Nigel Guisinger: How to Buy a Business in the Aftermath of Covid-19

Chris Albert 00:00:01 (link to this point)

The Warrior Soul podcast is written, edited, and produced by me, Albert. Our mission is to provide tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas that help The US military veteran community to show up as the wisest, strongest, most capable versions of themselves in the civilian world. If you're not a veteran, stick around because anything we talk about will most certainly apply to you as well. This podcast is made possible with the help of f bomb nutrition. They make delicious packets of fats that you can carry around anywhere with you in little portable packets.

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Let's get into today's programming.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

What is going on, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert, and this podcast is where we deliver tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to help The US military veteran community and anybody else willing to listen to live their absolute best lives. And today, I'm gonna be talking about something that I believe is the key to living a great life, a life to your full potential, and that is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship, a lot of people think that college is the key to upward mobility in The United States, and I will be the first to tell you that that is very wrong.

Yes. Having a college degree can open up some great doors for you and I'm not one of these people who says college is all around bad. But if you look at what's going on out there in the world today, it's entrepreneurship that is the true key to making your life better, to moving up in society, and to becoming financially free. My guest today is a gentleman named Nigel Guisinger. And I first heard him on a podcast called Bigger Pockets, the Bigger Pockets Business Podcast, and it's one of the best podcasts you can listen to out there about making money through business.

In fact, you should definitely check out all of the Bigger Pockets podcast. They have a general Bigger Pockets. They have a a business podcast. They have a real estate podcast where you can learn about all of these amazing ways of investing and becoming entrepreneurs. Nigel came on and he had this inspiring message.

See, is going out there and he is actually trying to buy and save businesses amidst this crisis that we're all going through right now, the COVID nineteen crisis. You see, during times of chaos, a lot of people think, you know what, it's not the time to buy a business, it's not the time to make any big moves or anything like that. But the reality is the opposite is kind of true. During times like this, there are a lot of people out there who are tired, right? They might have great businesses, they might have great opportunities, but they're tired.

They want to pack it up, they want to retire. And something about the veteran community is this, we make great entrepreneurs. The leadership skills that you learned, the the the skills you learned in the military, they can apply to being a great business owner if you try it out. And what Nigel is here to talk to you about is how you can go out there into your community and potentially buy some of these businesses that are in trouble and make a lot of money at it while you're make a lot of money while you're at it. You'll be helping yourself financially.

You'll be helping your community by keeping these businesses open, and you'll be helping the world. So with that, you guys are gonna gonna really enjoy this conversation. Nigel is a really inspiring guy, and let's get into it. Nigel Guisinger, welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast, man.

Nigel Guisinger 00:05:55 (link to this point)

Hey. Thank you for having me, Chris. I appreciate you having me on.

Chris Albert 00:05:59 (link to this point)

Yeah. Absolutely. I you know, I I first heard you on the Bigger Pockets podcast, the Bigger Pockets business podcast, and I was just really impressed with your message. I was really impressed with, you know, what you were talking about there as far as buying businesses, especially during these crazy times, COVID nineteen, trying to keep America running. And, you know, I wanted to have you on.

We we've been going back and forth for a bit, and I'm I'm really glad to finally have you here. For our audiences purposes, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Just kind of a quick synopsis of of who you are, where you're coming from, and and how you got to where you are today.

Nigel Guisinger 00:06:41 (link to this point)

Yeah. So I grew up in Salem, Oregon, and in a ranch style house, 1,500 square foot house in what everybody would just consider, you know, middle middle class America. My mom worked for the high school that I was going to and in the career center and my dad is an engineer. They're both retired now, but I grew up in the Northern part of Salem, an area called Keizer, and it was just typical suburban life. I I didn't have any special education.

I wasn't I wasn't anything special in sports. I was I was the guy who was on the football team, but I was never the guy who was good enough to play. You know? I'm I'm in the pitcher on the state championship for football. That whole season, I played two plays.

One, when we were up by 70 points, one when we were up by 63. I got in on kickoff. I wasn't the athletic guy. I wrestled. I did all right there.

And then after high school, I went to Germany and I was the junior ambassador for the United States Congress as part of the Potsdam treaty for the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange. And I did that for eighteen months, I had a contact person in the German Bundestag and a contact person in US Congress. And whenever there was questions, I helped pass information back and forth as a cultural exchange. After that, went to Oregon State and got my degree in German. I was a business major originally, but I was sitting in class and the professor was talking about derivative lending and it just didn't make sense.

I was running numbers and it just didn't make sense. I called my uncle and my uncle told me to drop out of school. And my uncle has his own business and my uncle does very, very well. And he said, you know, you should drop out of school. This is a bad spot to be.

So I was walking to my next class thinking I'm going to drop out of school. And I was on a full ride wrestling scholarship because my year in Germany, I got pretty good at wrestling. And so I was on a full ride wrestling scholarship for Oregon state. And so I walked in my next, my next class and it was a German class and my German professor said, well, you know, you're fluent in German. There's no reason you should, you should drop out of school.

You know, you're two and a half years into this thing. Why don't you just switch majors, become a German major? At least then you've got the piece of paper that says you did it. So that's what I did. And he said, one other piece of information I thought was really a good piece of advice.

He says, you know, the truth is college isn't about the actual education. And this is from the department head for foreign languages. It says, it's not about education, it's about the networking. So for the next three years, two and a half years, why don't you just go meet as many people as you can, network with as many people as you can, and build those relationships. And that fundamentally changed how I look at education.

It fundamentally changed what I wanted to do, and it said, you know what, I'm not going to just listen to some talking head business advice. I'm going to actually do something about it. So then I started my own fraternity at Oregon state and we ended up getting 98 guys over the course of two years. It's now the third largest house on campus, twenty years later, still going, which is awesome. So that's Pi Kappa Phi at Oregon state.

So, still on campus, which is awesome. And, and I went after guys, I was a recruitment chair. And instead of going after the guys who could help me get laid, you know, that's what most of the fraternities are trying to do. I look for who are the guys in ten years that I'm going to want to know? Who are the guys who I see potential in, in ten years, in twenty years, in thirty years?

Who are the people who I'm going to want to know later on? And it was totally different than ever, ever other house on campus because our, our, our motivation was something totally different. It was how do we build a group of guys that are just the average normal dudes, but, you know, want to do something awesome. And I would say right now, out of the 98 guys that we had, if we take our, you know, personal financial statements now of those 98 guys and you react them against the next 100 guys at Oregon State, I think we'd probably win. And I say that because I went for the most well rounded guys who I saw what they were gonna be, not necessarily what they were right then.

So did that after college, got married. I've got a beautiful wife and four kids, and got into the construction industry. I sold construction equipment. And then, then I did that for a half a decade until nine when the market crashed and 50% of our customer base went away. And you know, these guys who were driving, you know, brand new, F one fifties that were jacked up and had boats at the beach, you know, they were losing their companies.

And I had stacked up cash while all my, my counterparts at my work were buying boats and beach houses and all that stuff. And I stacked cash and I lived in a one bedroom condo with my wife. It was 600 square feet in Beaverton, Oregon. And then we bought something cheap. And when the market crashed, my grandma, who was a big mentor of mine in my life was sick and she ended up passing away.

But before she passed away, she'd been giving me business advice from high school on through college and while I was Germany. And she said, you know, it's coming, the time to buy is coming. And she said, you know, there are, before that she had told me multiple times, you know, what you do doesn't matter, what the career path you choose doesn't matter, it's how you do it. And she'd tell me things like, you know, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. And I'd say, what does that mean?

She says, there are, there are moments in your life where you are going to beg, borrow, and plead to buy everything you can in investing, and there are gonna be decades where you buy nothing, and you sit silent. And she said, know when those times come, when everybody else panics, when everybody else is freaking out, that's the time you need to be in, but you need to have your plan written over the course of those ten years so that you know exactly how to execute so that when you go in, you slaughter. And for your audience, you you guys are geared towards this way better than I ever will be, just bluntly. You know, the things that you guys have done amazing. And I'm so grateful for you guys having me on the podcast.

Hopefully I can honor you guys on that because, you know, you guys have trained how to, how to do that, you know, day in, day out, day in, day out for that one moment. And what I'm saying is right now, this moment in our country, this moment that's going on right now, it's gonna be led by the business community, and it's gonna be the opportunity right now. The only time that we're gonna have in our lifetime to really take this jump and springboard from, you know, you could have nothing to springboarding to be an ultra rich or just changing the culture, changing the community, that's happening right now. It's going be led by business leaders who go in and one transaction at a time, one customer at a time, change their culture of their town, of our states and of our cities and of our country. And I'm seeing it happen with business owners.

Since I was on the podcast, he mentioned I've had almost 400 people reach out to me. We've been writing offers on businesses, and it doesn't matter, ethnic background, economic background, sexual orientation, anything. We've helped almost 400 people write up offers on businesses, and it's amazing because if you want to change culture, you can do it. And this audience that's listening right now has more ability to change culture than anybody else because they're leaders. They were instilled to be leaders.

You men were changed different than I was. You guys had an opportunity and trained and were taught how to lead. You might not know that you were taught to lead, but you were. And the thing is, is when everybody freaks out in a room, you guys are calm and collected and know the direction you're going to go. And that's exactly what you've got to do in business.

There's no difference. The only difference is, is that you're filling out some paperwork instead of fighting it out with another guy on the battlefield. You know, the thing is, is in business, you're going to try and out thank and out maneuver somebody. And maybe you don't have that education yet, but there are the tools now that you can get them. And so right now is the moment.

Right now is the moment to change culture. I'm seeing it everywhere, and I'm so excited for what I see that could come for people who really want to step up because there's a lot of uncertainty. There's over 7,000,000 businesses that had to shut down in some aspect with COVID. They say that eighty five percent of businesses, Goldman Sachs said that eighty five percent of businesses that shut down for more than six weeks mathematically, will not exist in twenty four months if they don't have a new partner come in to inject some, some either cash or some energy. You know, that's a lot of businesses.

So we, as a country have the opportunity to really change things. And I was talking to somebody else here this last week and it was a minority owned business owner. And he says, you want to change culture. You don't like what's going on in the streets right now. You want to change it, go to that area of town that you don't normally shop and go buy something at that store.

If somebody have a different culture of a different race of a different sex than you, somebody who's totally on the other end of the spectrum than you go change it there, go buy a soda pop there. So you're going to the seven Eleven, go into that, that mini mart that smells weird, you know, and go buy, go buy a soda pop there and sit down and talk to the guy and just say, Hey, how's things going? I appreciate you being in business. You know, I drove an extra five miles to get here because I wanted to meet You know, just that aspect that I drove here, I could have gone anywhere else. And I purposely drove out of my way because I wanted to meet you, because I care about you.

It's those type of conversations that destroy any sort of propaganda, any sort of push from either side that's saying, Hey, this is what the perception is. You can kill that in $1.79 interaction over a Coca Cola a guy who you don't know, or a gal you don't know. I just bought yesterday, I bought a pair of women's sunglasses at a store in the ritziest area of town, And I know who this person is. I don't know her well. I bought something from her because she said on her, on a feed and somebody who I was friends with on Facebook commented that said, you know, ought to do something about this.

And that's the line that I hate to hear more than anything. You know, my town, Keizer, the North Part Of Salem had a big development product, a project and, and it absolutely decimated the downtown area of Keizer. I mean, it just, it wiped out like 40% of the businesses there here in like, eight, nine. And I kept hearing my friends say, somebody's got to do something about it. Somebody's got to do something about it.

Well, you know what? Somebody has to be that somebody. And so I was at somebody. I said, you know what? I've heard enough of this shit.

Pardon my language. Hopefully I don't get censored here, but

Chris Albert 00:17:54 (link to this point)

No, man, you can say whatever you want.

Nigel Guisinger 00:17:57 (link to this point)

I've had enough. I've had enough of it. You know, I've had enough. I've watched this, this place that I love. I've watched it get slaughtered.

So you know what? I'm getting to do it. So I went and bought the oldest concurrently running business in that town. And I took it from two employees to 46 employees.

Chris Albert 00:18:12 (link to this point)

Wow.

Nigel Guisinger 00:18:12 (link to this point)

I'm not any smarter than the next guy. Like I say, was the guy who picked last. I was the guy who's also in the picture. I'm the guy who gets in on the play when we're up 70 to nothing. They're like, yeah, it's kickoff.

Like, what's the worst that can happen. You got 10 guys who can tackle. And then we got the, you know, we got the unathletic guy in the back and hopefully he doesn't knock into one of our guys, you know, like that was when I got in, in the game. Right. But somebody has to step up.

Somebody has to do it. And we're all are looking around going, well, who's going to lead? Who's going to lead? Who's going to lead? Can you imagine your audience is filled with leaders?

You guys are the most amazing trained men and women in the world. You guys have so much more ability than I have. People would choose you over me any day, and they should. And that's the thing is that all that has to happen is you have to take that step. Right now, there are so many businesses that are out there that if you just call, look into different restaurants, look into specifically, what am I looking for right now?

I want, in fact, I'll tell you. I got called by somebody that has a huge fund, and they're looking at home services, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, appliance repair. I won't say who it is, because they're in the process of doing a huge fund. And the bottom line is, is that's where the growth's gonna be in the country. Home services, because if your plumbing breaks, you're gonna call a plumber.

Your HVAC breaks, you're gonna call an AC person, or, you know, if your furnace breaks, you're calling a guy to fix that. If your refrigerator breaks and you start throwing out $400 worth of food, you're gonna go call somebody to fix it. If your electrical doesn't work, you're gonna call somebody. But most of those businesses are owned by mom and pops, and they've been slaughtered. They've been slaughtered in the last, you know, sixty, ninety, one hundred and twenty days.

And all they need is somebody with some energy that says, you know what? I might not know anything about electricals. You know, when I bought an appliance store, and here's a here's a little secret. I've got multiple service tents. In 2018.

That's the last year I have, know, complete data. We did almost 20,000 service calls, appliance repair calls. And here's a, here's a kicker. I don't know how to install a dishwasher. Yeah.

I don't know how to install a dishwasher. I can't fix your washing machine. I can't fix your refrigerator. Like I'd be totally screwed. If you said, Hey, Chris, if you said Nigel, come over to my house and fix my refrigerator.

I'd be like, I couldn't do that to save my own damn life. Like I can't.

Chris Albert 00:20:36 (link to this point)

Yeah.

Nigel Guisinger 00:20:37 (link to this point)

But I've got a bunch of guys that can. You know, I'm interviewing a guy today at noon. I'm interviewing another guy to bring him on, because we're booked out two and a half weeks from now. You call my shop right now? Two and a half weeks to get an appliance done.

And everybody else in the industry is that way right now. We're all slammed, because people know that they have to get their stuff fixed before the next wave of whatever comes, right? So we are absolutely slammed. I don't know how to even fix it, but you know what? I know how to hire people who can do that.

And your audience, the folks who are listening, you guys need to know that you can do the same thing. I am not any smarter. I'm not any better. I don't have any skill at actually fixing anything. But what I can do is I can go hire somebody who can do that, and then I can go out to the apartment complexes and convince them to call me instead of somebody else.

Chris Albert 00:21:25 (link to this point)

I I love every single thing you're saying here. And, you know, just to to reiterate a few different things. Number one, the idea of going to college, not just for the education, but to meet people. And there's a lot of veterans going out there. They're they're heading into the education system right now.

And a lot of them are worried because frankly, the education system, it it leans in a way that that does not coalesce with what the veteran community stands for.

Nigel Guisinger 00:21:53 (link to this point)

Absolutely.

Chris Albert 00:21:54 (link to this point)

And what we're seeing out there is is a lot of guys who are getting scared off. A lot of guys who are who are running away from it. And, you know, the the the big thing I would tell these guys is this, You don't wanna go to school, and you don't wanna sit there and just focus on going to class. You wanna get out there and you wanna meet people. You wanna talk with people.

You Okay. You gotta stop making your circle smaller, because that's what too many of us do when we get out of the military. We make our circles as small as possible because we don't wanna bother with people. And you gotta get out there. You gotta know people.

That's a huge part of business. And then everything else you're saying here as far as the leadership skills, that's something we've been seeing here on this podcast for a while. You know, when when you hear about the veteran community on the media, you hear about things like suicides and homelessness and drug abuse and and bad health problems and things like that. And I think far too many of us try to play into that stereotype, but we have to remember who we are. We're a class of warriors in this society who's done things that, you know, 99% of this population has never done.

And, you know, we need to step up. It's up to us to step up. There's nobody who's gonna come to you and say, hey. You know what? So and so, it's your time to go out there and lead again.

It's your time to go out there to build a business. Nobody's gonna present it to you. You gotta go out there and find it. And that's what you've done throughout your life, and that's what you're doing right now.

Nigel Guisinger 00:23:20 (link to this point)

Absolutely. And, and what I would say 100% is this, you know, there, there are programs right now, like you're saying that, that, that you can get schooling paid for. You know, schooling doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be at a university in some BS setting where you're sitting and listening to a teacher talk about something of theory and theology that they've never lived. You know, so going back to why did I drop out of business school? So my uncle, I'll take a step back, does very, very well.

He's a member of the Multicomma Club, right? The guy just barely made it through high school. In high school, my aunt got pregnant. My uncle left Walla Walla, jumped on a boat in San Diego and went to Vietnam to the end of it. So, you know, what do you do?

That said, he says, you know, you can't listen to these teachers that are telling you, hey, this is how the theory goes. Because what they're talking about was derivative lending. And that's using somebody else's assets as your assets. He says, that's gonna crash the economy. But you know what?

If I hadn't listened to him, if somebody who hadn't gone and served us came and gave me advice, I wouldn't be here today. You know, I'd have been a business major, and I'd been working some BS job, you know, for some mid level accounting job or something like that, and I had a hated life, right? But the bottom line is, is he said, go do something, Go do I taught you how to lead. I taught you how to do business. I taught you how to do this.

You can do this. And what I'd say right now, the number one thing I would tell guys, you know, if you're coming back, and you're having a hard time at the university, or at the community college, go to a trade school. And I say this because if you have a skill in a trader right now, and you go and look for one of those businesses, and say, you know what? I was your trusted employee. I busted my ass for you for multiple years.

I want to buy you out now that you're retiring. Hey, can you carry the note? Can you walk me through this? People need that skill right now. Know, now, now in every single trade, there are jobs that are paying 30 to $70 an hour.

But the kicker on that is the guys who own those companies and those skilled tradesmen are old. So as a younger group of guys, especially your audience at 25 to 45 years old, then jump on it. Jump into those trades because those businesses, they sell for not as much as they should. And the earnings that they get over the course of their lifetime are amazing. I mean, absolutely amazing.

If I told you who was looking at buying this stuff, you guys would all go, Oh my gosh, that big beast is coming to go buy because it's one of the big banks. It's one of the big businesses that's saying, Hey, you know what? Let's put together a fund of hundreds of millions of dollars to go start buying these things out. So what do you need to do in advance of those guys coming, knowing that the big guys with the big bulk of money are coming to go buy these type of businesses? Get in early.

Get in now. You know? And the facts are is you don't have to know how to be an electrician to own an electrical company. You don't have to be a plumber to to know how to run a plumbing company. You know what you have to do?

You have to go find guys that can be a plumber. I You don't know how to fix an appliance. I couldn't do it to save my life. Sold $9,500,000 in 2018, served 20,000 customers. Think that that's pretty good.

Out of 20,000 customers, I had 30 of them that thought we were assholes. I mean, we've got some negative reviews on Google, you know, but there's 19,970 who thought we did a pretty damn good job. They just don't post. So just because you hear something online or just because you you think something's going, it doesn't mean that that's the real story. If somebody just looked at my Google reviews, they'd go, oh my gosh.

That guy's a 3.8. You know? Nothing special about it. Like I said, I'm not anything special. But if you look and say, hey, wait a second, they actually served 19,000 other people that didn't have a problem, it looks like maybe we're not getting the full story here.

And I would say to your community, please don't listen to what you're hearing out in market. Don't hear what, you know, whatever the media's trying to push. You have the skill set to go lead, and we can change culture, and we change it one conversation, one business, one interaction, one everything at a time. And this is a slow and methodical win, and we will win as a culture. And if we wanna change something, lead from the front, lead from the front.

You guys have done it for your whole careers. You guys have done awesome. And and the things you've seen, I will never know. And the and the respect that I have for you guys is so immensely high. But what I'm saying is now that you're back here, don't cheat yourself.

Don't cheat yourself because you're better than how you're acting if you're thinking that you can't do it. You're amazing, and you have the skill set, and it just takes somebody saying, you know what, I got this, And it's gonna suck for the first year. It's gonna be hard. And what I'll commit to all of your viewers and everybody listening is, you know, if you get on Instagram and shoot me a message, 100%, I will respond. Just Nigel Guisinger at Instagram.

Every single person who sent me something over a thousand messages, I've responded to every single one. And I can carry on a conversation with you and will all the way through. I will help you because I care about your guys' community. I wasn't, you know, at 18, I went went to Germany. I was an exchange student, you know?

But what you guys do is amazing, and I wanna respect that, and I wanna honor that. And so a 100%, if you have questions, if you have a business you wanna run and don't know how to run the numbers, send it to me. I'll run them for you. You know, this is a team, and you're not in this alone. There are people who want you to succeed.

I want you to succeed. I wanna see people change our culture. I wanna see our country do what it should be. I want you guys to be respected more than anything. Yeah.

And I want you guys to thrive. So if I can support you, I'm down.

Chris Albert 00:29:42 (link to this point)

When we're talking about this, right, when somebody's for for that guy who's or that gal who's at home right now, and they're thinking about how they can get started on this.

Nigel Guisinger 00:29:51 (link to this point)

Right?

Chris Albert 00:29:52 (link to this point)

How they can get started in business, how they can get started on on trying to fit. I know you mentioned, you know, talk if if you've worked for a company for a while, talking to the boss, seeing if if he's tired and he wants wants you to take over. What about, you know, and I've talked to you offline a little bit. Going on to Google, what types of searches would you be doing?

Nigel Guisinger 00:30:12 (link to this point)

Absolutely.

Chris Albert 00:30:12 (link to this point)

Where would you be looking for these types of opportunities?

Nigel Guisinger 00:30:15 (link to this point)

Absolutely. So today, well, here's one thing I would say today. Write down what you like to do. Write down the things you're passionate about. Write down the things you're absolutely not passionate about.

So you know, you're not going in that direction, right? I mean, don't go build yourself into something that you're gonna hate, but find something that's needed. Once you do that, drive down to your street, drive down the street in your town and ride out, Hey, here's, here's businesses that fall into that. You know, if you're looking for an electrical company, if you're looking for a plumbing company, if you're looking for a sign company, get in the yellow pages, Google it, drive down your street, write down the names of all of them, something that you're interested in. And then you know what you do.

This is the, this is the scary part. And they're going to shoot you down the first time. So know they're gonna shoot you down the first time. So call the biggest, baddest, toughest one that you know is gonna say no, and expect that they're gonna say no on the front side. Okay.

And call them and say, Hey, I'm interested in getting into your industry. And I would love to, to know how I could acquire your company. I would love to, is that, should I come to work for you? I should, I, I wanna, I wanna push this on and I wanna continue this legacy that exists in this business. And I'm looking to get into the printing industry.

And so, Hey, I, you know, there's a, there's a company in my town called Pronto signs. And, you know, I'd go into Pronto signs and I'd go see the guy there and say, Hey, you know, how's things going? Do you need help? I want to get into this industry. What would it look like if I to partner up and sit down and have a conversation with him?

Hey, can I go grab lunch with you? Can I bring you a beer? Can we go talk? Can we get to know each other? Can we have those conversations?

And when he tells you to go pound sand, you go find another one and another one and another one and another one, because it's just like if you were at the bar, you know what? One girl might say no, second girl might say no, but you know what? Something's going to happen. That doesn't mean just throw it out to everybody and, you know, cause we all know what happens if you just go out with everybody and things could go bad, but keep asking. And you know, what's going to happen is over time, your pitch to those, to those, those, companies, it's gonna get better.

Chris Albert 00:32:31 (link to this point)

Well, I I I think a big thing here too is it's just like going in if you're gonna be successful in the bar, you can't be an asshole.

Nigel Guisinger 00:32:39 (link to this point)

Right? That's exactly

Chris Albert 00:32:41 (link to this point)

And if you're going to meet with these people, it can't just be about what's in it for you. You've gotta think about what's in it for them. Are they tired? Are they are they broken? Have they been having hard times during this economy?

You know, are are are are they thinking about retirement? Right? And that's the things you gotta have in your mind. You know, in any sales situation, what is it that that person wants that you can give them? And if you can do that, then you're gonna be a lot more successful than if you run up and you say, hey, I wanna buy your business because I think it's gonna make me a millionaire and and all this other stuff.

Right?

Nigel Guisinger 00:33:17 (link to this point)

That's right. So what you do is you go on with a with a servant's mindset. How can I serve you? How can we team up? How can we partner?

What are you lacking right now that you need that I can provide for you? Is there something I can provide for you? Hey, I know somebody who needs some signs made. So can I, can I pass that on to you? And would that be a value to you?

Right? Hey, I know a property management company. And so I'm walking into a, to an electrical company and I know a property management company and they don't have any electrician right now. Hey, do you know so and so at such and such electrical company? No, I don't know them.

Okay. Go into the electrical company. Hey, do you know such and such a such and so property management company? No, don't know them. Hey, you know, have you, they need your services and immediately you've created value.

Immediately you've created value. So find something that you can give them that might not cost you anything. Maybe it's a skill that you have. Maybe it's a connection, but I'm telling you that it's not that difficult. You don't have to be the smartest guy in the room.

You have to have tenacity. You have to be able to dig in. You have to be able to network people together and then find the need and then fill the need. And it's that simple. It's not difficult.

Now, you've gotta be profitable once you own the business and operate it, but you know what? The cool thing that I have with the appliance industry, the last company that I bought, those people still are partners. I mean, they don't own the company, but they're vested. They wanna see it succeed. So when I have questions, I call those guys.

I go meet with them in their house. I bounce ideas off them because they've got thirty, forty years of experience. And you know what? I don't know how to fix a dishwasher. Like, I can't put one in.

I can't fix it. But those guys have done it hundreds and thousands of times. And so I get advice from them. And because I get advice from them, I'm better. And my business is better.

And so what I'd say is team up with people, but give them a value. When the people who sold to me for the one in Sherwood, when they sold, they still wanted to be involved with it, but they had some health issues. And those people are amazing friends of mine now. And the aspect that we have with them is that when I have a tough thing that I have to come up across, I just go ask them. Now they don't have the risk because it's not their balls on the line for the finances, but they've got a better brain, so they're not emotionally attached to it so they can make the correct decision when I can't do it.

And that's something that that we we can look at as a as a community is how do we serve each other, and how do we make sure that we can make a good decision that's not emotionally charged? So if you're looking for a business, or if you're wanting to lead, or you wanna change culture, first and foremost, you'll find what the needs are in your community. Write those down. Find out what you can do and what you wanna do, and then find what correlates between the two. Then start there.

Then find the guys who look tired, the guys who look run down. Put questions out to the community into that community. Hey. If if it's a plumbing outfit, okay, who's the plumber that's old? Okay.

Does he have anybody for succession? No. Okay. So now go target him. Do your do your background search.

Do your do your information search. Find out as much as you can about him, and then go use that to your advantage. It's the same thing, different method for what you've been trained to do. You find the weak spot. You find the opportunity.

You go find a plan for it. You practice your plan. You work through it, and then you go execute. Business is the exact same as what you've been training for. You just don't know it.

You guys have an MBA in business, and you don't know it. You have a PhD in leadership, and you don't know it. And the thing is I wrestled, like I said, from the get go, I wrestled. I was not good when I started out. Like I say, I was I was one in 27 in wrestling.

I don't know if anybody knows, but when you wrestle for anybody who wrestled, you know, it's just you versus the other guy on the mat. So if you get your ass kicked, it's you it's, it's you suck, you know? And that was one in 26. They call people who are one in 26 fish because all they really do is flop on the ground. Okay.

That being said, I worked my ass off for five years, four years in college and high school, then went to Germany. And the last match I wrestled was in 2000 and it was, I was wrestling in Germany and the last match I wrestled, I lost seven to three against a guy named Alexander Leipold, who won the gold medal at the Sydney Olympics. And I wrestled him a month beforehand in Sydney. Nobody scored against him. I was invited to the world championships to wrestle in Iran, but as a U S national, I was not allowed to wrestling for KSDVs in Thailand, Germany.

In five years, I worked my ass off and I cut from one hundred and sixty pounds down to one hundred and thirty five pounds and one hundred and forty one pounds. And I ran miles every day and I straight up tenacity out my competition. And so the thing is, is that you guys have that skillset. You know, I had to bust my ass every single day to get there because I was the guy who was picked last. I had to want it more.

And I had a wrestling coach, my freshman year of high school that said, you want to know what the difference between a national champion is and a guy who's flopping on the floor like you? I said, yeah. What's the difference? He says, I just kept going. He said, because I, as the coach, don't look like an idiot when you get pinned.

I don't look like an idiot. I've already got the national championship. I don't, I don't need your stuff. You're a high school kid. And I just, okay.

And so then we'd be running stairs and people would be puking and you'd feel like death. And he'd just yell at the most insulting, but and painful backhanded compliment that you could have. You'd be thinking that you're given everything that you are, and he'd say, you know, you're only cheating yourself.

Chris Albert 00:39:14 (link to this point)

Yeah.

Nigel Guisinger 00:39:15 (link to this point)

You're only cheating yourself. I don't live dumb when you get beat. You're only cheating yourself. And what I'd say to the community that you serve is this, you know, you're cheating yourself if you're not going after it, because you have the skill set. You have more ability.

You have more training. You have more leadership than I will ever have. The things you guys have done, I am so grateful for, and our country doesn't even realize how badass you guys are. Absolutely. And what I'm telling you is you're only cheating yourself if you're gonna fall into the well, but because I was gone, and because society doesn't like me now, because there's people, idiots in the street marching, and they must hate me, and hey, you know, did I do something wrong?

No. The bottom line is, is you are trained to lead, And what those people need right now is men and women to step up and go, you know what? I got this. I can do this. And it starts by doing one interaction at a time.

One interaction. You can change somebody's perspective one interaction at a time. You know? I got my signs made up. Pronto signs.

Gonzalo's a minority owned guy who who who speaks Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. You know how hard it is to get a sign made when you don't speak Spanish? I went in there and purposely bought from him. I bought a pair of sunglasses that were women's sunglasses yesterday.

I need a pair of sunglasses. I got women's sunglasses, man. Like, why? And I overpaid for them. But you know what?

I did it because I supported. I gotta have that conversation with somebody who I never would have had before. The value wasn't in the sunglasses, it was in the conversation. And so what I would say is you can do the same thing, but think about it. If you're now the business owner and you're interacting, you can change culture one at a time, at a time, at a time.

If we're going to change it, we're going to lead. And I know your your audience is more men based, and this is going to sound chauvinist, but I'm I'm going to just straight up say it. You know, men, we need to lead. If we want to change our culture as dads, as community leaders, we need to step it up. And that doesn't mean that things aren't hard.

But what I'm saying is, as a man, it's our job to lead our families and how we can do that is changing one step at a time. It doesn't mean that it's going happen all at once, but when you take one step and one step and one step and one step, eventually a year later, you turn around and you look and go, Holy shit, I've gone miles. And that's what you've got. You guys have that ability more so than I have ever had. And I know, in fact, the best boss I ever had, his name is Shay.

He a ranger and he used to tell me all sorts of stories and everything. But Shay would go into any crowd, any, anywhere, and he would make sure that he would make friends with somebody that he had never met before he walked out of there. So we sold construction equipment and he'd go into these big conventions or whatever. And he'd leave there. And it was like, he knew every single person and shit.

Everybody was buying him drinks. It's like, how did you just do that? He says, you know why? Because I was taught when I was in in the service, I was taught how to, how to meet other people. And I had to interact with people from different cultures.

And so I had to blend in. And so I learned how to blend in. And so I learned how to help people get laid. He says, you know what? Ultimately this, he says the service taught him that if I can help somebody get laid, I can be friends with them.

If I can help you get laid, you're gonna be nice to me. And he says, so what does he do in business? He goes, I I don't just sell products. I don't rent equipment. You know what I try and do?

I help guys get laid with their wife. You know, I remind them, Oh, Hey, your anniversary is next week. He says, you know what? Then they buy stuff from me because they know that I care. And so use those same skills that you've been taught.

Maybe it's a little bit, you know, not, not the, not the book, you know, that you're to get at Harvard, you know, this isn't what they're teaching you. They're not saying, Hey, help help a guy go get laid to go sell more equipment. But the facts are is, you know, everything in life is a relationship. And so if you don't have those right now, go build them. Nobody's gonna come and say, you know, hey, I I I don't know, you know, the person yet.

So how can I come come in and build a relationship? So you've gotta make that step. And maybe maybe you've got some antisocial tendencies. Maybe you don't want to do that. Be uncomfortable and go buy coffee at a place you haven't before and just say, hey, I I I chose to come here today.

Go into a business that you're somewhat interested in and say, hey, tell me about how your business runs. I'm interested. There's not a single business owner in the world who won't brag about it like it's their kid because they put in their life, they put in their hard work and nobody wants to see it fall. And if you come alongside and say, hey, I want to support your dream. I don't know you.

I don't know your story. I'm not going to pretend that I know your story yet, but I want to buy that coffee. I want to buy that soda pop. I want to buy dinner here at your restaurant. I want buy that pair of jeans at your store.

It's going down to, you know, in some department store. I want to go buy it at the local. I'm going spend the extra $5, but I want to, I want to hear that story from you. No, that's Hey, so Chris, I want to know your story and I want to know about you and I want to know how I can serve you. You know what?

That's the reason why I'm here today because you sent me a message that said, Hey, here's what my, this community is. And I want to serve them. And I said, okay, tell me more. I want to know more about you. And I want know how I can serve you.

Right. And so all I'd ask is if we've got guys listening right now that are having a hard time with anything, plug into a community. It doesn't matter what community you plug into. It can be church, it can be business, it can be anything. Go plug in, network there, find out what's needed, then go serve that community and lead.

Go do it the right way. Because right now, in countless cities across the country, there are business owners who are scared shitless because they've had their businesses broken into. They've lost tons of money due to COVID. They don't know what to do. And they're at their wits end.

And you know what? All they need is that guy to come up and say, you know what? I'm in the shit with you. You know, I had a, I had a, when I paid my way through school at Oregon state, I was wrestling. I had the scholarship there, but I also was a sewer pipe layer.

Talk about a shitty job. I mean, we were literally laying mine sewer. And I had a boss whose name was Wayne Tony. Wayne is built like a brick out house. I mean, he's six foot five, like three hundred pounds, former bodybuilder.

Dude is yoked. I am five foot eight and a half, five nine when I'm wearing shoes. You know, I'm not a big guy. Right? I wrestle, you know, in the one forties.

Right? So I'm, I'm, I'm a tiny dude. Wayne's huge. We're in chest waders in live sewer. And we're wrenching in on this pipe that we're putting in.

And Wayne drops his wrench in live sewer. And he just reaches down and grabs that wrench in live sewer. I mean, we're chest deep. Well, chest for me, waist deep for hip. It bends down, shit on his hands, and goes right back to town like nothing happened.

And I just stood there just, Oh my gosh, did this just happen? You know, my face is just austere. And he goes, I'm never going to ask you to do something that I wouldn't do. And just know that I'll reach down on live shit. You know, the facts are, is you men and women who are listening to this, you guys have reached in live shit.

I haven't. Right. Right. You guys can do it. I can't.

You guys can lead. You guys have experiences that I'll never have. But what I can do is I can be there right with you. And I can say, you know what? You need somebody to bounce an idea off of?

Perfect. I'm here. You need somebody to do this? Does that mean I'm going carry your asses? No, I'm not going carry you a 100%.

I'm going educate you so that you can do it. And when you get to that pinnacle of success, you know what I want you to do? I want you to help the next guy up and the next guy and the next guy and the next guy, because we're gonna fundamentally change how this is going because you guys are the leaders, and I'm the support. And I wanna help support you however I can.

Chris Albert 00:47:28 (link to this point)

Exactly. And and you've developed a program. I believe you've got a website where people can go to, to, to actually reach out to you if they're looking to buy businesses. Right?

Nigel Guisinger 00:47:39 (link to this point)

Yeah. So we've got a business, that we just started and it's, it's more of a, of a passion project, not trying to make anything off of it. It's a, I want to honestly serve. And so we started up a company, my, myself and a buddy of mine, named his name's Chad Corbett. And we started up a company called yoursmallbusinesshub.com.

And if you get on yoursmallbusinesshub.com and say what you're looking for and say, Hey, I've got a business and I'm looking at this. You can submit the financials and all that stuff, and we can run the numbers as if we were buying it and then submit it back and say, Hey, here's how we'd negotiate this deal. Here's how we can, here's how we would try and structure a deal. And here's, here's some of the next steps so that if you don't know how to do the deal, we can help you that we can partner alongside of you and say, Hey, you're doing this deal. But since you don't know and have never done it before here, let me, here's the next step.

Here's the next step. And somebody who genuinely has no stake in the game other than to watch you succeed. I wanna see you succeed. I wanna see everybody succeed. And most importantly, I believe that your community is a community of leaders.

I think it's a community of leaders that don't understand how amazing you are because the majority of public doesn't understand it. And what I'm saying is I would love to serve you by helping people. And if you get onto yoursmallbusinesshub.com and you can fill out that you're, if you're looking for a business, if you're looking to sell a business, you just want more education. We just popped it up. It's not the best website.

We just did it because we wanted to serve. And so if you need help running numbers, I would love to help run numbers on something. You know, I don't care what your background is. I don't care how or what, if you've never done it before. Let's work this through together.

Everybody needs some help. And that doesn't mean that somebody's weak. It doesn't mean somebody's strong. It means that, you know, two strands are stronger than one. And so that's, that's what I want to be.

I just want to be that extra guy who's next gen go, you know what? We got this And I'll have it with you all the way to the end, jumping in mud shit and all. That's what we do.

Chris Albert 00:49:56 (link to this point)

That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, Nigel, you know, number one, I wanna, I wanna thank you for, for your inspiration. Inspiration. I I wanna wanna thank you for coming here and and serving this community today.

We really appreciate that. I really appreciate that. I I hope the audience really grasps this message and that they do step up and that they do take advantage of these times. Because, you know, it's like you said, when when the house is burning and everybody's running away, you gotta be the guy who's running toward it. And and if you do that, and you you have that control, that wherewithal to be able to do that, you're gonna be very successful.

So, again, I wanna thank you for delivering these tools. I wanna thank you for delivering your passion today. I can definitely see it in you. I can hear it in your voice, and I know the audience at home does as well.

Nigel Guisinger 00:50:44 (link to this point)

I appreciate it. And like I say, please, if anybody needs anything, reach out two different ways that are the easiest. You can fill out information on yoursmallbusinesshub.com. If you're looking to buy a business, if you're just needing, you know, you want to shoot messages back and forth on Instagram. I'm just Nigel Guisinger at Instagram.

That's it. I don't even have a special handle or anything like that. I didn't even have Instagram before I got on Bigger Pockets. Really. Like started like six months ago, I had to start this thing up.

So I'd say I would love to serve the community however I can. So please reach out. Chris, thank you so much for having me on. I I appreciate you, my man.

Chris Albert 00:51:24 (link to this point)

Thank you, man. And to everybody at home, listen. I I I hope you found some inspiration in this episode. I think that there's a lot of you out there who will be able to do this. I think that most of you out there could do this right now.

Right?

Nigel Guisinger 00:51:40 (link to this point)

Yep.

Chris Albert 00:51:40 (link to this point)

So make be sure to take action. Right? You you wanna keep educating yourself. You wanna keep keep, you know, learning, but you also wanna take action. Nothing matters without actually doing it because if you fall on your face, you're learning something.

Right? And and that's what you gotta do at the end of the day. So with that, guys, I wanna thank you all for listening. I wanna tell you to get out there and live your best lives while you can, and, let's keep doing this work together. Nigel, thank you very much again.

And, this is Chris and Nigel, and we are out. Alright, guys. There you have it. That is my conversation with mister Nigel Guisinger. And, you know, a lot of times people listen to podcasts and listen to one podcast, then listen to another podcast, and and people get addicted to these things.

Rather than just being addicted and just being entertained here and just being inspired, I hope that you actually go out there and you take some action. Because the things that Nigel's talking about here, these are things that could truly change our country and change our community. The more business owners we have out there, the more successful business owners we have out there, the better off this country and our community is going to be. So definitely take some action. Let me know what you do, and we'll be back back to you with some more awesome content within the next few days here on the Warrior Soul podcast.

Get out there and live your best lives while you can, and I'll be talking to you real soon.