Rejection Immunity: How Bryan Ravit (aka The Sales Whisperer) Built Wealth Through Sales, Investing, and Mental Discipline

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Brian Rabbit. He is the founder and chief sales ninja of sales growth mastery.

a firm dedicated to revamping sales teams through dynamic training, innovative processes, and data-driven strategies. Brian has a proven track record, including generating over $100 million in revenue while building door-to-door sales teams for Vivint Smart Home. He currently offers performance-based coaching and consulting to various companies, tapping into his gifts for training and motivating high-achieving sales professionals. Away from coaching, Brian is an avid investor.

focusing on passive cash flowing alternative investments to create long-term stability and freedom. He is also exploring opportunities to acquire service businesses with strong foundations and exceptional teams. Brian started his journey at Code Knives where a life-changing sales competition sparked his passion for exceeding limits and embracing challenges. Since then, his hunger for growth and commitment to sharing knowledge have propelled him to help others succeed.

Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, AdVac Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team of workers and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications. And here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money into your employees’ pockets and the company’s too.

One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, Brian Rabbit. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Bryan Ravit (02:07)
My sincere pleasure. Happy to be here.

Anthony Codispoti (02:09)
So Brian, what gave you your first taste of being an entrepreneur?

Bryan Ravit (02:13)
My first taste of being an entrepreneur, I would say it was actually selling, it wasn’t actually entrepreneurship, but it was selling cut code knives. That gave me some early success once I figured it out, is. And then when I was in college at a Florida State University, I was in Phi Sigma Kappa Phi Sigma fraternity, a buddy of mine, because I had done pretty well and started making money, a buddy of mine had an idea of we had a keg tap stolen one too many times.

So like you think of a keg for beer, well, the tap had been stolen. So he thought of the idea of that keg tap lock. So he brought it up to me and he’s like, hey, do basically, do you want to fund it? so right then and there I became an entrepreneur. was like, yes, let’s do it. And we got it manufactured in China. We got provisional patents. And so that was my very first little taste of entrepreneurship, of bled into it from Southern Code Knives and learning.

Anthony Codispoti (03:08)
from the success at Code Knives. So I think there was a mentor there at Code Knives who really kind of pushed your buttons in a way that made you more coachable. Talk to us about that.

Bryan Ravit (03:17)
Yeah, yeah, that was life changing right there. So Juan Ramos, still one of my best friends and a groomsman at my wedding. So this is going back 20 years or so. I remember the first day met him, there was this conference and he’s a pretty big dude. I’m like 5’9″, he’s like 6’3″, he’s starting quarterbacks, he’s a big dude. And we’re sitting down, we’re at a conference and someone’s speaking and I just…

prior to that in school and everything. I never really paid attention. was just always busy doing something other than actually listening. And I hadn’t really learned yet that learning is cool. So I’m chatting up the storm and he looks at me and he’s like, and it’s a sales conference. He’s like, have you sold more than him? And I’m like, no. And he’s like, well, then you should listen. You should take notes. And this is first day I met him and he’s my boss. I’m like, whoa, okay.

Anthony Codispoti (04:10)
you

Bryan Ravit (04:16)
Yeah, seems like logical. So I started taking notes, little by little, he really shaped me into being coachable and learning. And it really opened up a whole new avenue for me.

Anthony Codispoti (04:26)
I mean, selling knives ⁓ door to door or whatever sort of the cutco model is not easy. Like what were some of the things that Juan was teaching you that helped you find success?

Bryan Ravit (04:39)
Yeah, so it’s funny. know, some people might cringe when they hear me say this, I actually so I’ve been part of a lot of types of sales. And I actually think that that is one of the easier things to sell. ⁓ You start with your friends or your family, really like your parents, and then my mom was my first sale. And and then, you know, she referred me to her her friends and then also family members. And you’re literally taught to just read a script like word.

Anthony Codispoti (04:51)
Okay.

Bryan Ravit (05:09)
for word, literally, and demonstrate the products. And the products are really good. And they do a really good job of training people to sell expensive stuff to random people when you have no experience. And I just kind of followed what they taught me, and it worked.

Anthony Codispoti (05:28)
They had a good system, the referral networks and the script that you needed to learn. And people who did this, in your experience, most of them had success.

Bryan Ravit (05:31)
Phenomenal. Yeah.

So that’s a good question to ask. So no, so the average person back then, the average person, if I remember correctly, lasted four days.

Anthony Codispoti (05:50)
Ugh.

Bryan Ravit (05:51)
Yeah, so the average person, so they would one of a few things, right? And so they would, I don’t think it was because of lack of ability or the sales side of things, right? That might play more of a role than I’m giving credit to, but I don’t think that’s the big thing. You they would run out of leads, right? Or people that they know. Now, if someone had like, perhaps like,

If someone was really, really, really growing up in like a really rough area and knew absolutely nobody and that was not in poverty, okay. But everybody else, my strong opinion is if they literally just followed the approach, it works. Like there had been, I don’t know if it’s this many, but I want to say, you know, maybe a million, if not million, then let’s say hundreds of thousands of people that have done it, right? So if there’s hundreds of thousands of people that have done something and there’s a system that is really detailed, if you just work the system that works.

Anthony Codispoti (06:44)
And you think where most people were falling off is maybe they didn’t feel comfortable reaching out to people that they knew to try to sell to them.

Bryan Ravit (06:50)
Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, 100 % that, or they just didn’t follow the program. So there was literally word for word what you would say to ask for referrals. And it worked. So yeah, I think they just didn’t put the effort.

Anthony Codispoti (07:03)
So you had some success.

So you had some success at cutco. How long were you there? How long did you do that?

Bryan Ravit (07:10)
Yeah, and I didn’t start off with great success there, by the way. I started off as a very average, maybe a little below average, but I was making progress. And I wound up being with Code Knives, or Vector Marketing is the marketing company. Same thing though, Code Knives is the product. I don’t know, number of years. I would say on and off for, let’s call it five years.

Anthony Codispoti (07:13)
Okay.

And you said you weren’t immediately successful. What were some things that you think were holding you back early on that once you figured out really kind of opened the gates for you?

Bryan Ravit (07:42)
Yeah, and I guess it depends on how you define success, but I was very mediocre, right? Like I was selling, but it was nothing special, that’s for sure. ⁓ The major difference, there’s actually a very specific point where I would call it the lightning strike of my life. It changed everything. And I’m happy to elaborate on that if you’d like, but the major difference was following exactly what I was taught, the blueprint, and really working hard.

Anthony Codispoti (08:03)
Please.

Bryan Ravit (08:11)
Like really, really, really, really doubling that massive difference maker.

Anthony Codispoti (08:15)
So really following the script, really following the system, not just kind of partially following it, not kind of winging it on some of the script, but following the process exactly. And then what does that mean? Like really working hard, doubling down on it. What weren’t you doing before that you started doing that really set things on fire?

Bryan Ravit (08:34)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I can elaborate on the full story. is life changing for sure. So, but to answer your question directly. So if they would say, hey, you should be making phone calls between, let’s say, seven and nine thirty at night. You know, the early version of me would maybe get on the phones at like eight, eight fifteen, because I would.

think that it was so important to organize my notebook and this and that and everything other than actually taking action. And maybe I would stop a little early because I would have this excuse or that excuse, right? And then just all of the little things, not fully applying myself, you know, whereas eventually it was like to the T.

Anthony Codispoti (09:19)
Okay, so let’s hear about that lightning strike moment. That sounds like a fun one.

Bryan Ravit (09:22)
Yeah, it’s probably one my favorite stories

to tell. Yeah. And I don’t know if you can see in the background, but I got a pretty big trophy. I actually found it the other day when we moved and started my office. I still have it. So I believe this is 2004, 2005. And so I had sold at this point is a number of years on and off and I was in college. So at that point I was coming back for the summer. I had sold about $17,000 of kitchen knives up to that date. Very average.

It was over a long period of time. I might even be generous when I say the word average. So then, ⁓ so when I went to college, actually, before that, I actually got fired from my manager and nobody in the whole world gets fired when you’re selling Code Knives. It’s performance-based commission only. They will hire anybody. Okay. And no one gets fired. Well, I did. And I think the manager, I’m like…

I think the manager that I had at the time, I don’t know that he had the best management skills at that point, but basically I missed one meeting and I wasn’t performing that well. And he’s like, all right, well, you don’t need to come anymore. And I was like, whoa. So fast forward and I wound up coming back and my mom had moved when I was in college. So I was under a different manager and then a different manager again. And so I, at this point promoted to an assistant manager because he needed one, not because I had actually like earned it. Okay. Not because I earned it. And

Anthony Codispoti (10:43)
You

Bryan Ravit (10:47)
the guy who had fired me, he was actually my boss’s boss, not my manager, but my manager’s boss. Okay. And there was this huge competition of the 10 K push. basically, think of it as like the Superbowl of sales. was like, is a big deal once a year and any assistant managers were put on the 10 K Alliance. And what that meant was you were expected to sell $10,000 over the course of two weeks. Now two weeks. prior to that,

I don’t know if I’d ever sold $2,000 in a week. And if I had, it was once ever, right? And I was like, oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is like, like the most I’d ever sold in two weeks was probably to maybe 3,000 at best. And so we go to this all day meeting and they’re talking everything you got to do all about it, to do this. Everyone was going to go towards, it was called push, like a push competition. Everyone’s supposed to sell $10,000 if you’re an assistant manager.

Anthony Codispoti (11:24)
So this was a big stretch for you. Yeah.

Bryan Ravit (11:47)
Right? So at the end of the meeting, I go to the guy who, and if I remember correctly, Juan, as well as the guy above him who had fired me, we’re next to him and I said, Hey, I just want to talk to you real quick. said, yeah, what’s going on? I’m like, Hey, I’m not sure if I can sell $10,000 in two weeks. And like, I, I don’t know if I can do that. And he’s like, were you listening? And I’m like, yeah, he’s like, I know that’s a 10 K, 10 K push, da da da da. And he’s like,

You missed it then. like, what do mean? Like I heard everything you’re saying. And I just wanted to be honest. I don’t know if I could do it. And he’s like, then you missed the whole point, the whole point of the meeting. I’m like, what do you mean? He’s like, the point of the push is not to sell $10,000. It’s for you to put in the $10,000 worth of effort, the 10 K effort. And it’s not about like how much you sell. It’s about who you become while you strive towards it. I still get the chills today thinking of it. And I’m like,

Huh. He’s like, look, if you don’t sell $10,000, but you give your very best, you get a 10 out of 10. That’s success. You just got to do your part. And it’s probably going to work out anyways. But regardless of what the results are, you do your part and you win. That’s how you measure success in this. I like, all right. Well, I can commit to doing. I can commit to the effort. I can commit to the effort. And I was like, I felt good about that. I kind of dropped the concern.

I did exactly that. was the first time in my entire life that I’d ever applied myself completely. And I’m going to guess since I was 21-ish, something like that. Maybe I was a little younger, about 20. And I’d been pretty good at certain things, but I’d never really, really dominated at anything. And so sure enough, I set up. I got ready. It was going to be the push. They said to do everything ahead of time, get oil change, everything. mean, get everything out of the way. Haircuts, like all you do.

is from like 730 AM until 930 at night. All you do is either you’re making phone calls to schedule appointments, you’re driving to an appointment, or you’re doing the actual appointment. And it was all in. told everyone I knew, everybody knew like I’m going to disappear for two weeks and 10k, 100 % literally. Yeah, 100%. So I got off to a really good start and

Anthony Codispoti (14:01)
The only way you’re gonna see me is if you’re buying knives from me in the next two weeks.

Bryan Ravit (14:11)
I put in massive effort on the phones and this and that, and I absolutely dominated. So after the first week, in mind, I don’t even know if I’d ever sold $2,000 a week. After the first week, at the end of week, I was at over $9,000. Yeah, and it was like, holy shit, right? And I go, Juan, Juan, Juan, listen, I’m at over 9,000. He’s like, I know. I’m like, what if I do it again? And he’s like, you’re not gonna mend.

You got lucky. Like you did great, but like, come on, let’s be realistic. And I’m like, F that. And I was pissed and I slammed his door. Like, I’m surprised like it didn’t fall off. I was so angry. And that was his full attention, intention, full intention, because I went in the other room and I made phone calls for the next like eight hours straight, like nonstop. And I was so fueled. And that’s exactly what he was intending on doing. And it worked perfectly.

Anthony Codispoti (15:06)
That’s what he wanted.

Bryan Ravit (15:09)
And then I went on a vengeance and I did, I sold over nine grand a day, nine, nine, nine in a day, nine grand the following week. And then, uh, so the competition came and like, I’m like, everyone’s on stage and it’s like, so with cutco, at least the way they used to do it is everybody gets a trophy. So if your number 10 were lower in most competitions, maybe you get some type of participation trophy, whatever. Well, if you’re number like 30 or 35, you’re getting something.

there. At least that’s the way it was. So I never even got last place, no matter how many people they gave a competition to. So at this point, they’re calling everybody on stage and they do like a countdown. And ⁓ I wasn’t in the room because I was still on the phone outside of this huge conference making phone calls. like, got to sell another one. I got to sell another one. It’s not over. It’s not over. It’s not over. ⁓ yeah, it was absolutely a drug. Absolutely. was a drug and I was addicted and I loved it.

Anthony Codispoti (16:00)
This was, you were like hooked. This was like a drug for you at this point.

Bryan Ravit (16:07)
I don’t know if I realized that yet, but it absolutely became a drug for me. so, so anyway, so I get on stage late and I wound up winning number one out of everybody out of like over a thousand people. And I had like, know, standing ovation and this and that. And it was insane because I was so far from being the best, so far from being the best. You know, I remember another guy that was on stage with me. His average sale was like over a thousand. Mine was less than half of that.

But I carried with me my badge of honor, which was this piece of paper. And every time I made a phone call, I put a little tick mark. And it was the ugliest piece paper in the world. I wish I still had it. I frame it. But it was just, I won because of effort. I tried harder than anyone multiplied by a bunch. So I won. I still remember to this day, I sold $18,362 worth of knives. I won number one. And then I backed it up again a little bit later. And so that changed everything. Changed everything in my whole life.

Anthony Codispoti (16:50)
Hmm.

So here’s something that always fascinates me is trying to understand are people born with this kind of drive inside of them? can anybody, like are you special because you’re born with it or can anybody develop this? And what I’m hearing from you is,

I don’t know, maybe it was inside of you, you just hadn’t unlocked it yet. What’s your opinion now?

Bryan Ravit (17:34)
I that’s what it was.

Yeah, it’s a good question. I’ve actually asked, I’ve asked, I’ve even messaged on like Facebook, like old teachers of mine, because I was a really like, I was a bad kid. I don’t know if can say bad kid. I was a troubled kid, I’ll say. And I’ve even messaged them on Facebook, like asking them like, hey, did you know I was going to be successful? Did you think I was going to wind up in jail? You know, and I’d like as my mom, my grandma, and I don’t know that I really understand clearly like what I was like as far as drive as a kid.

But I think what you said is really on point. It hadn’t been unlocked yet. And I think ultimately it just comes down to priorities. And sometimes you kind of need something that can fuel you so that you can run with it. And that was my first instance of that. But I think ultimately, ⁓ I always knew I wanted to have a lot of money. And then I found a vehicle that was at a ton of money.

Back then, yes, compared to now, it isn’t now. But as a college student, I tasted it. I made half of that, by the way. So I made nine grand in two weeks as a college student. So to answer your question, I think people have drive or they don’t. And then they kind of pay attention to that or they pay attention to other things.

Anthony Codispoti (18:53)
Hmm. So for, for, for somebody that’s listening, it’s maybe in one of two spots, right? They’re that person who’s wondering if they’ve got it in them. They’re, trying to find the unlock, or maybe they’re a manager or a coach and they’re trying to help other people or, even a parent. They’re trying to help unlock this in their kids. mean, you’ve trained countless number of salespeople now. What advice do you have?

Bryan Ravit (18:55)
So non-enter, enter.

Hmm.

Ask me the question again. So you’re asking how do they unlock it?

Anthony Codispoti (19:27)
Basically, how do you unlock it? Yeah,

let’s assume for a moment that we’re assuming that it’s inside of everybody, right? And maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, I don’t know. But let’s assume that it is. How do they unlock it? How do they find it? How do they push that button?

Bryan Ravit (19:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard. think there’s a few ingredients that really make the difference. The first thing is really connecting with the person and having a certain level of rapport. Right. So one was my close friend at that point. Right. We were boys, even though he was older than me. He was my boss and all that. Like we were close. Right. So we had a certain connection. There’s trust. Okay. I knew he cared about me. Right. So I’d say that’s one ingredient that needs to happen. Another thing is you need to believe

or the person who you’re coaching needs to believe that you’re qualified or credible. So I believed that he knew better than me. So therefore I would listen. Right. So that’s another thing. And the other thing is it’s really got to be different. I remember he used to always tell me how it was different for each person because the way he would tell me the way he would talk to me, he would never like he would say, like, if I spoke to this about this person, they would cry. But he’s like, that just makes you mad and you take more action.

and you’re not mad at me, you’re just mad to prove me wrong. So we’re really catering it per person, which can be tricky. But I’d say those three things.

Anthony Codispoti (20:54)
What if somebody’s trying to unlock it inside of themselves?

Bryan Ravit (20:58)
⁓ Then you got to be honest with yourself. Do you really want it? I know a lot of I’ve got a lot of friends and I know multiple circles, right? there’s certain people that I love them as people. like every year they’re like, I’m going to do blank. And it’s like you want that for them. Maybe even many times think that they are capable or know they’re capable, but you know they’re not going to do it.

And the difference is, what are you willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it? So during those same two weeks, if we go back to the cut co-example, and there’s a million others, I was willing to sacrifice everything within those two weeks in order to ⁓ do the very best that I could. Well, there’s a lot of other people that didn’t. Most people didn’t. So it comes down to that.

You know, like what is the person going to do? Are they so many people I know they’re like, I want to get out of debt or I really like to save up for a house. And I’m like, Hey, you should work, you know, like work more, like work on Saturday. And they’re like, well, no, no, that’s, know, that’s time for, you know, me and my spouse. And I’m like, that’s cool. You get, you totally have it’s your life and you get to live it. However, it’s perfect for you. ⁓ but that means that person is going to get more of that balance, which is cool. Whereas the other person who is grinding on Saturday is going to.

They’re going to get what comes from that.

Anthony Codispoti (22:28)
Yeah. Tell us about the door to door sales teams that you’ve built. mean, that’s a hard job for somebody to do. What’s, what’s your approach to finding success? Yeah.

Bryan Ravit (22:34)
Yeah, that’s hard sales.

Yeah, yeah. So that that’s hard. I agree. You said forgive me because I you said what’s the key to

Anthony Codispoti (22:46)
What was your approach to finding success? How did you make that work?

Bryan Ravit (22:50)
How did it make that work? Well, it started off, I guess you could say it started off the same as me learning to sell Code Knives. My manager had a script, right? I watched him do it for two days. I got the script, I learned the script, I did what he said to do, and then I had challenges and I asked him and then he gave me solutions, then I asked him and then he gave me solutions and asked him and gave me solutions. And then I learned it and then I applied. So I followed what was proven, right?

And I kept seeking people who are way better than me to get answers from. So just being hungry for the answers. And then I outworked everybody. And then I applied that same exact thing to teaching others. And ⁓ so I worked for Vivint, V-I-V-I-N-T, so selling home security systems, smart home.

Anthony Codispoti (23:35)
What were you selling?

Okay. So you’re knocking on somebody’s door and they’re, you know, they’re like, Oh, this guy, you know, this guy looks like a sales guy. I don’t want to talk to him. I’m just going to get rid of him. So you got to overcome that. You got to get like a whole way to just even sort of start the conversation. And what, what percentage of people do you think once you sort of found your groove and you were good at it, what percentage of people were actually buying from you?

Bryan Ravit (24:13)
So should we count somebody who opens the door and slams the door as a person? If we do, yeah. So if we can.

Anthony Codispoti (24:21)
⁓ yeah, I, I, I might

even like, how many doors do you have to knock on to make a sale?

Bryan Ravit (24:27)
Yeah, so at my peak, I would say 10 doors, they answered or not. At my peak, really key times, there’s other scenarios where I would say 20. So I’d say 20 would be average. 10’s like I’m crushing it. And these are just touching a door. And if I go to the door twice, that counts as two. So I would say overall, if.

Anthony Codispoti (24:34)
and you’d make a, that sounds like a really high percentage to me.

Bryan Ravit (24:57)
I’d say about somewhere between seven and nine, that’s called eight people answering the door, regardless of if I was able to save my pitch or not, they just opened the door. I was able to sell them consistently. And that includes if I go to somewhere twice, it counted twice.

Anthony Codispoti (25:09)
Wow.

That’s that actually sounds like an incredible close rate. ⁓ How does that compare to like your peers that you were working with?

Bryan Ravit (25:21)
There’s a lot. There’s not the best. If we look at everybody, I’d it’s not the best, but it’s a lot better than it’s top 1 % for sure. But so many people that I knew were super skilled, super skilled, whether it’s from a management standpoint or from a personal sales standpoint. But so many of them I would crush, but I would outwork them. I would outwork them by far. You know, so they might be getting in the car at like eight o’clock.

like a normal person, you know, cause starting to get dark, that’s pretty reasonable. And I would be knocking on doors till 10 o’clock at night, you know, pitch black dark. And, but it just, it’s hunger, you know? So.

Anthony Codispoti (26:02)
And so

aside from outworking folks, what is it that you or other folks who were successful were doing well that the people who struggled weren’t?

Bryan Ravit (26:12)
⁓

Being coachable, seeking guidance, right? So one of the things that was really interesting is, so I had a core group of top people that I was really close with. And one of the things I noticed is every one of us would very, very quickly reach out to the others ⁓ for help the moment we felt like we were struggling. And us struggling might be, man, I sold one a day the last two days. It’s like, this is horrible. Because it’s not fun going door to door. It is fun when you’re cranking.

Right? That’s a lot of fun. Right? But it’s not fun, you know, just knocking door to door. Right? So, or like if someone didn’t sell, right? It’s like we reach out to each other like right away. Like we need to solve this. Like I’m freaking out. Right? This is horrible. Right? Where someone else might go like a week or two before reaching out for help. You know what mean? And it just like constantly seeking better, better, better. And it’s like so many times, you know, there’d be a scenario which like, well, where even though I had

Perhaps the number one in the office, because I’m always leading from the front. And that’s especially, I think that’s always important, but especially in door to door because it’s so challenging that like, you know, I ask like, raise your hand if you listen to a sales audio this morning. And there’d be very few people and it’s like, my hand would be up, but that doesn’t make any sense. If I sold more than them, if anything, it should be the other way around. But I think it was actually because, you know, whoever, the people who are the best or doing the best perhaps might be, might be a better way to put it. I think it’s, typically because they’re sharpening their ax. They’re working on it.

You know? So I don’t know that-

Anthony Codispoti (27:45)
they’re identifying

sort of gaps in their game and they’re looking for a little bit of coaching from their peers or their managers on how they think improve.

Bryan Ravit (27:53)
Yeah, and I think that applies to everything. Like, if you really want it and you’re constantly seeking whatever it is, you’re going to improve. You’re going be better. And then if you do it a whole lot, whatever it is, personal, it could be a personal thing or it could be business, you’re going to make a lot of progress. And then if you just let that compound, it works.

Anthony Codispoti (28:12)
Yeah.

Tell us about the boot style, boot camp style, ⁓ moving out of state to eliminate distractions kind of approach that you guys took.

Bryan Ravit (28:25)
Yeah, it’s kind of ⁓ like a a money making fraternity or sports team or or really positive cult. So I’m not sure which one to properly accurately describe it. So I worked with a lot of a lot of young people somewhere a little bit older. And, you know, it’s it’s hard and people would want to And it’s it’s to get distracted. And we’d work really long hours, a lot of them in summertime was 80 percent of the sale. So what we would do

Anthony Codispoti (28:32)
Hahaha.

Bryan Ravit (28:55)
is we would move out of state and we had company that furnished housing for four and a half months. A little bit crazy, so I’d always do an extra month. So it five and a half for me. Some others would as well. And we would go to a different state ⁓ just about every single summer. Sometimes we went somewhere twice, but usually it was a different state every year. And we would all move there, furnished housing. And then Monday through Saturday, we’d have meetings and then sell all day long till 9.30 at night.

plus three more doors, that extra little bit, it’s like one extra rep, right? And then, yeah, Sunday we do something fun and we all went as a team. And I think it made it so people would quit. It was easier to focus with less distractions. They didn’t have friends, family there, except for like us, right? And then you’ve kind of become a family, so you get really tight. And then the other thing is when you told all your friends and family that you’re going to Colorado and you live in Florida or Texas, whatever it is, to go do something for the summer, and then it’s really hard.

It’s like you just told everyone you’re going there for the summer. So to quit, it’s kind of like, man, they’re quitter, right? So I think it would, it doesn’t mean nobody would quit, but it, I think it made it so they wouldn’t quit as quickly. And because of it, they would then finally catch their stride and start selling. And I really believe anyone can do it as long as they don’t quit prior to figuring out how to do it or learn how to do it. It just takes some people a little bit faster or slower.

Anthony Codispoti (29:57)
Yeah.

That’s an interesting comment.

Yeah, it’s an interesting comment you made there. I really think anybody could do it. Do you like introverts, extroverts, ⁓ people with sales experience, no sales experience?

Bryan Ravit (30:28)
Yeah, yeah, I really do. Absolutely.

Absolutely. ⁓ 100%. I actually many times preferred to have somebody with no sales experience because then they didn’t have any bad habits. Teach them from scratch. They knew that they needed to learn. But yeah, I really believe, I think most things, ⁓ most things anybody can do if they just put their mind to it, are willing to put in the time, the effort and learn, especially if they have someone who’s willing to teach them. know, what’s hard is if you don’t have someone that’s willing to teach you, but now.

with today, chat GPT and AI and everything online. And you can learn from anybody. So many masterminds in this and that.

Anthony Codispoti (31:11)
And so tell us about the performance coaching that you offer.

Bryan Ravit (31:15)
Yeah, so that’s actually kind of happened like accidentally, if anything. so right now I’m doing some performance based coaching. So there’s a few different companies that they reached out like, Hey, we’re doing high ticket sales. So one of them is like business acquisition, bootcamp, another one is SEO. And they’re like, you know, we’re, not closing as well as we could. And I’m like, okay, well I could probably help. And they’re like, you think so? And I’m like, well, yeah, a hundred percent. And so, you know, so.

Basically, we worked out a deal so that I helped them. So by me helping them close better, I get a piece of the pie. And they win, I win. So it’s based on results. It’s fun.

Anthony Codispoti (31:56)
Can you say more about like the approach that you took ⁓ or that you’d like to take? ⁓ If it’s appropriate, pick one of the clients and sort of talk through as like a case study or if not, sort of in more generic terms.

Bryan Ravit (32:02)
Sure.

Sure. One of them is the exit school. Exit school is a business acquisition boot camp. know know Amy Walker and great organizations. I don’t know the exact numbers, but the sales weren’t big at all. They had few and far between, and they have a great product, great value, no question about it. They sell many things, but the initial core offering, the initial one, is basically a three-day business buying boot camp.

Anthony Codispoti (32:30)
What’s their product? What are they selling?

Bryan Ravit (32:40)
So learn how to buy a business in three days. It’s virtual. It’s not expensive at all. And it’s like five grand. And ⁓ yeah, it’s worth much more than double that, right? And I’ve done multiple programs and it’s great. anyways, ⁓ so they weren’t closing, but they just weren’t explaining it enough. There’s certain sales principles that if you apply them, it works for anything, right? So ⁓ yeah, so I listened to a call and I’m like, okay, I see.

I see there’s like, let’s call it half of the things are good. The other half of the things we’ve got to remove that or change that or this and that, re-script it, re-structure it is a big thing, right? You’re saying this and then confuse mine and say, no, so let’s make that clear, right? Let’s build more value. Let’s explain this better. Let’s put it in terms of the person who you’re speaking to, like what do they care about? And then I started integrating AI and then that got pretty fun.

Anthony Codispoti (33:37)
Can you say more about that? How are you integrating AI?

Bryan Ravit (33:38)
Sure,

sure. And so there’s a lot of excitement. I’m kind of obsessed on a certain degree with AI and just all that can be done with it. So what I was doing is I was listening to a sales audio that would take me like an hour. I’d take a lot of notes. I’d get on the phone with the salesperson. Let’s call for an hour. I’d give them coaching and then they would improve. And then that would happen again and again and again. And I’m like, well, this is great because it’s working. This is not great because it takes so much time.

Right. But like, know it works. So when I was with ChatGP, I’m like, you know, can you be my brain? If I give you my, oh, we had been recording the, you know, AI note taker to record zoom calls. Right. And then I had my notes written and then, uh, one of the guys that was coaching asked if he could record the coaching calls. I was like, sure. So then we had those, he wanted to be able to listen again. But I’m like, wait a minute. So I got all this transcribed. I uploaded it and I said,

Could you be my brain? Like I didn’t yet realize like, was there a method to my madness? Cause I’d also just done this for an SEO agency, right? To help them start selling more. And it was like, there’s some similarities, but it’s different. And it, and of course, chat GPT of course said, yes. I’m like, okay, cool. So if I upload a transcript, can you tell me if they do or don’t do these things? Like, yes. Can you use my wording? Can you use my coaching style? And like little by little, I kept tweaking it and tweaking it and tweaking it. And it’s far from done.

But basically the whole goal was to be able to have it. So now we’ve got it set up so it’s automatically sending transcripts, right? It’s spitting out things based on my coaching style, everything that I teach and like all of the improvements that needed to be made. ⁓ Some of it’s print ways, some of it’s wording, like structure. There’s all these things, right? And then it’s giving me like, think of it as a scorecard at the end of the day. So that helps. And then the other thing I created, which man do I wish I would have had this for door to door.

because there was a lot more reps and ⁓ one of the most effective things you can do is role play with somebody. But it takes a lot of time. So I created a different AI agent that can role play with sales reps. So there’s two different modes. One of them is the full sale, start to finish, and it’ll give feedback. And then you can make it like beginner, amateur, advanced, and keep increasing difficulty. The other one’s like objection drilling. stuff like that. And yeah, I think there’s more to come.

Anthony Codispoti (36:02)
And, and that AI agent, is that

a, is that a voice agent or is it. Okay.

Bryan Ravit (36:06)
Yeah, that one’s a voice agent.

Yeah. Yeah. So there’s a lot of cool stuff there. think eventually, you know, I love, was talking to a buddy about it the other day. I love to create, you know, some, some high ticket, like video avatars that look and sound like people that are, that are selling, you know, converting perfectly. So there’s a lot of opportunity in the space.

Anthony Codispoti (36:26)
Yeah, it’s interesting. I had a conversation with somebody recently about this, about, know, sort of these AI sales ⁓ reps. And here’s the feedback that I’m hearing is the, the reality is not meeting the hype.

like it’s the tech is interesting and it’s fascinating to have this back and forth conversation but just sort of like when you interact with chat GPT like sometimes it gives you stuff that’s a little weird or wonky or a little off or would sound weird to a human like there’s there’s some of that but here you are you’re in the midst of it what what do you think about where the state of the tech is

Bryan Ravit (36:58)
Yeah.

Well,

I think there’s some truth to that. I also think there’s some very advanced things that not everybody’s aware of. And I also think that it’s not done yet.

Anthony Codispoti (37:18)
But where we are today, do you think the tech is good enough to do that?

Bryan Ravit (37:19)
So.

I’m actually waiting for a response from somebody who’s like crazy skilled from like the engineering part. And then I think I’ll have a better answer. That being said, I don’t know if it’s there yet, but let’s just say it’s not, right? Like a month from today, that could be different. Yeah, so it’s exciting. It’s not far from out there. There’s certain technology that is making it better. You know, got to eliminate the latency and like certain things. But the other thing is if

Anthony Codispoti (37:28)
Okay.

Fair enough.

Bryan Ravit (37:54)
It’s so much cheaper that you can also be wrong. So it doesn’t even have to convert as well as a human. So if you’re paying out X dollars for a salesperson and you don’t have to pay that commission, all you’re paying is data. If you can generate leads in a meaningful way. So there’s a lot of exciting things. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (38:16)
Yeah.

So we’ve heard you talk a lot about how much you outwork people, your work effort ⁓ is, it sounds like second to none. When our whistles a little bit on some of the strategy that you maybe just pick like one big thing that when you’ve got a coaching client, here’s a giant lever that you can pull for them so that people listening are like, they’re really wrapping their heads around what Brian rabbit can do.

Bryan Ravit (38:46)
Can you pick a category so I can give you an answer? Or ask me in a different way.

Anthony Codispoti (38:49)
⁓ I guess sales is too

general.

Bryan Ravit (38:53)
⁓ We could.

I’ll answer it this way. Tell me if this answers the question. We can answer it with sales, but I guess you look for the gaps. You look for the gaps. What is not taking place yet? Or not taking place as well yet? Or what kind of objections are they getting? So everything is a symptom of something else. Perhaps that’s the answer that would be most helpful. So if you are having a symptom of a certain objection,

Anthony Codispoti (39:00)
Okay.

Bryan Ravit (39:28)
Well, there’s a root of that. Why are you getting that? There’s a reason. It’s either because of something you’re doing or not doing. So you have to figure out, what should you do or what should you stop doing? Does that answer the question?

Anthony Codispoti (39:42)
A little bit. think so. I think what you’re saying is, ⁓ say you’ve got an 8 % close rate and you really think it should be 15 or 20. And so what you want to do is you want to go back and you want to study. ⁓ Hopefully you’ve got transcripts or maybe you just kept good notes on here’s the objections that, know, top five objections I typically run into. And so then you want to look at those objections. You want to look at

their sales script, their sales process and say, okay, how can we fix these objections, right? Either you’re saying something that is causing this objection to pop into somebody’s mind, or you’re not saying the right things that when they just naturally have the objection that you don’t have a way to answer it. Is that roughly the right?

Bryan Ravit (40:31)
Yeah, yeah,

that, correct. To say the same thing you just said in a different way, it’s also patterns. And sometimes it’s the words, sometimes it’s the sequence of the words or the aspects of the sale. That can actually really move the needle a bunch. ⁓ And then sometimes it’s something, what’s happening before the sales interaction, that can be a massive difference mover.

Anthony Codispoti (41:00)
Before the interaction, so the sales call is arranged, ⁓ somehow it’s been scheduled, but before the salesperson and the prospect actually talk, there’s some kind of communication that can take place. You send them a PDF or a video link or something like

Bryan Ravit (41:17)
Yeah,

perfect. So let’s just say it’s a Zoom call, like a high ticket sales environment. Yeah, so you send them, you’re giving them things related to credibility. Give them content ahead of time, right? Videos. They’ve got a chance to learn more about you, right? So they know more about you. They feel more comfortable. They know that you’re an expert because they just heard you do XYZ. So in that environment, that could be the case. ⁓ Another thing it could be, ⁓ you know, whether it’s reviews, right? Something as simple as reviews or like in

door to door. One thing that would make a massive difference is you could like I would place my signs, you know, think of like ADT sign, right? Then it was orange sign. I would place them strategically. So it was very obvious that someone’s driving to the neighborhood. You can’t miss them. So that would create some curiosity. Plus I’d get social media posts all throughout the neighborhood from every person that I sold. So everyone’s talking about how happy they are they met me and they did this and they did this. Right. And,

in most environments with door to door, everyone’s just saying negative things. So all of a sudden everyone’s saying positive things, right? You’re just doing a good job making people happy. Then like you’re spreading that, right? And then, know, like, yeah, the best way to handle an objection is before it comes up. So that could be wording, that could be anything, but it’s like what happened first?

Anthony Codispoti (42:40)
don’t wait necessarily for the client, the prospect to say, hey, I don’t like having cameras in my home. I don’t think I want your security system. You address that right out of the gate. Hey, a common thing that we hear is that some people don’t want cameras in their home. And here’s why it’s a good idea.

Bryan Ravit (42:58)
Yeah,

yeah, exactly, yeah. And then if you understand the reasoning even behind that, then you can say, most people are thinking, well, I don’t want anyone to see me, so I just want let Rishi assure that everything’s private, secure, all that. Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (43:10)
Hmm.

Interesting. And for you to provide this kind of performance based coaching, how well do you need to understand their product or their industry?

Bryan Ravit (43:24)
Less than I think most people would think. Much, much, much less. ⁓ It matters more who’s buying this, why are they buying this? What have they experienced, generally speaking, prior to this? ⁓ That stuff matters depending on the type of sale. ⁓ But the actual product.

It doesn’t matter as much. It’s more of like just understanding this is what moves the needle. Because you could have the best product or service in the world, but if you’re not articulating it correctly, the value might not be received by the prospect. Right? So it’s like, how are they receiving it? If value is higher than price, people buy every time as long as they physically can.

Anthony Codispoti (44:20)
Do you have any data you can share? ⁓ took this client from X conversion rate to Y conversion.

Bryan Ravit (44:30)
I’d say generally speaking, very generally speaking, yeah, it varies, right? I’d say somewhere between 10 % lift, which would be pretty low, like really low, to like three times, so that someone’s at 10 % closing, maybe you can get them to 30, maybe you get them to 60. So it depends, so it really varies. And I hate when someone won’t give like quantified numbers.

It’s like, there’s an average, right? But it’s like such a widespread wide spectrum. yeah, overall, I’d say more than nine out of 10 times, there’s massive improvement that can be had. And, you know, it makes sense to optimize. You want to optimize, optimize, optimize, optimize in every aspect. And sometimes you just need an extra, you need someone who that’s all that’s their specialty or just somebody who that that’s the one thing they’re focused on because it can be hard as a business owner. You’ve got 100 hats to wear.

Right? Like how much? Sometimes get somebody on it and can see some huge results. So maybe 50 % improvement. If I had to give a straight answer, it just depends. Yeah, that’s massive.

Anthony Codispoti (45:39)
Substantial.

So Brian, you are having a lot of fun in the sales world. You know, you got hooked on the drug back at Code Knives when you found some success there, continued with Vivint. You’re doing a lot of performance based sales coaching now for clients.

⁓ Clearly this is a happy place for you. You’re all lit up. I can tell there’s a lot of enthusiasm, excitement, but you’ve got another happy place too. Tell us what else that you’re working on.

Bryan Ravit (46:08)
Sure, and the funny thing is the performance-based sales coaching and consulting and partnerships, that’s actually a pretty small piece of it. That’s just kind of something that just happened because it kept getting asked. like, okay, fine, I’ll help. so, yeah, that being said, my happy place, as you said, is definitely, I love investing. I’m obsessed with alternative investing specifically.

Anthony Codispoti (46:31)
What does that mean? What is alternative investment?

Bryan Ravit (46:34)
So alternative investing is, if I had to simplify it, I’d say everything other than the stock market. I’m I’m invested in the stock market, at least on some degree, but a really small degree compared to most as far as a percentage of portfolio. So alternative investments, to give some examples, ⁓ usually with private equity of some form. So it could be real estate. It could be privately owned companies, whether that’s early stage like venture capital.

or later stage, Like traditional private equity, hard money loans, ⁓ all sorts of asset class in real estate, cannabis, you name it. So there’s quite a few examples, but things that are not publicly traded on the stock market, just to generally speak.

Anthony Codispoti (47:21)
And how are you finding these opportunities?

Bryan Ravit (47:24)
So it started off with, joined, ⁓ one of the best decisions I’ve ever made is actually joining the Lifestyle Investor Mastermind. It was a great book as well. I highly recommend it by Justin Donald. And ⁓ it’s a high net worth investment mastermind. And ⁓ when I joined, didn’t know, I joined as one of the originals and I didn’t know, was 2020. And I didn’t know anything about investing at all. Not at all.

I knew I always wanted to be an investor eventually, but I didn’t actually know anything about it. so they have deal flow quite a bit. And then they spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars to vet deals and due to diligence to make sure they’re good and meet certain standards. And then they also educate you on it. And then also tax savings are big things. So that was my entry point. And then I got hooked.

Anthony Codispoti (48:20)
And so it’s through this mastermind that a lot of these opportunities come up.

Bryan Ravit (48:25)
That’s how it started. Yeah. So I get a lot of deal flow from that. And actually now I lead a small group. So like so investor, it’s expensive at the time of the recording. It’s $55,000 a year to be a member, just to belong. And so I actually started a smaller group as well with just some of my friends that were like, Hey, I’m not going to spend that much. And I don’t want to put as much time, but I do want to see deals, but that’s where the deal flow started. And then I’ve done a lot of deals. And so then I get more deals sent to me.

from these sponsors, ⁓ think of as the company’s raising the money, and then also friends, or friends of friends, and that kind of thing. just getting more more connected in this space. recently, ⁓ I’m an advisor for the company and raising a little bit money for it. I just invested in a company called Feel 30, a men’s health brand. So just to give you an example, I met the founder, Thomas, from the lifestyle investor. He was a member, right? And then we kept in touch.

⁓ And then he’s raised money and then kind of putting the deal together, which is pretty cool.

Anthony Codispoti (49:28)
So how many investments would you guess that you’ve made?

Bryan Ravit (49:33)
I had a guess, I’d say. Around 50, close to it. Yeah. I think that’s the most common question I get, actually. Excel. Excel is the answer. But I’ve also invested in a great company called Copia. And they’re doing some really, really, really cool things advanced. It’s software for high net worth individuals and institutions to track.

Anthony Codispoti (49:37)
It’s a lot. How do you keep track of them?

Okay.

Bryan Ravit (50:02)
alternative investing, it’s not like you can just log into Fidelity and see it all. ⁓ It’s not as organized as that. And there’s a lot of moving parts and there’s a lot of tax, a lot of K1s, a lot of forms to get. And then it’s like, how is it doing compared to projections and different asset classes? And it goes on and on and on. ⁓ But yeah, it all starts with just rows in Excel and then more columns than anyone would think is normal.

Anthony Codispoti (50:26)
And how often,

how often are you sort of checking in or getting updates from each of your investments?

Bryan Ravit (50:32)
Yeah, so

it depends on the deal. I’d say some of them will send you like monthly monthly updates like here’s the return. Here’s this. Some things are a lot more cut and dry than others. Like I’m in a handful of hard money loans and I can elaborate on any of these. So that’s like pretty cut and dry. So I’m getting a report every month. There’s other things that I’m in that I’ll get reports quarterly and then there’s certain companies like a green coffee company. They’re the largest privately held Colombian coffee company.

set to IPO within the next few years, they’re dominating. so they’re sending updates. seems like daily like, hey, we just made a new partnership. Hey, we just did this. Hey, we just did this. But most of them are less frequent than that. Like yesterday, got an update from a mobile home park, fun that I’m in, the quarterly updates in those apartments. And there’s a lot of things.

Anthony Codispoti (51:21)
Is there a space or a couple of spaces, industries that you’re particularly excited or interested in right now?

Bryan Ravit (51:30)
⁓ Yes, but it also, for me right now, I’m going to be investing quite a bit in privately held companies with a goal of cashflow and potentially a roll up, putting a bunch together and selling for a pretty big exit. That’s where ⁓ my attention’s about to be going in a major way. ⁓ But overall, I’m also ⁓ very bullish on crypto, Bitcoin specifically.

And AI, there’s so many asset classes. At first, I just thought of real estate as a whole. I just didn’t know better. And now I’m like, OK, real estate, well, wait a minute. We can break that down into quite a few different categories. So mobile home parks, I’ve been bullish on that for a while. RV parks, I think there’s a space for that as well. So yeah, it depends on what the goal is as the real answer.

Anthony Codispoti (52:21)
Why are you?

Say that again.

Bryan Ravit (52:26)
It depends on what the goal is, is the real answer. For instance, if someone wants cash flow, like passive income, right? That they should really be looking at different investments than for someone who’s like, I want massive growth. Right? They, they,

Anthony Codispoti (52:41)
okay. So picky,

pick, pick each of those buckets, Brian, and what would you recommend for somebody in each of those buckets?

Bryan Ravit (52:51)
Well, I’m not a financial advisor, so you should speak with your financial planner before making any decisions. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (52:55)
Okay, so what would you do yourself if

you were ⁓ categorizing yourself in one those buckets?

Bryan Ravit (53:02)
I would start by learning. A lot of these investments, the minimum is 50 grand, 100 grand or more. So I’m very bullish on quite a few things, but for someone who hasn’t done it, I’d be really hesitant to be like, go invest in them because you know, whatever. What I would say is start by learning. You can join masterminds. I think that’s a huge, huge thing for me. It’s been great. Start perhaps with reading the book, Lifestyle Investor. I didn’t write it. It’s amazing though. And maybe even

before or after that, start by getting really clear with what you want. And it matters where you’re at, like, you know, how much money somebody has. Do they need the money soon? Right. So like, for like, for me, because I’ve been looking for the right business to buy, and really the right opportunity to pounce on, what’s mattered a lot for me over the last couple years is liquidity. So I haven’t been willing to lock up my money, even when I see a great investment, right, which is painful for me. But you know, but there’s a

it’s where are you at in your life, right? So that’s going to change and then I’m going to be all about locking up money for the right deals. So if you don’t necessarily care about liquidity, right, then.

Anthony Codispoti (54:13)
So what space do you want to do this roll up in?

Bryan Ravit (54:17)
⁓ I’m definitely open-minded, but I’ve got a few things going that if you had to say, Brian, place a dollar bet, what’s it going be in? Right? Only a dollar. I’m not a gambler, but ⁓ I’d say roofing if I had to guess. Yeah. Yeah. so there’s a lot of industries, right, that I’ve been looking at. So I’m not married to that. But the number one reason I would say is I can apply door-to-door sales skills.

Anthony Codispoti (54:31)
Roofing, interesting choice. Why?

Bryan Ravit (54:46)
So that’s a big bonus. It’s still fragmented. Private equity is buying them up at ⁓ decent multiples. I think the bigger, you can grow it pretty damn big with sales teams, just like I’ve had before to massive numbers because it’s, roofs are expensive compared to a small cheap widget. So that’s part of it. ⁓ And the other thing is,

What’s really interesting to me, I was talking to a buddy about this the other day, who owns a roof company, potentially getting involved with it actually. so when you look at alarm sales or solar sales, like major door-to-door industries, and even some pest control, the leadership and the organizations, there’s a good amount of them, or there’s at least one or multiple that are really on point. They really have their systems in place.

amazing leadership, incentive trips, where they send people around the world, Mexico or Hawaii, ⁓ swag, you name it, like really well-oiled machines, like big, big billion dollar companies. But that I’ve seen, there’s not really anything like that in the roofing space, which is interesting. And when…

Anthony Codispoti (56:05)
you

Bryan Ravit (56:10)
One of the things I’ve learned is when you build a company, if you want really, really good salespeople, you have to be willing and able to pay really good money. Right. And yeah, I shadowed somebody for a few hours and it was seven hours and he made like a little over 13 grand. And he’s like, yeah, that was like kind of smaller than usual. And I’m like, well, I look pretty easy compared to what I’ve seen. So was like, that’s kind of interesting. But ultimately, I’m not, I’m not married to the, to the industry.

Anthony Codispoti (56:40)
All right. Let’s shift gears, Brian. I’d like to maybe dive into a serious challenge that you’ve overcome in your life. How’d you get through that? What’d you learn?

Bryan Ravit (56:50)
⁓ Which challenge? Man, ⁓ I’ve had a lot of challenges. So the first one that comes to mind is I’m really grateful and ⁓ can humbly say that I’ve done really well financially at this point, but that wasn’t always the case. So even though right now I’m a multimillionaire and I say that humbly, hopefully to inspire, not to brag, but to inspire others. But what I can also say

with the goal of inspiring is at a certain point at $100,000 in debt. You know, so I would say that was one of that was one of the one of the big challenges, and that’s the first one that comes to mind. And ⁓ and just to kind of elaborate on that a little bit, ⁓ I had started a DVD kiosk business. Think of like Redbox, like a DVD rental machine, right? Like ATM, but for DVDs. And I raised money from it from a hedge fund manager that I met from selling cutco really close friend of mine. Mark, awesome, awesome guy.

And actually now I invest with him, which is kind of cool and very cool actually. so at first it wasn’t working and it wasn’t working. And what I mean by that is it wasn’t making money. So at a certain point, he’s like, when he calls me, like, Hey Brian, it’s looking like, you know, I’m looking at the numbers and just, they’re not good enough. and I’d been receiving like a small salary. This is, this is very early twenties, like right out of, right out of college. And he’s like, you know, so like we,

It’s okay. Like I put my blessing on it. It’s okay if this doesn’t work. He’s like, I knew that investing, but I invested like, I’m okay either way. Right. And I was like,

Thank you, but I’m not done yet. She’s like, what do mean? I’m like, I haven’t failed. Like, I’m not going to quit and I haven’t failed. She’s like, yeah, but the business doesn’t support paying you. And I’m like, okay, no problem. Let me see if I can figure this out. And then I went for quite a while working without income, right? And I didn’t have a bunch of money set aside, right? That’s why I had raised money. And I kept going, kept going, kept going.

And I wound up accumulating a good amount of debt while doing it. And the funny thing is I eventually figured it out. And we just had to change a few things. And it was making money. But at that point, we were about to raise more money. That was the whole plan. And then I’m looking at numbers. And then I realized Netflix and every way we stream video, like, that’s going to be bigger tomorrow, not smaller. And I felt like it was unethical to actually raise more money.

something that was like I was literally making projections like well what if they go down and I’m like who raises money when they think the industry is going like a different direction like that’s that’s not the right thing to do whether whether we can raise it or not because the numbers are pretty good right I just I didn’t think it was the right thing to do so ultimately we’re going to pull in the plug on that and I’d accumulated a good amount of debt I ⁓ think it was a little less than that but right around you know 100 grand or not that far from it and you know ultimately ⁓

It taught me like tunnel vision and focus. when, I wish I still had it. I remember taking a screenshot at a certain point and ⁓ the screenshot was of my bank account being negative. And I saved it as never again. And I dated it. don’t know what the day was. And like, I can remember that like, like typing hard on my keyboard, never again. You know what mean? And so was this funnel vision though, just staying focused and I was able to keep operating. And it was actually really valuable. And then

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:08)
Mm-hmm.

Bryan Ravit (1:00:24)
on it, you know, eventually it was like, all right, moved on, started another thing, another thing, another thing, And paid off and then things have worked out.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:31)
So you were

$100,000 in debt. there any thought about bankruptcy? Was it that kind of a situation?

Bryan Ravit (1:00:38)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. my family, I think they were even encouraging it. They’re like, you know, got to this, got to this. And I have an amazing family, but none of them had done what I want. None of them had achieved what I want to achieve. Right. And I think it’s important, said earlier, it’s important to like learn from somebody who’s credible and qualified, not just who loves you, but that’s a piece of it. But they also have to be qualified. Right. So they had encouraged that. I actually did speak to a few

bankruptcy attorneys and I’d asked them and what you know, they all said the commonality I think I spoke to two or three of them and they said well the reason to do I’m like should I like I don’t know and they’re like well it depends I’m like what does it depend on they’re like it depends on whether you believe you’re you can get out of this or not Basically like are you screwed? We’re not and I’m like no No, I’m gonna get out of this. Knew I’d get out of it. I knew I’d get out of it

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:29)
You believed you could get out of it. And how did you get out

of it? What were the changes that you made in the business to level things out?

Bryan Ravit (1:01:37)
It wasn’t

because of change in the business. It definitely wasn’t because of that. we wound up not raising money. I wound up saying, So I actually kept operating it for a while, like after I was done with it. Because I told Mark, I’m like, hey, could you ask me when we’re having the conversation about me raising money? like, what happens if it doesn’t work? Do I just get a bunch of machines? And I’m like, I’ll run it for as long as I physically can, even if that means without money. So I did.

But that was like a really minimal time at that point. So it was relatively easy to do that. ⁓ But you said, how did I get out of it? So ⁓ I did a lot of different things. I wound up owning my own home security company for a bit before I really crushed it with Vivint. so that helped. started paying it off very aggressively, like big time with that. And I got some good advice as far as like paying off.

the highest, you pay off the highest interest first and then you can actually negotiate quite a bit. And so I made some pretty ridiculous offers and got them accepted. you know, it’s all business and, for anyone who’s in debt, listen to this, you should know if you don’t already know. The worse it is, ⁓ the better it is for you. And what I mean by that is if you’re a little bit behind, like you owe all of it, right? If they’ve already sold off the debt, maybe they’ve sold off or…

25, 35, 50 cents, right? But like at a certain point, they think that you’re never gonna pay and they just keep selling it off to someone else. And it winds up being 10 cents on the dollar or less. So if they collect 15 or 20 cents on the dollar, they just doubled their money, right? If I can double my money like that all day long, right? As an investor. So I was thinking of it like that at the time, but I was thinking like, hey, I knew they got it cheaper. And a friend of mine, my wife’s actual boss, ⁓ he,

Fahim, he’s actually the one who told me that. he had, or boss way back when. And anyways, he said, yeah, just make crazy offers. I’m like, really? He’s like, yeah, just try it. I’m like, all right. I don’t mind getting rejected. And sure enough, they accepted it, accepted it, accepted it. So was just paying it off, paying it off, paying it off. And then when I came to Vivint and I started making some really good money right away, then I just wrote a few checks and it done. And part of that debt, by the way, the worst part of the debt, the worst part was

I borrowed money from my mom and my mom didn’t have the cash to loan me. So she took out a loan for it. Yeah. So that, there was no dude who was shaving that. never missed a payment ever. And that was like, that was like, had to pay that. But yeah, so I got through it, made me stronger. you know, if you think you can, or you think you can be the way you write, so.

Anthony Codispoti (1:04:25)
I like that. I’ve just got one more question for you, Brian. But before I ask it, I’m going to let listeners know the best way to get in touch with you, which is you can find Brian on LinkedIn. Brian is B-R-Y-A-N and Rabbit is R-A-V-I-T. So Brian Rabbit. can search for him on LinkedIn. Also, Rabbit, R-A-V-I-T, Rabbit Investments with an S on the end of it, rabbitinvestments at gmail.com. And we’ll include links to that in the show notes.

⁓ Also, as a reminder, if you want to get more employees access to benefits that won’t hurt them financially and carries a financial upside for your company, reach out to addbackbenefits.com. And finally, if you’ll take just a moment and leave us a comment or review on your favorite podcast app, we will be forever grateful. So last question, Brian, you and I reconnect one year from today and you’re celebrating something big. What’s that big thing you hope to be celebrating?

Bryan Ravit (1:05:21)
⁓ I’m going to give two things if I can. The first thing that I’m most excited about is my daughter. My daughter, Gemma Noreen, she’s due to be born October 25th. So we’ll see when she decides to arrive, but I’m really fired up about that. So it’s my first kid and she might be my little princess. So super fired up about that. so that’s the first thing. And the second thing is hopefully I’ll have either

partner or purchased or invested in ⁓ something that’s going to be that’s going to ultimately result in eight figure exit. And I’ll be going all in on that and probably easing up on the other things. That’s the real goal. I’m excited to pour my heart into something again and really build, build, build. That’s fun for me.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:08)
Brian Rabbit, I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Bryan Ravit (1:06:13)
My most sincere pleasure. Thank you.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:15)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.