SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Confidential Business Show, the podcast where we have the conversations that usually happen behind closed doors. Real business stories, business secrets, business strategies. I'm Casey Carlson, and this is Confidential BS. Let's get into it. Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Confidential BS. That's a business show, guys. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about how I got into starting a business at a really young age. And people always ask me why I did that or how I did that. I'm just gonna give a little background. I don't think there was any moment where I decided, hey, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I didn't even freaking know what that was when I was 19. No idea. I think it was just built into me. I don't know, DNA, or maybe possibly trained into me. I grew up with a single mom who worked in real estate. And let me tell you, my mom was a frigging powerhouse. Let me say this first. She was the manifestation mama. And this must be where I got manifestation skills too. I remember when I was really young, there was a lady that used to drive around our neighborhood in this really long, kind of a pink apricot Lincoln Continental. And my mom said she was the hot real estate agent here in our little town. And she said, someday I'm going to do that. I'm going to drive that car. I'm going to be a real estate agent just like her. And well, several years later, she did. I remember her studying for her test. I remember quizzing her, doing all the things. She got her license, she went to work at Century 21, and she was wearing those gold blazer jackets. Remember those? And man, she was just a fireball. And this was back in the day when the interest rates were like, I don't know, like some ungodly like 17, 18%, something like that. You know what? She killed it. She sold houses. She was always a top producer. She just she was amazing. She went on to manage several Century 21 offices. She was the property manager at the Mission Inn. And I don't know if you knew this, but inside the Mission Inn, there used to be apartments there. The hotel rooms. They were apartments back then. And you could actually live in the Mission Inn. That's pretty freaking rad. That was a very cool job that she had there. That was like a fun time. This was back in the day, obviously. No cell phones, no anything like that. It would be like our personal house phone that her clients would call on. I would always answer the phone. This is how I learned phone etiquette. I learned how to take a proper call and a message for my mom. I was basically like her secretary. I would learn how to say, may I ask who's calling, please? Let me see if she's available. Let me take a message. All the things to ask. I remember this one time. This client called and my mom was there, but I knew she didn't want to talk to them because it was like a problematic situation at that time. And she was giving me the look like, I'm not here, I'm not here. And I answered the phone, no, she's not available. Can I take a message? Do you know when she will be back? I said, no, she's at Kmart right now. And I took the message and I got off the phone and she goes, Why did you tell him I met Kmart? That's so embarrassing. I don't know. She said, You could have said Macy's or something. It was just so funny. I will never forget that. So the title of this episode is When My Escrow Closes, because that was my life growing up. I had to wait until an escrow closed for anything I ever wanted. Like if it was back to school shopping, you know, I would be like, Mom, school's gonna start soon. I have to get new clothes. Well, honey, you're gonna have to wait till my escrow closes. Everything. Like I needed stuff for cheerleading. Well, when my escrow closes, I want to go skating. Well, well, my escrow closes. So I just remember my whole life revolving around when my escrow closes. And I just think it's so funny that now I'm doing that. It just cracks me up. That was my kind of, I guess, probably, you know, learning entrepreneurship or business when I was young. Maybe it was, like I said, DNA or trained. I don't know. You can do all the work, you can take all the calls. You know, you can drive people around, show houses, write offers, negotiate deals, but you don't get paid unless the deal closes. That's escrow. It's interesting when you grow up in a family, and there's no guaranteed pay on Friday. It's just not happening. I learned all those early lessons in life. My plan was that after high school, I was gonna get my real estate license. I knew I just wasn't going to be able to go to college. I didn't have the money to do it. I just didn't feel like it was for me. I did all of the pretests, I did all the principles, all the things because I was planning on getting my license. But then my husband, well, my boyfriend at the time, Stan, his stepdad offered me a job at his truck brokerage, and he's paying me $400 a week. Well, $400 a week when I was 18 years old, I was like, uh, yeah, I'll do that. Because, well, I knew being in real estate, remember, I had to wait for my escrow to close before I got paid. $400 a week? That sounded pretty damn good. So I took that job. What we did there at the truck brokerage was connect companies that needed freight moved from one area to another. Say you had a load of strawberries that needed to be picked up here and needed to be taken down to the south, to the Wind Dixie, something like that. I would find a trucking company that had a driver in the area that could pick up that load and then drop it off out there. So basically just matching people up. Matching drivers with loads. Basically, you're making matches all day long. Sounds exactly like what I'm doing right now. Matching people up. I've always been a matchmaker. That is how when I was creating a new brand for myself over the last 90 days of working on my real estate business, I came up with the business matchmaker. Because I guess I was always doing this, so it just made perfect sense. Same thing, just a different industry, but the same instinct. You just really listen to what someone needs, just not what they initially tell you they want, and you figure out what works on both sides. You solve problems that are standing in between them, and then you try and get everyone across the finish line together. The truck brokerage job was my real first experience in business, but it taught me so many lessons that I've carried through every company I've built since. That's where I learned how to cold call. I had to cold call every single day. That's how I got over my fear of, you know, calling strangers. It really just taught me how to engage with people, talk with people, how to sell without sounding like I'm selling, because I freaking hate doing sales, and I always say I'm not a salesperson, but newsflash, if you have a business, you are a salesperson. But I guess I don't think of sales that way. I think I'm just solving a problem for somebody. Also, it taught me really how to negotiate. I had to negotiate prices, how to quickly, you know, close a deal, and how you think you're going to close a deal, but how it can just fall apart because of bad communication or different things. And it also taught me how the money is attached to the movement. There are terms. Time kills deals, and time is of the essence. You have got to move fast, and you got to communicate well. You can't wait around waiting to feel ready. You have to make the call, ask the question, solve the problem, and keep the deal moving. When you grow up around commission-based work, you develop a different relationship with money. There's a risk, but there's also possibility. And growing up with that, I knew I had to wait for things. And that's just like with entrepreneurship. The payout's going to be later. It's not going to be immediate. I guess I was just used to living and growing up in that manner. It felt like taking risks was normal to me. The other thing about having your own business or being commission based, there's no ceiling on how much you can earn. If I have a job, then I'm only going to make X amount of money. But I control my own destiny. I can control how much money I make. When I want to make more money, I can make more sales. When I want to work less because I want to relax more, I have that ability too. And that scares a lot of people. I know a lot of people that way. Thinking I'm not going to get a paycheck every week freaks them the freak out. It's just really scary for them. They need that surety and that consistency for their own peace of mind. There are just some people who are just, they're really, really not cut out for not knowing. The not knowing. Being comfortable in the not knowing. I didn't go to college and earn a business degree. My experience just came from watching my mom navigate her real estate career and my first job at the truck brokerage that my father-in-law taught me so much. That's how it actually came to be that I started my own business. I started my own truck brokerage when I was 19. I was scared to do that. I didn't think it was something I could do. It was my husband that said, Well, why don't you just start your own? You are running this one. You know how to do everything. And I said, What do you mean? I don't know how to start a business. And he goes, Well, you could, you could do that. And he's he's just always been my support system, my rock. He always thinks I can do everything. He instills so much confidence in me. He told me that I could do it, so I believe him. Just like when I started my internet business, I wanted to make a website, and I said, Well, I don't know how to do it. I could hire somebody, and he told me, no, you can figure it out. You could do it yourself. You're smart enough. He always just made me feel like I could do anything and everything, and I just freaking love that man. He's the best. What I really wanted to say about this episode is why I called it When My Escrow Closes. It's because it's just living in uncertainty, right? And I guess I've just always been comfortable with that. These are just times when you don't know what's next. You don't know if you're gonna have a day of money coming in or you're not having a day of money coming in. You keep working, you keep pushing, you keep serving, and all of the things are going to eventually come to you. Your success is inevitable. The universe has your back, guys. You have to think positively. You have to believe in yourself. You have to know that every day is a new day and it's open to so many possibilities. That's why I am so comfortable in the not knowing. Now here I am all these years later, finally holding the real estate license I originally thought I would get right out of high school. But I'm not using it to sell houses. I'm helping people buy and sell businesses. I became a business broker, or as I prefer to call it, a business matchmaker. And when I look back, it doesn't feel like a completely new chapter. It feels like all the chapters finally make sense together. The little girl answering the house phone, the teenager planning to get her real estate license, the young woman matching trucks with freight for $400 a week, the entrepreneur who spent more than 25 years starting, buying, building, and selling businesses. All of it brought me here. Maybe I didn't suddenly become a business matchmaker. Maybe I've been training for it my entire life. And yes, after all these years, there are still things I want, plans I'm making, and deals I'm waiting on. So when will they happen? When my escrow closes. That's today's conversation, but it's certainly not the last because every business has another chapter. Thanks for listening to Confidential BS. I'll see you behind closed doors.