? Maybe their house? Maybe their car? Something like that? Yep, that's a good one. Maybe? Maybe? Well, there is also their wife. Yeah, particularly if they get divorced.

Brandon Bornancin 11:04
That's a very expensive. It's a very high, large expense, right? Anything else come to mind cards, houses, partners makes total sense

Andrew Stotz 11:18
yet? Well, being a financial guy, I looked at the net present value of kids. And that's a pretty expensive thing.

Brandon Bornancin 11:24
How expensive are kids, by the way? Oh, like, if you had to break it down,

Andrew Stotz 11:30
they're very expensive. Unfortunately, the thing is, is that you pay the money out into the future. So hopefully, you can earn into the expense that you're gonna have. But I don't have my number on me. But they can be very expensive, particularly when they end up not having a job at the end of it.

Brandon Bornancin 11:46
I totally get it. So the second most expensive thing. And by the way, these are great answers. Everyone highlights these right? And I've done this in front of audiences, 510 50 100,000 people. The second most expensive thing in your life, right now that virtually no one talks about everyone forgets is tax taxes. Taxes are your second most greatest expense in the world. Right? When the money comes in, you automatically lose 35 4045 50% it's gone. The government and the banks don't even trust you. They won't even let you hold on to it. They will literally do get paid before you get paid they take it out because they can't trust that your budget and that you'll pay it. You name it. Taxes is your second greatest expense and investment in the world. What do you think the first is?

Andrew Stotz 12:46
Man, you really got me cuz I should have known that. And all my finance work. I know how painful taxes but because we all

Brandon Bornancin 12:54
forget, like, every paycheck every month, every year I forget, we all forget like, damn. It's almost like okay, that's automatically gone. But 40% you know, on average year over year, you're zagging. If you make 100 grand, that's 40 grand out of the door. Multiply that by 10 years,

Andrew Stotz 13:15
she's even. Even worse. It's even worse in my case, because I don't get any of the main benefits of living in the US. But I still have to pay that same tax rate. Wow.

Brandon Bornancin 13:25
Yeah, that's tough. So the worst investment decision, right? Like, why is Brandon talking about the grid, the second greatest expense in your life, the greatest expense, the worst investment ever, that you can make is not knowing how to make a million dollars in sales in revenue income every year. If taxes is number one, the worst investment decision that I ever made, was not learning, getting buying the technology, the training to generate a million dollars a year when I was 1815 1413. The sooner I learned how to do that, the richer I would have been. Because in that million you could move but yeah, the million be you know, million over time. If you're getting a market rate of seven to 12% that will double in seven to 10 years depending on the return rate. Yeah, then it could double again and double again and double again and it gets smaller. You don't need 10 years then you need eight years. They need six years and then four years. Learning and mastering how to generate a million dollars in sales in income and commissions is and not knowing how to do that is the worst investment decision I've ever made. And it all comes down to okay well then to do that. I have to do whatever it takes to learn how to make a billion dollars in Sales a year, first step of that first secret to making a million dollars in avoiding the worst investment mistake ever in your history of life. You got to build the list. If you want a job, if you want to sail if you want to customer, if you want to build a business, if you want an investor, if you want to do anything in this life, if you want news, if you want press, if you want to hire people, anything in this life that you want to do right now, the only way that you could do it, is by building the list and having every single person in every single company in the world that you need to sell to, or America to or advertise to. That's step one. Step two, and that's really all about whatever it takes to build the list using technologies like my platform, seamless data, add, boom, I've got my list, maybe I started a new finance company. So I'm going to go after all the high net worth mid net worth people, and I'm gonna sell them my financial consulting practice, like you would do, yep. Okay, well, to start that, gotta find all the people that are doing well, middle class, upper class, boom, get their email, cell phones, and I'm going to market and advertise to them. Second secret to avoid in the worst mistake, ever investment mistake of not knowing how to make a million dollars is getting the training and the expertise. Once you have the list, you have to know how to sell the list. And that's where my training like sales secrets comes into play, where I've interviewed 250 of the world's best sales experts, and marketers and entrepreneurs zilver, all 650 pages is the first edition, this sales secrets book, the second edition is gonna be over 1000 pages. So I just learned by building technology that built the list. And then by reading hundreds and hundreds of books on sales, marketing, entrepreneurship, investing,

16:53
okay,

Brandon Bornancin 16:54
figured out all the secrets to make a million dollars a year I need to build the list, I need to sell the list. To sell the lists, I need to know how to sell how to market how to advertise. So biggest mistake ever, not knowing how to make a million dollars a year in sales. And the people that do know how to do that. We actually ship them $1,000 Award, it's a president's club award, the seven figure club award. So when you make over seven figures in sales, using our software, using our training, boom, we ship you this $1,000 massive award. And we try to get you from the seven figure club to the eight figure club or the nine figure club. Worst investment mistake ever. Not knowing how to make a million dollars every year.

Andrew Stotz 17:39
And so tell me how did you come to this? I mean, you know, there's some times people will listen to this at all. That's way beyond my capacity. Or some people say oh, you're just you know, it's hype. You know, I, I don't know if I can do that. Or I don't have the product or the service or I don't have this. I'm just curious. Like,

Brandon Bornancin 18:00
that means that means you're not doing the habits of whatever it takes. Like, so you don't mean anybody? Any habits to do anyone, right? Anyone? And that's Yeah, that's billionaires, self made guys. They've never like all self made entrepreneurs like me, like the millionaires and billionaires that I've studied. None of them knew anything about how to do anything. But guess what you do? You're like, okay, here's my goal. I will do whatever it takes to accomplish that goal. Anything I gotta learn by studying, execute, strategize on partner with whatever I have to do. I will do whatever it takes to make that shit happen. No excuses. There's no victim game here. There's no excuses for your success or lack thereof success. I'm just a kid that grew up in the ghetto of Cleveland, Ohio, that had that lived as a kid on food stamps, garage sales and canned foods, if I could do it, and I was always told add needs to be on a bunch of pills as a kid. Not going to make it not going to do well in school. And then I write 18 books I sell over $100 million in sales built to multiple eight figure companies and building a company to IPO if I could do you could do it. There is nothing better or more important. I am no greater, smarter, better faster than you are anyone tuning into the show. There is a difference with me is like I'll just work hard and do whatever it takes. Regardless of any bullshit excuses that I let stand in my way as to why I cannot achieve something. I don't let any excuses get in the way of anything.

Andrew Stotz 19:37
And what's interesting is that you're not you're also not saying it's gonna be easy. I mean, you've had your ups and downs.

Brandon Bornancin 19:44
It's terribly hard by the way, like, I don't like if you want to make five figures. Everyone does that if you want to make six figures, okay. less people make six figures in five figures. Okay, well if you want to be a millionaire, okay, well, that's going to require more work. more effort, more energy, more work, you know, tenacity, then making five or six figures, if you want to join the eight figure club, it's gonna take more work than the 567 figure club, you want to join the nine figure 100 million dollar club, it's gonna take more hard work and doing whatever it takes than the 5678 figure club. So it's hard, like a but but, you know, life is hard. Making a million dollars is hard. Not making a million dollars is hard. Choose your heart, right? Like, everything in life is hard. Yeah, losing weight. And being fit is hard, not losing weight, not working out as hard. Choose your hard, hard, not selling as hard choose your hard.

Andrew Stotz 20:48
That's awesome. You know, one of the things that I talked to when I talked to people that set up businesses and all that I talk about what I call my $3 million rule. And I say that if you're going to start a company, you have got to rush to $3 million in revenue, because that's about the minimum amount takes to get a proper management team in place to pay for the software that you need to have the operating systems that you can really generate. And so you know, just your point is get to a million. And then the other point is build that business, you know, as fast as possible. Because it you know, I was looking at a study a long time ago about finance. And they were looking at all kinds of different financial measures to say what was the best predictor of a future company's future success. And many financial people like myself said, you know, profit margin, return on equity. The key to longevity is sales growth. And that was the measure that they came up with. And I think that, you know, what I've learned is two things. Yeah, that sales growth is proof that you've got a product that works and people want it and you're keep developing it, number one, but number two, you're going to make a million mistakes throughout your whole career. And having growth allows you to absorb those mistakes without getting wiped out. But with no growth and mining, tiny profit margin, little mistakes knock you out. So you know, it makes sense.

Brandon Bornancin 22:12
Well, if you want to make 100 grand, you're gonna make 100,000 mistakes, you want to make a million dollars in sales, income, potential commissions, whatever, you're gonna make a million mistakes, and you just have to forecast it correctly. Like you got to be in the right mindset shits gonna go bad. And if you think that it will be way worse, way harder, way more difficult than it really is. You never get disappointed. The reason why salespeople marketers, entrepreneurs, anyone in life quits anything is number one, they didn't do whatever it takes, by the way, this book on Amazon right now, whatever it takes Brandon board, Anson and two, they overestimated how easy it would be to accomplish the goal. I assume everything is gonna be hard as hell, way harder, way more difficult way more capital intensive, way more time consuming than I ever imagined. So however long it takes one day, one month, one year, one decade, I'm never disappointed. And you got to play that like long game. So if you're like, oh, if you over forecast, it will take forever. I could be working on this thing for 25 years. And you do it in a month, a year, a decade, whatever. You win, you never lose like there's no losing. And then when you fail you is viewed as an opportunity for improvement. I fail every day. I never like look at it as a failure. I just look at it. Okay, there's a new data point that I can use to do something bigger, better, smarter, faster. So now that data point will help me propel to where I'm trying to go gap. point A is where I'm at today. This is where you're at today, listeners. On the left, you've got point A on the right. You've got your goals, your dreams, your aspirations, the life you want. The family you want the vacations you want the houses you want, the cars you want, the kids you want everything in the life that you want is at point B, you're at point A. The best way to fill that gap, find the fastest way to make a million dollars a year, the fastest way to do that build the list. So was done.

Andrew Stotz 24:24
Well, maybe I'll just summarize what I take away from, you know, the first thing I take away from your story and your life is inspiration. So my first thing is, you know, I want to appreciate the fact that you inspired me. In fact, I just want to get up and get going and it's damn it's 530 in the morning. So thank you number ones. For the inspiration. I know for you number 530 in the morning. And I know for the listeners, you know it's an easy time to get down. It's an easy time to get frustrated. But get off your ass. Get going. This is your Time, don't let anything hold you back. And the second thing I take from what you said is that let's not overcomplicate it, first, build a list. Second, get training, so you know what you're doing. And then third, sell to that list and get to a million pretty simple stuff.

Brandon Bornancin 25:21
Super simple like my best what some of my best piece of advice to everyone at my company to anyone that I work with the hundreds of 1000s of salespeople, marketers, entrepreneurs, I coach every day. mass scale globally, is imperfect action will always be greater than perfect inaction. Don't do this paralysis by analysis bullshit. Build the list. Learn how to sell the list, sell the list gets a million dollars a year. Simple. Like, just don't overcomplicate it, you don't need 90 tools, 90 strategies, 90 scripts 90. There's 90 that like build the list using siemens.ai or LinkedIn. Learn how to get training what sales secrets or some figures or selling or any my books or any any ever there's a lot of experts out there that I've learned from an interviewed in this book and in our course on sales flicks like and then once you learn that quickly, just execute while you're studying execute. imperfect action is always better than in then perfect inaction

26:26
or they

Brandon Bornancin 26:27
execute massive amounts of activity. I

Andrew Stotz 26:30
think it was George Patton that said actually imperfect plan violently executed is better than a perfect plan not executed or executed next week. I like the violently executed that's how you wrote the book, whatever it takes.

Brandon Bornancin 26:47
violently executed, that's super aggressive. And well.

Andrew Stotz 26:51
Alright, so let me ask you now this The question is based upon what you've learned, from, you know, your own life and what you continue to learn. There's listeners out there, they're inspired, they want to move to the next step, what one actually would you recommend that they take to get themselves to the next step

Brandon Bornancin 27:13
100 leads a day. So I teach this course called 21 hard sales challenge. It's a free course, you get it seamless.ai just joined seamless.ai for free, you'll be able to get some phones and emails everyone in the world. But in that course, the first step is build a list of 100 people that you need to connect with sell to market to advertise to learn from get mentored by you name it 100 leads a day. It's like a you know, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. 100 leads a day can fundamentally change your life forever. And I would just whether it, you know, dedicate yourself to 100 leads a day 10 leads a day 50 leads a day, one late a day, whatever it is just right away, I recommend 100 It's a big number, it's a great number. And with our software, you could do it in five seconds, you build list of 100 people, emails and cell phones. So like, build your list every day. And then work on connecting work on building relationships, work on marketing, advertising, selling, that's where opportunities are created. Whether you need a job, don't list the HR people at the company that you want to sell work with funding, build a list of the venture capitalists like I've raised nearly 100 million I've raised over $100 million in funding. Oh, no one a loser out of Cleveland, Ohio in the ghetto loser family loser kid, not smart. You nothing. I raised $100 million is 100 million bucks. 100 million dollars. I built multiple eight figure companies like guys it. There's nothing special about me. And I want to be crystal fucking clear with that. I'm not special. You can do anything that I've done 10 times five times eight times. 100 times bigger, better, faster, smarter than I have, right? just build the list. Market advertise sell connect with network with that list.

Andrew Stotz 29:05
dead simple. Ladies and gentlemen, if you were from Cleveland, Ohio, you would know Alex Bevan and he would say Bran is just a skinny little boy from Cleveland, Ohio come to chase your women and drink your beer. And old Ohio classic. Well, last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months

Brandon Bornancin 29:24
IPO positively impact a billion people an IPO? Yeah, I want to I want to transform the lives of my employees on to transform the lives of the hundreds of 1000s of users and companies that rely on seamless, best way for me to do that is to IPO and leverage the capital to continue maximizing the success of our users, customers, investors and employees. And that's the only goal. There is no plan B it's another secret like don't have a plan B. If you have a plan B you gave up on planet

Andrew Stotz 29:55
burn. Plan B burn the ships no plan B, be like,

Brandon Bornancin 30:01
Oh, you're so successful with Siemens, what would you do next? I look at them. I'm like, What the fuck are you talking about? Like, what's next? There is no next this is it. We're all in. We'll IPO and then we will build the number one fastest growing company in the world. That helps the world Connect opportunity, period.

Andrew Stotz 30:22
Yep. Well, there you have it. Ladies and gentlemen, now you know, the man behind the company that will be IP owing within 12 months, and you know, exactly the way he thinks, and you know, what an opportunity. So, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help my listeners reduce risk in their life. So go to my worst investment ever.com right now and download the risk reduction checklist. See how you measure up. Now, Brandon, as we conclude, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever until your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Brandon Bornancin 31:09
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to join this amazing group of alumni here in the Corps and the Academy. And guys, I can't wait for all of you tuning in to just make this deck to your biggest best yet. Do whatever it takes build the list, make it happen. You've got this in everyone today would love to give you a free license, just go to seamless.ai use the referral code. My worst investment ever will make sure you get hooked up my worst investment ever. So when you sign up for free type of my worst investment ever, and seamless will help you find emails and cell phones and direct dials to anyone in the world they need to connect with. So that's it my free gift to you.

Andrew Stotz 31:49
We appreciate it very much and listeners. I'll see you there@seamless.ai I will be there for sure. And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.