American Association of Private Lenders (AAPL) & Think Realty
Eddie graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in Broadcast Sales and Marketing. He also studied marketing at Georgia Tech and business management at Emory University. He is most known for taking a talk radio station in Atlanta to the level of “Most Listened to Station in the World” (Radio and Records Magazine, 2002). He has owned his own advertising agency and worked with clients including Pepsi, Procter & Gamble Co., Buffalo Wild Wings and Mail America. He is now owner and CEO of American Association of Private Lenders and Think Realty and speaks across the country including well-known universities on the topics of Branding, Marketing and Innovation in Business.
What is the best and worst piece of advice you’ve ever received?
The worst advice I’ve ever received was to put profit first in your business. I know that’s a little bit outside of what someone would typically tell you, but I believe that a thriving, growing business puts people first. First your employees, and then your customers. I understand that profit is important to keep a business alive and growing, however if it is your main focal point and what you put all your emphasis on, oftentimes you can take advantage of the people that made your business successful in the first place.
One great piece of advice that I received in college from a professor was, “Never lose a contact.” He said, “Your greatest asset is the data that you keep.” Back then it was stored in a Rolodex that had everybody’s business cards in different sections. Now, it’s all digital. I am a consummate networker. I love to network and I rarely lose people’s contacts. I have a very basic system where I’m able to capture info from everyone I meet. I typically connect on social media nearly immediately after meeting them or talking with them, and then I reach out to them often and frequently. And so in my personal database of contacts that I have, I’ve got close to 100,000 that I’ve collected over the years. And that’s just my personal contacts. Within my business I take the same approach. Up until last year I had nearly 80 businesses. I sold quite a few of those last year, but I still have close to 10 businesses that I own and operate. And the total data, or touch points, that I have for consumers or people we talk to, in just the businesses that I have, reaches into millions of people. And so I’ve never struggled with that. It was an early lesson and it has been the catalyst to the success I’ve had.
What habits or mindsets have helped you succeed as a business owner?
I love to work. So for me, work is life. I don’t necessarily need a work-life balance because I feel like I’m most balanced when I’m putting effort and time into the work that I love. One of the habits that I have is I break down my day into activities that ultimately meet the requirement or the need that I have, versus breaking my day down into work time, play time, and family time. I think any time can be work time, play time, and family time. I take a chunk of my day and break it down so that I’m spending percentages of my day thinking and creating, like creating content or vision for the businesses that I run. I spend a percentage of my day just doing tactical things that I know I have to get done.
What is the most difficult period of time during a startup journey and why? What helps you to work through it?
When I’m in the startup mindset, I’m putting everything into it and I’m excited about the idea or the customer. And early on in any business that I started, it’s kind of a fail-fast model. It’s either going to make it or it’s not. That’s not the hard part. The hard part is when I actually find some success, but then I’m in this transitional period of taking it to the next level. And at that point I have to decide, once I get the business off the ground, do I want to scale it? Is it self-sustainable? And is it something that I want to do for the rest of my life? A lot of businesses come out of a great idea, and once that great idea is created and I’ve found a business process for that idea, it’s fulfillment enough. I’ll hire a staff to run it or operate it. Very rarely do I get into that middle region of a business startup where I have to determine if I actually want to put the time and effort into scaling that business. So I’d say the most difficult period of time is after the first level of growth, and then learning to say no and being okay with where it is. It leaves time for other opportunities.
What has been your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
I boil my life down into three words: time, wealth and purpose. Being an entrepreneur allows me to have the freedom of managing my own schedule, and doing what I want to do when I want to do it. It also has provided me the catalyst to create and sustain the lifestyle that I want. And that time that I have control of, and the wealth that has gotten me there, allows me to live out that third piece: purpose. Purpose is when I look at my life for the greater good that it could accomplish, and I put those time and wealth resources into creating something that makes my life more valuable than just the businesses I own or the people that I touch. It actually transcends that and starts to make a difference in this world.
What advice would you offer someone who’s starting their first business?
I would offer the advice that they have to be all in, and 100% dedicated to it. They have to give up on everything else for a time. To always have a Plan B ultimately diverts some energy from that business success. If you can’t be in it, then hire somebody that can be 100% focused on it. If you can’t hire someone to be focused on it and you can’t be focused on it, then you shouldn’t be starting that business in the first place. It’s crucial to have one person that’s solely dedicated to its success or failure. And if your process of dedicating yourself leads to failure, at least you know that you’ve given it everything you have. You don’t question the choices you made.
What key activities do you recommend entrepreneurs to invest their time in?
I think there are two activities that every entrepreneur or business leader should conduct. First, they should be involved in networking of some sort within their relevant industries. Every great opportunity I’ve ever had in business came through a people connection, so it’s absolutely critical. The second activity I would recommend is finding alone time where you can sit and think, taking the world’s distractions from your mind. Especially as an entrepreneur, where you get inundated with 24 hours a day of business. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, for example, had their own processes they went through. They called them ‘walkabouts,’ and they would go sit in a cabin for a week or something similar. I think it’s important to get alone with your thoughts and really dissect them down, to write down your ideas and formulate processes to bring your ideas to fruition.
