Building the Invisible Empire: Entrepreneurial Journeys with Brad Warren

Building the Invisible Empire: Entrepreneurial Journeys with Brad Warren

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to Milestone Episode 130 of the Business Development Podcast. On today's expert guest interview, we're bringing you Brad Warren, a serial entrepreneur who has started over 10 companies in just four years. Stick with us. You're not going to want to miss this.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, Business happens over years and years.

Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal. Welcome And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences.

And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business. Brought to you by Capital Business Development. CapitalBD. ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast. And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 130 of the Business Development Podcast.

We have an absolutely amazing, amazing expert interview for you today. Today we are bringing you Brad Warren of Our Invisible Empire. Brad is a visionary leader and the driving force behind Our Invisible Empire. A company dedicated to championing the dreams of entrepreneurs and nurturing the growth of small businesses.

His journey in entrepreneurship began with a pivotal role alongside a mentor in the retail service industry, where he absorbed invaluable lessons in sales, operations management, and strategic planning over nearly a decade. Rising through the ranks to become a shareholder and then a general manager, Brad's passion for scaling businesses became evident.

As he orchestrated the expansion of operations across various cities and provinces with an insatiable hunger for innovation and a deep rooted belief in the resilience of small businesses. Brad embarked on a new chapter by partnering with his wife, a skilled CPA accountant, to establish our invisible empire.

Together, they leveraged their complementary skill sets to provide comprehensive support to Alberta's entrepreneurial community, offering strategic guidance, financial expertise, and unwavering encouragement. With a mission to defy the odds and ensure that future generations inherit a landscape rich with diverse opportunities, Brad Warren stands as a beacon of hope and inspiration for aspiring business owners everywhere.

Through his relentless dedication and boundless optimism, Brad is rewriting the playbook for success and reshaping the future of entrepreneurship. One bold idea at a time. Brad, it's an honor to have you on the show.

Brad Warren: No, I appreciate it, man. I was excited to do this one. One of us has really good writers.

Like that, that was a fantastic intro.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh boy, yeah. Intros are fun because they're always pre written and they're always really challenging to read. So I always have to do a few edits. You never know, though.

Brad Warren: That's fantastic.

Kelly Kennedy: It is an honor to have you, dude. Your entrepreneurial journey is Pretty impressive. And I know, I know a lot of our listeners are going to see this and be like, wow, like he's doing what in what amount of time? It is actually a little unbelievable. And we are going to get into it because what you're doing is super cool.

But I want you to take us to the beginning, Brad, how did you end up on this on this path to entrepreneurship?

Brad Warren: Yeah, you know what, man, it's It was, I think, even back from high school, like, school wasn't my thing, so I, I don't encourage, depending on how far you want to go back, we go back to fist fights in elementary and not being able to have recess, but we could probably skip that stuff, but, school was never my thing, and not because I wasn't good at it, because it just, it wasn't, I was just one of those tell tale, like, billboard child of kids that just wasn't challenged, and eventually, other things, bad things from, you know, You know, girls to sports to drugs to parties to everything just became more important than school.

So I left school in actually grade 10. I didn't finish second, first semester of grade 10. Well, I very early second semester, but even at that point in time, I had like little tiny weird businesses going. I mean, legal, Not legal, we don't have to talk about that statute of limitations. I'm not sure where that's at in Alberta, but it was always there.

And then I ended up just getting into the workforce, pay the bills kind of just like anybody else, like you take, take a trade, you're young, you're not in school, you don't want to work at Walmart, so you go take a trade. And I worked in a trade in the auto service industry for like. You know, by the time I was 22, I'd been working for like six years.

So I knew quite a few people in that industry. I was decently well connected in it for such a young guy. And my mentor kind of, we hooked up and he was like, Hey, I got a store opening in Calgary and this and that. And when it all broke out, I ended up moving to Calgary and working with him. And just got into management at a very young age.

Like he was the one who was kind of like, you need to stop working with your hands and start working with your mind and your. Voice and do this and that was kind of like I was like, okay, and so got into management at that young age and just was very blessed to be able to scale and grow with that business.

Like he was very aggressive. He scaled very aggressively. Like we went on. The run of a lifetime and so many good people worked there. It was like far from just me and him. There were so many people far past me that even contributed to it, especially at the beginning. And I came on, I think in part in my memory, because it was a while ago, but I think he had three or four stores.

I think he was opening the fourth, his second store in Calgary at the time. And then we just ended up across the provinces, went to 110, 120 employees. You know, he ended up selling it to a venture capitalist firm. And I was the only other shareholder involved in the sale. So entrepreneurial. I guess where I'm going with that is like, that job was so, I said this on another podcast I did, it was so close to almost being an entrepreneur, but being employed, my salary was so low, my bonuses and commissions were so high, and he did such a phenomenal job of keeping up with my craziness, like, he just kept advancing, every time I got bored, he'd give me something new, a new city, a new store, a new territory, and that, you look back on it, it's funny, cause you give, you always give your mentor a hard time, cause you're like, God, you know, because you hate any entrepreneur hates working for anybody, no matter how good they are, but once you get older and you have some kids and your ego gets put in check and you look back and you're like, he was a lot smarter than I gave credit for at the time he was much better at that than I thought he was.

And so, yeah, he grew me with that business and that kept me from opening my own business. For sure. Like we talked all the time. Anytime we were in Kelowna or out for drinks or whatever, he's like, you're going to open your own business. I'm like,

Kelly Kennedy: Oh,

Brad Warren: I'm good here. It'd take me a long time to make this kind of money.

And yeah, and you give that kind of money to such a young kid, ego takes over. I was my own worst enemy. I got in my own way towards the end. You start thinking you're important when me and you know, like other than our kids, we're a grain of sand on this planet. Appreciate it, you know, but that was kind of where it started and then he sold the company, things happened there, and we pretty much had, I had the idea for Invisible Empire pretty much right out the gate spent a year planning it, and we opened it, With the first couple businesses a couple of years after that, I took a year off when my daughter was born and that was all.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow, wow. Well, first off, me and you actually share a very similar background, like with regards to working kind of directly under the ownership, spending an incredibly long time kind of being that right hand man. I did that for a lot of years as well, an inspection firm here in the city. And so that's where I really cut my teeth and learned a lot of lessons.

You know, I wanted to spend some time there because. You know, you learned, it sounds like you learned everything you know about business for the most part from that time that you spent being challenged in, in, with with that employer. Do you want to tell me a little bit about some of the lessons that you learned along that way?

Like, you know, I, I think about it and I think back to, to, you know, my experience and it's like I learned so many expensive lessons without having to pay for them. I imagine that you did as well. And I remember even, even my boss at the time saying, Kelly. This was an incredibly expensive lesson. You get to learn it for free.

So you best learn it right now.

Brad Warren: Oh man, I, I couldn't agree more. It, you know, and I could probably ramble on about that subject forever because, and you don't want to give too much credit to the people that, you know, trained you and mentored you, but you have to at some point in time. That business was so well rounded and it was so aggressive and so relentless that.

And then you look back and now I get to meet with so many different small businesses and entrepreneurs like we're a month, two months out and pitch meetings and different things and it's no disrespect to any of the entrepreneurs or small businesses out there. I spent my whole life doing everything I can to try and help them because it's unweighted, but I'm shocked.

That some of these businesses we sit with are in business, like some of the stuff that we do that is just so basic to me from monthly results to quarterly P and L's to forecasting to cash flow forecasting to systems to just everything like there in my organization, there's an approval process for everything like if I disappeared for three weeks, there's not but there's not a whole bunch of people that would notice.

It just wouldn't have any forward movement because everything, my, my wife says this, everything you work on, if you take them, if you take a month off, we actually have cashflow because you're not creating new companies and create new logos and doing all this and new programs, but I'm always trying to advance it.

Like, if there's no problem to be solved, I will find a problem and then I will solve it that nobody even knew existed. And I think that's like, that's what I learned, man. I learned everything from marketing to. Sales was the big thing. Like power of persuasion is, is king. Like if you're going to possess any skill set or master any skill set, master power of persuasion.

Cause even my mentor, he was so strong in that area, very strong. And just by spending such a absorbent amount of time with him for a decade, it's not even like he trained me on sales. I was just in the same room with him, watching him do his thing. And I picked up on it. And I see that even today with my wife, like Jenny, my.

Business partner and she's so strong in power persuasion. But when we started this It was her biggest fear, like when she went through Mount Royal, public speaking was her biggest fear and now like her closing percentage is, is unmatched, like we use it as an example in her accounting firm. So yeah, I, I think, you know, with my ramble on it, there was so many lessons to be learned, like persistence.

Track your numbers. You know, he taught me a big thing. I said this on Canada's podcast actually. Not to advertise your competitor. You can edit that out if you want. But it matters. I'm more excited to do this one. So if it makes anybody feel any better. He always said Mickey Mouse can never have a bad day.

And that was such a, and it wasn't a big deal at the time because he had all these little tiny things he said all the time and I'm like, okay, man, sounds good. Okay, sounds good. Fuel up the boat. Let's get wakesurfing here. But he, when you really think about it, it's such a powerful message because Mickey Mouse can never have a bad day.

If Mickey Mouse shows up to Disneyland, he can't have a bad day. Like, there's hundreds of thousands of people paying to see him, he can't be drunk, he can't be hungover, he can't be in a bad mood, he has to be the exact same Mickey Mouse every single time. And one big lesson I learned was like, me as an employee, even though I was a shareholder and I owned part of the business and I was still an employee, I still reported to somebody, and I got to have bad days.

And the owner could not like the entrepreneur, the business owner can't have bad days. You can stay home. You can't take out anything on your staff. And I try and go into my office the exact same every single day, no matter what's going on. And if I'm having a terrible week, I just stay home. I work from home.

And so you learn so many lessons, but there's so many areas of business, it's like a buffet. And I think the biggest thing I learned from him is just be relentless. And if there's a problem to be solved, don't avoid it, just solve it. And if you're not doing everything well. You can't just do six out of the 12 things.

Well, do just strive for a hundred percent all the time and you'll hit 85. But if you strive for 75, you'll hit 50.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, and I think like, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, you're leading everybody. They're looking to you for guidance, and so you have to stay positive. You have to have a positive outlook, you have to be gunning for it, you have to show them that you're working hard so that they're also going to work hard.

If you come in with a shitty attitude, what do you think your staff is going to do?

Brad Warren: Oh, 100%. And it's rarely the staff's fault ever. Like, I mean, any situation you look at, if it doesn't fall back on the owner, you're not looking hard enough. It started somewhere. Started with process, started with the direction of the business, started with a hissy fit you threw in a meeting somewhere.

Like, staff don't wake up in the morning, hit their alarm clock, and be like, Alright, how am I going to go in there and try and screw this business over today? Like, that's not their thought process. So, I mean, if you're an, if you're an owner or an entrepreneur out there and you're like, Oh, that's my staff's fault or this or I'll buy better people or that, then fire those people and hire better people.

In the end, it is on you. And I make dramatically more mistakes on a daily and weekly basis than all my staff combined, no doubt about it. And it's because I take more risk. I'm also very comfortable admitting to all my mistakes and my staff are, I'm just like, oh, sorry guys, that was on me, my bad, let's reroute.

And they're just like, and they're just like, okay. It's probably nice to work for someone.

Kelly Kennedy: You know what? And, and great job. It's very commendable. And I think you take high accountability in yourself, which is where business owners need to be accountable, right? We have to be accountable to ourselves and we have to be honest with ourselves, right?

We know when we're not doing enough. We know when we should do things a little differently. But, you know, you talked about showing up and giving, 110 even when you're not feeling like it. So at least you're hitting 85. Bye. Talk about how you gained that mentality, because I think there's a lot of people who could maybe use some tips in that area.

Brad Warren: Yeah, you know what man, I wish I could go in depth on it, but I think some people are wired a certain way, and it burns me in a lot of areas of my life. Like my wife tells me all the time, like, can anybody hit your expectations? And it's like, well, I can't. So I'm sure there's very few other people that can.

But you know, it's a gift and a curse, I guess. Like, I just, I look at something and it's just, There's always a way to make something better and it's very easy when you put yourself in the spot because I mean, I created most of these systems or most of these processes and it's like I'm literally taking my ideas and making them better.

But you know, tips and tricks to it. It's just, I don't know. It's a really hard one to touch on because I am just wired in a way where I just keep going. But I also work around my life quite a bit. I don't work when it's not good for me. Like, I don't, I just, I really work within my personality. And I have a lot of resources to keep me on track too.

And I can, you know what I mean? Like, I can make changes on a website pretty quick, put it up on the projector, draw on it, my internet team goes to town. But, you know, striving for that 100%, if you're, I, a lot of it is just the mentality that you're looking at where, you know, It's, you know, you should be doing better, you know, you should be doing something.

Every entrepreneur is going to be part ADHD in one way or another because they're the only ones that can burst the risk to take it. But it's like you're, you're well aware you should be doing it. How important is the business? Can you do it? And if you can't seem to find a way to do it, you can't wake up at 5am or whatever it may be.

That's fine. Find a way to work around it, but it bleeds onto your staff. Like I don't ride my staff at all. And my staff are always like, this could be better. This could be better because they know if they bring it to me, I'm going to edit the shit out of it until it's perfect. And eventually if you just keep doing the same thing, they stop bringing it to you.

And until then they bring it to you and it's perfect.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It sounds like you really live by that, that mentality shoot for the moon. And even if you miss, you hit the stars, right? Like you're always aiming for that. That next level. And I love that. Like, I love that mentality. I think we do that as well at capital.

Super important, super important to us that we're always striving and doing better because if you're not doing those things, eventually you're going to get left behind.

Brad Warren: Yeah. You know, in people like, you know, Jenny asked me all the time, or lots of people ask, like, when will enough be enough? Like when, you know, and it's like, I don't know when I'm racing Elon, when our rockets are racing from Mars.

And it's like, you know, it'll never happen, you know, it may be, but if I'm, that's my goal, let's put a rocket on Mars. And if I get to, you know, locations across Western Canada, then still be it. But I think, I think it's also where does your passion lie? Like my passion lies in the creation, the creation and the scale.

Like that's my true passion. There's a lot of people that it's not. Like a lot of entrepreneurs really wholeheartedly aren't honest with themselves. If they want to create a job. That's fine. That's extremely admirable. I mean, you're doing something that one out of a thousand people would do, open a sandwich shop, create yourself a job, and get to work when you want, and get to make good money, but base your plans around that.

I base my plans around putting a rocket on Mars. Like, have a goal or direction that you're going. And if you're not honest with yourself and what that direction is, you're in big trouble.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, I love that you said that because I've had multiple entrepreneurs on my, on my show say that. And I've felt the same way.

I've been in that same discussion where I've been asked, when is enough enough? And it's like, I don't know. I'll let you know if I ever get there, but I, I doubt I'm going to get there.

Brad Warren: Yeah. And I don't know if you find this too, but like there's parts in my life where I wish it wasn't like that. You know what I mean?

Like the constant moving of the goal posts, because you kind of sit there in the morning and you're like, okay, I'm going to stop being stressed out when I get through this location build. Okay. When this new company opens, I won't be stressed anymore. Okay. When this line of credit gets paid off, I won't be stressed anymore.

And then you're four years in and all this shit's happening. You're stressed. And you're like, Oh, you know, maybe there's a, maybe there's a thought process into just being, you know, but I don't know, I find like there, there's a, there's a way there, but then again, I don't know, I'm really unhappy when I'm bored, like if I'm just sitting around, I'm just, I'm not a, you know, I, I, I find happiness, so I just learned to live with it.

Kelly Kennedy: I had an interview with Ben Spangle and he was talking about how. Us as entrepreneurs, we need to learn to be happy with the journey and not focus so much on that goalpost because we're always going to move the goalpost. And so if you're always focused on that goalpost, what he was trying to encourage me to do was to try to enjoy more of the journey and not constantly be aiming for that next thing.

But one of the parts that I struggle with that is it's that constantly aiming for the next thing that keeps me going, that keeps me on point, that keeps me, you know, moving forward. I don't know. I don't want to call it like fresh or hot, but like, I feel like it's that constant striving that makes you successful.

That makes you not give up. That takes it to the next level. And I don't know, like, I get it. I get it. We want to like be content in the moment, but we always have someplace else we want to go.

Brad Warren: Yeah. And, and don't be like, I get it too. I probably have a very similar opinion to you. I get what he's saying. I mean, he's not wrong.

I find happiness, I think, in the creation. Yeah. But not in the journey, because the journey just changes all the time. I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this. Then I'm going to do that. Then I'm going to do this. And if I found happiness in the journey, man, I'd be sitting on the couch on Tuesday at noon playing video games, eating pizza.

Because like, what more of a journey do I need in four years? Like I've scaled to the point where it's, you know, It's almost detrimental like you can't make as many mistakes as I did in the course of four years. You don't get that kind of growth without learning from a ton of errors and it's uneducated to grow that much in four years.

Like we put ourself on the verge of bankruptcy just trying to keep up with it. But it's like if I was content or if I was happy with the journey, I probably, I might be bankrupt. I'm not sure. So I mean, I 100 percent understand because I think about that in my personal life all the time is when. When will I just be good with where I'm at?

But if I have six houseplants, I want nine houseplants. If there's a spot over by my window, and it's like, there's a spot by that window that I could stick a shade plant, alright.

Kelly Kennedy: Best make the money.

Brad Warren: Yeah. Hun, we're going to Home Depot. We don't have any money, you spend it on vans.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, we're about to we're about to blow.

blow our listeners minds with this one, Brad. So he talked about, you know, his growth plans in four years. I think most organizations, they might have a company in four years, maybe two. Brad, you are launching your 19th company this year.

Brad Warren: Yeah, yeah, it'll be four years in June, June 1st of 2020. June 1st was when the fir June 1st of 2020 was when the first company opened, and that was Boulevard Autoglass.

And it opened at the exact same time as Our Invisible Empire. And then very shortly after White Raven Accounting opened which without White Raven Accounting, none of this would exist. Let me be very clear. People are always like, oh, without my wife, I wouldn't be here. Literally, without, without White Raven Accounting and my wife being a CPA, that company blew up and it funded a ton of this stuff.

Same with Boulevard. Boulevard's been a juggernaut for us. But yeah, 19, and I mean, it sounds probably fancier than it is, like anybody can incorporate a business and put a website up. So, you know, telling the truth, like, I mean, there's three or four of them that are e commerce companies that just sell products online.

There's numerous, numerous of them that we have minority equity percentage that had had, you know, a couple of them that have been open for 10 or 20 years that we partnered to turn around and, you know, take them, you know, kind of drive them out of bankruptcy and get them profitable. So it just kind of all happened.

But when you open an entrepreneur, I guess, kind of playground or entrepreneur super center, like we did. Number one, everyone said we were crazy. Every single person said I was crazy. And then I'm like, oh shit, maybe I'm crazy. I'm like, there's a couple years in, I'm like, okay. They might be right. I'm not, I think I might be crazy.

We might want to pack it in here. Because it's going to take me 108 years to make the money back that I would have made in five years of working. But then a couple deals happened where we took some companies away from like six figure losses in the course of a year, like big, big losses. And it happened back to back.

And we had them both profitable within 90 days, 120 days after losing large sums of money for a couple of years. And that's when I was like, okay. No, maybe I'm not crazy all this time we spent developing this. It's actually working. But yeah, I mean, there's just such a mixture of businesses. But when you open an entrepreneur business consulting entrepreneur center and then the pandemic launches two months after you've been planning it for a year, I'm not, I wouldn't, I definitely don't want to say it's a lottery ticket because it hands down the scariest thing we've ever been through, but it definitely put a lot of businesses in the area of needing help.

And, you know, if we would have spent money on marketing during that time or had any money, it would have went way past what we could even handle just by referral base. We were maxed out. Yeah. So, I mean, it just kind of the timing of it was horrendous, but looking back on it for years, it's like, okay, I mean, the pandemic created some problems and we were able to help a lot of business.

So, yeah, it's been crazy, man. Crazy.

Kelly Kennedy: Dude. It is. Insanely crazy, but amazing, but absolutely amazing. I know when we first had this conversation, I was like, you did what? How did you do this? Like, how does anybody even even comprehend managing 19 different companies? I know like most people can't imagine doing two.

Brad Warren: Oh, phenomenal staff. Great owner operator partners. Like, we kind of adopted owner operator structure. There's been some key people, like my executive assistant, Shawna, has been with us literally since day one. Like, she was like vacuuming carpets in the new office when we opened the new offices. And, you know, without her, we'd all be dead in the water.

I think, you know, I, oh yeah, right. I'm not like, you're gonna edit out the f bomb, so we'll leave that, but her title on the, her title on the internet is interesting, because like, we do things different on the internet, because I don't really care, but yeah, man, amazing staff, like, and that's not just like, it's not just preaching it, like, I'm not that guy that's like, Oh, my staff is my, I hire very slow and I fire very fast. Yeah. If you're not honest and you're not clicking and the work isn't moving forward, you can't hit your deadlines, you can't hit your commitments. You will have a very short time period with the organization, but the good ones end up arguably being more important than me. Very quickly, like there's so many people.

It would be easier to have me disappear for three months than it would be probably to have at least 10 people in our organization like Kyle Catling. He's my business partner across our seven construction companies.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: And he's our director of construction and he owned and started 51 North Interiors.

That blew up. So like we're doing the planet fitness build, we're doing prehistoric dinosaur build, he has a school on the go, and now econoDecks is on fire, econobasements is on fire, spacesbasements is on fire, and we just have, and we're doing an electrical company which will be number 20. And then hopefully doing a plumbing company in six months, which will be number 21.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow.

Brad Warren: And then at that point in time, you find entrepreneurs that are running their own plumbing companies, but they're missing all the resources, all the marketing, all the stuff on the back end that scares the living shit out of them, the banking, the government access, the accounting, the digital part of it.

And as soon as you mix the guy that's very good at plumbing, With the office that's very good at everything else, it just lights on fire. And that's kind of what, it's kind of how we did what we did. Like some of them we started out 100 percent full of our autoglass is one of our 100 percent own companies.

But without Dale and Clemmon, I'm down there 10 hours a day. When I spend maybe two hours a month in Boulevard because our manager and shareholder down there is, he runs such a tight ship that without him, I can't do what I'm doing is delegation, delegation, and very, very good people.

Kelly Kennedy: One of the things that that I find really impressive is just the sheer broad scope of the businesses that you own.

I know a lot of people would say, You know, don't get into something that you haven't, you know, had a lot of experience in, but when you consider that you're doing everything from auto glass to interiors to future electrical and plumbing, that's got to be a little out of your wheelhouse. You know what would you say to those people who are telling you, like, why would you go into something that you've never done?

Brad Warren: You know, again, I'm, I'm maybe just wired a little different. I, I can learn things pretty quick. And I like my passion is learning. Like, I love learning. I don't watch a bunch of TV. I don't watch a bunch of movies. I learn, like, I love watching YouTube videos, learning new things, learning new ways of doing things.

But, but again, I would say part of them is right. I absorbed Econo Decks from the original founder and he moved to Australia. And wow, yeah. Did we struggle with that thing for a couple of years? Like, cause it's like, ah, decks, whatever. My dad built our deck when we were kids. This guy down the street built his deck.

How hard can this be? And then you're like, Oh shit, this is really hard. Like it's a very unique industry and you really need to know what you're doing. And it's just starting to click now with Kyle on board, running the construction and then partnering, you know, with a couple of guys that have been doing decks for 20 years.

I didn't, me and the original owner laugh about it when I talk to him now when he's out in Australia. And we laugh, like, because he thinks, like, you're just, you're just delusional. He called me delusional in a meeting when I absorbed the companies. And I'm like, all right, we'll see. And I love it when people tell me something can't happen.

Because I mean, and then at that point in time, it's like, okay, my ego is way too big at this point to let it fail. I'll just keep banging my head against the wall until it works. But now we laugh about it because I'm like, wow, were you right? Like you just didn't really realize losing a guy that had been building Decks for 15 years how crucial that was.

Kelly Kennedy: Sure.

Brad Warren: So again, a lot of it is about the people that you partner with and the people you hire and let in because I know so much more about Decks today. But without those resources, I'm not sure it would be where it is today.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, this model that you're doing is really, really interesting as well. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit more about how it works?

Brad Warren: Yeah, absolutely. Like with invisible empire, I mean, there's really three prongs to the business. Like we have the services end of things just like anybody else. I mean, that's how we pay our bills. That's how the bank account grows. That's how we grow the company and its services. It's just if you're an entrepreneur or a small business, you have a marketing firm.

You have an accounting firm, you have a bookkeeping firm, you have someone that does your social media, you might have someone that does this, does this, does this. We are a one stop shop for all of it. So, I mean, there's really nothing you can find except for legal and medical and even legal, we have lawyers on retainer that are amazing that we work with.

There's nothing that can't be done out of our office. So, from graphic design to social media to digital ad management to website to inventory to vehicle purchases, bank access. Government access, accounting, CPA, financial sign off. Like, every single thing is done out of one office. Because number one, we have employees in every department.

Because Invisible Empire is divided amongst four departments. Creative, execution, administrative, and financial. So those are our four areas. And even our new office kind of is built like a square with the areas. And, you know, And if it isn't, if we don't have someone hired in specific roles, we most likely have a company or an entrepreneur that does that.

Yeah. So like we don't have in house uniforms, like I don't buy direct from Nike, but we own a minority percentage of drive sportswear and promotions and they buy direct from everybody in the world.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: So at one point in time, it all just feeds into everybody.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: Like we just took on a minority equity percentage of a mechanic shop and he's been hounded With everybody within our organization that now has a mechanic on the books that they trust.

Kelly Kennedy: Sure.

Brad Warren: So it kind of just keeps feeding. And so we have the services area where people pay us. Like I'm going through working with Smith Cosmetics right now. And they're just phenomenal, phenomenal ladies. I'm having so much fun working with them. And I love them because they're so self aware. And they know exactly what they want.

And I love working with self aware people. That aren't, you know, because everybody's close to their business. But if they're willing to admit it, it's so much easier. Yeah. And we don't have a percentage of that business at all. Like we're doing SEO work for them. We're doing digital work for them. I've got them in, you know, small business kind of slash CEO, but I think CEO terms a little bullshit and small business.

So I crossed it off on the website and wrote, you know, small business management. But it's not just like business coaching, like they come in and work with me for two hours every week and I show them how I run my businesses. This is how you should run yours. Follow up on your sales, map them from year to year.

They're like, well, our February sales were really good to January. It's like, but they're two different months. You have to look at February 2024 to February of

Kelly Kennedy: 2023

Brad Warren: because then you're going to get an accurate comparison.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: You can't look at January to December. December is your Christmas month. Look at Christmas to Christmas year over year.

How have you grown year over year? Showing them how to manage their margin, their inventory. Like they had an SEO firm out in Toronto doing some pretty poor work for them. And, but it's like, what, It's not just marketing. It goes so much farther than that because what is your highest margin inventory brush that you're selling?

What are your lowest sales? Where's your most inventory at? Where's your most cash flow tied up? Where can you, there's so many things, if you think a marketing firm is going to fix it, they're not. Because a marketing firm can just push your online sales, but if you're selling a Lamborghini for 6. 8 million, no one's gonna buy it.

That's right. Yeah. We have the services end, and that's, you know, people can come to us for inventory management, business consulting, marketing, website builds, graphic design, anything. We have it all under one roof. Yeah. And then we have the equity partnership end of the company. Which, you know, we're pretty, at the beginning, it was like anything else.

You're taking any deal you can and begging anybody to work with you that you can. Now we've gained a bit of credibility. So now we're pretty picky on who we equity partner with. So we usually do a working partnership for the first year. And then if everybody's in line, then we'll do an equity partnership.

So we have services, working partnerships, and equity partnerships. Because you can partner companies through the government without actually swapping equity. Interesting. And then at that point in time, you know, if they're paying us back. Say 700 a month for a social media retainer, while if Invisible Empire owns 30 percent of the company, then that social media retainer goes down to 138 a month.

Wow. Because my staff becomes their staff.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: So any staff we have within our organization, they get paid. On their payroll, because we're business partners, and then at that point in time, we only make money if that company makes money.

Kelly Kennedy: Interesting, and in lieu, it actually drives the total cost of services down.

Brad Warren: 100%. So, it's kind of this like, like say we take an equity partnership of this new mechanic shop that we're working with. If he makes a bunch of money at the end of the year, Invisible Empire makes money. If he doesn't, Invisible Empire pretty much does everything that we do for him at cost. Like website gets built at cost, all his retainers at cost, business consulting, accounting, bookkeeping at cost.

And then if he goes and makes money, we make money. So it's very comfortable for their, them to wrap their head around.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: Because it's a trust

they're not getting hosed on marketing anymore. They're not getting a 10, 000 website built for them that doesn't perform. And they're now the 10, 000 website is 806.

And why would we mislead them Because we only make money if they make money. So now they trust everything because they're like, well shit, these guys don't really get paid unless we make money. Let's let them run with it. And they, the owner operator handles the mechanic side because we can't fix cars.

Yeah. But we handle everything else.

Kelly Kennedy: I love that you touched on the trust side of it, right? Trust is absolutely everything. Can you spend a little bit of time on that?

Brad Warren: Well, man, I could spend the rest of the show on it. It's kind of why we created Invisible Empire because not many people really see it like this.

But do you know how many small businesses out there are getting hosed by other small businesses? Oh, probably it's, it's in the 99 percentile because WestJet has its own marketing firm. Telus has its own marketing firm, like not their own firm, but their own department. So say you have a little marketing firm with four or five people in it.

And they're doing marketing services for another small business. Well, now that small business has to go come up with a couple grand a month. Yeah. To trust that that marketing firm knows exactly what they're doing. Is invested in the business and then that and then also trust that that small marketing firm is not trying to build their business and feed their family off the back of subpar results for another small business and then it just keeps going and going and going and I'm not the guy that criticizes other businesses, I'm just not, but the amount of accountants or bookkeepers Is Or marketing firms that we get involved with companies that have been paying these monthly retainers and services.

It's atrocious. Like, I mean, I think one of the biggest areas is bookkeepers and accountants. And I just, my wife runs White Raven Accounting and she's like a small business Batman for accounting because she actually advises the small business on what to do to make money. She doesn't just start logging GL codes and put in expenses.

Yeah. And it's different when you're looking out for that business. So if you own 40 percent of that company, you want it to be operating the best it possibly can be. Yeah. So it gets to remove the question of trust. Small businesses don't do marketing because they don't trust the marketing firm. And it's not the marketing firm's fault.

Kelly Kennedy: No.

Brad Warren: They're doing the best they can. For what they can do, but a lot of the other times it's like, hey, we need content or hey, we need this. And the small business owner doesn't care. He doesn't know how to do that. He doesn't care about social. He cares about fixing cars. Yeah. So then they wait for two months on this content and it's just a vicious circle.

You know, and so the trust in it, that's why people don't trust other people in small business because they're not looking out for the core profit of the business. They're looking out to feed their family and grow their marketing firm on Off the back of somebody else's core profit.

Kelly Kennedy: I agree, and I think ultimately one of the biggest challenges that small businesses face, and it's =don't know if this is like just a systemic problem or not, but we should be going into business with other people to achieve a set specific outcome, right?

And I think there's so many organizations, you spoke to marketing, they just go in and say, yeah, we'll do your marketing. Well, what's the outcome? I don't know. We'll see. Right? Like that's the problem. That is the problem with the system. There needs to be set defined goals, right? That you are working towards in any service and then at least at least when you hit those goals, everybody's feeling good about what they paid for.

But I think we live in a time where defining goals is something that people don't want to do.

Brad Warren: Oh, yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I can speak to it on both sides, right? Like, let's defend the marketing firms for a sec, because they have one of the worst jobs on the planet. I would never open a marketing firm because let's let's take Boulevard Autoglass for example, great example, that team, Dalen and his team, we relentlessly track data like we can tell you how many windshields were changed in 2006 Dodge Ram three years ago on Saturdays when it was sunny outside, like that's how far we go to tracking the data.

So say a marketing firm goes and we're going to charge you a grand a month Boulevard to do your marketing. Okay, well, your leads are up, you're top of the page here, you've moved from 17th on Google to 14th on Google, your SEO rankings here over here, we did this new backlink and this is working, and all this other smoke that they put in the report.

Okay, boulevard leads increase. Fair enough. Say they're getting 10 phone calls a day instead of 5. Well, the marketing firm's now done their job. So now you move over to Boulevard. Who's on the phones? What's the closing percentage? Mm-Hmm. . What's the average sale? How many jobs can you do a day? Are you staffed?

How many windshields can each technician install in a day? Does the person on the phones feel comfortable booking to the level that the business can handle it? Mm-Hmm? , are you in line with your competition? What are your margins like? What's your cost of goods sold? What's your labour percentage on each job?

And it just keeps going and going and going. So the marketing firms went and doubled Boulevard's lead. Well that doesn't mean Boulevard has the staff.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: That doesn't mean they're priced properly. It doesn't mean they have the inventory to service the customers. What if the person on the phones is closing at 12 percent because they don't care and they broke up with their girlfriend at that time and they're having a bad couple months.

Well then what does the owner of Boulevard do? Phone's the marketing firm. It says I'm slow and not making money. Where's all my work? And the marketing firm sitting there being like, Oh shit, but we're doing our job. We can't control what you do.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: And that's the benefit of our invisible empire is we have our fingers in every area of it.

So it just clicks like it just goes because marketing communicates with this communicates with inventory and we have weekly reports not monthly not quarterly and it connects them all and then you have it on the other side sorry like smith we were dealing with smith cosmetics and they were using a marketing firm hopefully they don't mind me saying that just like god i love these ladies i'm having so much fun working with them but they're using a marketing firm out east you And they send us this report of this SEO they're paying for for the last 12 months.

And I remember sitting there with Caden, who's just a wizard in SEO. He's one of my lead copywriters in digital marketing. And me and him are looking at this report and I'm like, What a bunch of smoke and bullshit this thing is. Like, it's 32 pages. Wow. God, does it look professional. They must have spent six hours putting this thing together.

The amount of graphs and it is beautiful. It should be hung up in a museum. And Caden looks at me and he's like, But they're not making money. I'm like, I know, they're not selling any more makeup brushes. This, this, our SEO is doing so quote unquote well.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: But the company financially is doing as poorly on the internet as they've done in two years.

Yeah. Marketing firms can manipulate those numbers to show that they're doing a good job in so many different ways than a mechanic. Or a cosmetician or anybody could never catch. That's the trust factor. I can build you reports across my organization on how I'm doing good in every area. Give me two days and I can promise you I can do it even if I'm doing poor in every area because the mechanic is not going to sit there and analyze those reports.

And if you remove that need from the mechanic, well then what does he get to focus on? Fixing vehicles, which is he's the best at and everything else he trusts is handled on the back end.

Kelly Kennedy: Brad, I absolutely love this. And you know what? I want you to help businesses today. I want you, we've talked about all of this smoke and mirrors stuff that's going on.

How can business do better?

Brad Warren: Come to our office and meet with us. You know, they could do better. Track your numbers, know your numbers religiously. Like you could pick any business, any business I have on the wall. What was the revenue last year? What's the revenue extrapolated for this year? What's the cost of goods sold at?

Where's the labor percentage running? Where's the gross profit running? How's their expenses? What's the net profit? How much money will be in that company's bank account at the end of the year, if they keep doing what they're doing? And I can answer that question for every single business we have, because you have to know those numbers in and out, because then you can pivot.

That's the first thing I say on every podcast, know your numbers. We meet with so many small businesses that have no clue if they're doing 200 grand a year in revenue. Or 600 grand a year in revenue and that is honest truth. And I'm not saying every business is like that. I'm not saying that. But there's a lot more like that than I thought there would have been.

A lot more. And I meet with them on a daily basis. Very few that we meet with. I think yet maybe one and that was EconoDecks. The original owner of EconoDecks when we first partnered with him he knew his numbers pretty good. Past that I don't think one business we've taken on could tell you what their net profit was last year.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow.

Brad Warren: I just, yeah. And I don't think they can tell you how much cashflow they have to keep going for the next six months. And that would be my first piece of advice. Know your numbers. Cause your numbers are your plan. Everything else is emotional. You think you pick the price in your market? You don't. The market picks the price in your market.

Period. Kia can't sell a Kia for a hundred grand. It doesn't work. Yeah. The market picks the price. And my second piece of advice I would have would be like, especially with staffing. Like it's just so. Every business we come across, everybody knows that their staff either aren't doing what they should be doing here, need to be upgraded over here, need to do, so do that.

Pave out two weeks of your month and just interview. Interview relentlessly all day and your mind will be blown. Most people don't interview, it's like, well I tried post on Kijiji, I don't get any applications. Well Indeed's free. Come see us, we'll write you a hiring ad, we'll post it on Indeed for you.

And our hiring people will email you the resumes and then you go do all the interviews and and you'll we get 50 resumes a week minimum from any post we do across any platform. Wow. So like hiring such a big thing. Don't be strict with your staff. Don't blame them for the company's problems because that's just uneducated.

Like, like we said, it's not the staff's fault, but if the staff aren't a fit. And the business is not benefiting from that staff member or commitments are not being made or you don't trust that person to be there when you're not there the second you wake up at one in the morning and one of your staff members pops into your head and you can't get back to sleep remove that person the next day you will find someone else.

I mean, we've removed shareholders from our organization that we were just terrified to do, and what you learn is in the next week or two, magically, that person is not there, but everything is getting done more efficient without them there. Because they're not, they're not in charge of these massive holes anymore.

And the Slack, it doesn't work magically like that all the time, but you'd be shocked at how often it does work.

Kelly Kennedy: Brad, if we're talking, you know, you talked about something kind of earlier on the show where you say that you'll go into an organization that's like right on the brink of bankruptcy and just bring them back.

And I think that's amazing. That is a hell of a skill set. Let's say that we're talking to an entrepreneur maybe his organization is suffering right now. Maybe they are on the brink of bankruptcy. What advice can you give them to, to, to turn this thing around?

Brad Warren: Oh seek help. Seek help in areas like, and sometimes that's a hard one because you don't know what you don't know.

And it's really hard to go to them and say, well, memorize your numbers. Well, and then they say, well, what does net profit mean? Well, and that's why I'm blessed to be working to work for the company I did for so long is my mentor was an ex future shop VP of operations numbers. And so my biggest thing that I got trained for 10 years is knowing every number of every branch across every province within the company, but I don't know how to knit a sweater like I don't know how to run a podcast.

I don't know how to build a deck, so it's really hard just to go to them, but it all starts with the numbers. So the three businesses that we have turned around that were, and I don't mean this figuratively, they were literally in the process of filing chapter 11. They were 30 to 60 days away from doing it.

And one of them, even the banks reached out to us and they said, Hey, I think we could use this. I don't think this thing needs to go under. Can you take a look at this? And so it, all three of them were a hundred percent revolving around the numbers. They were doing a million in revenue before the pandemic, the pandemic hit.

They went from a million in revenue to 400 grand a year in revenue. Their expenses didn't move. When you're doing a million in revenue, you might have 20, 30 grand a month in expenses and you're okay. As soon as you're doing 400 grand a year in revenue, you can't have 20 or 30 grand a month in expenses.

The math just doesn't add. Yeah. Two out of three of these businesses, the owner operators were just so close to the business.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm hmm.

Brad Warren: And they were trained in sales. So it's like, let's go sell more. Okay. We're, we're not making money. Our cash flow isn't working. We don't have money in the bank. Sell more.

Sell more. Sell more. Well, you can sell as much as you want. You're spending more than you can sell. Mm. Cut expenses. You don't need these things. Not anymore. Cause you're not doing the revenue you were doing. And so two out of three of them just didn't look at the expenses. We got involved in their online and like ask for help.

And online, if you think the world is not ran on the internet, your eyes are glued shot, like the internet runs everything. It's where 80, 90 percent of our leads come from in all companies. And you have to be good on the internet. And if you don't want to do things on the internet, then. You're ultimately going to bang your head against the wall a lot more than you need to do it.

So, it's a hard thing to say of just go fix this if you're on the verge, but what I could say is we love helping small businesses. Period. I get much more satisfaction in helping people, and I probably, if I didn't like helping people so much, then I'd probably be a lot richer than I am today. Jesus.

But come see us. Like, we'll sit with you for an hour or two, we'll try and guide you in the right direction and show you, but a lot of the times it's not just one thing. And businesses come to us and they're like, we're going under. We don't know what to do. Can you help us? And I think that's why I love my career so much, man.

It's because when you can look at someone and be like, this is not that bad.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: In three to six months, we'll have this fixed. This is, this is, this is where you need to go right here, right here, right here. And when they're crying in your boardroom, because they don't have to shut their business and they don't have to go back to work and they don't have to sell their house.

Like you just can't ask for a better career. You buy me as many Lamborghinis as you want. It's not going to make me. It's not going to make me go home at night and be like, okay, that was a good day, but being able to save that business is a good day. So, I mean, there's usually so much to it. I guess I say all the time, all businesses come to us and say, we need a cash injection.

Oh, we need a good social media campaign. All we need and that's what always happens. They come to us thinking they know what the problem is and by the time they meet with us for two hours, that problem they thought was their main problem ends up being eighth on the priority list. The core problem is never actually the problem.

You can't get every gambling addict in the world. Thanks. If you give him more money for the slot machines, he will get himself out of it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: It's not going to work. If you get a cash injection in a year, you will be in the same spot because the problem still exists.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree that it's like the process have to be fixed before the cap can help.

Brad Warren: Yeah. Even before marketing can help.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: Like, you can drive as many leads as you want. What's your closing percentage on the phone? Absolutely. Yeah. How is your competitor pricing? How's your margins? How good do you buy your inventory? Like, everything. You know, if you're e commerce, how often do you ship?

Like, there's just so many things to it before capital, marketing. Buying new trucks like that stuff is usually 7th or 8th. It usually starts with process, flow, structure, margins, numbers. That's where it usually starts.

Kelly Kennedy: You talked about something so critical and something that we like to track at Capital too.

And that's like, what is your closing percentage? Because it's absolutely critical. Like you said, we can bring in all the leads in the world. If your closing percentage is 10%, you don't mean there's not enough work in the world. It's going to help you. I know that when you come into an organization, this is one of the things that you focus on.

What tips do you give entrepreneurs to increase their closing percentages?

Brad Warren: Oh, wow. That's a good question. You know it depends on the industry that you're in. It's a loaded question for me, because in auto glass, you can increase your closing percentage in numerous different ways. You know, being quicker, auto glass is very emotional.

People want their windshield. They're staring at it. They get the crack. They want it. Increase your, increase your closing percentage by offering Saturdays, getting them in right away, picking up the phone. Like, and I know it sounds crazy, but if you want to increase your closing percentage, answer the phone in the second ring when someone calls your business.

Out of any business on our wall, man, out of 18 - 19, if someone doesn't answer the phone by the third ring, closing percentage drops 20%. Wow. Like, White Raven Accounting is on fire right now. Like, the amount of phone calls and emails they get a day right now for personal taxes, and these are 75, 80, 90 calls.

They could easily just not pick them up. Yeah, but the whole priority is that somebody picks up that phone because when we pick up that phone at White Raven Accounting and you get that person on that phone or you reply to that email within five minutes instead of a day or two, they're looking to get their personal taxes filed.

They're not reaching out to just you. They're reaching out to just you for an oil change. If you call them back in a day, they've scheduled it already. Yeah. You have to have that sense of urgency to that phone call. And our closing percentage goes from somewhere in the 70, 80 percent accounting different because it's like a license to print money, but if you don't get them on that phone or reply to that email within 15 minutes, it drops to 30 or 40.

Wow. Yeah, so I mean, across retail service, like, but if you're dealing with decks, you know, you have to increase your closing percentage by being very knowledgeable, having your quote very honest, like you can't give them a quote for eight grand for a deck and have the next guy at 12, you're almost worse off if you're missing a bunch of stuff on that quote, sure, oh, we don't need this, you don't need permits, like, make sure the information you're giving is extremely accurate.

And find different ways to approach the sales without sounding like you're selling, like they ever walked into the brick. It's like, oh my goodness. I was just at the brick. Oh, and I got, I love, the brick's made so many transitions. I have one by my house and I love it. But the up system that these guys run, like when you walk in there, it's like, ah, there's a 30 percent chance you guys should be in prison for this.

It's like, I get it. I get it. Okay, I get it. You're the one that's up. You've waited here all day for me to come in and buy a couch. I promise you, man, if I'm going to buy a couch, I will come find you, but I don't need your help buying a couch. Yeah. They're either leather or cloth and I either like the color I do or don't, but give me your, I got your face, babe.

Take a picture of his face. Go find him. So he gets the commission. We get how it works, but you got to find smoother ways to do it. Like, would you like a Saturday appointment? No, it's like, well, hey, we're open Saturdays. If that's more convenient for you or your family, Like just find a different approach to it that makes it comfortable for you, and if you're not comfortable selling something, don't sell it.

Or hire someone that is very comfortable selling that. Yeah. You know, like, but there's just so, with all the industries I'm in, like, there's different tactics in every industry, like Invisible Empire to increase closing percentage, it's very easy because We're very good at what we do, not in an arrogant fashion.

We just care more and we put more into it. Like our goal is to save the business, not to make money on marketing. Yeah, not to make money on business consulting. We don't care if we make money on marketing. We're making enough money in windshield.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. And so, oh man, man, we could go on all day. And I still have some things I want to talk to you about.

But, you know, I know there's lots of people listening right now who are thinking, you know what? I think we need to call our invisible empire. I think we need to talk to Brad because we need some help. How do they get a hold of you, Brad, if that is the case?

Brad Warren: Yeah, I mean you could call our landline at our office, you could go to the website you know, we have the email address on the website, fill out a form, send us an email, you could pop by, pop by, like, we're not those people man, I ban ties from the office, the bankers come to the office quarterly to meet with us and go over financials, cause they can't believe we can do what we can do, they're like, so you can just move financials any way you want, it's like, well yeah, we own the real estate, We charge the rent, we give the rent forgiveness, we own the marketing, so here, I'll back that out.

And they come and like, they just know not to come with their ties anymore. Like, we're sweatpants, kind of hoodies, kind of people, like we just love the process of creation in small business. So you could pop on in and be like, hey, What's going on? Someone would find time to sit with you, but yeah, we're pretty easy going, man.

So, you know, email, phone, website, social media. I mean, all the pretty basic stuff.

Kelly Kennedy: Cool. And you're based in Calgary. However, do you, like, do you offer these services across Canada? Like if a company from, you know, Saskatchewan called or BC called, would it be in your wheelhouse? What do you think?

Brad Warren: Oh yeah, easy.

I mean, we, all our branding is Alberta focused right now. I'm an Alberta kid. I grew up here. I love Alberta. I think it's one of the more competitive small business markets out there. We just move at a faster pace, even when we're being slower. But also, Yeah, it's just like, I don't know something about Alberta.

Like, we're so lucky to live here, man. We are so lucky. We don't have scorpions. We don't have tornadoes. Like we get sunshine. Like, you know, I stopped bitching about the winters a long time ago. So most of our branding is everything Alberta owned and operated Alberta owned and operated. But yeah, if the right company, and it's all about the people we work with for us, we don't take on everybody.

Like we're, we're actually not like, Oh, we need more of this. We need more of that. No, we're. We're pretty busy with what we have. It's about the person.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Brad Warren: Like if it's like, oh, I can't do sales because I don't have the time. Okay, we're probably not the right person to work with you because you do have the time.

You're just scared of it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Brad Warren: The ones that come in and say, I'm terrified of sales. Can you help me? Oh, those are the ones we love to work with.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Warren: You know, so yeah, of course, Saskatchewan, B. C. Like everything's so digital now. Yeah, we'd have no problem if we came across the right person in the right company, of course.

And if it's service based, yeah, we'll work with anybody because we're just charging out retainers.

Kelly Kennedy: Sure. Awesome. Brad, you know, you're, you're an incredibly successful person. You're an incredibly ambitious person. I know we have a lot of ambitious people listening to us right now. Entrepreneurs across the country, around the world.

If you could just give one piece of advice to them, what might that be?

Brad Warren: Oh, do I steal something from other podcasts? I mean, there's so many pieces of advice, man. Don't do what I did. Just don't do what I did. Put, put the money ahead of the creativity. Like put the family put the eating meals like I'm a wake up at 5 a.

1. kind of guy, not because I think powerful people have to do that, no I just go to bed at 9 and wake up at 5, it's just the way it works. But, don't do what I did. I scaled so fast because I got so caught up in how pretty everything looked. And, I wanted the best wraps, and the best vans, and the best trucks, and the best computers, and the best office space, and we scaled so fast.

That we, I forgot, I got caught in a year or two with a mayhem, I forgot to look at the profit in the cash flow, and it happens to the best of us, and I was trained in that area to always look at the profit in the cash flow, so like my mentor would be rolling over in his grave hearing me say this but you just get caught up in it.

Everything was going so well and things were moving and you see all this revenue and you see all these fancy things and new bands and radio ads and just everything's so exciting, but just because you have revenue does not mean you're making money like

put the money ahead of the creativity. There'll be a ton of time for the creativity at some point in time.

You can, Kyle Catling, my business partner in construction is a perfect example of that. He grinded it out. For the better half, two, three years before he came and partnered with us. And when he came and partnered with us, his company, even still today, might be the healthiest cash company out of all of them.

And he doesn't have one logo truck. He's just very good at what he does. And he just grinds it out every day. And there'll be time for that. And he knows that. So just, I would just learn from my biggest mistake. And if you don't have a wife, That owns White Raven Accounting that can bail you out of all your financial mistakes.

Put the profit ahead of the creativity. Don't get caught up in the excitement because the excitement won't be there in five years if there's no money.

Kelly Kennedy: True. Oh man, that's so huge. That's so huge, Brad.

Brad Warren: Yeah, and I didn't, I can tell you from experience that that was the biggest error I make. I got too excited, too ahead of myself, and I got too fancy with everything.

It costs way too much money.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, well, either way, congratulations on your success. I hope that it continues for you. I hope that you can save a ton of businesses, and I really appreciated having you on the show today.

Brad Warren: Oh man, it was awesome. I, I was, yeah, I was really excited to do this one and yeah, I, I, like I said, I think we could go on for days.

We could. So we'll just have . Oh man. I would love to. Yeah, I would love to. This is fun. Like I, I like the open-ended platforms like this, so I mean, I know I had a ton of fun. I appreciate you having me on.

Kelly Kennedy: No, I appreciate it having you. Yeah, appreciate it. Once again, if they wanna get ahold of you, what is the best way?

Brad Warren: www.ourinvisibleempire.com, so OUR Invisible empire do com and everything you need to know is on the website, phone numbers, emails, social media, all that stuff.

Kelly Kennedy: A mousing . Amazing. This has been episode 130 of the Business Development Podcast. We were graced with Brad Warren. founder and CEO of our invisible empire and I should say serial entrepreneur.

It was amazing having him. Until next time, you've been listening to the business development podcast and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in Sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www. capitalbd. ca. See you next time on the business development podcast.