Staying Sane (and Profitable) While Building Multiple Businesses with Christopher Gravagna

Entrepreneur – Lover of building brands & companies from ideas to reality – Christopher Gravagna

There’s an art to balancing while building multiple businesses. Chris has repeated the process multiple times and his current endeavor he built from zero to 5 million in two years with 7 offices across the nation. Learn the key components of how he builds an internal infrastructure to support massive growth (without loosing his sanity in the process!)

Check out GoAccredited.com for more info!

This podcast is brought to you by 99designs, the world’s largest marketplace of graphic design. 99designs connects business owners with great graphic designers from all over the world.

Whether you need a logo, website, t-shirt or other design, 99designs has you covered. Go to?99designs.com/EM. As an Eventual Millionaire listener, you’ll get a $99 upgrade for free.

Thanks so much for listening!

Transcript: Download

Announcer: Welcome to the Eventual Millionaire podcast - with your host, Jaime Tardy. Real talk and real advice from real millionaires, with a sharp focus on you - the Eventual Millionaire.

Jaime: Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Tardy and I am really excited to have Chris Gravagna on - for a third time, by the way. This might be the most anyone has been on Eventual Millionaire. He's a mentor of mine, a friend, he is a serial entrepreneur, he has so many companies I couldn't get into it right now. Right now I'll talk about GoAccredited.com - he does small business financing - and we're going to get into all of the other things in just a second but, before I get into it, it's so funny how we reconnected. He was one of the very first interviews on Eventual Millionaire and I was at a party just a few weeks ago and on my phone it had a little thing that said 'Facebook - Chris Gravagna is near you,' and I was like 'Technology is creepy!' So I sent a text to Chris and I was like 'Hey, want to come to this party that I'm at?' and we ended up meeting in person again just because you were in Austin and I didn't realize that you have a company based here too so why don't you tell us a little bit about why you were visiting Austin and then we'll get into Go Accredited and all of that fun stuff?

Chris: That's great, and you know what? Technology is amazing. Who knew that I was going to be in Austin at the same time that you were going to be in Austin?

Jaime: And it's creepy. I live in Austin now so that makes sense but apparently I know exactly where Chris is at the moment, that's kind of weird. Thankfully you had it turned on - maybe you've turned it off since then because you have people like me going 'Hey, Chris, I know where you are!'

Chris: Over the last two years I've still been doing a lot of marketing, still driving lead generation, but over the last two years I've been doing a lot more in the whole center space and we've been looking at what we call NFL cities, or cities where there's a lot of population growth, where we see that there's a lot of technology growth, and we look at these cities for one of two reasons - one, because we feel that we can drive good, talented individuals there and we want to be a part of an economy that we feel is bolstering, that there's going to be good energy there, there's going to be good excitement there. When we started building call centers, you hear of a lot of call centers that are overseas, and we have one overseas too, but we really wanted to start bringing this stuff back to the States. The education levels are better, the communication process is better, you see a high level of conversion rates when you're working with especially small businesses, which is what we do, and we thought Austin would be a great component for that. I was down there, I was doing a training with some of our team members and I get a popup on my phone that says Jaime Tardy is there, which is always a great, great thing and it wound up being people that we knew, mutual friends, that were there too, which is even better. I'm constantly looking to innovate - part of being an entrepreneur and a serial entrepreneur is how do we innovate things that we do? And, as Jaime knows, I've had from dating websites to wine clubs, I do a lot lead generation and marketing for a lot of companies that I consult with and most recently one of the things that have been working well for us has been working with small to medium sized businesses, providing this capital, so whenever I get into an industry I want to find out how we're going to change it - how am I going to make it unique and special and crazy? So, yes, part of being in Austin was that but, at the end of the day, the one thing that attracted me to this business wasn't necessarily the marketing side, it was really getting the ability to help small business. There are so many businesses today that are trying to grow that have a great business model but don't have the ability to go to a bank. Whether it's time and business - a lot of people who have owned their business for under three years, they're not getting a loan; they have under, let's say, a 700 credit score, no bank is touching them, or let's just say they got dinged on their credit - something happened in 2007, 2008, they had something - all of these elements are against a small business and really getting the capital to grow their business. a lot of banks look past the business and they look at personal credit or they look at your assets and when I looked at it and saw what the industry was doing and how I could involve with it, we lend out close to $5 million a month, $60 million a year, and I've only been doing this two years. My goal is to lend out $100 million next year and hopefully continue to double that. We're really helping small to medium sized businesses so it's exciting.

Jaime: What I think is insane is to see the evolution - when I first had you on the show we were talking about your history before with EliteMate dating and then on the next one it was Wines By Wives and how that happened and now you have something else. It's so amazing to see you go from different industry to different industry but how amazingly similar pieces are too. How did you get into this industry specifically and go 'Okay, that's a good one, I'm going to go after that,'?

Chris: It was actually a relationship of mine that knew I was in the marketing space. He was going through a transition with his partner and he said 'Hey, Chris, I could use a person like yourself,' he basically originally called me to consult and said 'Okay, consult with me and help us build our marketing structure,' and as an entrepreneur, when you see things that are growing and you see that there's revenue, I took a different approach and said 'I don't just want to be a consultant, I want to be a partner. I want to utilize my tools, my resources to help in taking this and innovate this industry and bring what we do best, combined with what he does best,' and I kind of fell into it, kind of how I fell into a lot of the things that I've done. But it's your network - it's so important to nurture and to continue to revisit and communicate with your network. Your network is the most important thing - whether it's an existing network of individuals and companies or it's a new network that you're developing, that's how you continue to grow yourself and your business. Although I got into this industry haphazardly I've had a pretty good impact on the industry, we're constantly doing things to make it more effective. Who would ever think social media would be able to attach money to businesses? Yet a lot of what we do is through LinkedIn, a lot of what we do is through Facebook. We're consistently connecting with companies on a social level - not just a B2B level but a social level - we're able to engage with them and figure out how we can help. For me, the way that I train my team and the way that I train our sale executives is to be a consultant to these people. Let's not go in and just say 'Hey, take our money!' Let's go in and say 'Is this the right program for you? Do you have the ability to afford what we're doing? What's the ROI?' If you're going to borrow capital from me, I want you to make more money on my capital that what you're borrowing it from me for. So it's important that, when we're going after our business owners, and especially the fact that we're doing a lot in social, how can we help you? What steps can we take to actually be an asset to what you're doing? What I've seen in this industry is that a lot of people are like 'Let's just give them money. We don't care if they default. It's a default rate, it's a ratio, it's a numbers game.' Our approach is 'Let's make sure we're the right fit because I want you to work with me for ten years, not for six months.'

Jaime: 'Take my money and run.' No, that's not cool. I can pay you way more later.

Chris: You know me - I always look at exit strategies. I want to build a sustainable business that I'm going to be able to sell and I want to be able to grow it and sell it and, by the same token, really provide a service for small businesses and really make an impact on the economy. That's my goal.

Jaime: Which I adore. Tell me more about the marketing tactics, because what's so interest is you go in different industries - you've been in so many industries - and that social aspect has been really key from the first time that I met you, so tell me a little bit more because most people are like 'You can't have ROI in social media,' or whatever. Tell us how you strategize that.

Chris: I think what's important is, no matter what I'm selling, whether I'm selling a service where people can meet each other, whether I'm selling a product that people can drink or whether I am now servicing people with capital, it's understanding who the profile of your customer is. Whether you're doing social media, whether you're doing an e-mail broadcast, whether you're doing print advertising, what's the profile of your user, of that client? What we spend a lot of time doing is testing. Testing is key - spending small amounts of money on driving campaigns, driving information and really utilizing that test to see what the profile of your client is. Once you're really able to develop what the profile of your client is, now you can focus spend. So now, instead of losing money on your test marketing you actually start engaging and driving revenue and the great thing about social is that it gives you the ability to finite that exploration. Cookies, which not everyone likes but are in use today, retargeting, which is a big part of what we do, but it allows you to understand who's visiting your site, who's visiting your page, what's the profile of that? When you're able to emulate that profile and now you're going out to get that profile it makes a difference in your whole marketing strategy. So that's how we use social, that's how we use online marketing - we consistently mind who that profile is, no matter what we're doing.

Jaime: That's the thing that I don't think small business owners do well enough so let's dive into that more. A lot of the time you'll be like 'Who are you selling to?' and people are like 'You know...' and they give demographic information. 45-65, that's not helpful in any way. So tell us more about how you get that profile information, like very specifically and what you're looking for as the end result.

Chris: Let's talk about Facebook for a moment because I think that's a key one and you've had someone on Eventual Millionaire recently that I was impressed with. Specifically, when we can use our own data that we already have - so people that we've done loans with, people that we've helped with capital - we actually have an e-mail database and one of our Facebook consultants said 'Okay, Chris, give me that e-mail database because it's great to already know who's been working with you. We're going to upload that into our system and we're going to be able to ping that against Facebook or LinkedIn or these social profiles and that's going to help us develop a baseline or who the profile of your clients are. Secondary to that, there's testing - so there's putting out advertising and putting out business pages and stuff that are going to allow you to put these ads on - you may see Fundera or other different loan companies that you're going to be able to choose - and based on who's clicking or who's going through those pages through the social media outlets, they're going to take that person's information, that profile, and they're going to take that and give you what type of profiles are now going and visiting your site and based on what level they go through on your pages there are pixels that fire back to let you know at what point did that person actually execute. So there's a ton of analytical information that goes into identifying who that profile is. In the beginning, if you were someone that didn't have any basis, you would have to spend a little bit more money on testing but you're actually going to go out and start advertising, you're going to do some Facebook advertising, and as people are clicking and people are interacting with your landing pages and your site, that's going to help you in developing a profile but that's what I call a test spend and you have to do your test spend so that you can do your focus spend. Most people are going to lose money on their test spend.

Jaime: How much money are we talking about? That's the thing, especially when you're shooting in the dark - because you don't know your profile you don't know the copy to use on the ads so you're guessing on the copy so you definitely do lose money but how much are we talking about before we really have some data?

Chris: It's hundreds of dollars, in some cases thousands, depending on what level of risk you have. In our case we spend anywhere between $50-100,000 a month on marketing and advertising, so we spend over $1 million, so we spend money. Any test spends that I do are going to be anywhere from $500 to $2,500 but, again, we have a bigger tolerance, we have a different marketing budget that we have to work with and we're going to cast a little bit of a wider net but that doesn't mean that a small business that's maybe selling apparel or shoes or different types of products can't spend $100 on that same test, it's just going to be in smaller fractions, it's going to take a little bit more time but you don't have to lose a lot of money, you just have to be smart in the testing. Taking those courses, those are key things to reducing your loss. I think the most important thing - and I share this a lot in my conversations when I'm doing trainings or speaking - is to know that you don't know and what you think that you know, you absolutely do not know. When we were doing Wines By Wives and we started doing our cash advance business we thought 'Oh yeah, we know who are client is.' We had absolutely no clue who our client was.

Jaime: Thank you for saying that.

Chris: And I think I'm smart. I thought I was very smart. you try to use your best efforts and all of the experience that you have but whenever you're starting a new venture or it's a new marketplace you really have to spend your time on analytics and spending the time on testing because we did not know, and my ego got in the way, I probably wasted $25,000 because I thought I knew and I didn't. It's a good lesson to learn and it's good to be humbled.

Jaime: I love that, especially because most small business owners are like 'I'm my avatar, I'm my ideal customer,' and they're so close to it that they can't see. Like you said, it can waste so much money. It's funny, it's kind of better if you just don't know the industry at all and you're coming in and going 'I don't know, let's find out,' and you're curious instead of smart.

Chris: Ego can get in the way. Obviously I've had multiple businesses and I still drive crazy - I have four screens here I that I showed you earlier.

Jaime: I know. Actually, can you pick it up and show people? He showed me the three screens and then we have another one and he has his iPad.

Chris: I'm going to pull it off.

Jaime: Oh my gosh. How do you even look at that many screens at once? And when we got on at the beginning the phone's ringing and people are coming in. You're running a couple of companies, just so you know! It looks a little insane - how do you even deal with all of that?

Chris: It's good leadership. My day-to-day focus now is predominantly on the advance industry, helping small to medium sized businesses, so I would say 80% of my day is managing what we're doing here. We have seven offices around the country, we just recently opened a call center in Colombia, the country.

Jaime: I have friends who just went there, that's awesome. Not that they're going to work for you, but that's killer. That's crazy, I should have introduced you to them, darn it!

Chris: Networking! So I spend most of my time focusing on that. What I have done as I have developed these different countries is I have put good leadership in place. Good management, good leaderships, smart, strategic partners that allows those things to run efficiently. I love building businesses.

Jaime: Really? I could not tell, Chris. I could not tell that you love building businesses.

Chris: I love building businesses but, more importantly than building a business, it has to stay consistent and it has to be able to manage and run. In doing so it's important to put the leadership in place of those business, strategic partnerships - 'I have been able to do this, I've set it up, I've built the infrastructure, now I'm giving you the tools to continue to manage it and continue to do what we do well.'

Jaime: So how much are you in each business? What I have a tendency to see is small business owners who, before they've delegated and really pulled themselves out of the business, they start another one and then they go crazy because trying to start a startup, even if you have a successful business, if you're in it, it can get a little squishy. So how do you know when it's okay to let go of one and start another?

Chris: That's good - and it's also choosing wisely. When I decided to get into the marketing of the cash advance and working with small businesses, my partner - his name is Mark Hanna - has been doing this for eight years, six years when I met him, so he had a good foundation of the business, it was not a startup - we weren't going into a startup scenario. I was going into an established organization that had great team members already, good leadership, relationships set up, so where I was a huge asset was being able to bring on marketing and resource skills to what was already in place. In the case of where I moved from, Spring Base Media and Wines By Wives, it was an easier job because it was something that was already established, so we were able to bring the tools that we already manage on a day-to-day basis and apply those tools to a widget. Well, at the time it was a widget, now it's become part of a big widget and it's a lot of money. You know - it's a little bit of gut and in the case where we're moving from one business to another it's understanding that you see that it's on autopilot, you see that it's moving, you see that you have good leadership in place and you have to let it make mistakes. I didn't totally let go - there's no such thing as totally letting go - but when you see it start moving and you're starting to go into the other side you have to let it make mistakes and sometimes you've got to make hard decisions. When we see the revenue that we're able to drive and what we can do in supporting this marketplace it made sense for me to focus more time on this project than it did on the other one, for a multitude of reasons, revenue obviously being one of them, but also where can I be an asset and where can I drive revenue but also where am I being more of an asset to the industry and I saw that, when we made some of the transition, that this was a smart place for me to move and to spend my resources and time.

Jaime: Do you have your team members separated - like these are the people working on this, these are the people working on this and they don't cross? Or do they cross?

Chris: Very rarely do they cross. Where I will allow it to cross is from a marketing standpoint, never operationally. There are resources that we've developed from a marketing standpoint that it makes sense to share cross platform but when it comes to operations it's good to have them in their own pods. But they run themselves - I spend 1% of my time on the dating websites today. It's an annuity, it's great. The dating was great because you had this profile of an individual that came in and it told you so much information - hair color, non-smoker, smoker, casual drinker, drinker - all these different elements of an individual that developed this profile that you were able to drive complementary products to, which we do, but it works in everything. it was a challenge, or a new challenge, when I decided to get involved heavily in business to business because you think 'Now I've got to deal with a business profile,' but no, you're still dealing with a human profile, you're still dealing with an individual, which is a business owner, that has a specific profile to them. You find those complementary things that happen for all different types of other complementary products, you find those same things in a business owner, which is a person just like me or you.

Jaime: Delivering what they need at the time that they need it is cross platform, right? It's for everything.

Chris: It is. Do you know what's been amazing because I have so much small business experience and growing businesses' When we're training our reps, and they talk to thousands of business owners a month, when I'm sharing with them on how to sell or how to engage with that business owner, I always say ask the right questions. It's easy to give the right answers - ask the right questions. Really learn about their business, really see how we can be an asset, be a consultant, be that trusted advisor - it changes the whole aspect of it. I don't want to sell, I want to be able to build a relationship. Businesses want to do business with people that they have a relationship with, and especially us - we're asking you for your bank statements, we're asking you for your credit card statements, your social security number - we need to make sure that we're showing you that we care about you, we trust you, we're concerned about you're going to be doing with the money, we're rated with the Better Business bureau, which is very important, we have a good time in business, we're a national based company - share what we do but ask the right questions, talk to that business owner like they're a real human being and not like they're another number that you're trying to get through. I talk to a lot of the small businesses and it's inspiring to be able to help people.

Jaime: Heck yeah, and I think that's what's changing in marketing today, which is huge. There's no more sleazy salesmen that are just trying to sell you a car even if it's not the car you want, it's people going 'What kind of car do you want?' and then helping them find it. Who knew how easy that is? It changes the game completely and it makes you trust the person and care. Who knew how amazing actually caring about someone could be for a business and sales?

Chris: And it's great for our reps too - there's nothing better than getting a testimonial that says 'I was able to get that $50,000 from your company, I put in that new wing in my restaurant, or I put in that new lift in my auto repair company, or I was able to build that other location. Thank you. Banks were telling me no, SBA was crazy, and you were able to get me what you said, when you said it.' That's the difference - when your money is helping to grow quality of life and grow businesses, that's the key. If I'm able to turn business from a break even to a profitable business, that's going to allow that owner to go on vacation with his family, it's going to allow him to make more money, maybe put in that manager. That's key and when I start seeing that, when reps are being inspired and my account executives, that changes the whole element. At the end of the day we're lending money.

Jaime: You're like 'And we're making money too! Who knew?'

Chris: I am a capitalist and we are a for-profile business but doing it in a way that's helping people is what's important to me. There are so many times I will tell someone 'My product's not for you. If you can go to a bank and you have a 750 credit score and you have 30 years in business and you can wait two months, I'm not the program for you.' If you have an opportunity and you need to exercise that opportunity quickly and efficiently and you need money now, I'm going to get money in your bank in 5-7 business days and that's the difference. You have to be the right fit for what we need. It's been exciting. Jaime, you've known me a long time now and I need to be excited and enthusiastic about what I'm doing.

Jaime: Yes, you do.

Chris: I have to like it and I have to have fun with it and this road, this experience and what we're doing, has been great.

Jaime: That's what's so interesting - talking to you about all of these different ventures - you get super excited learning and figuring them out and then being 'Okay, that was great. Alright, now I'm doing this and I'm learning and I'm figuring out.' You were on one of my webinars - the one that I did with Curt - and it was so funny, you're running a bunch of companies and you're sitting listening to a webinar. The fact that you're continually learning about these pieces are parts is huge too. How do you manage all of that? How many hours a week do you work? How do you get all of this stuff done?

Chris: I do work a lot of hours. There is no 9-5 in what we do. I think it's focus. A lot of serial entrepreneurs are ADD and you need to know how to focus and manage your time. We have a couple of offices but every morning I get up and I come to our marketing office, specifically for the cash advance industry, and that is my focus and priority for the day. There are offshoots - things that I have to deal with for other things that we're working on - but you have to focus on what it is that is your primary business and cash advance and what we're doing in this space and how we're managing marketing this space and how we're focusing our spend and how we're driving to the masses, that's my focus day-to-day. Now, learning and education is part of that focus - learning what I'm doing, dealing with marketing companies, learning how to market more efficiently, utilizing the tools and resources that I have, that's a major part of my day and it helps everything that I do. Learning helps everything that I do and I'll share that - I'll share that with my team members, I'll share that with my partners - but if you're not learning, especially in this ever-changing marketplace, then you're being left behind, so education and learning is a big part of what I do on a day-to-day basis because I can always learn from somebody. I can learn from a new tool that's happening in the social media world, I can learn from a new tool that's happening in the call center world and then I share. I think that the goal of learning is also to share. I deal with a lot of colleagues where I hear 'Hey, Chris, what did you learn today?' and friendly competitors - 'We're doing it this way, we're not seeing it work.' Well, you know what? If you try this and you change this and you work this, maybe you'll find a different result. So you can't be afraid to share with competitors and within your community. You'll get a lot more back and karma is key.

Jaime: That's crazy, though.

Chris: But focus. Focus, focus, focus. You don't want to become a jack of all trades, master of none. My focus daily is I'm a marketing person. I may be a CEO, I maybe a CMO, but at the end of the day I'm a marketing person and I constantly have to hone in and optimize my skill of how to take an individual and engage them with a product. In this case, the individual is a business owner, the product is capital, but in everything I do it's all tied into engaging an individual with a product or service. If I was a karate master, I'd have to go and get my black belt and I'd have my degrees. I nurture my brain and my relationships and I learn to do that more efficiently and effectively every day.

Jaime: How did you find out what your strengths were? I just had a guy that I just finished interviewing, talking about strengths, and it's one of those things where I'm wondering how did you specifically, did you just know that this was what you wanted to do since you were younger, that you were really good at the marketing piece? How did you figure that out? What your strengths are and what you delegate.

Chris: So young, it's in you. At 13 years old - and we may have had this conversation - but at 13 years old I started my first company called the Busy Bees and I got my friends mowing lawns and clearing snow, I put advertising in all of these places and it was crazy. I got sued for the first time when I was 18.

Jaime: You're not a true entrepreneur until you've been sued, right?

Chris: I've been sued three or four times. It's in you - at a young age I micromanaged so much more. You find that, when you micromanage, you lose focus on being able to delegate appropriately. The only way you can drive saleable business is by delegating appropriately and if you spend time micromanaging you're actually doing a disservice to the growth of your business. From 20-25 I was a horrible micromanager yet, despite my micromanagement, I was successful because I was a good people person and my marketing skills and my relationship skills were great and I was able to develop these amazing relationships and people wanted to do business with me. By the same token, once they came in to do business with me, I wanted to micromanage the logistics. The difference is that between 20-25 I was able to work 80-90 hours a week and the time I put into my business, it didn't affect it as negatively as it could have. But if you want to manage and run a saleable business you need to know how to delegate appropriately, you need to know what your skillset isn't, and that doesn't happen overnight. Ego is a horrible thing - you think you know everything, you think that you're the best at this. You get humbled quickly and if you have the aptitude to learn, you learn and you apply what you learn and you change yourself to do what you do well. I love leading companies, I love being a motivational speaker, I love motivating my teams. Logistically, what I'm good at is engaging with individuals, whether I'm driving it on a piece of paper, whether I'm doing it through digital content or I'm doing it on a Skype interview, I love engaging with individuals and learning about how we can be an asset to that person.

Jaime: What was the pivotal moment or the key points that you learned in order to not micromanage? Because there are so many people that are micromanaging right now and holding onto it.

Chris: Failure. Things started breaking at other places. It's like 'Why is that breaking? Why is that not working?' Well it's not working because you're spending too much micromanaging your team. You've got to let your managers manage, you've got to let your leaders lead. If you don't do that, all you're doing is you're actually breaking the system. I guess where I started seeing it was when I had my print media company, I had 107 employees and it was a large employee set and there was a point where I had all of these people coming into my office all of the time - employees where I had managers in place - and it was 'Did you talk to John about that first? Or Mike about that first?' and they like 'No, because you said to come to you,' and what happened was I couldn't get all the work done and it was at that point I said 'Okay, I'm going to stop,' and I put a COO in place - a Chief Operating Officer - and I made him start taking on that brunt but doing that really created the hierarchy of how things needed to run up the chain and it's been great because, as I've continued to build other organizations, especially here, I'm able to apply that from the beginning.

Jaime: Lesson learned - not going to do that again.

Chris: Apply that from the very beginning. My partner is the CEO of this company, I'm the CMO, however we both have equity interest. He has his lane, he manages his lane, I manage my lane, we have our team leaders and our management in place and we run a very efficient business where, in two years, we were able to go literally from a start over - although there was a lot of infrastructure it was a start over when it came to portfolio - built it from zero to $5 million a month in business in less than two years and over seven offices nationwide, over 50 employees - you don't do that unless you have the experience and the management and the infrastructure of learning and applying that to what we've done. So this has probably been one of my fastest growing companies, which I'm very excited about, because of being able to apply everything that I've learned along the way. Again, hopefully these interviews are helping young entrepreneurs and people who are looking to grow their businesses, to go 'Oh, you know what? I am doing that. I am micromanaging, why am I doing that?' or 'Chris said this and I'm starting to feel the abundance, let me start making these changes now.' So hopefully I'm able to shed some experience and inspire people to make some changes earlier on, rather than later.

Jaime: I think that's the thing that's really, really important, is that some people, when you're stuck in the day-to-day like this, you forget that you might have other companies that you're going to create in the future that you're going to apply this exact same knowledge on later, so it's not like this hit-in-the-face, right now pain, it's something that you can use forever and ever and ever to build the fastest company you've ever built. That's amazing. It's not like the learning goes out one ear and you have to do it again.

Chris: No, you've got to apply it. I think a lot of people get roped up in trying to logistically trying to run their business. Be the leader, be the innovator. Steve Jobs was an amazing innovator that had an amazing team - be that innovator. Continue to grow and inspire your company, don't get stuck in the minutiae, don't get stuck in the logistics. Bring on people who do that better than you do it. That's constantly what we try to do - try to team up with companies or individuals that do things better than we do. I love Facebook and social media, however I'm constantly bringing on companies and individuals that do it better than we do because I need to run a company.

Jaime: A little busy, you know.

Chris: That's what you've got to do. You have to know how to run your company, what you're good at and be able to delegate, sometimes to third party companies, things that can beneficial to your company. Don't always try to figure it out yourself.

Jaime: Okay, so we have to start wrapping up in just a minute but at the very beginning we talked about stress - it's not all sunshine and roses, 'Hey, I built a really fast company and this was great and everything was wonderful,' so let's talk about that - how do you manage and deal with stress?

Chris: It's organization. I'm very stressed all the time. There are phones ringing, people asking me questions, I'm putting this ad out, I'm starting this new thing, we have all our reps coming to us when there's an issue - we deal with hundreds and hundreds of businesses that are coming to us for money, these people need to be talked to and sometimes it needs to come to me to have a conversation with these people - and there are bills, people are like 'Well I've got to pay the rent, I've got to do payroll, I've got to make sure the marketing bills are paid, I've got make sure what new innovative things we're doing.'

Jaime: Talk to me on Skype.

Chris: A lot of white boarding.

Jaime: I love that.

Chris: A lot of white boarding, a lot of lists, really working. Try to work as efficiently as possible. Yeah, as an entrepreneur, I don't sleep as much, but managing your day. I keep my calendar up all the time, so keeping a good calendar is very important, and do what you say you're going to do - a lot of stress comes when you're not addressing situations quickly. you get a lot of people who get frustrated and become more stressful to you because you're either not responding to them because you think you're too busy or it's 'Oh, I can't pay that bill right now, I can't talk to that person right now,' develop a list, 'My Things to Do,' and, as mundane as it sounds, I keep my list, on a piece of paper even.

Jaime: Old school.

Chris: Things to do, things to pay.

Jaime: I love that - things to pay! That's what you're about now - there's more things to pay when you have more revenue.

Chris: The bigger that you get, there's more things to pay, and sometimes people will be a pain in the butt because they didn't get a payment, not because you don't have the money - I have the money, I just haven't had chance to get on the bank account to send them a wire yet.

Jaime: That happened to me the other day. 'Oh gosh, this is horrible!' I've never had that happen before, I've always been one of those people.

Chris: In self-promotion, I try to make sure that, when people have that list, things to pay, that we're giving them the capital to pay.

Jaime: Smart man, that was smooth. So in your business, that's one thing. Is there anything you do to disconnect? What's really important for you to do in order to manager your stress? Because if you're stressed all the time I?m sure you do things to manage it.

Chris: So besides dealing with the logistics of stress, of which organization is a key part - organizing, follow up, all a key part of managing stress - however, disconnecting is extremely important. I do get to travel often and sometimes leaving the office at 5-6 o'clock, especially when I'm travelling, I'll decompress. I'll go and have a great meal, I'll watch some TV, and I love sports - even networking, believe it or not. I love business, I love working, but just networking and getting to share time with other business owners and learning from them - for me, that's de-stressful. I have two children so getting to spend time with my children is stressful, by the way.

Jaime: I know, right?

Chris: It's a different stress, right? So I disconnect from my work stress and I reconnect with my life stress. spending time  with my kids, getting to watch my daughter play softball or my son play basketball and soccer - which they're both very good at - it's one of the most proud feelings in the world and it definitely allows me to take a step back and be like 'Alright, this is what it's all about. This is why I do what I do.' But for everyone that's different. For me, crazy networking and having dinner and networking and learning is stressful, for some people that's stressful. I think for some people it's different - some people enjoy going to the gym, some people might enjoy just totally disconnecting. I've talked to people who like to take naps during the day and that's their disconnecting.

Jaime: And you're like 'That's not me.'

Chris: That's not me. Everyone has their own thing. Finding what it is that really brings you to peace, whatever that might be, you've got to take a little bit of time for yourself and do what you enjoy. I think that's the key so if you focus on that, that's going to help you de-stress. Life's too short - I think that nothing's ever too serious, I think that that's the key. Work is important but it will still be there the next day so if you feel overwhelmed and you can't take it, leave the office - the e-mails will still be there, come in early in the morning and follow up on it. I think too many people get caught up in it and go 'Oh my God, what am I going to do?' Work is still going to be there the next day so don't let it overwhelm you.

Jaime: I love that. It's very apparent that you love what you do because it's one of those things where you're like 'Well yeah, but I work more,' and I think a lot of people do that same thing. Even today, I have four millionaire interviews and after that I want to go out. Most people would be like 'I've had enough talking to people,' and I'm like 'Ooh, who can I talk to? Who can I go out with later?' which is so silly, but you're right, that works really, really well for me - I get energy a lot of times from being around really amazing entrepreneurs, which is hilarious because that's what I do all day too. I'm the luckiest person in the world, right?

Chris: You've got to love what you do.

Jaime: Exactly. I'm so lucky, so are you. I'm going to wrap up with the last question that I always ask and it's the third time I've asked you it. Nobody remembers what they said before so it doesn't matter but what's one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of $1 million?

Chris: First they should borrow money from me - so GoAccredited.com, make sure that you go and if you need money for your business.

Jaime: I should have said that, you're right, darn it! Bad host!

Chris: Bad host! It's alright, I'll do the networking and marketing for you, Jaime. That's fine. So yes, www.GoAccredited.com. Nurture your network - I think that most people underutilize their network. Go on LinkedIn - if you don't have a LinkedIn page, make sure you have a LinkedIn page - go on Facebook, talk about what you're doing. I do a lot of business just by being vocal and utilizing my network and utilizing the social aspects and technology and just having conversations, whether it's through doing a post or calling that person you haven't talked to. Nurture your network - I promise you, some of the best opportunities will come out of the network that you've developed and if you have not developed that network thing, go out and start networking and develop a network. I promise you, that will be the key driver to your success in going in to becoming a millionaire. Every business that I'm involved with today has been a product of strategic and smart and aggressive networking.

Jaime: And listen to Chris's first interview because he talked about networking a lot in that one too. A lot of people are like 'I don't know how the money is going to come back from networking,' but it comes back over and over again in the interviews. Chris is a smart man, we need to make sure we're listening to him. Thank you so much for this, Chris. I really appreciate it. Now say all of your websites. You have so many I don't think we have enough time to have you say all of them, but go ahead and do your spiel.

Chris: We are focusing.

Jaime: One call to action.

Chris: My spiel is simple - what we do today and where listeners that have existing businesses today that listen to your webinars and your podcasts and the stuff that you're doing, we want to help businesses, so if you're a business that has been a business over six months or more, if you're doing some level of revenue, if you have a good business model, I don't need you to have good credit but if you have okay credit or if you've been hit a little bit, give us an opportunity to try to figure out how we could help your business. We understand that a lot of businesses are dealing with cash flow issues - and not because they have a bad business, just because they have people paying them in 60, 90 or 120 days. So let us be a consultant for you - let us go and figure out a program that can fit your business, that can put capital into your business to grow your business. Let us be that person in that company, let us take a look at it and if we can help you, it doesn't cost you anything. We're going to give you options that may make sense for you or may not but, at the end of the day, it's important to know that you do have options to provide capital to your business to grow your business. Let us be the company to help you do that.

Jaime: It's so funny because everybody knows how much I hate debt in general and business coach made me, pretty much, get a line of credit just in case - not that I have ever used it but it was one of those things, she was like 'You need at least $50,000 to just have there, just in case, to make you feel safer,' and I was like 'I hate that,' because that's the person I am, but it's so funny, when I've been talking to so many different people that are really successful business owners, cash flow is such an issue and being able to have access and to grow your business - strategically, of course, not 'Chris is going to give me money, I'm going to go and spend it!' but being able to make strategic growth moves is an interesting thing so I've actually come down on my position of no debt and I have a line of credit now too, which is kind of weird and crazy.

Chris: A lot of people we talk to will be like 'I'll go and get a loan from a friend or a brother-in-law or I'm going to take on an investor,' and I love it when I hear that - so you're going to take on a family member that you're going to see on the holidays, you're going to give away 10%, maybe 20% or 30% of your business for the life of your business - borrow the money from me, I do short term loans - my loans are from four months to 18 months, some of them are two years, so it's a short term loan - I'm in and out and I do it in micropayments so I'm going to take it out daily from either your bank account or credit card. I do it in these micropayments to try to make it very automated to the people that we are advancing money to. My thing is, you're going to borrow money from us, let's say it costs you in the teens or 20-something percent but I'm done in a year. You don't have to answer to me, I'm going to let you run your business the way you should be running your business and then, after you're done with me, you don't have to answer to anybody. Now, you've made 100% on my capital and you should always be using other people's capital to grow your business. Other people's money - it's called OPM.

Jaime: I know, there's a name for it.

Chris: As long as you can make more money on my money than I'm loaning you, that's always my key. I've going to save you 100%, I'm going to cost you 20% - you just saved 80% by not getting an investor. There's a ton of strategies and different algorithms that we use to show people ROI but as long as you're making more money, percentage-wise, than what you're paying me back, we're a smart alternative and we're going to lend to you. Don't wait 30-45 days for a bank to tell you no and all of a sudden you have opportunity lost. We hear that all the time and we hate hearing that.

Jaime: So if you are going to borrow money and you can't get a loan then Chris is your guy. There, I'm a good host now!

Chris: That was good. Good marketing job, I really appreciate it.

Jaime: Yes, I'm learning, Chris, I'm learning! You're my mentor, help me out.

Chris: From now on, at the end of every one of your webinars, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to do the marketing intro, for whatever company it is.

Jaime: That's awesome.

Chris: 'Here's Chris to let you know about the new brand and service that you'll be doing today!'

Jaime: I might do that.  That will be the new sponsorship for whoever's on my thing - it will be Chris. That would be hilarious. Thank you so much for coming on the show today, Chris. I really appreciate it. I'm sure we will have you on again, maybe with the next new company in a couple of years.

Chris: I'm good for right now - at least for another year or two I'm good.

Jaime: Thanks so much. Have an awesome day, Chris.

Chris: Excellent. Have a great day. Thank you so much, Jaime.

Announcer: Thanks for listening. You can find out more great information like this on EventualMillionaire.com.

Tags: Business Growth, Business Scaling, business startup, Christopher Gravagna, Focus, millionaire interview, Mindset, Multiple Business, productivity, Profitability, Startup

Categories: All, Business, Business Model, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Millionaire Interviews, Starting A Business

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

Learn More