Blue Collar Serial Acquisition Millionaire - Don Wilson - How he did start small to millionaire

Welcome to the top M&A entrepreneurs today. My guest is Don Wilson. Don Wilson is out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He's a Navy veteran, and he's acquired 10 businesses. We're gonna hear that story. Thanks for joining the show, Don. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So, uh, what did you do for the Navy for 10 years? It looks like you were, uh, Well, I, I started out in, in, uh, in the naval aviation, uh, side of the Navy, and I worked my way up over a 10-year career, um, you know, from one leadership position to the next. And ultimately, at the end of 10 years, I realized that, uh, I did not want to spend, you know, another 10 years, um, you know, traveling around the world on, on the flat tops. And, uh, With a family and, and, um, you know, be a father to my kids. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, my dad was in the Air Force 20 years. I served 4 years in the Air Force, and he was gone a lot. He was gone a lot, yeah, yeah. Um, well, that's cool. Thank you for your service. So you went to go work for American Airlines, and you did that for 4 years, and then you worked for Prime America for a little bit. So what were you doing for Prime America that you didn't like it so well that you decided I'm gonna go buy my own business? Well, obviously, you know, work, working in the airline industry, when I went to work for American Airlines, you know, obviously, I, I, I joined the Navy with the goal in mind of getting a license to work on aircraft. So that was my purpose of joining the Navy. So it took a lot longer than I anticipated to get that license, uh, because you have to have both airframe and power plant experience. And in the Navy, when you go into A rating, they typically, you're in that rating, and you really, you know, you kind of stay in that rating. So my rating in the Navy was uh metalsmith, uh, uh, uh, basically working on the structures and the hydraulic systems and stuff like that. So you really didn't get to work on engines. So in order to get my engine experience, I had to re-enlist, uh, once or twice to get around the engines and then I Spent time away from my specialty, so I'd go to work normal hours, but when I got off, instead of going home, I went over to the engine shop and learned engines. So that's how I got my engine experience. And then, uh, obviously, once I got the, you know, the, the required number of, of things that they were looking for, which is like 36 months of experience, I took the test and passed that for A&P licensing. All right. And then you, uh, went over to, uh, America Financial Services. You worked there for 10 years, correct? Yeah, I went, I went, I, I joined American Airlines, worked there for 3.5, almost 4 years, had a very good run there, learned a lot of, of valuable things. But the bottom line is, I was a number, and my number was 318-034, and that was my employee number. So, when the day came that the airline, you know, when they lay off people, they don't look at your experience, they look at your number. And so your number, you know, your employee seniority date, they have a line and they draw that line. Anything below that line, you're out the door. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, uh, you know, so they treated me like a number, and I, I just, you know, I mean, I had enough of that in the military, you know, because you've got to play a lot of games in the military if you wanna get promoted, um, so I left, uh, American Airlines for America as a sales rep, learning how to sell financial products. And over that ten-year period, now, that was not a job, that was an independent contractor position. So I, I had to learn that. On a 100% commission. So there, there was no income whatsoever. You had to go out and generate the income. So I learned how, I learned sales, I learned managing. Obviously, I knew quite a bit about that in the military, but in America, when you hire people, you don't put them on a salary, they come in 100% commission. So you have to train those people how to go out and make a living while they're learning the business. Yeah, uh, that did you design that? Say, hey, I need to get some, uh, sales experience under me if I'm gonna go buy a business and your ultimate goal? No, not really. I mean, obviously with, with the opportunity when you join that company, you're an independent contract. You're 1099 right off the bat. So, you know, you, you, I, I just wanted to have. I want, to be honest with you, I just want to replace the income that I had at American Airlines. That's making around $50,000 a year. And so I figured if I could go out and replace my $50,000 a year income, right, then I would be happy, right? So once I hit the $50,000 income, I said, you know, that's wonderful, but $1000 is better, right? So. So then I, you know, got to the 100 mark. Well, 100's good, but 200 is even better than that. And so you just kept working and working, building your team, building your organization, and over a period of time, you know, it got, it got pretty good. I mean, I, I, I did real well. I was in the top 2% of all out of 100,000 reps in the company, I was in the top 2%. Yeah, so you were there for 1010 years at America. Um, when did you start? What was the first one, the Billy Sims barbecue franchise acquisition or the candy retail candy? It was a retail store. So, so during my experience, I developed a lot of relationships with customers and my, my, my clients, and I was managing their money, and I had about $10 million under management. And so, you know, I got to talk to. And, and one of my, one of my clients said he had a candy store that he was trying to sell. And I said, well, you know, my, my son just went off to college. My wife's home, she's got nothing to do. She loves kids, so why not just buy that. So, you know, I purchased my first retail business from a client. And was that a, was he, when he, when you say he was trying to sell it, was he trying to sell it through a broker side biz by sell, or was it off-market? No, he had it listed. with the broker. So when I, you know, when I, when he told me he had it, right, I said I was interested, and we got together, and he had to bring the broker in because, you know, he'd already started with the guy. So I had, I had to go deal with the broker, and all I wanted to see was the numbers. Show me the numbers. So I've seen the numbers. I'm very good with numbers. I could do the math. I figured, OK, it makes about $50,000 a year, but he's had it for 2 years, and during those two years, he turned no profit. Zero profit in 2 years, but I've seen the profit. He didn't see it. I've seen it, so I didn't. You saw the profit and something that you could do, or you saw the profit where he wasn't financially doing the books right. Well, I've seen the profit where, where the guy he had running the store for him was pocketing the money. Oh, OK, that's different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, you know, he wasn't physically running the store. He had other businesses, you know, he was running, but he was, he was, this was just an idea for him to start this candy business, right? And so anyway, long story short, I purchased that business and I had about $30,000 in cash that I had, you know, in my account that I could use. So I took that 300,000 and I parlayed that with an SBA loan from a, you know, from a lender. And then I had him carry, I don't know, 20,000 something like that, small amount just to get, keep him, you know, on the hook, and then I, I, you know, got in the business, put my wife in there. We both worked it for a little while till I learned it. Was that guy fired, the guy fired that was, uh, oh, of course, first day, first thing, right? So what was the kind of multiple on a retail store, candy store in, uh, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Well, you gotta look at the date. So this was back in 2004. So, you know, so he wanted a he, he was non-negotiable. He wanted 112,000. That was it. 112 and I said, OK, I'll give it to you, no problem. And so, uh, you know, how does, how does somebody ask for $112,000 from a business not making money. Basically the way he arrived at that number, he added up all his expenses to get that store open. Oh, OK, so he was just trying to clear his expenses and he just wanted to get his money back. That's all he wanted was get his money back, right? So anyway, long story short, we purchased the store. And uh you know, within our first year we cash flowed about 50,000 off of about 250,000. So we had 250,000 in revenue. We cash flowed about $50,000. Is that taking a salary? Were you guys taking a salary or was it no, I, I took no salary. Wife got paid nothing. We just worked the business. We had 500,000 left in the bank at the end of the year, so we, we made it about $50,000. All right. And then what did you do? Grew it to two locations, uh, selling a ton of bull candy a week. That was amazing, yeah. So here's the deal. So obviously in that business, uh, uh, you, in a candy store, it has to be in a mall. You can't put a candy store out in the, in the, you know, out, out in a strip center. It has to be in a mall, right? So traffic. You need traffic. You need built-in traffic. Yeah. You gotta have kids and you gotta have lots of them. You gotta have traffic, OK. So my competitor in the bigger mall, I was in a smaller, there's 2 malls in Tulsa. So the bigger mall actually was 31 went under. So the bigger mall was the Simon Mall, million square feet, big, you know, big place. His store, right, this is my competitor, I became friends with him and I said, Jim, now his store was twice as big as mine, and he was doing twice as much sales as I was, OK, and he was getting older and he said, you know, I'm thinking about selling. I said, Jim, if you ever wanna sell, I'll buy it, yeah. And he's, he come, you know, and so, between that time, between when I bought that, And, and, uh, you know, during that period of time, I had this wise idea of opening a restaurant. I should have had my head examined. So I opened a restaurant in the mall, right? So my space is here, Chick fil A, right next to Chick fil A. Worst mistake anybody can ever do is open a restaurant next to Chick fil A, the highest margin business in the, uh, food business, Chick fil A. So anyway, so I had this bright idea of opening a salad restaurant, right, so I called it salad Days, the best days of your life, and it was a great, it was a great, you know, we had a great menu. We went, we, you know, we, we did, we, we, we had everything was great. The challenge was nobody wanted it, right? They wanted to eat Chick fil A. They wanted to eat Chinese, and they wanted to eat a hamburger, right? They're not gonna eat what do you want. Be healthy when they go to the mall. It's Cinnabon time, right? So, so I worked that business, opened to close for 9 months, made $0. No, OK. So at the end of 9 months, my next door neighbor, which is in the mall, he had a Greek restaurant, right? And I said, I'm fixing to close this sucker down. He said, No, I'll buy it. What do you want for it? And I said, what do you get me? He said, I'll give you 15,000. I said, sold, give me the $150,000. So he gave me the 15, I sold it. The next day, I went over to the other mall and I said, Jim, I'm ready to buy your business. And he said, great, 140,000, right? So I took some money that I've seen his numbers, or did you already, I already knew his numbers. Remember, I already knew his numbers because his store was twice the size of mine, yeah, right? So I had 800 square feet. He had 1500 square feet. He had 700 items. His store was busy from open to close 7 days a week, yeah. So I purchased that, so my income went from 50,000 to 1650 the next year. Yeah, and with, with You were judging basing his numbers upon your numbers and say, hey, he's got twice the size, twice the revenue, etc. Did those numbers match out when you saw them perfectly? Yeah, yeah, he did. He was doing 500,000 a year. I was doing 250. So combined we were doing 750. So by, by combining the stores, I was able to order bigger, uh, bigger inventory which got me a lower cost. Yeah, yeah, you increased your margin, right? So my margins were better. I mean, think about it. You buy a gumball, a gumball, you sell that gumball for a quarter. You pay 2 cents for it. There's no better margin than gumballs. How long do those last? Gumballs last on the shelf? Uh, probably 6 months. 6 months in the storeroom and the shelf. Do they have to be cooled, or no, just room temperatures, you know, 70, 80 degrees, something like that. But no, I, I, and so one of the things I did to grow that little business is I put, you know, you had the retail store. So in the mall you had, you had spaces that you could rent, right. And put gumball machines. So I had a guy uh uh build me carts, right? And so I put gumball carts about every 50 yards throughout the mall. Right? Does that cost you for that retail space? Say it again. Did that cost you for that, that space? Of course there ain't nothing free in them all. Yeah, no, definitely, yeah. So, so with the way it worked, let's say I brought in $1200 a month from each cart, right? So my cost of goods was probably $100 maybe $150 but the rent is where they got you, right? They wanted 50% of your revenue. Yikes, 50% of your revenue. So I netted about 600 bucks a month per cart, and I had 10 or 12 of them right throughout the malls. And so that was another way to increase revenue. So we just did all kinds, we learned a whole bunch of stuff about retail because of the candy store. A lot of people looked down and said, Dan, Don, how can you like it? Yeah. Did you like being in retail and candy B2C? Did you like it? Well, yeah, I, we love kids, you know, my wife and I, so we love kids and, and, you know, we got to spend a lot of time around kids, you know, I got to hire kids, so all my employees were, were kids or teenagers, right? And so I love teenagers. I mean, you know, a lot of people can't get along with them, but I, you know, I was a teenager before too, so I know how to talk to them. And uh we had a, we had a great time. We, we did a lot of business, and, uh, you know, one thing led to another, my son worked with me. And so my son uh uh around 2003, graduated high school, went to college. I paid his way through college, right? And when he graduated college in 2008, he said, Dad, I said, Son, what do you wanna do? And he said, Dad, I wanna be just like you. I wanna own a business, right? And so this is 2008, so. 2008, I caught my, the guy, the same guy that I bought the candy store from, right? A client of mine. He started Billy Sims Barbecue. Billy Sims, you talking about the, the running back, yes, Billy Sims, 1978 Heisman Trophy winner for the University of Oklahoma. Yeah, OK, so, so Jeff, my buddy, my client, him and Billy were, were good friends. So Jeff started a barbecue business and he, and he used Billy's name, Billy Sims Barbecue. OK. It was unbelievable. He had a 1500 square foot space. He took the money that I sold the candy store. Remember the first one? I bought it for $112,000. He took that $112,000 opened up Billy Sims Barbecue, 1500 square foot, little hole in the wall joint, right? First day of sales, $6000 1st day out of 1500 square feet. Yeah, and it exploded. I mean, it absolutely exploded. So from 2004 to 2008, Jeff built five locations, OK. So I know all this because he's my client, right? So we'd have conversations. He was your client at America, right? Correct, correct. I had his business. I took care of his insurance and investments, stuff like that. So the bottom line, right, when he got ready to franchise, the first guy he called was me. He said, Don, I'm ready to franchise. And he said, You want one? And I said, Well, I know the numbers. Yeah, I'll take one. I'll be your first franchisee. So I was Billy Sims Barbecue, first franchisee in 2008. Wow. So my, my son graduated college, University of, uh, or, uh, uh, Oklahoma State University at Stillwater, and he had a degree in business, right? He wanted to own a business, so I said, son. You're now Billy Sims Barbecue. You're the operator. So we trained him on how to run the business. He went, you know, worked for the company for a little while, and then we got our, uh, we bought an existing location of one of the five that he already had. OK, so we bought that business, and at that time Jeff was cash flowing probably around $10,000 a month at that location, net in the pocket. Off of about 60,000 revenue, so about 60,000 revenue, cash flow in about 10, OK, so we bought it and including they, he took out 8 for, for the franchise fee. So just remember we just lost 8% for the franchise fee. Yep, yep, you with me. We cash flowed 17,000 our first month off of 70,000 in revenue. So far, it looks like a good investment on capital. Very, very good, especially when I started with no money. Now, a lot of people say, Don, you can't do a no money down business. Well, yes and no. Right. The way I structured that deal, he wanted 140,000 for that location, right? So I said, Jeff, I'll tell you what, you carry 40, I'll pay you back over 12 months, right, at market interest rate, whatever it was, 5, 6%. I'll borrow the other 100 from my SBA lender, right? Already had a good reputation with her, so I borrowed another 100,000 from her, from the bank. So I, I had zero money in it. Then I, but remember you gotta have operating capital. You can't just start out with zero money. But let me go back to the SBA part. She didn't have her. Requirement for, you know, history of the business. I mean, how old was that business? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she had a requirement, and, and, and I, you know, obviously I gave her the books, you know, we had 5 years' worth of history. Oh, OK, 5 years. Oh, it already, that's right. So it already, so we, we gave her the history and, you know, but besides, you know, you're, you gotta understand when you use SBA at, at that. Level at that small level you're guaranteeing that personally they got your house they got your car, they got your firstborn child they got everything you ain't gonna get out of that. That's scary. I mean that to me like a business running for 10 years and it's manufacturing, that is a low risk. But then you do an SBA on a Restaurant, man. Yeah, that's scary. I had a buddy that did bankruptcies from for bank business bankruptcies, and he said 99% of people, my clients are restaurants. Right? Yeah, I agree. It's a very, very tough business. However, if you have a system and you have a good product, and you take care of your people, right, uh, uh, you know, a lot of people don't understand when you have a restaurant, you have to look at the people that's gonna be working in the restaurant, right? If you open a restaurant in an area and it's a high dollar restaurant, you open that restaurant in an area where there are no average folks, right? You're not gonna get any employees to come to work because there's, they have to drive miles and miles and miles to get there, right? So you want to make sure and that, you know. Scope is to make sure that the people there's places for the guys to live because you're, you know, your, your workers are gonna be, you know, 1920, 21, 22. They're gonna be pretty young folks, right, because they're working in a barbecue like, like cops working down in downtown. They can't afford to live in New York City where it's $5000 a rent for an apartment, right, right. So you know, you gotta, you gotta keep that in mind, right? So I, I always I always looked at the people cause man, I, I, I came from the bottom. I mean, ain't nobody was lower than I was. So, I came from the bottom and I remembered what it was like to wash dishes. I remembered what it was like to mop the damn floor. I mean, I, I, you know, I understand what they go through. So we had a, you know, we had a very good team, and so the next opportunity, right, was, if you want more, you have to open another location. Yeah, because it, it caps out, right? I mean, it's not like you got to say, hey, let's put more dollars in and we'll get more revenue. It, there's a ceiling. No, there, there's a limit. I mean, again, the location is, it's location driven. You've got a certain number of customers that you're gonna attract, right? And, you know, you're gonna get an average, you're gonna hit an average. So our average is around $70,000 a month. You'd break that down per meal, most of it's lunch, so 60% of your revenue is gonna be at lunchtime. You're gonna have about 100 people come through the line at lunch, right? And then the rest 40% is gonna come from the evening or catering, catering. Right? The other 40% of your revenue. So, you gotta make sure that you do a damn good lunch, and you take care of those people. We got to know the customers, the team got to know the customers. When they walked through the door, we already knew what they want. Oh, you want the Heisman, oh, you want the rib, oh, you want the chicken, oh, you want the pork. So we knew exactly what the customers want because these people kept coming back and coming back and coming back. You with me? Yeah, when did you, this was going into 2010, 202012, when, when did you sell the candy business? OK, I'm, I'm continuing to operate the candy business while I'm opening restaurants. You follow me? So the candy business still operating. I got good managers in there, good employees that know what they're doing. The other thing I did was I, I went to cameras very quickly. I found out if you don't have cameras, your product will disappear off the shelf. Yeah, in the camera business, I bet, right? Yes, they will, it will disappear. So you have to have cameras and you have to check on people. You have to call them up. Hey, what are you doing? And they're going, Well, well, nothing. Well, I see you on your phone. You're gonna, didn't I tell you to put that phone in. The back, you can't have the phone on the sales floor. Go put your phone in the back and wait on those customers and make sure you take care of them. So that's what the camera did for me. It allowed me to see what the employees were doing. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. So, and we did the same thing in the barbecue business, right? Cameras everywhere. I, I could see meat going out the door. If I seen stuff happen and it wasn't supposed to be happening. They got the, the dreaded phone call from Don, OK. And so, the, the, the next opportunity was, right, I went to my son, I said, son, You want another restaurant? And he goes, yeah, dad, I'm ready for another restaurant. So I went out, found me a location, negotiated the lease with the landlord. I like to do business with landlords that are small, mom and pop type guys. I don't like big corporations. I hate Simon Malls. I hate any mall operator. They're, I mean, they'll rip your head off. They don't, they don't care if you make it or not. Yeah, they just want that that percentage of your revenue. Yeah, that's exactly they want half of your business. They want you to work for them, basically, OK. So anyway, I opened the second location six months to the day later, and then every 6 months I opened a new location and I did that 4 more times. Yeah. So from 2008 to 2010, right, we started with one location with about You know, $600,000 a year, $700,000 a year to 5 locations and $3 million a year. Yeah, that's amazing. We did that in 2.5 years working our asses off, right? You're around the clock at that point, right? Almost, you bet. I was, uh, 24/7 just like the navy. Yeah, So what happened after that? I mean, uh, that got us, that got us to 2010. OK, so 2008 to 2010, you gotta remember what was going on in 2008. We had a new crash. That was the, the, the crash, yeah, yes, everything crashed, so everybody told me I was nuts to go open restaurants. I said, yeah, I probably am, but I'm gonna do it anyway. So I kept doing it, kept doing it, kept doing it. So in 2000. 10 We, we had 2 candy stores, 5 restaurants, right? So we had 7 retail locations operating. Between all of us, we're doing probably 4 million. Cash flow and probably 750 somewhere in there. OK. So in 2010, did you enjoy it? You know, like you're, you're totaling up and I go, hey man, we're great, we're doing great, 4 million bucks. But did you enjoy being on call, driving to the restaurants or driving to the mall for the retail store? Did you enjoy it? Well, I mean, yeah, yes and no. I mean, you know, on one side, could I be doing something else? Yeah, I probably could, you know, I could be working for American Airlines for $50,000 a year. I dreading every damn day. I could do that, right? But that's not an option. So, you know, so yeah, I enjoyed it. It was, it was exciting because we were building stuff, man. We were, we were rocking and rolling, making lots of friends, and, you know, making lots of money and And so, 2010, now, check this out. So my, my Woodland Hills store, which is the big store with Simon Malls, it came up for renewal, lease renewal, right? So I started negotiating the lease. My rent at that time was 9000 bucks a month. OK. One store, 90. They said, we'll renew for you, Don, 10 years, but we're gonna renew at 12. So you're gonna be paying $12,000 a month, and then we're gonna bump it by 4% every year. Oh, and by the way, you gotta do a new build out. And I said, what do you mean? They said, you gotta tear everything out, all of your fixtures, the floor, the walls, the ceiling. I want a whole new look in your store, new signage on the wall outside, and so I did the math on that. That was 250,000. So I did the math and I said it don't make any sense. Why would, why would I renew for that? That's ridiculous. So I tried to sell it, right? So I had this guy on the hook that was ready to buy it, right, for 150,000, about what I paid for it, right? And I had 2 years left on the lease. And so he started dragging his feet because he knew, right, that he did the math himself and realized, shit, there's no way I can make money on this, right. Right? So, he backed out of the deal. So, what I did, rather than sell it, I said, well, you know what, I'll do the math. I can get 150,000 a year for 2 years, that's 300, or, right, I, I'll just let the sucker go. In other words, I'll go to the end of the lease and hand the keys back to Simon. So that's what I did. I ran it two more years, handed the keys back to Simon, right? And so in 2011, I left that candy store. My other candy store that I, that I started with, right, I sold it for 850,000. Yeah. The reason I sold it for 85,000 when my lease was up there, I moved because they wanted to renew that lease, and I said I'm not gonna renew it. I said, can you give me a temp? Give me a temp space. They said, oh yeah, we can put you down the, down the hall down there in the corner for about 1500 a month. And I said, Well, that people already know where I'm at. So yeah, I'll do it. So I moved everything down the mall, down the hall, you know, to the other end of the mall, this, the dark side of the mall, right? And, uh, lit that supper Halloween goes. So, so we moved down there and uh the sales were, you know, about the same, but the cash flow was much better because I didn't have $5000 a month in rent. There you go, right? Yeah, so I sold that. I sold that in 2011 for 85,000 and, uh, and then we, uh, let's see. We, we looked at the 5 restaurants. We took a hard look at the 5 restaurants. Out of the 52 of the 5 were doing more. In other words, they were carrying about 70% of the profit. You with me, so 70% of the profit was coming from two restaurants. The headaches were coming from the three restaurants that wasn't pulling their own weight. Yeah, why, why were the headaches? What were the headaches caused by? Employee problems, um. Uh, lack of customers, uh, you know, just bad locations. They, we went out into the suburbs. We went into the small, we went into the small towns, 200-30,000 people, right? And so we tried to get out in those small towns and we found out unless you're there, unless you're an owner operator in the store, you're not gonna build the sales that you need in those small towns, right? So the two stores that We rocking were Tulsa uh were uh um Broken Arrow and Tulsa or and Owasso, which was two suburb towns, right, but they were very good towns, meaning that they had good people, lots, you know, 100,000 or more people, uh, you know, all the, all the logistics was there that you needed to have. So what I did is I sold those three stores for 350,000. Yeah. I just got my money back. I got, I basically got what I got in those stores. I got it back. OK, and who bought those? A new guy or did the, uh, franchisee? Well, when we, when we started with the franchise, we only had, there was only 5 locations. I built an additional 4 that brought us to 9. He sold off quite a few, and I think today they've got about 50. So back then we were, we were all in just Tulsa, Oklahoma, and we had about 10 locations in Tulsa, Oklahoma. You with me? And so I sold those three, which was, uh, uh, let's see, Claremore, Sepulpa, and East Tulsa. I sold those to other operators, other operators that wanted to own and operate just one. Makes sense. So I sold those, and then I took that 350, and I semi-retired. I moved to Florida. Oh, you did, yeah, this was in 2012. Moved to Florida. Walked on the beach every day. Went boating. Went fishing, you know, done all the crap that you're supposed to do when you're retired. And after about 3 or 4 months of that, you know, I lived on the water, had a boat in the backyard. After about 3 or 4 months, I'm bored stiff. So we go back to Tulsa. We moved back to Tulsa. We still had a home there. And uh the wife went in for her annual, you know, exam, and she was diagnosed with cancer. So I took the next year off, so the whole year of 2013 from 2012 to 2013, I took it off just to take care of my wife. So at the end of 2013 or close to the end, I think it was August. I found another business and it was a convenience store so I had negotiated that deal and I got the numbers where I needed to get where they needed to be. Where, where did you find that? It was a broker site listed site, yeah, it was on, you know, like biz buy sell something like that. So, so when I seen it, I seen the numbers and I, that's it. That's what I want. So I called immediately. said I'll take it. No negotiation. No problem. So what, what did you like about the, uh, uh, gas station convenience store? The numbers, I mean, it's such a small margin, isn't it? Yeah, but you, you got, you don't understand. All right, this, this is a gas station convenience store in a town with 2000 people. OK, 2000 people. There's only 2 gas stations in town. That's Askell, Oklahoma. So, Oklahoma, 2 gas stations in town. So long story short, the numbers were he was doing 1.2 million inside sales inside the store. No way, really? In a amount of 2000. And listen to this, at a 28%. Uh, gross profit, 28%. So he's giving this shit away. He's giving the stuff away. His gasoline he was selling at a 20 cent profit per gallon, yeah, right, and he, uh when we bought the store he was doing 700,000 gallons a year. So the store was cash flowing 300,000. Which was more than my three restaurants. Yeah, yeah, you're like, oh my God, I just, uh, leapfrogged up here, yeah, right. So we, we acquired that and I do acquire it SBA bank. What, what's the deal now? What I did is, uh, is, uh, the purchase price was 888,000 bucks. Uh, I had 350, right. I told him I'd take over his note. He had a note on the building itself, so I bought the real estate too. So I, I took over the note on the building. Right? And then I gave him like 225,000, then he carried the rest. Yeah, so out of my 350, out of my 350, 225 went to him. The rest went in the bank to operate for operating capital. And uh obviously at that time I'm taking care of my wife so I called my son. I said, son, you gotta take it, you gotta take this uh this uh convenience store. OK, Dad, I'll take care of it. So he took it. So we had our manager, right? We already sold our candy stores. We sold 3 restaurants, so we only had 2 restaurants left, right? And those are the cash flow positive stores. Those are the, those are the cash flow kings. They were the top 21 of the top, the top 2 stores in Tulsa. OK, besides the original location. So they were cash cows, and I had them managed. I had managers in both, and I had a general manager that went from store to store to make sure everything was going. Yeah. So we acquired the, the gas station, convenience store, and we operated that for 5 years. So from 2000. 13 to 17, OK? We bought it for 888. We cash flowed about $300,000 a year. We kept building on that. We got our sales up to about 1.5 million million inside. Uh, we got our gallons up to about a million gallons a year at 20 cents a margin, you know, 20 cents margin. So that store was making $300,000 in the pocket. Every year out of a town of 2000 people, wow, unbelievable. That's fantastic, um, and then we sold it for 1.5 million in 2017. Yeah, so 700,000 increase over 5 years. That's good, right? Correct, correct. So we made 15 operating. We made, made another 1 million or so, uh, selling, um, so you know that was a very good investment, yeah, and then, um, 2014, again, this is while, uh, you know, while the, while I, we still have two restaurants, we still have the, the, the, uh, convenience store. You know, being a serial entrepreneur, I couldn't stop looking at business. So I've seen another one pop up, right? And it was a remodeling company. And it was out of Oklahoma City, which is about an hour and a half away from Tulsa. Right? And it was making 400,000 a year off of the revenue was about 14,500, and he's making $400 off of that. That's, uh, that's great margins. And so I called on that and said I'll take it, right? It was a broker site or uh another, another broker out of, out of Dallas, Texas, another broker. So, uh, I said I'll take it and, uh, you know, I tried to get the seller to carry some of it. He didn't want to carry nothing. He wanted his money, uh, and, and, and, but he only wanted 400,000. That's it, 400,000. He's taking home 400,000, but he only wanted 1 X. I. And the reason is him and the wife were splitting. Oh my God, top 10 reason people are motivated to sell one of the top 10s. Yes, so they couldn't get along. They were fighting, throwing chairs at each other all day, and it was just a bad situation. So, uh, you know, so when I bought the business, um, I had to replace her immediately. So she was accounting, she did all the books. So I, I hired before, before the business closed myself and the guy that I bought it from, we both interviewed people, gals that was gonna be take that job, and we hired a gal that worked for a window company that went bankrupt downtown, and she'd been in the business forever. Yeah, I, I liked her. I hired her, and, uh, one of the best things I ever did. He was the designer and she was the accountant. No, he's a salesman. Oh, he was a salesman who was doing the design stuff. There's no design. This was a window. Oh, a window. I thought it was like, uh, uh, uh, sorry about that, a remodeler. I thought it was right. It's a remodeling it's considered a remodeling company, but the fact is it's a marketing company and so we marketed windows. Yeah, there's not a lot of design, you like it. So, uh, so the bottom line is, I, I'm good at sales, so I bought it because of my skill in sales. And, uh, we bought it August. 16th, I think 200 or not, yeah, 2014, 2014, OK? So. August, September, October, November, December. By December, we had already made all of our money back. 400, you already made your 400,000. So where did the money come from that you put, huh, selling, selling windows. No, I mean, uh, to, to, to pay the guy, he, you know, the 400, oh yeah, yeah, here, here's, here's the, if so people wanna know how do you buy a business, no money down, here's how you do it. Number, number one, you probably have done some, you, you probably had a history, yeah. In other words, you've got a proven track record. You don't just walk in and buy it. You have a proven track record. So, I had a banker, right? I had a banker that I developed a relationship with, and I borrowed some money from him, from my barbecue restaurants, OK? So I, when I seen this business, I immediately sent the numbers to him. And I said, Hey Scott, did you get those numbers? Yep. What do you think? And he goes, It looks good, Don. I said, I want all 400. I want you to give me 400 cash. OK, no problem. So he cut me a check for 400 cash. I handed that check over to the, the seller. Who, who is this, Don, that gave you 400? Yeah, my banker. Oh, he was your banker. He just lent you the $400,000. Yeah, of course, with, you know, you know how it is. They gotta, they gotta jump through the hoops and do appraisals, but it was, it wasn't an SBA loan. It was just a regular loan, right? No, it wasn't. Oh, it was an SBA, OK, yeah. SBA and they were having some kind of special at the time for veterans, so I got, I got, you know, I got it in no fees or you know, they didn't kill me, you know, they didn't kill me on the fee part, because normally they're gonna hit you 3%, you know, of whatever you borrow right off the bat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, I got the 400 there, gave it to the, to the seller, and, uh, commenced learning the wiz uh window business. I took the, the 350. Right, that, that I, that remember the 350 I used to buy the convenience store, right? So I need an operating capital. So I took 100,000 out of the convenience store and I opened a bank account with that to operate the window business. Yeah, did they take the operating capital out of the business? Say it again. Did they, the, the windows remodeling, did they take the operating capital or the cash in account out of the business? They let everything out. Yeah, I got nothing. So when the, when the deal closed, he was smart. He, when he closed, he took all of his, his work in progress, and he, he ran that himself. All the AR, yeah, yes, I didn't get any of it, so I had to start from scratch, yeah. But think about that. So I started from scratch and at the end of 5 months I had 400 in, in my bank. Yeah, I had 400,000 in the bank account. Well, that was a good in did you pay off the loan? Now, here's what I did. So, so I'm paying rent to him for the building. You follow me. So $50,000 a year I'm paying rent to him. So I'm thinking $500,000 I'm paying out every year. I got nothing to show for it, right? Why don't I just go build me a new building. Right? So I looked down the street, 2 blocks down the street, there's a nice hard corner, and there's a, the, uh, an acre, about 1 acre of land for sale. You with me? Yeah, 300,000. So I went to, uh, you know, I, I did a sketch for myself, you know, I just sketched out a little plan, and I figured I could build the biggest building I could build on the smallest lot was 13,200 square feet. I only needed 6000 for my business. Yeah, you with me? Yeah. So I took the plat, my little sketch on the napkin. I took it to my, you know, found an engineer. Gave it to him. He drew up the plans for the, you know, you gotta have the lot, the, the parking area, and you know, all the stuff the city requires. And so he did all that design for me. And so over the next year, I use my own cash flow and built the building cash. Yeah, OK. So within a year, I moved the business from the, the, the existing building that I was paying $500,000 a year for to the new building and I had over 6000 square feet to rent. Yeah, no, it's just not a lost expense. It's an expense that's actually appreciating in value and a tax, uh, deduction. Well, think about it. I'm gonna have to pay taxes on $400,000. For the first damn year, so 2014, I was, I was gonna have a hell of a tax bill, so I, I took that money and I plowed it in to the real estate. You with me? And then I took the profits that I would have had to pay taxes on, and I plowed all that back into the real estate. So at the end of the deal, 2016, I had a building that was appraised at 1.5 million. And I moved into that building, and then I leased it up, right? So leased it up, the NOI including my rent was $131,000 a year. Yeah, now it's cash flow positive, yeah, right. So I had an asset that was paying me, right, and I was being able to deduct my rent, so I paid myself my rent. Which otherwise I would be paying some other landlord, so I got tired of being the landlord. You with me? Yeah. So I learned, I learned how to build a building. I learned how to deal with the city, and that ain't no small feat, um. You know, and, and I learned how to attract tenants. I learned how to do buildouts, and I've done lots of buildouts with my barbecue restaurants, uh, you know, it was just, it was a great experience. So, so the end game, and again, this wasn't planned. I mean, I'm not no rocket scientist. I'm just a, I'm just a wife through this though. Uh, what's going on there? What do you mean? Oh, from the cancer? Yeah, so I'm sorry, 1 year later, right, she was diagnosed free. She's gone. Oh wow. OK. So she went through chemo, she went through radiation, lots of prayer. We believe the Lord healed her, and, uh, to this day, 10 years later, she's cancer-free. Fantastic. That's great news. So, you know, like I said, when I started out, all I wanted. You know, and I, I, I, you know, I, I, I, I see all this all the time. I see these people, and they go, oh yeah, I got, you know, I'm worth, you know, $50 million 100 million dollars, and I'm, I'm sitting there, you know, I feel like such a dud, you know, I look at it, God dang, how do they do that, you know? And then I look. Back at myself and I'm going, well, you know, from a, a good old boy from Oklahoma that don't know his, you know, that's come here from Siham, you know, uh, to go out and do what I did, that, that's not bad, you know, I, I, we did OK. And, uh, you know, so I look back at that, and, and I, and I think, uh, you know, the end result, here I am now, retired. Right, I retired in 2019. I sold my I sold the business. I didn't tell you that. I sold the business. I sold it, I see, in August 2019. Yeah, correct. I sold it for $1 million. I sold the building for $1000. So that one investment that I spent no money out of pocket, none of my own money, turned out to be $2.5 million. Yeah, fantastic. And then you add in all the others, so you know, the net worth is right where I needed it to be, you know, I, I figured if I could just have an income of a couple 100 grand a year for the rest of my life, I think I'm gonna be sitting pretty. And so here, I, you know, here, here we are in Florida. I live in a beautiful home in a beautiful neighborhood. I owe nobody nothing. Everything's paid for. I have more income coming in than I can spend. Uh, uh, I have all the free time I want. Um, if I wanna sell a business, I can sell a business. If I don't wanna sell a business, I just tell them, you know what, I can't help you. Yeah, yeah. So that's kind of my story. And where's your son? Is he, where, where's your son working now? OK, so what happened when we sold the business in 2019, my son. had a, he built himself by himself, he built him a ranch in Oklahoma. So he's got a, you know, big ranch, 30 acres, beautiful home, 3000 square foot home, he built it himself. He's got a 1200 square foot barn, built it himself, a couple more outbuildings, horses, you know, all of that. So, When we sold the business, he, he's basically, you know, 30, I don't know, 30 some years old, and a million dollars, you know, a million dollars in the bank, more than a million dollars in the bank. You know, and so, uh, we relocated, we sold everything we had. We sold our home in Oklahoma. We sold our home in the Philippines. We sold our home. We had a, where this uh home in the Philippines come from. Well, during that 2008, back in 2, I, you know, missed that, but back in 2008, when I, when I opened the, you know, when I bought the restaurant, the Billy Sims Barbecue, and I put my son in there. At the end of that 6 months, right? We did, we needed a vacation, right? My wife's Filipina, so we went to the Philippines, and while we were in the Philippines, I bought a property. There you go, and that property was on the cliff overlooking the ocean. And so I, I had a cliff 140 ft straight down was the, was the ocean, right? So I built my house there and over, over the next 10 years, I developed that property and made it into a resort. Lovely. So we had a great time. Every year, we'd go to the Philippines, spend about 3 months a year there, and because I, you know, because I had multiple businesses and I had a, a, a good son that was taking care of everything, I could take off. Do you have any other kids or just that son? No, we have an older son, but he's not a business guy. He, he's, uh, you know, he, he did this business wasn't for him, right, right, right, right. So it's not for everybody. Yeah, so what, what are you doing now? You're now, you're kind of a business, uh, investment banker, realtor. Well, no, what I am is a business broker, so yeah, I, I created a company called Blue Collar Way. And uh basically, it means that I started at the ground up. So when I look at businesses, I like to work only with blue-collar businesses. I'm not a white-collar guy. I don't like offices, you know, even though I've done that, but I would much rather work with a blue-collar guy and, and show them how to take their business and not basically do what I did. Instead of paying rent, get your own building, you know, get some tenants, build it up. When you sell your business, you can either keep the business and and live off the cash flow from the real estate, or you can sell the real estate, invest that money, you know, in the market, get, you know, dividends and stuff coming in from that. Yeah, so that's kind of my if you were to buy, if you were somebody who was to say, hey, there's a business in one of your properties. Uh, would you tell the seller to keep the real estate or sell the real estate? Depends on the real estate. Now, now, see what I, what I, what you haven't heard. And what most people don't hear is all the challenges. You now if you think I went through all of that with no challenges, you, you need to, oh no, no, every part of this is a challenge. It's some people it's bigger than others, yeah, the stories I could tell, and I'm gonna tell this one story just to illustrate. So the last deal that I sold, right, my Americanual here that I sold in, in, uh, 2019, yeah, guess what happened. Uh, in March of the next year. COVID, yeah, COVID, yeah, nobody's installing Windows, yeah, so I, I couldn't foresee that. I had no idea that's gonna happen, right? So COVID, so COVID happens. The guy that bought my business. And here's the other thing, if you are ever going to buy a business, word to the, word to the wise, don't change nothing. You go into that business and you do exactly what that other owner had been doing. Unless, of course, it wasn't working. But if it was working, why would you change something that already works? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, no, it totally makes sense. And then a lot of the SBA lenders will, will lend on that only, like, you know, uh, look, you need history with this business model, and this is like a perfect example because I'm looking at this company that they were selling some equipment, and they kind of changed their business model and they're making a lot more money and they're higher price points. But the SBA lender is not gonna lend on it because it's a basically brand new business model, correct? Yeah, correct. So, so picture this COVID comes around, they shut it down. The government shuts it down. He, he can't go into homes. He can't make any presentations. He can't, he can't do nothing. So for two months, no income, no revenue whatsoever other than what he already had on the books. You follow me. Yep. So 2 months, no revenue. So basically the people that were working for him, they got COVID. Right, they got COVID, so one of them almost dies, so he's gone, right. The head of sales, he gets COVID. He's gone. So, basically, his business disintegrated it when COVID come around. Yeah, now, now remember, you don't, I'm carrying the paper on this business, so I'm carrying, you know, 700,000. So I stand to lose all of that if that business is not successful. Yep, that makes sense. It's stressful situation. So I was in contact with this buyer, right, counseling him on what to do. He wasn't listening. Um, he was doing what he wanted to do. I knew what his financial situation was. So what I did is I took that note for 700,000 and I went to the market. And I found me a buyer that would buy that note. You with me? Yeah, So he offered me a, a, a certain amount, and it was discounted, of course, that's how they're gonna make their money. And we got down to the close, the day before the close on the note, he calls this, he calls the, the guy, the seller. He calls the guy that has the business that I sold the business to. Right? The guy unloads on him, tells him he's not gonna make it. I don't think, I think I'm gonna go out of business. I think I'm gonna shut it down. So, so guess what? Well, I'll tell you, there's a lot of people that had that panicked look in their eyes. I, I don't, I don't get the note sold, so I'm stuck holding the paper. So now the seller or the, the guy that bought the business from me, he knows that I'm selling the note. He don't know that the that the guy won't buy the note. He don't know that yet. So I call him up and I said, Listen, I, yeah, I know you know that we're selling your note, yeah. I'm willing to offer it to you to the same terms as what. I was offered Guess what? He's, he bought it. I, I got my money. So I got, I got the money back, right? I obviously took that and made useful, you know, made it useful. So I got out of that deal. I sold the building January of 2020, 2 months before COVID. That, those tenants, there were 3 tenants in the building. The company that I sold, another hair supply company, and a gym. The gym went out of business. Oh yeah. So the guy that bought my building, that money he was counting on didn't materialize, right? And the guy that bought my business, he was having problems paying the rent, so he had to renegotiate the rent. So now, the guy that bought the building, that NOI is not there, right? So, these are just some of the things that happen that you don't plan for, that nobody talks about. Yeah, you with me? Yeah, and so these are things that you have to be aware of, and this is why I always said. Don't, just because you start making a little bit of money, if you think 100,000 is a lot, well, that's great, but don't go out and buy yourself a new car and a big house. Don't, don't go out and show everybody how much money you're making, because you know what? Something's gonna happen. And when it does, if you're not liquid, you're not gonna be able to survive, and you're gonna be one of the casualties. So that's what I did. I never took my money and plowed it into stuff that would make me, you know, look good. I just kept putting it away, putting it away, doing the best thing that I could to make it grow. And now, you know that I'm older now I can pretty much do what I want because I'm liquid and I don't have to worry about, you know, making people, you know, making myself look like I make a lot of money. As a matter of fact, I don't want anybody to know anything about making money. I did none of their business. I'd rather keep a low profile. Good for you. So that's my advice to people that if, if you're gonna go out and buy a business, you know, have a reason for buying it and make sure you take care of your customers, you know, that, that's the, the reason you're in business is to take care of the people that are giving you their money. If they give you your money, you gotta give them what you said you were gonna give them. Yeah, you have to do that. If you're not gonna do that, then you shouldn't be in business. So that's, you know, that's just a couple of little things that I think that, that I've had little success, what little I've had is because of that. Because of, years ago, when I was a mechanic for American Airlines, I took my truck in one day because I had a brake problem. I took it into the local mechanic, right? His name was Perry, Perry Jones, and I took it in, and, uh, and I said, I, I need the brake job. And he said, OK, we're gonna take care of it. So they did it, right? And so when I come to pick it up, I went out to the shop and I said, Hey, did you turn the rotors on the front? Oh yeah, we turned the rotors. No, you didn't turn it, take the tire off. So they took the tire off. Sure enough, they didn't turn the rotor, right? So I told Perry, hey, Perry. He didn't turn the rotors. And he said, what do you want me to do? I said, well, make it right. Here you go. So, he reached in his pocket, handed me $50 you know, back then it was $50 this is in the 90s. Uh And, and but that was it. I didn't, I didn't have to pay for anything. Now I got new pads for the deal, but my rotors wasn't turned. Yeah, but he should have done it right the first time. No, I, I agree. But what I realized at that, at that point, and Perry was a good guy, and I kept doing business with him for years because now I knew the guy was honest, right. And so I, that business, that one little $50 gift back that he gave me back, right? I must have brought, cause I love cars and I buy a lot of them. I probably brought, I probably bought. 1015 cars over the next 1015 years and I brought them all to him so he probably that little $50 probably made him another 20,000 dollars repeat customers, OK, you fixed him you fixed him and got repeat customers, yeah, right so that's, that's my, you know, my advice. To people, if you're gonna be a business guy, make sure you do what you say you're gonna do. Yeah, I love it, Don. I really appreciate it, and we are up on the hour, so I, thanks for your service. Thanks for sharing your story. This is awesome. The Blue collar way. Look him up, everybody. Don Wilson on LinkedIn. Thank you sir. Bye-bye. Bye.