In this compelling follow-up episode, CordaRoys founder Byron Young provides a candid roadmap for navigating the volatile life cycle of an entrepreneurial venture, drawing on nearly three decades of experience that spans from the early days of mall kiosks to explosive post-Shark Tank growth. Beyond the highlight reel of $30 million revenue milestones, Byron dissects the critical necessity of agility—revealing how he survived the aftermath of 9/11, leveraged strategic pivots to scale direct-to-consumer operations, and successfully managed the “growth traps” that threaten to dismantle companies scaling faster than their foundations allow. Listeners will gain actionable wisdom on the importance of maintaining an innovative mindset, the art of building a resilient infrastructure around the “six Ps,” and the reality that true business longevity requires constantly preparing to pivot before the market forces your hand.

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Mastering The Business Pivot: A Post-Shark Tank Journey With Byron Young

Welcome to another episode of the show. Last time on the show, we had a very special guest, Byron Young, who, by the way, is back on the show. Last time, we really explored conversations with Byron about his episode with Shark Tank and the good, the bad, and the ugly. We talked about how he got to do a deal with Lori, and that deal shifted, but it really helped increase his business exponentially. Buckle up because there will be another fast ride as we are going to share a lot of valuable content. Byron is going to talk to you about the ups and downs of business and how you have to have a lot of perseverance, never give up, and learn. The biggest thing that we are going to talk about is how to pivot. Right, Byron?

Absolutely. There is a lot of pivoting going on in business for sure.

Welcome to another episode of the show. Let us get started. Byron, it is great to have you back on.

Thanks for having me, Michelle. I cannot wait to dive into this.

29 Years Of Entrepreneurial Grit And Longevity

Let us just bring the audience back up to speed. You have been in business for how many years again?

We are approaching 30 years. I think this is our 29th year, so a long time.

Your 29th year, and how old was the business when you went on Shark Tank?

It was 2013 when we were on. I want to say we were 14 years old at that point. I really had to try to downplay that because we had gone through a lot of ups and downs at that time.

Fourteen years old when you went on Shark Tank, and now you are like 30 years old, 15 years after Shark Tank. The reason I wanted to have you back on is that business owners know that things happen in business. A lot of times, business owners will just give up, but you cannot give up. You have to always think and take inventory of your business and really figure out what the problem is. Not so much what are the symptoms, but what is the problem? Let us talk a little bit about that, Byron, because I know that you say you have had tough times in those 30 years. At what point would you like to start? Before Shark Tank, after Shark Tank, during COVID, the financial control?

I can tell you that before Shark Tank, back when 9/11 happened, we were opening mall locations as fast as we could. I was in Tallahassee, Florida, opening another location when I was in a hotel room and watched the planes hit the Twin Towers. That is when they shut all the malls down. They did keep the rent-receiving department open, by the way, they still demanded rent, but we could not make any sales. You can imagine how difficult that was. Plus, the world felt like it was ending anyway, so that was an incredibly difficult time for everybody in the world, but definitely for anybody operating in a mall.

What happened?

I barely remember what happened. It was all a blur. We just did our best like anybody else. One thing about the 9/11 experience was that our troubles felt insignificant compared to what was going on. I do not really recall worrying too much about the business and money at that point. That was a unique experience. When you fast-forward to Shark Tank, this bad part is going to seem like something crazy. After Shark Tank, when we hired a marketing company that taught us how to market online using social media, our sales went through the roof.

That is the loss right there because you are jumping around very quickly. Let us pause right there. You go on Shark Tank, you get a deal with Lori, you are not changing the deal because you did not want to lose control of your company.

I can tell you going back, just remember this. This is another pivot we had to make in 2009. We survived 9/11, obviously.  In 2009, I had a partner, and I bought him out in 2009. The pivot that I made when I took over was a huge one, because I closed all the mall stores except for the one that I believed in, which was the Mall of America, and I focused on this new thing called the internet.

The Hard Truth About Pivoting Your Business Model

Before you go on, let us unpack some things right there. How many retail stores did you have?

We had 24 at the peak of it.

You ended up closing all of those?

All of those except for the one in the Mall of America.

Did you have existing leases and things like that that you had to buy yourself out of?

I had everything you can imagine. That was such a drastic move.

Why did you decide to close down all 24?

They were really a pain, and one would make money, one would lose money. I did not feel like I had very good control over it. Most of the people who were working in those stores and kiosks that we had were young people, and it was hard to keep them motivated, let’s say.

Your product takes a little bit of demonstration.

A hundred percent demonstration, constant demonstration.

You decided cold turkey, just closed down 24. Most business owners do not do that. Most business owners will stage and say, “We’re going to keep our profitable ones. We’re going to close our non-profitable ones that are really feeding profitable ones and feeding the non-profitable ones.” It kind of goes back to the 80/20 rule, 80% of revenue will come from 20% of your clients. We probably had 80% of revenue coming from a few of those stores, the Mall of America being one of them, obviously. Why did you say it was all and not just keep the profitable ones?

I think I did.

The only profitable one was the Mall of America.

There are lots of stories involved in that. We had one person who was like a franchisee, a franchise location, and he had a few stores, and there were groupings of stores, too. They all have their own story, but they were all pretty much a pain compared to what I could do on the internet.

Understood. You closed them all. You thought we had outstanding rent, outstanding leases you had to pay. You probably had inventory. What is that?

I had everything you can imagine. Each one of those locations had its own story and ways that I had to get out of the lease and things like that. Some of them I had to ride out. In phases, it probably was in phases because some of them I had to ride out until the lease was done. Some of them I could get out of, so they all had their own little story to them. Eventually, I did get out of all of them and in good graces, too. I did not do anything. I did not have any of the malls coming after me or anything like that, so that was nice. Really focused on the internet back then and back in that time.

I got to pause you again because you like to go from here to here very quickly.

That is what I did. I closed the kiosks, and I focused on the internet. I am not going through. I am going from where I went to where I went.

We closed all of those stores, and you were probably profitable when you closed all those stores in the Mall of America. We discovered the internet. You started advertising before you went on Shark Tank.

The internet at that point, we were focused on, and we were making a little bit of, we were doing okay. We were not spending a lot of money as we do now. Back then, when we made money, there was a lot of profit in it. The numbers were not huge, but it was growing, so I knew that it was the way to go. I was able to pay bills with it. I was able to pay off debts, and it was going up and up at that point.

We got away from brick and mortar, and then we went on the internet, and you saw it directed to consumers.

Correct.

That was a big shift, too, because your product does take demonstrations. How were you able to transition into the internet when your product requires some demonstration?

Mastering Direct-To-Consumer Sales And Product Demos

I will tell you what, if you want to really get to know your product and your customer, open up some mall locations and open up a mall kiosk specifically where they do not even have to come into your store. After doing that for let us say fifteen years or whatever it was when we decided to close, we had our pitch. We knew if we demonstrated this product, people would buy it, and we knew exactly how to do it. We had done it thousands and thousands of times, so all we had to do was film it and put it in front of people. We knew that they would get attention. We had a patent on the product, so we were the only ones making it. Basically, we took what we did in the mall, and we just filmed it, kept tweaking it and making it better and better, which is pretty much what we do today.

My question was, how did you demonstrate on the internet, because those were new customers you were attracting?

The only way you can demonstrate on the internet is by video. That is how we did it.

You film, Paul. I am starting to spoof you in my audience. You are just jumping.

How else are you supposed to demonstrate on the internet?

You started doing a lot of video content.

Exactly.

You do not just jump on the internet. My entrepreneurs are listening to this. You have to really prepare for that. You have to build out your content. You have to do videos depending on your products and services. You went on the internet. This was before Shark Tank, still, correct?

Correct.

You started doing direct sales. Was that much better than brick and mortar?

It was, but it had its own problems. Brick and mortar has a set of problems.

The Internet has a set of problems. Go ahead and tell them.

Keep in mind, we’re shipping a very large product. It has to be vacuum-packed in order to make it shippable. Nobody was doing this, so we had to basically come up with the ideas. For a while, we used a Shop-Vac from Home Depot, and we had guys who just knew how to do it. It was very physical. It was just a very difficult job that also probably did not pay. Almost like those people who spin pizzas. They probably do not make a ton of money, but if you have ever tried to spin a pizza, it is very difficult. It was kind of the same type of thing. This job was not easy. You had to learn how to do it, and it was a hot warehouse, and they had to do it all day long, packing these bean bags. It was tough back in the day.

You started making more, and you started to earn more revenue. Now, what type of advertising did you do on the internet back then? That was before 2013.

What is funny is that I had not really thought about this in a long time. I do not even know if we advertised, because I know we were not doing social media, because that would not work for us. We would send out some emails, which back then were free. I do not know how we would advertise. I think it might have just been the people who had seen us at the mall locations or something. We had that list. We did have a good list from having those locations. Every time I tried to advertise, it did not work. I thought it was, I did not think it would work until somebody showed us how to do it.

This is still before Shark Tank?

Yes.

You started going directly to the consumer. You are not sure how you did it. You had a list from the mall sales, and so you do not know if it was a direct email or a direct call, but probably no advertising at that point. You go on Shark Tank, and that builds up sales. Obviously, you got inundated with sales at that point. You did QVC, which also increased sales exponentially. Correct?

Yes.

After Lori’s deal with you, that was five years. You went in and started doing advertising, correct?

Yes. After Lori, is when we met the marketing company that put us through the roof on sales at that point.

You had different shifts in your revenue because when you were on Shark Tank, I think your revenue was around was it $3 million?

No, I think it was $1.4, $1.5, something like that.

Again, that is after being in business for 13, 14 years. Someone got his standard. After Shark Tank, it grew from $1.5 million in revenue to what?

We almost hit 30 million in one year.

That was a hit. You guys hear this? This is really a story of entrepreneurship. This is starting a company, being in business for a long time, not really making that much revenue. 1.4 going on a Shark Tank, really figuring out along the way and having to pivot, coming almost around every turn, you’re having to pivot. You made up to $30 million. What year was that?

Just a few years back, right after, right during COVID, actually. COVID was a horrible time for a lot of people. For my business, it was not a horrible time because it was a home product, and we were able to keep manufacturing. Our sales went through the roof.

The Reality Of Scaling Fast And Breaking Foundations

Let us talk about that real quick because I do not want to keep putting you off. My apologies, but there is a lot to unpack there because when you say that, it sounds easy, but it is not. From, I think it was 2013, you’re on Shark Tank, right? In 2013, you’re on Shark Tank at 1.5, and in between Lori, Lori probably grew you. How much did the company grow to?

We probably hit, probably went to $5 million or so at that point. I cannot really recall those numbers. I know that we were growing very quickly at that point because she and I did QVC for five years, and we were selling as many as we could manufacture on QVC. Of course, that was helping the website out as well.

Why did you all stop doing QVC?

Lori does not do QVC anymore. She quietly retired from that gig. She worked her butt off. That is very laborious.  When I first met her, one of my first questions was, “How long can you do this?” There are nights when they stay up all night long doing those sales. It is a tough gig.

It is a good gig, because look where she is now.

Yes, no doubt.

You and Lori built a company, $5 million, probably $6 million to $9. When Lori was done after five years, you went off of QVC. What did you do?

That was when we went our separate ways, and both of us were happy, by the way, no big deal. I did not feel like we could do any more with her at that point. In fact, she is always there. She said, “If I have a great idea that I want to include her in, just give her a call, so we have a great relationship.” After that, we met a marketing company out of California that we met because of Shark Tank. This is a good thing to say about Shark Tank.

You do not just go on Shark Tank and get rich. That is not how it works. There are little things that happen because of it that you need to be ready to take advantage of. The Sharks are not going to do all the work. They are not a magic bullet. If you can figure out ways to use them and work with them, it is awesome. Because of Shark Tank, I got cold-called by a marketing company, and for some reason, I answered, and for some reason, they convinced me that they would help us and that it would actually work.

That is when I went to Hawaii. I went to Hawaii for three weeks, and our sales went from roughly 5,000 on the internet per day to over 300,000, and then another day, and then another day of 300, another day at 300. All of a sudden, I am stressed for a different reason. Now I am super stressed because we are not handling this well at all. The product is suffering, the customer service is suffering, and the sales just keep coming in.

That was through the ad agency where you were running ads on social media. Specifically Facebook.

Facebook, Instagram, Google, pretty much all of them, those three mainly.

After QVC went from what to what?

I cannot remember where we were at QVC, $5 or $6 million, probably, I do not know. I know that we, as I said, went up to $29 million and change, think, call it $30 million. A huge increase, and it is funny because my entire business life, I had always made fun of people who say, “Do not grow too quickly,” because I was like, “I want to grow as fast as possible.” When I started stressing about my product, and all I could think of was people going on the internet on social media and bitching about my product, because we take a lot of pride in what we do and how good it is. Now I am opening the boxes, and I am not liking what I am seeing because my factories are so stressed.

I just want to back up a little bit because it is almost like it was an overnight success after QVC or several years before you got to that $29, $30 million mark.

Surviving Explosive Growth And Operational Strain

I will tell you, everything else was quick but manageable. When I was in Hawaii, and that website jumped from $5,000 a day to $300,000 a day, that was unbelievable.

When you say 5,000 as 5,000 visitors?

$5,000 in sales. $300,000 in sales.

Did you start the ad campaign advertising on social media? It went from $5,000 a day and jumped up to what?

Over $300,000 a day.

Listen to this, you guys. That was it.

Yes, it was not just one day either. It was back then when it started working. We could push that gas pedal as hard as we wanted to. It was tough to say, “Stop making sales,” because you do not want to do that. Looking back at it, I really should have done that while I gathered my thoughts and got my shit together.

It grew so fast from $5,000 a day to $300,000 per day. That could have kept going if you put more ad spend, and I am sure that could have kept growing, but you did not have the foundation.

I thought we had a good foundation. What you find out when you grow that quickly is that you do not have enough customer service people. I went and built a factory. I do not know anything about building a factory, but my company, which was handling it for us, was not moving quickly enough. I went and bought the machinery and built the factory myself.

How long did that take?

Too long.

This is a huge problem. He is talking about, like, you always thought it was crazy when somebody said, “You do not want to go too fast.” I have helped my clients grow from pretty much zero patients to 150 to 200 patients overnight, and they did not have the foundation. With any industry, any business, if you go too fast and you do not build that solid foundation, then you’re going to crash and burn. As you said earlier, Byron, you can have negative feedback on the internet. Nobody wants that.

I would also add that it is tough to build the foundation before you need it. It is a balancing act because you are not going to go build a factory that you do not need, I don’t know. It is always a balancing act, especially when you are in production.

You are going to go from $5,000 to $300,000.

I had no idea.

Not quite either. What were your biggest struggles? I like to frame everything around the six Ps that we talk about in my book, Exit Rich, which are people, product, processes, proprietary assets, patrons, and profits. Out of those six Ps, what do you feel was the biggest weakness in the foundation? What were the cracks?

Almost all of them. We did not have enough. We had our patent, so that part was okay. As far as everything else goes, the product was suffering. We needed more people.

You did not have enough people. You were lacking people. You were working really hard and working around the clock.

Prioritizing Customer Service During Rapid Expansion

Anytime somebody needs this product, we’ll just say beanbags. Anytime somebody said they needed beanbags, I could always confidently say, “We can make so many that you’re not going to stress us out.” That’s how it always was because we could make it. We were very efficient. We just did not expect to go to those numbers. My attitude, it is weird to say this now, but back in the day, I did not even have a grasp of that. Our factory had a maximum. We always make so many that I was like, “I will figure it out.” No, when you go to those numbers, it exposes every single hole in your game.

I like that explanation. Think about it. You went from ground zero, pretty much, not ground zero, but $5,000 a day to $300,000 a day. You probably did not have the people. Your product was suffering. You had to pivot really quickly because what happens is most businesses will crash and burn, and they usually cannot get back to where they were when that happened because of too many negative comments, too many issues in the business. How were you able to pivot so quickly to be able to handle that volume?

One thing we always do is make the customer happy. No matter what, as I said before, I believe my customer service people are always instructed to make the customer happy. We tried to answer. I believe we did answer every single comment, every single message, every single complaint, and anything that was happening. We all just took a chunk of it and started going through it. We did not have any. These days, all of our messages come into a single board like Zendesk, Gorgias, or something like that. Back then, we were getting messages from there, there were messages on the ads themselves, and there were messages in the message section. They were just all scattered.

You answered every single one of them.

We all just took a chunk and started going through them.

This is very important what he said, because it does not sound like, “It is wrong.” It does not sound like, “That is so huge what they did.” It is really not huge. It is a simple thing. Get in touch, follow up, and follow up. Answer everybody, take care of the client, and make sure you improve that experience, even if the company is having issues, by reaching out, following up, and taking care of the client.

You ended up having a high, you ended up having really good clients, happy clients, and I am sure they came back to you. Even though you had big problems, you were able to take care of them because you addressed them head-on. Many business owners never follow up with messages, they never follow up with emails, they never follow up with their clients, and that is one of the biggest issues. It is the easiest thing to do.

Yes, a lot of people these days do not even want to talk to their customers. At CordaRoys, you can always call and talk to a knowledgeable person. In fact, they’re sitting right over here. When you call us, you are going to talk to one of our customer service representatives here. They know what they are talking about. They are not in some house somewhere answering the phone for other companies. It is really like my dad would always say about Craftsman tools, “If I find a wrench in the ditch and it is broken, I take it to Sears, and they replace it, no questions asked.” I always remembered things like that about lifetime guarantees and how to treat customers and stuff like that, just do the right thing.

The six Ps, he really took the patrons, which is his clientele, and tackled that one first. I am sure you had to work on people, you had to work on building out your manufacturing unit, your manufacturing facility. That was a lot all at once. How sustainable was that $300,000 a day? How long did that last?

I do not know if it was that number, but back when we started learning how to do it, I used to call it an accelerator pedal. We could basically have a sale, and it was like pushing a gas pedal. The sales would just come flooding in all the time. It lasted that way until about two years ago.

You made a lot of money, as you say, got up to about $30 million in revenue. You do not need to talk about your profits, but I know you’re profitable. All of a sudden, bam, you’re on a social media train, you’re advertising, you’re getting in $200,000 a day, more than $5,000 a day. Finally, in 25 years, you figured it out, making a ton of money. What happens?

I would say about two years ago, when you become reliant upon the internet, there is this thing called an algorithm, and that algorithm decides everything on social media. That is something that’s controlled by Zuckerberg and his people and, of course, Google. The word on the street is that they changed the algorithm and basically tried to see how much money they could make, meaning that our cost of acquisition, our cost to gain a new customer, all of a sudden, overnight, just went through the roof, and we could not figure out why that happened.

When an algorithm changes, it is very difficult to figure out because it is not nature. Nature does not change that fast. We struggled with really throwing money at it, trying to beat it, trying to figure it out, and then nowadays, we understand what’s going on. We pivoted again, as you like to say. We realized that we were going to have to accept this new reality. It was not going to be $30 million a year, but it was also going to be profitable, so we got it figured out now. Actually, we’re on the way back up right now.

How did you figure it out? It took you two years, and I know revenue has rocked.

The main thing is, we had to stop thinking about the top line and start thinking about the MER, which is the Media Efficiency Ratio, or another way to say that would be the ROAS, so we just figured before, we were pushing so hard to try to get that top line where it needed to be. We finally came to our senses and said, “We’re just going to have to make money, even if it’s not the money we’re accustomed to making,” and ride this thing out and make some adjustments as we can.

You went from $29 million down to what? You dropped quickly, almost overnight.

When that happened, it was really crazy.

You dropped down to $10 million, $15 million, Byron?

Maybe $17 million.

You went from $30 million down to $17 million overnight.  That could be the kiss of death for business, guys. Go ahead, Byron.

A lot of things happen there where, for various reasons, furniture is down because of interest rates and things like that. Anybody you talk to in mattresses or furniture will tell you that they are down 40% or 50%. Us being a type of furniture, a little bit different type, but we are furniture, we had that issue because we do have wholesale accounts, which are furniture stores that sell our products. All those are down.

Shipping from China has gotten expensive. China took over Amazon in our department, so they started shipping directly from China. They just come in, and they are category killers when they do that. A lot of weird things. I think when you’re making a lot of money, you’d better be prepared to be a target. You’re going to be the target for lawsuits. You’re going to be the target for people coming in and saying, “It is like if you are catching a lot of fish, the other boats are going to come around eventually.”

It was a long time back there because you obviously dropped nearly half and in very like almost overnight. You had a lot of different issues you just talked about. Number one was the algorithm change, and then basically China kicked you off Amazon, and was able to beat you for Amazon. There are a lot of issues that were associated with this. Again, he had to pivot. That is why I always say you want to have multiple marketing channels and not just one. Before, you had retail stores, and you do have a retail store. You’re standing in your retail store. When you got rid of retail, you added the internet. All your money was on social media, but then you have wholesalers, too, right?

Yes.

You have two different ways that you’re getting paid through channels. One channel was social media, the other channel was wholesalers. I always tell my clients you want at least 4 to 6 different marketing channels where you can get paid, because if one dies, like Facebook, you have got other ones that you can rely upon. That is a really good lesson for these entrepreneurs. How are you fixing that, because you cannot really go back and fix the algorithm? What did you pivot to?

One thing I was going to tell you is if you’re working in a business like this, where you have manufacturing, and you have sales, it seems like there are very few times when they’re both absolutely perfect. When they are, celebrate those times. For instance, right now, our sales have dropped, but I have to tell you, our manufacturing, every other part of my business, is so strong it would blow your mind. We figured out so many lifelong things that were long-term problems in the business that we have figured out now, and we are so locked and loaded.

Of course, right about that time is when sales dropped. Now sales are starting to come back up, and I am sure something will happen with manufacturing at that point, but hopefully not. It is always one or the other, so we’re ready for it to shift back to where it was. What did we do to figure it out? One of the main things is that we had to accept it. We were losing a lot of money because we were not accepting the reality that it just happened so fast. We could not accept it, we could not figure out how it happened so fast.

Now that we understand what happened with the algorithm, it all makes sense. When it just happens really fast like that, you think you’re doing something wrong with marketing, so you throw more money at it. You do have to put a lot of money into marketing. If you do not put enough there, it’s like going to the blackjack table with $20. You might as well just give it to them. You have to put enough money behind the marketing to make it work. We just refused to believe that it was not working. We just kept pumping and pumping and pumping, and it was losing money.

At some point, you’ve got to stop.

We did, yes, exactly. At some point, you have to accept the new reality and say, “We are not going to do $30 million this year.” Every month, we were comparing, and we were like, “This is way off.” Finally, we had to accept that and focus on what was right and just hold, just hold that ROAS, hold that MER, and ride this thing out while we figured it out. We have done that recently.

What did you figure out? What was it? What did you figure out?

The main thing was just to stop throwing money at it and maintain profitability, even if it was not the profit that we were used to.

That is probably the algorithm.

It does change. I have heard recently that it backfired on them and they are actually working to make changes on that now. I know that Google is coming after them hard right now because of what happened. It is more profitable now in some cases to advertise on Google than it is on Meta. I can only go so deep into this because my team, I got a really good team that handles this, and I am probably the worst one to talk to about the details of it. I can tell you that we have done a lot of different things, a lot of different testing on types of media, types of ads, and the number of ads.

The same agency?

Yeah. It is us, it is my team here. We sub out the media buying, we sub out the email stuff like that. We have a good team.

Maintaining A Millionaire Mindset Through Revenue Shifts

Do you think you’re going to get back to that $30?

For sure, definitely, no doubt.

You made a statement not to expect $30 million anymore, and I wanted to say, “Wait a minute, let’s not say that.” Let us not lower our expectations that we are not going to be a $30 million company anymore, because you are going to be a $30 million company. You might drop in revenue and profits for a bit, but you’re going to figure it out. Once a $30 million company, I always talk about one of my favorite books by T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.

Everybody has a financial thermostat. When I hire people, I touch on my sales team, and in different companies, if you have not made $100,000, I am not going to hire you because if you have not made it before, you are not going to make it here. You have got to come up with $30 million. That is a financial thermostat. We do not want to say we are not going to make $30 million anymore. Not $30,000, $30 million.

We are not going to make $30 million anymore because yes, we are. We just have to figure out how to change that because this is all about innovation, it’s all about shifting, it’s all about pivoting. Always stay up with the times and the trends, and I always say either die. Growing or dying, there is no in-between. Most businesses stop doing what I call AIM, Always Innovate and Market. Always Innovate and Market, which is what you’re doing and what you’re growing at. I’m doing it. You’re to get back up to that $30 million mark. How many times have you pivoted?

Thirty years is a lot. I need some oil on my pivot.

You’re an entrepreneur because you figure it out, you change direction, you do not see it as failure, you see it as an opportunity to succeed, correct?

Yes. I am sure you have read a lot about different businesses. One thing that is comforting to me is that any business you go and read about, I do not care if it is Coca-Cola, Levi’s, whoever it might be, there was some point when everything was s***, and they thought it was over. That is just the nature of business. You have got to remember that everybody goes through it, take a deep breath, and sometimes you just have to ride it out while you’re figuring it out.

You’re to ride it out, but you’re going to make some serious adjustments in expenses because a revenue drop is a profit drop, and expenses cannot stay the same, obviously.

That is not a bad thing, either. The cuts that we have made during this slow time really needed to be made anyway. When everything’s great, I am guilty of this. I will let a lot of things slide. When things get bad, what’s the old saying? “When the tide waters recede, the naked swimmers are exposed.” We had to make, we made a lot of cuts. We made cuts that needed to be made.

What you said is what all entrepreneurs do. Everybody is like, “It is great.” There could be some really big issues not getting the attention they need because everything is good and everything’s great because we’re making money. You should be looking at the six Ps and really looking at the foundation and see if there are any cracks before you really try to go too fast. It is important to build that.

The Critical Necessity Of Planning Your Exit Strategy

Do you think that it would be a safe statement to say that you should always be thinking about your exit strategy, too? Especially because I think when times are good, a lot of times people do not think about it. I know I was guilty of that.

You’re absolutely right. That is what this show is all about, and that is what I have been teaching, preaching, and speaking about over the last 26 years since I have been in this industry. That is the biggest mistake, Byron, that most business owners make is they never really think about exiting. They never really think about selling their company. They never really think about it because they just think, “I am going to run this forever. I love what I do. I am passionate about what I do. I am just going to keep running it.”

They do not really think about, “This is the most valuable asset in my life, it is more valuable than my home.” It is more valuable than their typical financial portfolios. It is usually the most valuable thing in a business owner’s life, but they never look at it that way. They never think about exiting until a catastrophic event has occurred. Health issues, divorce, partner disputes, COVID, all kinds of different things that can cause them to sell. Burnout is a big one. Guess what? The business is failing. Businesses go through these cycles.

They go through these cycles where they’re doing really well, as you have, and they go through these cycles where they almost crash and burn and lose half of their revenue.” That is when they want to sell. That is the worst time you can sell. The most important thing is to sell when your business is doing well, turning up and not turning down. It is very difficult to sell a business turning down because that can now become what’s called a turnaround. There are turnaround buyers out there, but you’re not going to get your best price.

You really should be planning your exit from the beginning and building that solid foundation on the six Ps. That is what every business owner should do because then, when you are ready to sell, you do not have to do all of that work. You do not have to go and say, “I need a management team. I need those non-competes.” “I need multiple products and profit centers.” “I need transferable contracts. I need a federal trademark on my company name,” because we have already done all of that. When you build a solid foundation on the six Ps, you’re building those synergies that buyers will pay a much higher multiple for.

I am sure you have seen a lot of this, too, when I was guilty of it. Until you go through it, you do not really understand it, but you think that when things are great, you think they are always going to be great. We have made it to the part. We made it through the hard part. Now things are great, and they are just going to get greater because now we know what we are doing, but there are things that are like the China thing on Amazon. I never would have predicted that. Our sales were just going up and up and up. I just figured we were just going to keep going up, right? What else are you going to figure out? I think when things are good, you have to remember that something is eventually going to happen, and it is not going to be good forever.

Nothing lasts forever. I mean, look at Toys “R” Us. You can give example after example after example. At one point, they were worth $11 billion. Two years later, they filed for bankruptcy. They’re closing all their stores down, and now they’re trying to rebirth and come back. It’s like the cycle of life. You’re born, you’re an infant, then you become a toddler. It’s the same thing with the business. Let us hope that business is the same way. This is just born.

What we are discussing here is the reason that Zuckerberg, we will call it his team or whatever it was, changed that algorithm because Facebook is dying. It is because the kids are not on Facebook. I do not know where the age stops, but I know my daughter is going on nineteen. She is not on Facebook at all. None of her friends is on Facebook. Facebook will become like Yahoo, and like AOL, and things like that. It will probably always be around, but it will not be what it is, and it is already dying. Basically, he just decided to start making as much money as he could with it to supply some of the failed things like Metaverse and AI and things like that, where they have blown through many billions of dollars. To your point, yes, even something as big as Facebook can die.

You made a very good point there because if you are, everybody should advertise. Everybody should have multiple channels. You should have at least 6 to 7 different ways, resources that will bring clients to your door. That can be all different things. It can be speaking events, it could be advertising, it could be on Amazon, it could be a retail store, all different. If you’re going to go and advertise, like you just made a great point, Byron, you really have to know your audience.

You have to know your client because, like you just said, if you’re selling to the other ones, do not go on Facebook, go on TikTok. If you’re selling to older people, like my clientele is mostly baby boomers, if you’re selling to the older generation, then I am great on Facebook. I am not good. You really have to know who your audience is. You shared a lot of great golden nuggets here. Anything you would like to leave our audience with?

Buy a CordaRoys bean bag. You do not have to buy just one. You can buy as many as you want.

Your golden nugget is buy, buy, buy. That is hilarious. Anything you would like to leave the audience with other than buying a big bag? By the way, I am going to buy a pink one for my daughter.

Cool, she will love it, and it will last forever, so there you go. I do not think I have anything else I can think of saying. I have said so much. I am good at answering questions, but I do not know if I have anything just to say, so I appreciate it.

You said a lot already. There was a lot to unpack there. I really appreciate all of your feedback. I appreciate you telling your story. It is also going to be vulnerable, and a lot of entrepreneurs do not want to talk about the failures. We all have failures, and you are not an entrepreneur unless you have failed many times. Talk about those failures because what he just said here was packed with a lot of lessons for all of you entrepreneurs, no matter what stage you are in your business.

Thank you, Byron, for being on the second time. Thank you to my audience for tuning in to every episode of the show. I know this was a lot of great content. Please share it with your network. Remember, your network equals your net worth. Get the message out, and we will see you next time on the show. If you have not subscribed to the show, please do so now. Thank you, we will see you next time.

Important Links

• Byron Young on LinkedIn
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• Exit Rich
• Secrets of the Millionaire Mind