Navy Seal Ray 'Cash' Care + Dan Dreyer Scaled to $100M+ Per Year | EP 21
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- You have to be extreme with your dreams. That's what I tell people. And like, people always ask me, "What would've happened if you wouldn't have been Navy SEAL?" I would've died. Like, and people go, "No, no, seriously." No, I'm serious. I trained for four years. It was like watching Rocky III. I went off in the Navy training when everybody else was doing stupid things. Just, I put a picture of a trident up, and I just looked at it and I said, "One day I will have that tattooed on me." And I do.

Yeah.

Speaking of a long career, we have a gentleman here that has been ex-Navy CEO, ex-CIA, and everything in between to help people, help protect our country. I'm very excited to have him here. He makes great social media content. He yells at the members of the Operation Black Sight for me. He makes things happen. And when I'm running the events and running the masterminds, I know I can just look at him or just kind of glance over, and then things happen right away. Please welcome Mr. Ray Cash Care.

Thanks for having me guys. I'm pumped. It's been a heck of a day, but I'm pumped to be here. This has been, I told you, the bucket list, so I'm ready. What did we do today? What is Operation Blacksite? Why are you a part of it? Operation Blacksite is the mecca of just a culmination of bringing great people together and...

it's it's broken down right so it's not it's a three two day event at this amazing facility you have we go over um tactics weapon training we do kill house which is cqc cqd close quarter defense close quarter battle basic marksmanship building confidence we do what else do we do we do um fighting with michael chandler tim tim kennedy's there with me we've got tony blauer steve eckert

but it's really a networking and society, if you will, of individuals. And we do morning PT. I lead PT and I was just talking to Tarzan where individuals, no matter how successful they are,

Right. There's a lot of people that still have shit going on in their lives. It doesn't matter. Right. Whether you make this or you make that. And we had an individual that really had a breakthrough so much so that he wants to bring two of his other friends here or employees because he was going through PT. And I said, you know, embrace the pain, embrace the suck and let it happen. And he was just go. He goes, man, I'm really having a moment of clarity. And I'm like.

I get it. You know, that's people that are obsessed with being successful. We seek out the pain and physical pain. It was not something he's used to. Obviously, he makes a lot of money.

He seems, you know, he seems to have his shit in order. But I told him, you really got to dial on that PT. So his the doctor's orders were, listen, join up to a gym, work out, do jujitsu, you know, eat better and get your butt in shape. So that's what we do. Why do business people or people in general need events like this, whether it's Operation Blackside or a different event, military training, gun range training, fight training? Like, why do people need this in our country to get trained and get good?

Well, I think number one, you've got to have the situational awareness. You know, this country is imploding under it right up before my eyes. And I think you can never be too prepared. So I always say don't train for anything. So train for everything. And a lot of individuals that come here, you know, because they're successful with something, they get complacent. They get lackadaisical. And, you know, we sit and we have these conversations with these individuals and I'll say, hey, listen, you make a shit ton of money.

But how much time are you spending with your family? Do your kids want to be around you? Does your wife love you? Are you going on vacations? Are you doing these type of things? And a lot of times I hear...

Yeah, this is great, but everything else sucks. And I'm like, so what I think we do here is it's almost like a master reset, if you will, right? Of the mind, body and soul. And I'll make, make no mistake about it. This is not a glamorous thing. I mean, it was hot as hell today and we've got, you know, tons of millionaires out there just grinding and, but they understand why they're doing it. They're doing it to better themselves, right? Because everything in life I think is a perishable skill. Uh,

We as humans have basic instincts. We're animals I think you can relate to that right and everybody has mannerisms stuff and like I can speak for Tim and I We put individuals in scenarios where they're not comfortable because I want people doing hard shit Right too many people are going through life with these blinders on if you will because they've got money as a cushion and

We take all that away here. We break you down to the bare essentials, right? And we make you very uncomfortable and you see how people react. The first time it's not pretty, right? It never is. But after we run them through countless, you know, evolutions and drills, you see this transformation, you know, people that have come back for the second time,

I'll say her name right here, Miss Hannah. She has just multiplied, right? Not with her confidence, with her self-esteem, with the physicality. She's working out, you know? And not to mention, she's a killer in the kill house right now, but we make fun of her. Yeah, the kill house. She's in there shooting, moving, and communicating, and that's what life's about. Shooting for the stars, right? Moving with a purpose and communicating with as many human beings as you can, making an impact.

So there's a famous quote, be hard to kill. Why do you think that's important? Why should people be hard to kill in our society? Because too many people die, just lay down and die. You know, we talked about it today. Divorce rates over like half of America divorce. It's so easy to quit. You know, David Goggins. I love Dave. You know, he says negativity is the most contagious thing in the world. Fuck that. No, it's not. It's the words I quit.

And what I try to do with when I'm out here teaching people is I tell people, I'm the biggest fucking quitter you've ever met in your life. They look at me like you're a Navy SEAL.

Quit all the toxic people in my life. I quit all the toxic things in my life I quit all the self-doubt because in the self-sabotage I've had conversations with both you guys and I'm seeing a difference the transformation is is from within and that's why I want to be hard to kill because too many people give up too easy and I always try to take a negative Dan and turn it into a positive I did a speech last week and I told everybody I'm the biggest fucking quitter you met and it was like, oh I

And I'm like, wait, let me explain. You know, I quit the booze. You know, you're not seeing me drinking at your events. I'm not going to drink. Right. I quit making excuses of why I'm not making them. I know we're going to money Mondays. Why I'm not making the money we're making. Right. I have literally in the last two months.

literally followed equations and formulas from people who've been there and done that and made for me almost 80 grand. That's a good two months for me. You know, that ain't DNF money, but hey, I told, it's great. You know, Wes is one of my coaches. I told him, I looked him right in the eyes today and I said, I'm coming for you. And he said, come get it, baby. I love it. You know, love it. What is the difference between someone that can get through training, get through the military or become an elite like a Navy SEAL?

I honestly feel, and I know this is going to sound like a cliche, it's understanding what your why is. It's having that mental fortitude. I literally am my biggest fan and my worst enemy. But the one thing that I've learned is my why is me. Everybody, when I ask them, like, what's your why? I want to be a Navy SEAL.

it's not that's not it how do you become a Navy SEAL by being a better you so that's the one thing that people need to understand they get it twisted you know these are the these are the same motherfuckers that if I pour a glass out I say what's that glass they say half-empty these are the guys that are just waiting to die I'm not gonna lie to you till I was 45 even as a Navy SEAL I was looking at that glass half-empty

Pedro says that the one who told me he like with his giant fingers. It's half full like what happens when the glass gets full Let's put let's find you a bigger glass and that's what I'm doing now I'm surrounding myself with people who have bigger glasses, you know, like, you know, they say pick five of your friends and there's your future We had 40 some people 50 people out there who all are like subject matter experts shmeezer what they do being able to rub elbows with these people talk to them just ask them questions and

It's amazing. And I'm seeing the benefits of it. And I'm going to tell you this right now. I'm going to keep, I tell people, don't give me your phone number because I will text and I will call. I've done it. You know, I know you're busy. You too. I call, I text. I want to learn. That's what I'm going to keep doing. How hard is it to become an ABC? It's pretty fucking hard. So, you know, a wise man, Mr. Grover said it best. The worst, 146 of us started my buds class.

16 made it. Whoa. So even those hundred and however many that didn't make it are still half. Some of them world-class athletes, wrestlers, this, that we are less than 1% of the human population that gets it done. And I'm going to tell you both this right now. Everybody thinks it's because, you know, Oh, you're a physical savage. No, no,

I'm a mental and emotional savage. I can stay calm in the storm, right? Going through that shoot house. I stay calm. I am people you have, but you have to be extreme with your dreams. That's what I tell people. And like people always ask me, what would have happened if you wouldn't have been Navy SEAL? I would have died. Like, and people go, no, no, seriously. No, I'm serious. I trained for four years.

I, it was like watching Rocky three. I went off in the Navy training when everybody else was doing stupid things. Just, I put a picture of a trident up and I just looked at it and I said, one day I will have that tattooed on me. And I do one day I will do that. And it was just every day of just being repetitive, being disciplined and being ruthless about

fucking ruthless with my pursuit of success. And again, my success at that time had nothing to do with a monetary standpoint. You know, it was, I want to be a part of something better than me. And that's why I love being a part of Operation Blacksite. We are changing lives, right? We have saved lives. I don't know if you guys know that. We are. We have. I watched it within

happened right within my eyes when the guy just had a moment. I said, take all the time you need, brother. Why don't no one's going to yell at you? He came up and thanked me afterwards. That's what it's about, you know. So with different divisions, Navy, Marines, Army, et cetera, even police department, fire department, why is it important for more people to consider joining one of these services? Well, that's a great question. Here's the problem with America right now. There's no discipline.

And the reason is, is because people aren't being pushed to do anything, right? Let's rewind the clock back to an 18 year old me. I was a punk getting in trouble. And if I didn't do something with my life, I was going to go to jail. Nowadays, let's fast forward 18 year old kids. And listen, I got no problem if you want to sit and play video games, if you got your shit dialed in, if you're making money and you're providing. But these kids are sitting on their ass doing nothing. And because there's no ramifications for anything.

If I had my way, if I was the president of the United States, some of these countries, they have what's called conscripts where between the ages of 18 and 21, you have to do mandatory service if you do not do like college, a trade school or something. Right. I tell you what, if I could go back in time again, I would have went to a trade school. Like people think that a trade school is a joke and a college is this. I can take $100,000 and give it to you right now and you can tell me something for four years. I may, I may,

Regurgitated I may not But I can like Teach me a specific skill set Right Right One in two years Making money is a It's a craft Right Instead of Me sitting here Listening to somebody Who's never done anything Except read a fucking book And tell me how it's gonna be done You know I've done that I've gone to counselors before With PTSD Do you have PTSD No

Why are we talking? It would be like me giving you advice on fucking animals. Are you really going to take me serious? I'd listen. You'd listen. You might hear me. I don't know if you're going to listen. You'd be like, come on. Okay, thanks. But that's the problem. Too many people. The reason why we need the military is simply this. America needs more discipline. It is a great problem.

Your basic form, right, is your baseline form of discipline. Get in the military. And what's so great about the military is you get out of it what you put into it. You know, all you got to do, man, like, for us to come up, to show up, do your job and be a team player. And you can really make, you know, what you want of it. I mean, and I was told from the day I went in, I would never be a Navy SEAL. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't tall enough and I wasn't smart enough.

And I proved them all wrong. But more importantly, I proved myself right. And that's what more people need to do. You know, I tell people, I always say it, I bet on me. More people in America need to bet on themselves. I could sit around and wait and say, you know, I work for Dan. I could sit around and wait for Dan to give me a cool tip. Or I can go out and just grind my ass off. And then, you know, eventually, you know, I'm doing it. Like, I listen. You think I don't listen, man. When I'm listening to all you guys talking...

I just sit there and take it all in, take notes and learn from it. That's how you get better, man. You can't walk around with an ego or an attitude. It's going to get you fucking nowhere. Is there any money for a 17, 18-year-old that's coming fresh out of high school and going into college?

any form of the military, is there any money in there? Can they make 50 grand a year, 60 grand a year, 80 grand a year? Is there any money? Yeah, sure you could. You could make a decent living. Remember, you're getting full medical and dental. You'd make probably 35 to 60,000 depending on the rate. But you're getting three square meals. You've got a roof over your head. And you've got a constant paycheck.

And I'll tell you what, I will take that versus sitting in mom's basement playing video games. Right. And and bitching and moaning and griping and aching of why you're not where you want to be. When I look at someone like that, I go, they go, why me? I'm like, why not? You motherfucker. What are you doing? And when I ask people this, because I do coaching programs, their silence is deafening. Right. When like if you sit here and call me out on something and I have nothing to say.

You know exactly what I'm telling you with no words need to be said. I'm thinking you are a lazy piece of shit who is just waiting for something to happen. Success waits for no one. I've learned that. You know, I thought when I got out of SEAL teams, I'm Navy SEAL, I'll be successful. When I got out of SEAL teams, I went into the business world working with Bedros. I was like, holy shit. Because overseas, you know who your fucking enemy is.

In business, you don't. Competitors, right? Like, perfect example, there is a million, I know this for a fact, I know there's probably 50 fucking seals that want to be where I'm at right now. Operation Blacksite. You come, you come try to take it. You won't outwork me. You won't out-hustle me. It ain't going to happen. I don't care if you're bigger, better, faster, stronger than me. I will find a way. But that's the mindset, the mentality that you have to have the climb, you know? I tell every single one of you, I'm coming for you.

Don't take it as an insult. Take it as a personal challenge and accept it. That's what I tell people. So someone wakes up on a Wednesday morning and they just don't feel like it. What do you say to that person? I tell them, stop being a little bitch. Get up and make it happen. Just do it. People that do things when it's comfortable, people that do things when it's convenient, people that do things when it's to their liking are called

People that do shit when it's hard, right? People that do things when they're sick. You know, and let me tell you what my definition of a savage is. A mom who, like my mom, two jobs, two kids, single mom, busting her ass. You think there were days, I guarantee you there were days my mom didn't want to get up and be a mom. But she did it. Every day. Every day, man. Every day. Never missed a day. And there's like my wife, my wife, man. She's a stay-at-home mom. She's got the toughest job on planet Earth.

She's there every day driving my daughter this, doing that, just pouring herself into my family. That is a savage. A savage isn't someone that just beats their chest. A savage is someone who is disciplined and they have character and morals and they care about people and they want to make a fucking impact in this world. And that's where I'm at right now. Like people ask me, what is your fear? What's your fear, Ray?

it's the same thing not getting enough done and when i die not leaving an impact like like i want people to go holy that guy touched my life in some fashion no matter what whether it was funny whether it was this that's what i want to do i mean millions millions of people that's that's my goal but dying and my headstone says hey here lies ray care he was a navy seal and don't judge me on what i did

Judge me on what I'm going to do. I'm going to, my job when I get up and I speak is I don't want to tell you, I'm not Al Bundy. It doesn't matter what I did yesterday. What am I going to do today or tomorrow to better myself, create a better relationship between us, right? And create some generational wealth. Because listen, I'm all about being an ABCO, but I'll tell you this right now. I'm getting, I'm starting to like money. I'm looking at them. I like the color of the money right there. I like it.

I fucking love it because it is a vessel for freedom. I like that, you know, and I will be, I got some advice from a wise man. Once he goes, be the guy that takes your family on three fucking vacations a year, three, three. Why? One, because you have to two, because you want to, and three, because you're the motherfucking man that can.

I've taken my wife on two vacations already, my family, and we're going to, we might do four this year. I don't, I haven't come up with a cool term for number four, but I will, but I need it. I need it. She needs it. We need it. And money gives me that freedom. But I also like to do things with money, right? And it doesn't matter if you're giving a hundred thousand dollars away and I'm giving a thousand dollars away, right? It might impact us the same way.

That's the biggest thing I had to learn is, you know, investments and things like this. Listen, if you put $100,000 in, I put $10,000 in, and there's a return on it. It's all relative. Listen, man, I'll take that shit. I'll take that. Fuck yeah. Tarzan, it's Wednesday morning. You got to feed 85 animals, and you just don't feel like it. What do you do? Feed them. You know, and when it comes to animals...

They come first. They come before me, you know. And anybody out there that's like, there's no money in animals. There's no this in animals. You're right. Your heart's got to be in animals, you know. And there's plenty of days where I don't feel like it. More often than not, you know, whether it's emotional, physical, spiritual, I don't feel like getting up. I don't feel like going out there and checking on this or checking on that or changing that water or thawing those rats out or walking the dog. But I do it every day, all the time.

Day after day. Rain, sleet, snow, lots of money, no money. I'm going to do it. Like I said, don't be a little bitch about it. It's not a habit of lifestyle either. It's not 2190. I don't believe in that shit. You've been taking care of animals for how long? A whole 16 months.

It's from now until the day you die. Exactly. That's what it is. Because if that's your passion, passion and purpose driven, then baby, you got the best of both worlds. Because most people, some people are passion driven. They want the cars and the money they want to put in the work. Some people are purpose driven. I'm doing what I love and getting paid for it. How do you stay focused? I use this example about you often and you don't hear it. I watched you get 140 million views on a video online.

and then go clean up poop and then go make another video get 90 million views and go clean out water and you you look the same every time every time because most people you know i work in the social media space i pay thousands of influencers and they get 100 000 views on a video and they're gonna tell people to fuck off in the streets right they're like they're the big time now because they got 100 000 views you go off and get 100 million views and they go clean up poop walk me through the mental process of how do you stay even keel

Cleaning up poop is the best part of my life because it keeps you grounded, you know? When it comes to doing stuff for animals, you know, it's...

They don't do nothing for me. You know, they can't like wake up and give me a dollar or make me food or, you know, my greatest thing to them is go in there and clean their fecal matter. Like, hey, you made a mess. I'm going to clean it up. I'm going to clean up that water bowl. And the good part of doing all this stuff over and over and over is I get, you know, 200 million views a month, 190 million views on one video, you know, and it's just like, OK.

What's next? What's the next one? Where are we going next? How can we get better? Because I've seen other people in other fields of work compound success after success after success. The guys that make the shot or they miss the shot and they're like the same, they're stoic. Same with Dan. I see him...

You know, he's a professional gambler. He'll win lots of money and he'll also lose the same exact way. You know, so it's like I also learn from you. I also learn from people in other fields to keep the momentum going no matter what it is. I think it's Mike Tyson. I think Custom Model told him, you know, the best people go from

Failure after failure without losing enthusiasm. You know, I can fail a ton I when I wake up in the morning and clean that poop, you know that that poop keeps me there I know it sounds weird like all this guy's cleaning poop where I clean poop with my bare hands I go buy shovels after shovels rakes after rakes garbage cans after garbage cans I'm gonna figure it out, but I'm gonna clean that poop, you know, and then one day when I'm a multi-billionaire and

and I'm living off 10% of it and 90% goes to animals, guess what I'm going to do? Clean poop. Clean that poop, baby. I love it. Ray. Yes, sir. Why is it important for people to invest into themselves? Why should they have coaches? Why should they have mentors? Why should they go to events? Why should they read books? Man, because you have to rebuild your pack. Everybody that I know, and I was guilty of it, has experience.

I call it a person, place, or thing in their life that's a negative entity that's holding them down. Right? It's a crutch. It's quicksand. And too many people go through life, like I said, I'm going to talk about these blinders of negativity, not just, oh, that's okay, I'll accept it. But when you surround yourself with people who are like-minded at a whole different level and they start pouring into you, you start realizing that, you know, holy shit, you know, I've been going through life like this.

I always talk about... I try to put everything relative with cars, right? You know, I'm a Dodge guy. I have an eight-cylinder vehicle. I've been going through life on like four and six cylinders. I'm getting by. But it's just... You have to believe in yourself, right? And sometimes...

We build up so many walls around us It takes someone who's been there And you have to find the right Coach or mentor That pours into you Like I want a mentor if I mess up to tell me I messed up I mean you did this wrong Don't tell me I'm the fuck up If you do tell me why

And I will fix it. And then once you start seeing results, because I'm result driven, baby. When I start seeing, you know, the needle moving in the right direction for whatever that needle might be, right? Then it's addicting. Like I'm addicted to being better. I love it. I mean, listen, all human beings are born with that trait of

We just hide it behind, you know, all the social bullshit that we're putting up with in life. I mean, you know, like I have a client, she's like 300 pounds. She doesn't leave her house. She never leaves her house. Not for groceries, not for anything. She works at home. And I told her, and I know this sounds cruel. I said, I want you to get up off your ass. I want you to go to the grocery store. I want you to buy your own stuff. Yeah, but I don't like the way I look. Exactly. And so walk fast.

I did this with her six months ago. She's lost about 85 pounds. 85 pounds. Now, am I cruel for telling her to move her? I did. I told her, move your fat ass. Am I being cruel? She needed that. She needed that mental and emotional smack, if you will, to do that. Because what does she do? Listen, if you pay me to coach you where I pay a coach, don't tell me what I'm doing right. Don't you dare. Tell me what I'm doing wrong. First time I opened up for Bedros Koulian, I spoke publicly.

And I said, Pedro, you're a $50,000 speaker. I was a five at the time. What do you think? He goes, you did great. I said, are you kidding me? You're a fraud. And he goes, what? Like, you're a $50,000 speaker. I'm asking you for advice, not your opinion. And that's what you got. And he goes, oh, you really want to know? And I said, yes, I do. I said, but wait. And I hit record. Go. And he said, you're not mad? Mad. You just gave me $50,000 worth of advice for free. Thank you.

Right. And then from there I started getting holy shit. I applied it and it started working. I got a job for him. And then all of a sudden he's like, listen, Ray, you are the king of self-sabotage. You self-sabotage yourself. I'm like, you're absolutely right. He goes, but don't don't be scared. Ninety nine percent of men in America do this shit. I can't speak for women. I said, well, how do you fix it? Get a coach that keeps you in line like a Navy SEAL needs accountability coach. Fuck. Yes, I did.

But now I did. I learned from it so much. That's what I do. I am not. I'm not a motivational speaker. I'm not a motivational coach. Motivation gets you moving. Discipline gets it done. I do discipline, discipline, breaking beliefs and accountability. That's my jam. Right. I make people better human beings. The better you feel about yourself, the more risk you're going to take on yourself. I'm living proof. I would never do the stuff I'm doing. Right. Going out on my own branch. I'm scared shitless.

But being scared is good. Like, I love it. I love getting up in the morning and wonder what the hell the day is going to bring. I know it's not going to be from lack of hustle because I'll out hustle anybody in the room. I might not get the results that you get, but that's just because I haven't honed in my skills yet. Right? I'm trying to micro tweak, ask you for this, ask you for this. And I just have this big fucking tool bag that I use and I pull it out or I'll ask for advice. Someone say, yeah,

Don't do that. Use this instead, right? Use this wrench instead of this wrench. And I use it, man. And I'm turning it. It's working, baby. I love it. I'm so passionate about it. I love it. For the parents that are listening. Yeah. How do they make their children be more disciplined? I love it. So, um,

Get your kids involved in sports right off the get go. If they don't want to do sports, enroll them in jujitsu, karate, martial arts, discipline, wrestling, tennis, one on one sports where it's you versus you. I love it. Number two, make your kids do chores. Chores. My daughter has chores. If she gets up and she doesn't make her bed in the morning, I take her phone from her. She doesn't do this. I take her. I take what she loves and that's her phone.

to the point where you can program your children. And again, people are like, you're brainwashing your kid. Listen, if me programming my daughter who gets straight A's in school, who's doing great, who wants to be successful, who's already like driven to make money, so be it. You can call me the world's worst father. You know what? We need more bad fathers and parents like that. I program people because I learned how to program myself. You don't get through buds, baby, without programming yourself.

You'd think there's days where I want to get up at three o'clock in the morning and do a four mile time run. But I'm like, what's the end game? The end game is right. I'm going to make my dream come true. So that's what people need to do. What else they need to do? Put your kids in camps. My daughter goes to a religious Bible camp. Get away from your parents and experience things with other kids.

Too many damn kids are sitting on their ass. And I get it. A lot of parents, listen, if you're hustling and you can't afford it, that's great. We have programs for young men between the ages of 11, 16. Come to that called the Squire Program. You know, Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts. There's all these different things that you need to just get your kids up and doing. And listen, mom and dad, you're not a bad parent if you literally push your kids to do it. People need the push. I needed the push. And you're going to need it eventually here too.

The last part of our segments, we talk about charity. Yes. Why do you think it's important for humans themselves or for businesses and brands to get involved in charities? Oh, man. Just because I'll tell you this right now. I'm learning. Giving back feels so damn good. You guys know what I'm talking about, right? It feels so good. You know, and again, I don't want to keep talking about being tootin' his horn, but when I did a job interview for him and he said, you knew this too, he quizzed me. And this is how fucked up the world is. He goes, fill in the blanks, right?

I said, okay, the more you make, the more you, I said, the more you take. No, this happened again and again. Finally, I was like, B, listen, I don't know what else it is. He goes, the more you make, the more you give. And I said, B, I don't understand. You know what he did? Now, Bedros is all, you know, but the real Bedros leaned over and he goes, because you don't make enough money, motherfucker. And it didn't register for me. And I got goosebumps. So I started making six figures, multiple six figures.

Now I'm writing checks, right? And I don't write them in my name. I write in my wife's name. My father-in-law died of cancer, leukemia. I'm gonna get emotional. It was recent. My mother-in-law died of breast cancer. Nothing. I know it's not a lot compared to some. Nothing makes me feel better than stroking a check for five or 10 grand in my wife's name. She doesn't even know. And she's got to get up and speak what's going on or giving money to our church to help out kids overseas.

It fills a void. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm telling you this right now. I used to be the most greedy son of a bitch with money in the world. And I honestly think if you do good deeds and it will come back to you tenfold. Right. I mean, it just feels so good. I get so emotional about it. Like they're like, how do you make an ABC or cry? Change someone else's life. Mr. Pena said the best. If you don't think money can't buy you happiness, you ain't fucking shopping in the right place. You need money now.

To make a difference in the world. If you don't like the way something's the way something's doing or something's happening or whatever, figure out a way to make it. And usually money can do that. Right. I don't I don't like I don't like the uniforms that my my daughter's cheerleading school spent like nine hundred dollars changed them.

They changed, right? I didn't like this. I don't like that. So I work my ass off and I give back to charities. I love working with kids because there's some kids in America who were just given a shitty hand. You know, parents died, drugs, alcohol. You've heard the scenario. You've heard this before. I know you have. There's two twin brothers. One is a multimillionaire. The other is a drug addict. And you ask them both why.

The drug addict says because my father's a drug addict. The multimillionaire says because my father's a drug addict. That's who I'm going to be. I had a horrible childhood. I was beat. I was abused. I came from nothing. My goal was to make as much money as I could. I don't need so much. I don't need fancy stuff. I don't. I don't need a lot. What I need is to make an impact and help as many other people as I can. But in return, they needed the same thing. It just needs to be the ripple effect of positivity.

Last question. Yes, sir. We are in a world filled with chaos this year. The media is going crazy. It's making people's minds go nuts. And there's a lot of school shootings. There's a lot of bad things happening in our society. How can people stay calm in the midst of chaos? Perfect example. Train. You have to train. Come to Operation Black Sight. Learn how to defend yourself. Learn how to shoot, move, and communicate like a warrior. Stay calm.

In the storm. It's not going to happen because too many people go through life being a fucking victim because they don't know the tall tale signs. You know when an animal is going to strike. I watched you with that snake the other day. I was scared shitless. You knew you were like, watch.

But the more aware you are of yourself, your abilities and your capabilities, the more you can be situational awareness. That's what needs to happen. If it's not this course, go to a course, learn how to defend yourself. And not only that, for the love of God, teach the people that you love in your life how to do it. My daughter's 13. She knows how to defend herself. My wife does, too. The biggest fear I have, Dan, Mike, is I'm away and something happens to my wife and daughter because I'm not there.

When I'm home, break it all you want, baby. Good luck. Come on. Unless it's Tim Kennedy, come on in. Right? No knock. But it's being a male, being helpless, and not being able to defend yourself. And I want to tell you this right now. I'll speak for the men and fathers and mothers. You have an obligation to society to train yourselves up and your children so you are not victims. Right? And that's it.

Ladies and gentlemen, you're watching the Money Mondays. We are co-hosted here with the real Tarzan. We have a favor for you every single week. We all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money.

And we believe that it's rude to not talk about money. It's a reason that in our society, people don't know about credit, rent, apartments, leases, loans, FICO score. They can't even spell FICO. Like we have a situation because we're not allowed to ask about salaries or ask about rent or ask what to do if Johnny wants to borrow 500 bucks or Jennifer doesn't pay her portion of rent. We don't know what to do because we can't talk about it. We need to end that. That's the whole concept of this podcast is to have these discussions. So we want you to have these discussions with your friends, family and followers.

Share the podcast. Share the Money Mondays. Make sure to follow at Ray Cash Care. Check out his social media. You will thoroughly enjoy it. And if you want to, go visit themoneymondays.com. Make people aware of it. And we will see you next Monday.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Money Mondays where we talk about three topics. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. The episodes are only 40 minutes because we know that the average commute is around 45 minutes. The average workout is around 45 minutes. So we want to get straight to the point and talk about money. It's important to have these discussions. And today we have a very, very special guest because this entrepreneur has built a company that has sold over $100 million already.

of flannel shirts and different types of apparel i'm very excited to ask danny all things about how he built that brand how he built that business because there's very very very very few companies that do more than five or ten million dollars in sales it is really hard to scale to over 100 million dollars please welcome

Danny, the founder of Dixon Clothing. Thank you so much for having me today, Dan. I'm honored amongst the guests that you had, definitely, and amongst yourself to be on here today. Thank you so much. So my first question is how?

That's a loaded one. That might take the whole 40 minutes, right? Right. All right. So first, give us the quick two-minute bio. That way we can get straight to the money. All right. Awesome. So my name is Danny Dreyer, known as Danny Dixon. So I founded Dixon Flannel Company in –

2013 so this is our 10 year anniversary a popular kind of motto of our company is $180 in a dream so that's what I started with I was working at a motorcycle shop with my pops at the time I got this thrown on this crazy path of idea that I could perfect the flannel shirt

So it was my side project for a good, I would say, four years while I was still working full time, 60 hours a week or so. Very driven in management and stuff like that while I was out here with Harley Davidson. And then it finally became that aha moment where you're

or you're like, am I unemployed or, you know, or am I an entrepreneur? And, you know, went all in on the idea and now I've grown to the point where, you know, last year we did $100 million in sales. So, you know, we are largely lifestyle brands so we're centered usually around Harleys, Hot Rods, you know,

Lowriders, we do a lot of that kind of stuff. But we've gotten to the point where we do so many different products now that we kind of break down the barriers of so many different demographics and whatnot. So with the one simple rule is to start with the why and make everything that we make the best that it possibly can be and try to redefine the basics, if you will. Yep.

So from the make money side, let's walk through. If someone wants to start a clothing line, you started with $180 in a dream. I started my clothing line. I was 17 years old. I was working three jobs, saved up a bunch of money working at Qualcomm stating peanuts and Cracker Jacks here. Working at Ruby's Diner with a sailor's cap on, working for a stockbroker at a table. Saved up $43,000 over three years of just hustling, working, working, selling candy at school, etc.

And I thought I had enough money that I was like, "I got a couple years of overhead saved up." And I was really planning at first to save it for SDSU to go to college.

Instead, my $43,000, I ran through it in like two months. I got a booth at the convention at Magic, 1999. I'm 17 and a half years old. And I want to talk through like when someone wants to start a clothing line. So I've heard a statistic. Around 300,000 clothing lines are started each year. Around $30,000, 30,000 of them ever make more than 10 grand. Around 3,000 of them ever hit more than $100,000. And only 300 ever hit more than 1 million.

Wow. And obviously, I don't even know the number of $100 million because we can name pretty much the companies that have ever done over more than $100 million in apparel space. So walk us through. If someone says, I want to start a clothing brand, what are your thoughts about what type of money they need to get started, what type of passion they need to get started, what type of information they need to get started? So my first answer usually is don't. That's what I say. Two things. Don't buy a bar and don't start a clothing company. But where it ended up at, if you are driven enough, and I can...

I really cannot emphasize this enough to be resourceful in anything that you do. I think that, you know, a lot of times these days, especially of our younger generation, we forget the resources that we have at our fingertips every day. So when I started, I just really invested mostly in myself and in knowing that I'm a beginner, you know, it's and getting comfortable being uncomfortable.

and realistically being you know being comfortable being the beginner you know it really comes down to that because you feel like a fraud at times because you're like you know say you're writing ad copy you know for you know for your marketing

you always reference yourself like, we are doing this. You're like, I'm just a guy in my garage. 21 years old. You have to make yourself look big, and then once you do get big, you're almost like you want to make yourself look small. But realistically, knowing the types of garments, knowing what your trade is, and really any trade that you're in, you want to invest in your knowledge of it. And so I've felt like...

I was just obsessed with it. And I'm still just as obsessed with it today. You know, learning new processes. We make new products not a lot of times just because it's what we can sell. It's because I'm obsessive and I want to know how to make it. You know, it's just like, you know, if it's like slides,

I'm like, I want to know the difference of every slide that's out there. And I'll have like, you know, a hundred slides in there. I'm like wearing Nikes one day and walking around Adidas the next, you know, whatever, trying to check out like what I like and dislike about every single, you know, facet of what I, you know, what we do. And, you know, or like, why are shirts made out of bamboo? Why is this product like this? What can make something not wrinkle? What can make something, you know, it basically, it's,

I feel that what you need to do is obsess in whatever you do. You need to be so driven that your need for oxygen becomes your work. And that's realistically what I feel like that we really did. And these days, still, I feel that my biggest mistakes to this day are where best learning is from. So you just kind of got to go all in.

So I have this line where I say, I obsessively stalk my competitors. Yes. Because then you learn about what are they doing right and wrong? What do you like about them? Like you said, with the Nike slides versus these type of slides, like those type of shoes. I look at what are they saying on Yelp? What are they saying on Google about them? What are they saying on Facebook, Instagram, social media, TikTok? Like what are the comments saying? Like, oh, your flannel shirts do this or they're this size or, oh, it came in a bad package or, oh, it took nine days when it should have been two days or whatever.

I look at all the good things and bad things that people are doing that are my competitors in the space and I just fix them. I'll give you two quick examples. Hoverboards. So I created a hoverboard called U-Wheels. There was two other hoverboard companies at the time, $1,500, $1,800. Who the hell can afford an $1,800 hoverboard? What if you have two kids? What, are you going to spend $4,000 on hoverboards after tax and shipping? That's crazy. And so I made mine half the price. Actually less than, almost a third of the price. Then I thought,

well i should make extra colors and put lights on them so you know you can optionally turn the lights on cool right that extra feature cost me eight bucks and now there's flashing lights that makes it stand out what else can i do speakers i'm gonna add speakers bluetooth speakers feature cost me 12 bucks this is a product that sells for six or seven hundred dollars i can afford eight bucks and 12 bucks to add all these features and all of a sudden we have this cooler faster and wait a minute it takes them

almost two months for shipping. That's insane. What kid is going to wait two months? I didn't even think about that product. They won't even wait two months. They'll run through nine toys before then. So we were doing next day shipping. Gotcha. And I would buy 8,000 to 12,000 units at a time, have it sit at the warehouse so I could do next day shipping. And we built up a brand that did $5.4 million sales in 80 days out of nowhere with no real startup capital. Wow.

Because we just made a better, faster version. We didn't reinvent the wheel. We just made the wheel more faster, stronger. And that happens in all spaces. Same thing with my energy drinks. After clothing...

I licensed the trademark cruiser daddy. So I own the trademark cruiser daddy and I licensed it out. It's a bunch of different brands. Uh, I licensed it to starter apparel for $9.5 million in a royalty deal back when I was 19 years old. That's how I got started was clothing. And so after a few years, when I was 22 going on 23, when we took it public, I launched energy drink. There's 900 energy drinks on the market. Nothing new is going to happen, but

Everybody tasted like cough syrup. Monster, Rockstar, Red Bull, etc. had that thick taste. So I hired the best chemist to make it feel like a drink that you could enjoy. All of them had the 8.4 ounce cans. Okay, well, I'll make 16 ounce cans and 8.4 ounce cans so you can choose what gives me double the shelf space. The rest of them were $2.99, $3.99, $4.99. Okay, I'll make mine $1.99 and $2.99. That way it's affordable.

I didn't do anything outside of just look at what did people complain about. Some people said I hate it's too big, some people said I hate it's too small. I'll do both. Some people said I hate it's $4 a drink. Okay, I'll make it cheaper. All I was doing is fixing things and I've never invented something from scratch. All my business if you just walk through my career, my online poker site. I just signed Dan Bilzerian, DJ Steve Aoki, a bunch of Playboy playmates and made a cool poker site because the other poker sites were just big and boring.

And I think if you walk through and what you just said, like, just go look at and obsess about something. And I like to obsessively stalk my competitors to learn what they're doing right and wrong. You can research everything online and then it'll save you a bunch of money, time and energy because they went through the problems for you. Absolutely. And which brings up a good point, too, and exactly what you're saying. One of the first things that we learn in sales is finding your customers value.

And if we stay inside ourselves only and we're like, hey, like these days, my value is time, you know, but that's not everyone else's value. So an easy way of doing that is doing exactly what you said. You're looking at what all these people are saying and what their value is, you know, like, hey, this shirt shrinks, this shirt sucks, you know, the packaging sucks, blah, blah, blah. You're finding the value of all those people and fixing it. That's a very interesting point.

So when it comes to dealing with retailers, do you guys sell to retailers or only online? We mostly do direct-to-consumer. We do a little bit of wholesale out there just because, you know, having presence on hangers is good. But I really like to control the experience of the customer and so that they feel that passion. And they feel it, like, you know, bleed through all the employees and drip down, you know, from top to the bottom. So, I mean, I would say at this point 93% of our business is direct-to-consumer. Wow.

So for you guys that are listening, if you're considering starting an apparel brand, keep in mind that retailers, they can only carry so many...

space right they only can carry so many brands so if you ever walk into Nordstrom's Macy's any type of clothing store or sporting goods store you'll notice that there's what's called real estate and the real estate is usually 4 to 12 feet of space or what's called a store within store store within store would be something like Dixon that's a bigger brand they'll actually get like 30 feet or 40 feet or 60 feet or 80 feet if they're lucky and it looks like a little store that's got

a four-way rack a shelving space a wall etc and it has the dixon brand and it'll have like a stand that has the dixon thing that's called a store within store

Oftentimes retail brands actually have to pay for that. Like Dixon would have to pay, Hey, Macy's put me a store within store. I'll give you guys $20,000 a store, but you got to buy at least $200,000 product per store, et cetera. And that's how they do what's called either a slotting fee, a marketing fee or store within store fee. That's how retailers stay in business is that they're getting paid for the real estate to help pay for their actual real estate. You know, these guys are 20,000, 50,000, a hundred thousand square feet for department store. It's very expensive. Here's why.

Imagine those hundred thousand square foot department stores you walk into. If they're paying six dollars a square foot per month, that's six hundred thousand dollars a month in rent that they got to pay net, meaning they got a net six hundred thousand a month to just break even. That means they got to do like two million dollars in sales a month to break even just to pay their rent, let alone their employees, insurance, overhead, et cetera. And so if you guys are considering starting a clothing brand,

keep these things in mind. Selling direct to consumer like Dixon mostly does is much more effective, cost effective, and brain headache effective. And two, when dealing with retailers, let me give you a quick example. Let's say Dixon wanted to sell into Macy's right now. It's January 1st.

Dixon would get an order purchase order form for two million dollars That means Dixon has to come up Danny's got to come up with a million bucks to make two million dollars of clothing Approximately right million dollars to manufacture and he's gonna get two million bucks back from Macy's later

Why do I say later? They're going to pay on either net 30, net 60, or net 90 terms. Meaning, once Danny ships the product, and they're going to get it around March 1st to April 1st, even though they got an order January 1st, they're going to ship it around March 1st to April 1st, two to three months later, then the clock starts ticking of net 30 or net 60 from that date.

Meaning, Danny might ship on March 1st and then wait 60 days till May 1st to finally get paid from Macy's. Here's the catch: Dixon sells really well. People like Dixon clothing. If he sells through even 15-30% along the way, they're gonna do a reorder. Guess what? He hasn't been paid for the first order yet. The reorder is always bigger than the first order.

The new order is going to be $6 million. What does Danny have to do? Come up with $3 million to make a $6 million order. Absolutely. Sounds like a good problem. Still a problem, right? Absolutely. Because it's called cash flow. And so you'll see some brands like Dixon hyper focus on the e-commerce space because it's really hard dealing with retailers because of these net 30, net 60, net 90 terms.

The good part about being a retailer is it does add a bit to the brand. People say available in Macy's, available in Sports, Sports Chalet or Costco or Big Five, etc. Those things have a bit of a cachet to them, but not as much as it used to. You know, it used to you wanted to put in your ad available these chain stores, not as much anymore. However,

The concept isn't the same. I want you guys to understand a lot of people here are going to be interested in learning about how to start an apparel brand. When starting it, you're mostly going to focus on the online space. And then when you meet with retailers, you'll be able to have a bit more of a strength in negotiation. If you said, hey, I did 500,000 sales, they're going to take you more seriously than if you did $0 in sales before you sold online. All right, Danny.

When it comes to figuring out profit margins, how high or how expensive you should be, how do people make a decision if they should be a low-priced clothing brand, a medium-priced clothing brand, or a really expensive clothing brand? I think this brings up something that's a multifaceted answer, is to always know your demographic. It's so, so key to know them. How do they operate on a daily basis? How do they think? What are their values? What does home life look like? What do their budgets look like? And whatnot. So,

personally for Dixon, a lot of it where we started was like, you know, working class, you know, and what we wanted to offer was an affordable piece, you know, and so a shirt sitting at $60 we feel is affordable since it lasts. Now is it, is it,

cheap no is it affordable yes because it since it's a product that will last if it was a product that could be couldn't you know just consumed quickly and then you know it's gone after a couple wash that's fashion yeah and so then that wouldn't make us expensive so

I think that you really have to pay attention to that. And, and my thing was instead of hyper-focusing on, um, on those margins was really thinking, what can we get by as like, where, where can we get by? Where will we do? Okay. And, you know,

you know, say still safely double your money. I would, I would say that's where I try to be at. And then now when taking, making moves, it's like, if I can break even on something, but I can do it right. And I can learn in the process. That's, you know, that right there for me these days, just knowledge wise, um,

you know is good for me but when starting out I would say that knowing your demographic is the biggest the biggest idea that you have to focus on is how are they because you know there's there's a lot of brands out there in lifestyle spaces that could sell a t-shirt that might be inferior in quality to mine for $120 and mine's 25 but I know my consumer

And it's going to get dirty in the garage or in their saddlebag or their motorcycle or something like that. And we want to be able to put a new t-shirt on them all the time. And what they value is not going to be, you know, that $120 shirt. And those guys that can do that are genius marketers. And, you know, hats off to them for sure. But my demographic doesn't. So knowing your demographic, absolutely key. Also, guys, keep in mind, you might not be your customer.

Absolutely. When I started my energy drink, I didn't really drink energy drinks. I just wanted to make the... I was making a zero sugar, zero carbs, zero calorie drink that was cranberry pineapple because I liked the taste of cranberry pineapple. But I wasn't drinking energy drinks every day. I barely drank them ever even to this day. I don't really drink them that much. The hoverboard. I played with it and I liked it, but I'm not exactly... I was 35 years old, whatever it was at the time. I'm not going around hoverboarding all day and night. You have to think about your customer and it may not be you. And sometimes people get that wrong. They think, oh, I'm just going to make this for me. Well,

You might not be the consumers that you're looking for. You might be not the brand that fits what you guys are trying to do. All right. So we talked a bit about the making money side. Let's talk about the investing side. So when it's time to make an investment, let's use your warehouse as an example. You made an investment to build this humongous warehouse. That's where we threw our elevator night event. Thank you for having us there, where you've got tens of thousands of square feet and

And it was too small. And so you made another warehouse down the street that's like a zillion times bigger. So walk us through the investment side of like, okay, we could use a fulfillment house. We could use what's called a 3PL, which is a third-party logistics operation, which is another warehouse. Most brands do that at the beginning. They either ship from their apartment or ship from their office. And then at some point it gets too big.

They use what's called the 3PL. Or for Danny and Dixon, they built their own warehouse. I think it's 20,000 square feet, the first one. That one there. Oh, the one that you were at last is 50. Okay.

okay sorry 50 000 square feet was the small one and so talk to us about when it's time to make decisions about making investment that you have to grow into most of the time right and in your guys's case you grew into it and by the time you were open it was like oh shoot we need another one down the street absolutely so in my own case um i believe at first i made a lot of decisions based on emotion and creativity

And the reason why was because for me to be able to focus artistically and creatively and you know, since I do a lot of that side of it, I had to feel secure. So the first purchase that we made in that building, we put 60% down.

Now, from a moneymaker standpoint, is that a great decision? Not really. However, for me, it let me sleep at night and focus on what I knew could make me money. And it gave me more headspace to be able to create. Now I need to make decisions that are money focused, so it's a little bit different. However, the way that we really got there, we started out with a 2,500 square foot warehouse, and that was only because I had maxed out the space upstairs in my house. My kids didn't even have a place to play because it was like my warehouse...

my garage, you know, and everything else. We move in like 2,500 foot square, you know, square foot warehouse. And then, you know, built into a 10 and then, you know, made that first purchase. Um, now,

I would never tell people that they should make money choices emotionally, but at that point in time, that's how we did it. But I would say never make money decisions based on ego, trying to have the biggest warehouse, what it looks like, blah, blah, blah. It needs to be what it operates on and key ingredient being efficiency. What's going to keep you most efficient? And you also bring up the 3PL process. That's also a great process, and it goes back to, again,

looking at your consumer base and what they value, our value was getting things out fast. So there's a lot of things that we do in the warehouse that most warehouses don't as far as the way that we code things and everything because for us it needs to be speed. They expect stuff fast and we deliver that.

And so there's some things there that like, you know, we could have probably saved a lot of money on. But hey, that speed right there is actually a big key point in our sale. So it's something that we need to focus on. So, you know, since then, we had the 50,000 square foot warehouse, which is still headquarters today is mostly our creative center and event center. And then down the street, we have 105,000 square foot warehouse that is dedicated just solely to shipping is pretty much like a

discreet looking building. It's really boring in there, you know? It's just warehouse script footage, you know? - And tape, tape, tape, tape. - Exactly. - So as someone is deciding, okay, I started my brand, I got it up, I'm gonna be medium price point, I got my website up, I've done a couple hundred thousand dollars in sales,

When is it time to consider taking an investor capital? When do they decide if they're going to take in money from their friends and family or taking money from actual investors or credit investors? Like when is that turning point, whether it's idea phase,

get some sales in. Like, what are your thoughts about taking capital from people along the way? So what I did then versus what I would do now is completely different. I, what I focused on before was always doubling down. That money was there to grow us by never spending it. And if I made an expenditure, it had to be something that I knew that there was a return on and generally what was rolling right back into the company. So I bootstrapped all the way up. Um,

I didn't take many loans like at first like the only things I would do is like some of those short-term PayPal loans just so I could buy like some product and they would take it out, but they're at high interest rates, right? so

I have said no to a lot of investments, or investors, I should say, just because I wanted to keep us whole forever. And as we sit right now, we stay cash positive with almost no loans. Now, how I would do that differently, if it were someone that was growing, say, at half the rate we were, I would say...

When money's cheap, you better take it and maximize it. And I think that a lot of people that are on your shows have made such wealth off of that principle. And that's something that I look at you guys to learn now. You know, like I look at because for myself, it was it was more like I was investing myself into my frame of mind at the time just to know, like, hey, I'm secure here. I own everything. We're good.

However, if you want to make that, you know, when you start, you know, you gamble big, you have to bet in on yourself. And so I think that there's a lot of those lessons that that I'm learning now, honestly. So when it comes time to investing in scaling, you have to spend money on ads, you know, whether it's especially when you're doing it online, you got to spend money on Google and Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and there's so many different options. But

Sometimes you get a return on investment. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you get a ROAS, which is return on ad spend. Sometimes you don't. Like in my mind, I have a guest that we had recently, my business partner in the past on different investments. He says, I like to lose money more efficiently than anybody.

And what he means by that is, let's just use Dixon as an example. Would Dixon spend $100,000 to get $100,000 in sales when they're going to lose 50 grand? They might if they know that their customers return and spend $500 on average stuff a year.

If you have a one-time product, you would never spend $100,000 and get back $100,000 because that'd be silly. You'd lose $50,000 and you're going to be broke after a while losing money. But if Dixon in this case knows, you know what? Our customers spend $500 a year on average. It's worth getting them in even if we lose $50 per person up front, but they spend $500 over the course of the year. I would lose money on that on purpose knowing that it's worth just getting more and more customers because people like our clothing. They like the fabric. They like how fast we ship it, etc.,

So talk us through as you're growing because you guys grew so fast, when is it time to spend money on ads? How do you know when to go up or down and when, you know, pour the gasoline on the fire, put the pedal to the metal, et cetera. Talk us through the thought process and spending money on advertising.

I think that spending money on advertising is always worth it. When you're starting out small and you don't have a lot to spend, then I would say, from the clothing side, I would say that you would spend money in physical presence. Spend money in influencers. Spend money in things that feel organic if that's what your clientele demands. Because I feel like...

The space of a brand has to have a feel. What I tell even my team, we don't sell products. We never start with the what. Start with the why. We sell feelings. And so that's what our marketing does. And so relying heavily on marketing, if I can get behind our marketing and I can get behind our customer service and I can get behind, lastly, the product that we actually sell.

then at that point I'm going to double down on everything that I can. And if my return on it is, you know, it's two times, my return on it seven times, I'm going to go in, go all in every single time or knowing that we might lose on something, you know, and now getting into like, you know, different influencer spaces and whatnot. I think it's always worth it. But I think that we also have to look at, you know, um,

these days paid ads are everywhere. And so you have to think outside the box and think like, how do you know, knowing what my consumer base wants and desires, how can I be there for them? You know, what can I, how can I get in front of them? And so, and sometimes that's not digitally. Um, but yeah,

you know, if you sponsor live events, yes, exactly. Because I think in a lot of times that shows the grassroots of your company and what you're into, you know, like say if you're a brand that's heavily into UFC, like let's say, um, Sean Whelan, for example, like when, you know, when lions, not sheep wants to show who they are, right.

They go into Bare Knuckle Fight Club. So in Dixon, we early on were involved in a lot of the motorcycle events. And I also, I never make an investment on a car because investments in auto generally aren't great. But the thing is, for me, I have to look at it as like,

does this show in this section, like the C10 market, are we going to pick up a, you know, a truck market by showing them that at the core of it, we know everything in, in, in this area and same thing in motorcycles. And so we always have to stay fresh and showing that, you know, we're in it, we're still here and, you know, and this shows it. And so, um,

A lot of times on that side of business too, that's an investment and it's not you showing off your stuff. You're investing in showing your customer base or my customer base, showing them that we're on the forefront. We know what's going on. We're a part of this. And then that way, your customer, most of the customers in brand space, they want to feel like they belong. And you're letting them have something to belong to, which they're going to want to purchase into. Sure.

So talk us through, you've also done some really cool partnerships. You've partnered with musicians, you've partnered with athletes. Can you just talk us through a couple examples of like a partnership with the musician, an athlete, or a band, etc.? Yes. So during COVID, what I found was unique was that

Musicians couldn't tour anymore so put a lot of them on the sidelines suddenly they had a need for me whereas before I'm just another clothing brand So so we got involved with them and one of our biggest ones notable today would be Metallica You know and it's been really cool and unique because again those are things that open us to you know different places It's been amazing working with them, too

Yeah, the other thing is once you get a bigger influencer, a big celebrity, a big band, or one of the legends of all legends, Metallica, it makes it really easy to get anybody else. Right. And so I say this often.

When you're first starting your brand, whether it's an energy drink, a clothing brand, selling pillows, doesn't matter what the thing is, getting into that first retailer or getting that first influencer or getting that first partnership will set you up to get other partnerships, other retailers, et cetera. And so when I first started the energy drink, I did whatever I could to get into 7-Eleven just to place it in 10 7-Elevens. I got into my first Budweiser distributor and then in all my meetings, I just said, oh yeah, I got Budweiser distributing. I got 7-Eleven. Like I got pictures of me in front of the Budweiser truck. I got pictures of 7-Eleven and my drinks on the...

it makes it really easy to get into kmart walmart target everybody else because you're in 7-eleven you got budweiser except the bar high right so if you can get metallica or if you can get your version of metallica meaning an influencer celebrity partnership retailer etc you are much more likely to be getting into the other competitors so influencer will much more likely work with you if you have other influencers celebrity much likely work with you if you have other celebrities ufc fighter would much likely work with you if you had other ufc fighters or boxers

and so as you guys are thinking about it whether you do it for free spend money on it etc just try to get those first partnerships or the first retailers or those first deals so you can use that to leverage to get other deals because people will say yes for this one key reason you remove the reasons to say no if i'm already in 7-eleven and you are shell gas station why would you say no i'm already in 7-eleven they paid me you can see it on the shelf there's pictures of it i can show you my sell-through rates for two months why would you say no i'm already proven that i i'm good in there

I sell my drinks in 55,000 stores, 43 distributors back in the days when there was no social media, I had my space driving around. I was wrapping semi trucks and wrapping NASCARs and wrapping freaking Hummers and things like that. Like I had 93 Hummers driving around and I was here in Arizona actually at the Budweiser distributors driving store to store, going to Danny's car wash. Like I was everywhere to sell my drinks. I don't remember whether I'm delusional or not ever someone saying no. You know why? I didn't ask.

I walked in and said, I'm already with all these distributors. I'm already in these stores nearby. That car wash has me. That guy station has me. How many cases would you like? I don't remember anybody saying no because I already had the leverage of everyone else already buying from me. Why wouldn't you buy from me? I had irrational confidence because other people bought from me. Absolutely. All right. Last segment.

When it comes to, we talked about making money, investing money and giving away some of it to charity. Talk us through your thoughts. Why should brands or individuals have some philanthropy or some charity element to their company? So we're heavily into this. And so I'm glad that you asked. I mean, you know, from from a money perspective, obviously, it always makes sense. However,

It drives me to keep on going. And a lot of times, as entrepreneurs, I think that we can get dried up on inspiration can only go so far. And everyone asks you, how do you stay inspired? Blah, blah, blah. And it always goes down to your why. And so for us, we have in our office, it says grow to grow our support. And that support being in anything that we believe in

and our ethos as a brand. I think it's very important as a community that you're building at work, or the community that you're building in your customer base as well, is showing them what it's going to, and then being able to make a difference with that.

So we constantly do flannels that we'll ally with someone and give the proceeds to the cause that that has to do with and do several different charities and several different type of organizations. Probably choose about 15 to 20 different ones a year

and try to change them up every year. It's great for your company, it's great for the people involved in it, but I think as an entrepreneur as well, that's my favorite part of it. And that's the stuff that really drives me, 'cause when you look back on it and somebody told you you couldn't do it, it's really cool to show a cool car and it carries zero weight. But when you can look back on it and look at how many lives that you changed and give a purpose to what took all those hours, that is everything, absolutely.

ladies and gentlemen you have just watched the money mondays i really want what is your instagram handle i want people to make sure they check it out um it would be dixon flannel co d-i-x-x-o-n d-i-x-x-o-n flannel co this is really important i want you guys to check them out on social media uh you can obviously trust and enjoy that the brand is amazing because again people vote with their credit cards meaning

They've done over $100 million in sales. That's a lot of votes that people have paid to buy their clothing over and over and over over the years. So you can trust in the quality and the brand that he's built. You'll enjoy the products that they created outside of just flannel shirts. They have new products as well. So make sure you check them out, support them and their brand.

But also they see how they built that. Like watch their social media and check them out. When I talk about obsessively stalk your competitors, you may never start a clothing brand, but you might start something, a snack company, an energy drink company, fitness company, et cetera. Look at the way that Dixon built themselves. Look at the culture behind it, how Danny built something in just 10 years to do a hundred million. That's crazy. So check them out as a brand. And also, as you guys know, every time I like to end it to talk about the fact that we grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money.

And I think it's rude to not talk about it. We need to talk about rents, leases, sales, invoices, taxes, FICO, credit scores, and everything in between because otherwise we just don't know because we don't have these conversations. So have the discussions with your friends, family, and followers. Check us out on themoneymondays.com, The Money Mondays Podcast. Subscribe, like it, share with your friends and family, and we will see you guys next Monday.