Ep765: Will Roundtree – Get a Customer First

Andrew Stotz 00:01
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 an investing you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce. Reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. And I want to thank you for joining that mission. Especially my listeners in lost I call it last. Las Vegas, Nevada. Fellow risk takers this is your worst podcast hosts Andrew Stotz from a Stotz Academy and I'm here with featured guests will Roundtree Will, are you ready to join the mission?

Will Roundtree 00:43
Man I've been looking forward to this day.

Andrew Stotz 00:48
Yes, and for you, Las Vegas is not lost Vegas as in lost wages. So right

Will Roundtree 00:55
lost wages, you will lose money out here. And well.

Andrew Stotz 01:00
I've been through the town about three times in my life. And since I'm a man of Iron discipline, I just went to bed. I didn't go into the casinos. My best friend was with me one of those trips, and he went and had fun and another friend was with me for another. But for me, I just felt like it's not worth it to go into those casinos. I just knew the odds, you know,

Will Roundtree 01:23
I mean, that's the town is built on losing. So when you look at it like that, yeah, the odds are never in your favor. I like to play odds were there in my favor, Andrew, so

Andrew Stotz 01:34
I have a feeling we're going to learn about that today. In fact, in that conversation, so I'm looking forward to it. Well, let me introduce you to the audience, will Roundtree offers the world a unique lens into wealth building strategies and examines opportunities for his communities to expound on their knowledge and have effective practices. To apply that knowledge from homeless to millionaire. Willa has established himself as a staple in the real estate investment sector. His expertise has garnered recognition among his peers and community members, as the founder and top grossing principal at WWE management services, will has helped over 3500 small to medium sized businesses access over $300 million in business funding over the past 36 months. We'll take a minute and tell us about the unique value you are bringing to this wonderful world.

Will Roundtree 02:25
Well, first of all, Andrew, thank you for having me on your podcast. And I love the title. Because I think also often in a world of entrepreneurship and in business, we always hear the glamorize stories. But we know that's not the path of how success works. I tell people, people often ask me, Well, what's your key to success? I said, I learned how to fail and fail fast. Because that's where the lessons come from. So I would like to say that my unique value, it's multi layer, but I would say that the a lot of it came from my mindset. I had to change the way I think. And it's because it's bigger than X's and O's. You know, there's a lot of, you know, talented people in the parks who can play basketball. There's a lot of talented football players, but do they have the mindset to go through the rigorous training every day? Do they have the mindset to deal with losing? Do you have the mindset of being a failing the coach cussing you out like that? That's what I would like to say my uniqueness is because I have a different approach of mindset. Andrew, I think that this whole culture of mindset has been sold of manifestation. But the manifestation is still need work for it to work. And so when it comes to mindset, I'm, I take it more of a technical approach. And I'm all about concepts. And when I travel the world, and I go out and I speak, I say we think about a concept, you break the word down, it comes from concrete, concrete is solid. So when you have a concept or something that you put in place, or that you implement it, you do it over and over and over and over again, it eventually manifest into something but it all starts with putting in the work. And to have the mindset to know you may have to do it 1000 times before it works. And so that's I would like to say as a bit of my uniqueness is because, you know, I'm not one of the mindset that says, well, if I'm a good person in life, great things will happen. And that's not how success works. You still have to put the work in, you have to be willing to fail fast, but you learn from those failures. And I tell people all the time, those steps back is to prevent you from walking into the landmine. I would rather walk in take three steps forward and have to take five back to get my foot chopped off then to take 15 steps forward with no plan and get blown up in a landmine. So that's what I would like to say offer.

Andrew Stotz 05:05
You know, I, I'm thinking about one of my prior guests, he was episode 412, his name's Weldon long. And he wrote a book called The Power of consistency. And for those people that haven't gotten that book, I highly recommend to get it as an audible book, it's only about five hours. And, you know, II talks about mindset, in a way that really made sense to me. And he, one of the things he said is that you can't put imagine you have a box, and it's your thoughts, it's all that and you can't, you can't put in, let's say, the ingredients for a recipe for a cake into that box. And expect that out of that box, you're going to get a motorcycle. And, and it's like, the first thing is, you gotta get the thoughts, right. Remember, next thing is, what is your consistency in your action. And the reason why his story is so compelling is that he started the beginning of his story was in prison. And he still had about eight years left in prison, from the beginning of his story, to start to build a mindset of prosperity and a mindset of goodness compared to the mindset of his criminal mind, basically, that he had. And now he's a very successful man and someone worth following and listening to in the power of consistency. But I think, you know, what you're talking about is the idea of, you know, we have to have the right thoughts. But you have to bring those together with the right actions. No, no, God only helps those who held themselves. Absolutely, absolutely. So tell us a little bit about what you're what you're doing, you know, let's say 3500, small, medium sized businesses giving them access, just tell us a little bit more about what that is, so that we can understand that.

Will Roundtree 07:03
Definitely. So if I were to, you know, kind of capsulate everything for you, I have what I call my four step to, you know, success, my four steps to building wealth, or whatever my four pillars of wealth building. And number one, it really starts with mindset. Andrew, I'm a firm believer that that is where everything starts. And I can remember starting my entrepreneurship journey in 2003. And one of my favorite authors is Jim Rohn. And Jim Rohn, once said, When you change your thinking, that is when you will become successful. And going back to like you said, you know, I can't have I have no room for doubt, on my journey. And that is one of the things that I really work on with people. Because in order for someone to eclipse the levels of success that they are saying they want to eclipse, we I have to get them to unravel all of the thoughts they have up until whatever age they are now, because most of the time, people the way they think is based upon the atmospheres they grew up in, whether it was their households, their friends, the people, they dated their co workers. And so I have to help them change the concept of everything that they think about money, how they view credit, how they view what finances are, I mean, most people know how to make money, but they don't know anything about economics. So I have to change their entire thought process, about all of those things that they have learned up until whatever age they are. And so my first pillar is mindset. Number two, then I started to learn and teach people about the power of credit. See here in the US, obviously, you know, wealth is built through debt. And there is such a misconception of debt. And I tell people look, once you understand there's three different types of debt structures. The most common one that most people are familiar with is what's called unstructured debt. That's where we buy the house we can't afford we want to drive the vehicle we can't afford, basically consumer debt. That is the type of debt that most people are familiar with. But the irony of that Hanjo is people say, Oh, I'm scared of debt, but they have a ton of consumer debt. The second one is called restructured debt. This is where a lot of people unfortunately are scared of the term bankruptcy. But when you learn that most people who know about economics most people who are wealthy bankruptcy is really a strategy. But it's because we haven't most people haven't been educated on how to use that tool. No different than a doctor uses a scalpel. It's in case of emergency break this glass aka bankruptcy, but then there's the debt stress structure, where the where or the wealthy play where where wealth building starts. So when I'm talking about wealth building, I'm not necessarily talking about someone who is trying to make billions of dollars. I read a Wall Street Journal article a few months ago. And they said, the average wealth in the Hispanic and black community in Hispanics is 43,000. And in a black community as 27,000, you help one, you help you help a family in either one of those ethnic communities get one piece of property, their net worth has now 10x. And so, but you have to be able to understand the power of structured debt. And that's one of the things I teach people through understanding credit. So pillar number two is understanding the power of credit. Now by understanding structured debt, which goes into pillar number three, and that is understanding money, and the power of finances in the cost of money. So I'll give you an example. Andrew, I bought my very first investment property with the credit card. Some may say, Well, how is that even possible? Well, because there are strategies that you can use. And I actually learned a strategy from Robert Kiyosaki, who was probably one of my favorite authors, where he talked about he bought his first property and in Hawaii for $18,000 on a credit card. And so when I heard that I had to learn how did he do that, because we've been using credit to go shopping to take trips to go to dinner. And I said, if I can use credit, to buy an asset that is going to make me money and appreciate forever, I need to learn how but I have to learn the cost of money, I have to learn the power of finances, I have to learn about economics, and all of those things. And so this is what I learned Andrew, which again, is a part of pillar number three, let's say there's a property for $100,000. Okay, because most people who don't understand structured debt, we assume we got to come up with $100,000 cash. And that's not the case, there are banks out there who will finance 80% of the purchase of the acquisition price, which means only got to come up with 20%. Well, guess where the 20% is coming from Andrew, my credit cards. So as an investor, I'm going to take $20,000 from my credit cards, and go and invest into this $100,000 property. Now I'm going to calculate my risk based meaning how much the debt will cost me on the credit card and the mortgage, and make sure that the rent can service the debt on both of those. And as long as I'm getting a positive return on investment, that's a win. And nobody was teaching us this strategy, or this concept in my economics class. And so, so, so pillar number three is understanding the cost of money and financing. And then pillar number four is all about asset building. You know, they use this term wealth building a lot in various communities. But when I ask people what is wealth, most people have no idea what that means. And I say, wealth is an accumulation of assets, what is an asset, and then people say, Oh, my job and this might know you're an asset is something that appreciates in value over time. And so one, so then I started to look at it like this, Andrew, I'm like, wow. So I can change the way I think about money, have a completely different outset outlook on money, I can leverage my credit, something I'm going to want to do anyway, because now employers are checking your credit insurance companies check your credit, I'm going to learn about you know how to leverage credit and unsecured debt, to buy assets, something that is going to appreciate. And if I just buy one property a year, over the next 10 years, I'm guaranteed to have a million dollar value or net worth, which I'm going to have to work over the next 10 years anyway. And so my concept that what I teach people and I've traveled the world, I've been doing this professionally since 2015, is teaching people my four pillars of wealth building, and I try to make it sound so simple, that a high school kid can grasp the concept of it. And it's been, you know, powerful, of just seeing the outcome of how people have taken and adapted those concepts that I've been teaching people.

Andrew Stotz 14:36
So to summarize, the first one is mindset. The second one is the power of credit. The third one is understanding the power of finances and the cost of money. And then the fourth one is asset building, that an asset is something that appreciates over time. Is that right? Absolutely. Okay, got it. Yeah. And you know, one of the things that you take for granted in America is that there's so much more There's so much opportunity to borrow in America that there isn't many places around the world. And there's an incentive to borrow, particularly related to housing. You know, in America, it's crazy how much incentive it is for people to own a home. There's nothing like that anywhere else in the world. And it's got pros and cons to it. And but ultimately, when it comes to borrowing for homes, there's just no place that gives such an advantage. When it comes to borrowing for business. Well, you just have a very competitive marketplace of banks and other sources of funding, you know, so if you've got a business that can make a good profit, you're probably not going to have a problem getting funding. Absolutely.

Will Roundtree 15:48
And I want to add one thing, Andrew, because often I hear people say, Oh, well, I'm gonna save to buy this investment property I'm going to save to start my business. And I'll say, here's your disadvantage, when you think that way. For every dollar you save, it's only worth 70 cents, because you got to pay Uncle Sam with close to 30 cents to every dollar. So I can, I can go and borrow $10,000 faster than you can save 10,000. So it will never be an equal playing field. And this is why I have to teach people to think differently about money.

Andrew Stotz 16:27
And in the world of finance, where I've been all of my career, you know, we talk about the cost of capital, which is a blend of debt, and equity. So you put up some money for business and you borrow some money, maybe the return you expect on the money that you put up is 20% return is what you want. And maybe the bank wants 10% return, you know, an interest rate, let's say, and let's say you finance that 5050. If you finance that 5050 That means the average of those two is 15%. That's your cost of capital, the whole objective of business is to get a return on that capital that's higher than 15%. Preferably 20 3040, you know, that would be great. But even if it's only 15, so only, maybe 5%, over your cost of capital is still a good business. And so any experienced business person knows that. You know, it's all about acquiring funds, and deploying those funds into opportunities, that can give you a return, that's higher than the cost of those funds. And that return is ultimately about building assets. In my case, one of my assets is an old, old, old coffee roasting machine built in 1976, in Italy. And I have it here in a factory in Thailand. And it cranks out coffee that we roast every single day, day in day out that we shipped to our customers. And from that I can get a return between that my branding, my service, the quality and all that return that's higher than the cost of the capital I have in the business. And there it is. That is the ultimate money machine.

Will Roundtree 18:20
It's that simple.

Andrew Stotz 18:23
Yeah, I'm also reminded of Episode 484, with Jack McCall. He's known as the king of debt. And that's an interesting, yeah, it's an interesting interview episodes 484. Because he talks about how to maximize the use of consumer debt, and credit card debt, through your business and all that. So he's, he's a master at that. The one thing I would say that I would just caution is that when I interviewed him back in 2021, and you know, just even go back six months, interest rates were on consumer debt was maybe 12 to 15%. And now it's up to 20% or so. So you just have to be super careful. You know, with that interest charged nowadays, it's just, it's a higher hurdle that you got to get over when it comes to getting returns out of the business that you do.

Will Roundtree 19:21
And that's why I always use the term calculate your risk. And I think because we really haven't had a lot of dialogue around that, because we've only been trained to, you know, hey, if I work eight hours, I'm worth this amount of money. So we haven't even been taught about the risk calculation when it comes to business and so but yeah, but but I love these type of dialogues because and even just the appreciation of of podcasts like yours because you give people an opportunity to get those type of messages out to where otherwise people are in environments where they never get to hear About this type of, you know language, because I say finances a language Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 20:06
Well, now it's time to share your worst investment. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking it will be tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it. And then tell us your story.

Will Roundtree 20:16
Definitely. So, in 2013, or prior to, you know, I was, at the time still in corporate America, but at up into that point, I have been an entrepreneur since 2003, actually started out in direct sales, similar to companies like Amway, or something of that nature. And so didn't ever really make any money in that space. But it taught me personal development. And so that's where I develop my mindset. So I was never scared of hearing and no, rejection didn't bother me. And I learned that failure was not a verb, it's a part of the process. And so, so leading up to 2013, I was working at a, at a, at a, you know, an agency where I sold online advertising, this was before Google was as big as it is, I so internet, Yellow Pages. And so I was trying to convince businesses to put their business on the internet. And so while I was there, of course, you know, my story going from homeless to millionaire, while I was working at Yellow Pages, I got to a point to where I was making about $103,000 a year, thought I made it, but then I found out 100 grand was not a lot of money when you have a family and ambition. So I wanted to go into business. And I say, you know, I'm gonna try a traditional route. So I invested into a small tax franchise at the time they were up and coming, because I was looking at some of the other tax model franchise models. But one of the things that scared me off because one, I had no experience in the tax industry. Two, I didn't have a client base. So the royalty fees were a little bit kind of like a I'm not sure if I want to do that in an in my thing, one of the things I learned in businesses is that, instead of starting from the bottom, I'd rather find a plug in play, because statistically, we know nine out of 10 businesses fail. So if I can already plug into something that has a model of success, that's why I invested into that tax franchise, Andrew. So basically, at that time, I liquidated my 401 K, he had me take out some personal loans, and so invested into the tax franchise. But before I go into what went wrong, let me tell you why I invest it. Because I often tell people when I share this story, I invest it for the wrong reasons. Now, here's the pitch for me to invest into his tax franchise, the gentleman sat down with me. And he first thing he did was showed me how much money he made the year before I was so I didn't need to see any financials, I didn't even know if the company was legit. They just said, hey, here are my P and nails, which is profit and loss statement. For those who don't know, here's how many clients I service, here's how much I charge per client, the whole nine. Then he went into showing me pictures of his automobiles, the trips he took. So basically this, he did a great job because he know that people love shiny objects,

Andrew Stotz 23:26
selling the sales franchise, but so.

Will Roundtree 23:30
So he sold me on the lifestyle, not necessarily the business, and so invested in I wrote the check that day, wrote the check, took the money out my 401k, etc, etc. So from there, of course, I had to go lease an office. So we're out, you know, office shopping, I learned a lot about this process, because the thing that I learned is that when you are out looking to lease a building, you can actually negotiate your lease, you can negotiate for the landlord to pay for the renovation. So I was able to negotiate a tenant improvement allowance of about $25,000. And for him to do that, he wanted me to go from a three to a six year lease, so that way, he can recoup some more of the investment. And of course, you know, I had to extend my lease. He also gave me six months of free rent because obviously we were outside of tax season. He understood the industry. He said, Okay, you have some ramp up time. So we have six months to complete this build out. And so I had a 3000 square foot office, I went out and hired over 35 tax preparers, you know, because of course it was a seasonal business. I have this huge office, and I was aggressive Andrew you I mean I was like you know what my total investment into the franchise was about 40 grand up front and then I still had additional fees. And then of course, all of the fees, he told me I had to pay throughout the year. Now, here's one of the fees, he told me that I had to pay, which I eventually found out was a lie. So in the tax preparation industry, you know, they normally allow people to get an advance on their tax check coming from the IRS. He told me, I had to fund that pot. So I went out and got a bunch of personal loans to have some money in a pot to fund people tax refund. And at the time, it didn't make sense, because I'm like, if I have 300 clients, which I didn't, how am I going to fund an average tax return of let's just say it was $1,000. It's like, I didn't have that type of money. So. So that was the first red flag. Then as he started to teach me how to prepare taxes, and I can remember, I was training my staff. And there was an old gentleman and an older gentleman in there, who was a previous CPA pulled me to the side. And he said, Well, you know, what you're teaching is fraud. That's fraud in the tech space, and OS. And I got offended, not because I didn't think he was right, Andrew, I was offended because I had money invested in this business. And I kept telling myself, I just need to break even this year, because I had quit my job. I'm doing this full time tax season hadn't started. I'm not making any money. I'm basically paying all my bills off my savings. And so I'm just in this one big mess. And I'm like, Look, I just need to make it to tax season and try to get some, some business. And so fast forward tax season starts, I thought we were going to have like 500 clients coming in. And the average fee we charge is 195 to 400 bucks. And I mean, between 30 Something tax preparers, half of them dropped off, because I basically sold them how I was sold. You know, what they say monkey see, monkey do. I just did exactly how I was sold. And so we probably did, maybe, maybe 95 returns that tax season. And so then ultimate so in towards the end of the tax season, here was the biggest red flag for me, Andrew, we saw we partner with a bank who would fun I learned that there's a whatever bank cuts the checks, because what happens when a lot of people may not know when you file your tax return. And let's say you go to a company like h&r block or whoever, when you get a tax refund, that's the company who has a bank that is basically fronting the tax refund. And then when the IRS cuts the check, they get the check. And so essentially, the bank is fronting the money. So we were partnered with the bank at the time, and close to the end of the tax season, the bank just shut me off. And they sent me a letter saying we're auditing all of your financials. And I was like, what No, hell am I gonna do? And so the gentleman calls me and there's this big thing. And he said, Do you know why we shut your business off? Well, and I was like, No, he said, Because what's happening is, and this is what I found out what the franchise owner was doing. When you guys are filing someone's tax return, the money is going into your company's bank account, and you're holding their check hostage. And then we're funding your bank account, but it should be going to the client. And so then, as I'm learned, so essentially, the parent tax company was stealing the client's money, but this is what he was doing. So you file your taxes, whatever your refund is, the IRS cuts the check, you get your tax refund. But what he was doing was, is that he would stuff a bunch of fake expenses into your tax refund, help you get the largest refund back that you've ever seen, probably up until that point in your life, he would take and charge you $1,500 In software costs that will come out of the refund, which you would not know about. And then the money would come to the company's bank account. And the only way you can come and pick up your check Andrew was you would have to bring me cash or a check for $400. So he was making almost $2,000 per tax reefer tax return. And so once I caught wind of this, I called him out on it. And he said, Are you questioning my business practices? So what he did was he shoved me out my tax office shut down all of my service providers and said I was in breach of contract. Then he sued me for saying that using his business likely This lightness, then he sued me civilly for, for essentially saying he fronted a bunch of the money. And as we know in court in the United States is not about whether you're right or wrong or guilty or innocent when it comes civilly. It's about who can afford to stay in court the longest. So, so here I am, I've quit my six figure a year earning job, I've liquidated my 401 K, I've taken out all of these personal loans, I'm still paying all of my my mortgage car note, my kids, wife, all of that, I lose my tax business, he locked down my bank account, so I couldn't access any of the money. And I had no way to make any additional money. And on top of that, I had to fight him in court with the little bit of money I had leftover.

Andrew Stotz 30:50
So it sounds like you're in round 11 with Mike Tyson and your co founder.

Will Roundtree 30:55
I think this was back when rounds was 15. And Drew unboxing. So we were in around 14. So yeah, man, it was the worst investment I ever made. But as I said at the beginning, I know why it was, because I got into it for the wrong reasons. I did it solely for the money.

Andrew Stotz 31:15
Why don't we review the lessons that you learn from it? So

Will Roundtree 31:19
I don't now it's, it's never about the money. And people say, well, it's easy for you to say that. And I say, here's why. When you do something solely for money, you overlook all of the other out points that it takes to actually make money because you're chasing the lifestyle that you think that business is going to give you. So every single day I went in saying, Man, I want to have cars like that, I want to be able to travel tax season is only 10 weeks, so I'm going to work really hard. So I can take the rest of the year off. And so I was doing everything out of a place of desperation. I didn't do any of my due diligence. I didn't study the actual industry, I didn't verify the legitimacy of if he was actually teaching me tax preparation per the IRS tax code. I learned nothing about business. I didn't take my marketing serious, I assume if I have 35 tax preparers, they all bring at least 10 to 20 people and then those 10 to 20 People refer at least another five will hit the numbers. And so I learned so much. But I often tell people, if they had not have happened, I wouldn't be where I am today. And I would still be in a business that's struggling, trying to make it work. And so when I said earlier, people often say man life or business feels like I'll take five steps forward and 10 back those 15 steps back was the best thing that happened to me, because I would have kept trying to trot through quicksand of this dying machine that was never built on a solid foundation. So I learned so much from that, from from from that city or I have to say that opportunity. I learned a lot.

Andrew Stotz 33:13
What can you tell us about how it all ended? Like when were you officially done with it?

Will Roundtree 33:21
So, so as I was like this going on, I couldn't afford a real attorney. So I ended up meeting this paralegal who at once was a practicing attorney, one of the top practicing contract law attorneys. And so he actually helped me prepare documents and fight the case, pro se in court and different things of that nature. And during that process, we found out that a lot of his contracts and languages were not legit. We found out that the gentleman had a lot of other, you know, criminal activity going on. And I also started to learn a lot about, uh, basically, I did a little bit of detective work myself looking at it that way. So what I started to do was I went back, like so I'm a very observant person, Andrew, so while I was there, I paid attention to everything. And I noticed that everybody who used to work for him in the past no longer work there. And I'm like, if this is such a great company, why are people leaving an industry where you guys are making so much money. And so when you file to get a tax, you know, what they call your p 10. Number. It's basically a number you get from the IRS to say you can file people taxes. I went back and looked for all of the individuals who no longer work there and I reached out to them while I was fighting my case, to say Hey, what happened? And basically they gave me all of the tea. They all found out he was running a fraudulent business. And so I started stockpiling this info Meishan I started gathering documentation. When that bank has shut us down, I started screenshotting things. I'm like, Look, if I go down, I at least want to have screenshots to protect me and this and this and whatever. And so, as we're fighting the court case, and Mr. paralegal who obviously is a genius himself, he just unfortunately was barred for whatever personal reasons, but hey, that was all I could afford at the time. So I was willing to take that we actually submitted all of this information to the FBI. Okay. Now, we didn't think nothing of it. We just submitted it. I kept fighting the case, as much as I could, I would send a response, we went to court a couple of times the judge, his attorney kept pushing it out. Because we had so much evidence against this guy, to where eventually, it just kind of went quiet. And so during that period, I was living my life eventually got back in to entrepreneurship again. But the way this situation ended, Andrew was about two years removed all of this completed in 2015. And 2018, I get a call from the FBI. Hey, we're investing so and so can you come in, we want to get your statement, the FBI actually took the case. And not only did they find out, he was committing fraud, he was committing wire fraud. They said he committed impersonating an FBI agent, he was going to people houses with fake badges in a gun, trying to intimidate them to have them pay for services. And so ultimately, the case go it was a big trial case. The here's something people may not know about when the FBI takes on a case, they have a 90 plus percent win rate. And they said they have so much evidence that they didn't need me to testify, because I think they said they had like around 60 Plus witnesses. And so I didn't have to testify. But ultimately, he ended up serving time, and he got 40 years in prison. And so that's how that's how that scenario ended. But the thing I want to preference to people, I still lost everything. And this is why I often tell people, why that mindset is important. Because if I had not have trained my mind to know that this is a part of the process, I wouldn't be where I am today, I would have given up, I would have said, Oh wow, it's me. You know, it's like I could have came up with every single excuse. But I looked at it as a lesson was like, Man, I needed to go through that. Because I would rather learn that at the beginning stages of my career, versus when I'm worth 100 million, because people lose everything at 100 million too and don't know how to bounce back. Yeah. And so it was the biggest lesson that I've learned. And I was I'm always grateful for that, that journey.

Andrew Stotz 38:06
You know, I I've gotten a lot of takeaways, but I think I'll just focus on, you know, the first thing you said at the beginning of the story, I've taken a lot of notes from what you've said, the first thing you said is I had no experience and no client base. And, you know, it's not to say that we can't go into areas where we don't have experience. But we need to go in with a lot more awareness that we have no experience. And that there's really not not, it's not like you can trust people easily in this world. You know, trust is built over time, it can never be there is no hack or shortcut to earning trust. And when you're going into any investment, where you have no experience, in particular, and in this case, a business where you really have no client base that you can build a revenue stream on. You need to be super, super careful. And I think to me, that is like number one out of all, it just so happens that you went in with a scam stir with a fraud. That doesn't always happen. There's plenty of times that you sign up with a good company a good business, you know, that they're good people and they're trying, but with no experience and no client base. It's hard. So one of the things that I would say is if you want to look at a franchise, like Chick fil A, or I don't know, you know, whatever that franchise is, go work there. If you want to work on a tax franchise, go work there, go work there and you can

Will Roundtree 39:45
I agree because one of the biggest things I tell people because I get people who are coached now in business, and they the biggest thing that I see Andrew is people want to look like they're running a business. So they go and get all of the his business expenses. And I'd say the number one thing you should do is get a customer first. And so when I stepped back into I took a few months off, I had to go back into the workforce. And so for a year, I was, you know, working hard paying back my debt. And so I told myself, you know what, and when I got back into business, I said, I'm not going to go and rent or lease an office. So what I would do is, is I would rent a day office by the hour only if I had a client. So if I was sitting down with you at 3pm, Pacific Standard Time, I would pay $15, for the hour to have you meet me at my office, you wouldn't have known the difference you just seen, I was in a professional setting. But I see so many people put themselves under pressure financially, where they will go get a 3000 per month office suite, and get all of the bells and whistles. And now, before you even see $1, you got to cover this $5,000 A month in expenses and overhead. That's

Andrew Stotz 41:01
painful. So let's talk about, let's say a young person listening to this, they don't have a lot of experience. And they you know, they get an opportunity that comes their way. They're excited about the opportunity, it could be a game changer. Based on what you learn from this story, what's one action that you'd recommend that they take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Will Roundtree 41:30
The first thing is get experience in that space to see if you'll even like it. Because you may it may be an industry where you have to deal with frontward facing customers. And I know some people say, Oh, I don't like talking to people. Well, if you're in an industry where you have to talk to people, you're not going to like that business. So you know, e commerce may be your thing, but get some level of experience. And, and it doesn't necessarily mean start a business. Go work there go partner with someone, figure out how you can bring value to someone who's in that space, they will want to work with you and give you an opportunity to see if this is something you will leave in like and I think because people always look at it, oh, I don't want to work for free or I'm not an intern or this and that. Look, as an entrepreneur, you're working for free anyway. Even if it's your own business because I tell people going becoming an entrepreneur doesn't buy you time freedom. becoming an entrepreneur because you believe so wholeheartedly and something that you're willing to work in that space, whether you're making $1 Or a million dollars. And so go even see if you like what that business model is or what the industry is before you just go out there and jump. That will probably be the biggest advice I would give someone great

Andrew Stotz 42:53
advice. Let me ask you what's a resource either of yours or any other resource that you'd recommend for our listeners?

Will Roundtree 43:00
Man, well, I have over 300 videos on YouTube, so they can follow me on YouTube at Mr. Will Roundtree. That's Mr. Will Roundtree, I'm across all social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Now ex LinkedIn at Mr. Will Roundtree. And so I'm also a two time author first book is credit as king, which is one of the fastest and most sold books in the credit industry. And then my second book full time CEO, which teaches you the unglamorous side about entrepreneurship. And so I have them not only on Amazon, but they can also pick up the audio versions as well.

Andrew Stotz 43:39
Fantastic. And I'll have links to all that in the show notes. Well, last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Will Roundtree 43:49
My number one goal for the next 12 months is, I can't just say one, but I'll say one for me personally, and then one for my audience. My one for me personally is I am I'm looking, I'm gonna license my information. My information has been licensed by several colleges. And in a part of me building my legacy is licensing. So I've been licensing my IP, my goal for the people in my audience is I want to help over 1000 people get their first investment property. And so that is a huge feat and I know it's going to also help them to increase their net worth in their assets.

Andrew Stotz 44:29
Wonderful. Well, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. Remember, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. As we conclude. Well, I want to thank you again for joining that mission. And on behalf of ACE dots Academy I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Will Roundtree 44:55
Man, it's been a pleasure, Andrew, thank you for having you know, please At forums like this, and hopefully one day I'll come back not necessarily with a worse story, but just an update on the success we're helping others with.

Andrew Stotz 45:09
Exactly. I think that would be a fun conversation to look on the upside of what you're doing. So I look forward to that. And I appreciate you sharing all the details of you know, the story. I think it's a great lesson for all of us. And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. Let's celebrate that today. We added one more person to our mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. This is your worst podcast hose Andrew Stotz saying, I'll see you on the upside.