Building Wealth, Exits, and a Legacy | Robert Indries

Rick Jordan  

What’s shaking? Hey, I’m Rick Jordan. Today, we’re going all in.

 

Robert Indries  

Okay, good, awesome,

 

Rick Jordan  

Brother and it’s Robert’s Indries. Is how you pronounce your name, right?

 

Robert Indries 

Perfect. Yeah, sweet

 

Rick Jordan  

Man, do you go by nicknames all like Bobby,

 

Robert Indries

Robert? 

 

Rick Jordan  

Okay, just gonna get going. That’s awesome. Well, awesome. Robert injuries, welcome my man. That was, that was great, you know, I don’t know, but I don’t think Bobby fits you, you know, now that I’m thinking about it

 

Robert Indries  

No  Me, neither. It’s, I never knew how they got to Bob, you know, from Robert, it’s like, okay, well, whatever. But no, I look at

 

Rick Jordan  

Robert F Kennedy, you know, and he goes by Bobby here and there, you know, people will call him Bobby, you know, affectionately and everything. Like I said before, you’re a happy guy. Maybe try it on for size here and there. I don’t know, see how your wife likes it

 

Robert Indries  

well. I mean, she also prefers Robert. And I have, for example, friends that are Anthony, and I would never call them Tony. Tony, you know, it’s like Anthony just sounds so much better. It’s like phonetically, you know? And so I’m with you. I just do that, or Richard, and I would never call them dick, Richard.

 

Rick Jordan  

Yeah, my full name is Richard, and I go by Rick, you know, it’s always Rick, my son, Rick is fine, exactly. My son is Richard, and it’s always Richard, because, to your point, he just has always looked like a Richard, right from when he was born. It’s like, that’s his name. There’s nothing else to call him, yeah, man. But I’m excited to talk to you today, because, I mean, there’s something that we mentioned, you know, Bobby Kennedy, and there’s a lot in this year, you know, especially in the US and in the election that you know. And I’m not making a political statement on this at all. I’m just relaying facts that I’ve read because, you know, it was a landslide, dude, and we’re not going to talk about the reasons behind the two candidates, but the biggest thing was the economic situation of the country. In exit polls that I saw that, you know, opinions have been out there, that the biggest reason that the Democrats lost is because they were out of touch with the fact. I think I saw one percentage on exit polls were 86% of voters as they were exiting the polls were saying that the primary decision factor for them in either direction was that they felt worse off financially in 2024 than they did four years ago. You know, 86% you know. So that’s, that’s really, like, one or two out of every 10 people actually was like, Hey, I’m doing okay with money, you know. And here’s you who has thriving businesses, plural, you know. And I know, I know what that takes, man, I know what it takes to have a thriving business and take it public. You know, some people think like it’s this crazy feat, you know, but it’s, it’s just having the right structures and strategies in place. But for you to have multiple active, seven figure businesses that continue to grow throughout the last four years is both impressive and it’s also what I’d love to dive into today, because and make it applicable to anybody, because, you know, even businesses, and I know I’m framing this up today, but for everybody listening, it’s like, this is where I want to go, because it means a lot to me for people to succeed in life, whether that’s growing business or business is or advancing your career, to be able to enhance your livelihood, either one man you know, and I bet you, what you’re going to talk About can apply to both, am I right? Yeah, 100% sweet brother. Well, so give me like a picture, like 2019 Where were you 2019 and then what took place over the four years? 

 

Robert Indries  

Well, in 2019 I mean, we’ve been growing for 12 years now, so this isn’t new, right? So my first company was 12 years ago, and every single year? Yeah? Well, the first three years, I didn’t make money, so let’s start there, right? It was three years I lost all of my life savings. I went into debt. It was not fun at all. 

 

Rick Jordan  

What does that mean to you? Because there’s a lot of, I get a feeling like you’re actually saying what you really mean. Because there’s a lot of people that have that story that pick it up. That’s not you, you know, I can tell that from from how you’re talking. Like, oh, I didn’t make money, I lost everything. That’s like, Well, how did you buy fucking groceries then, you know? And that’s why a lot of people say that, yeah, so it’s you really mean it, dude, yeah,

 

Robert Indries  

I was at the point where I could eat one Subway per day for the rest of the month, and that that’s it like if I figured out if I eat more than one Subway, what was like two, $3 out there? So I basically had, like less than 100 bucks to my name. And so if I wouldn’t have figured something out in that 30 days, I would have literally stored, you know, and I was on the other side of the planet, so all of my family and friends are in Europe, and at the time, I was in Mexico or somewhere else, you know. And very, very difficult, very difficult.

 

Rick Jordan  

That’s an interesting choice, too. Yeah, don’t mind me. So. Copy, because there’s a lot of dude, even in this there’s so much to unpack in what you’re saying for real. Because, you know, I I hear people as I’m sure you do that, say, oh, you know, things are really, really tight. And, you know, I try to stay fit. It’s intentional for me, you know, I try to eat well, even though I have cookies and burgers here and there, you know. But still, when you’re talking like, one Subway sandwich, man, like, that’s it. That’s what I always think of when it comes to financial struggles. It’s like people that tell me that they’ve been struggling and they’ve had, you know, quote, unquote, $100 to their name for the last six months. I’m like, but you’re still overweight. How? How the hell are you overweight if you have such restricted finances? Because, to your point, it’s like, whether it’s a Subway sandwich or It’s ramen noodles three times a day, which is about the same cost, you know exactly, you still should be not large, you know. And I’m not saying anything around that, but that’s like, a priority thing. It’s like, what? And I’m hitting hard, dude, I was doing this in a show yesterday too. It’s like, like, what’s the what’s the priority in your life? Is it surviving, or is it still like eating away your sorrows or drinking away your sorrows? You know, that’s the reality that you have to face. So dude, one Subway sandwich a day, like, literally, that’s what it was now,

 

Robert Indries  

now that you’re saying it, I think at that time, I weighed around 130 or 140 pounds. I was 60 kilograms, you know, like I was thin, like I would literally just eat one sandwich a day, right on,

 

Rick Jordan  

bro, which is what I would expect, you know, for somebody in those types of financial difficulties, exactly. Yeah,

 

Robert Indries  

you’re right. I didn’t even think of that. But yes, I was very thin. I remember the scale, even though I thought it’s a good thing and I could see my six pack, you know, I was happy.

 

Rick Jordan  

Probably not the best way to choose to eat less, but it’s no choice. Yeah. So

 

Robert Indries  

I was I was there because I had a philosophy about money that was wrong, and about my career in general. So I believe, because I read a lot of, you know, Tony Robbins, you know, and things like that. So, like a lot of people, pumping, yeah, man, yeah. So I took the decision, that’s

 

Rick Jordan  

good stuff to dive into,

 

Robert Indries  

yeah, the only issues is that I misread it. I misinterpreted it. You know, when I was younger. And so I interpreted it as I will give the world my all, and I won’t ask for anything in return, and I will be given based on how much I give. Oh, wow. And that in business does not work that way. So we will do projects, and we would do amazing work, you know, and I would tell people whatever you think it’s worth. You know, just pay me that. And it was not working. It really wasn’t working. And so I realized that it wasn’t going anywhere. And the point of change for me was that I before I left Europe, I would always do a tour of my relatives, because I would be gone for like, half a year, a year, or whatever, and I would be traveling. And so I would do a tour. And I visited my grandmother, and she was already very old and ill, and so she said, Robert, I really hope that you know, by the time you’re back, I won’t be here anymore, right? Because she didn’t like her life anymore, right? Like she was just bed, bedridden for them, a lot of regrets,

 

Rick Jordan  

yeah, I

 

Robert Indries  

get you, yeah. And so yeah, she was, she was in that state, and then I basically had joked about it at the time, you know, I was like, come on, Grandma, what are you talking about? You know, just stop the nonsense, you know, like, we will be right here, you know. So, so then I leave, and then during that six month period when I was in Latin America, at one point, I get a call from my aunt because my mother couldn’t talk, and I her sister, my aunt called me, you know, and said, my grandmother passed away, right? So I got so, so upset because that woman raised me until I was 10 years old, because both my mother and my father were working, and they couldn’t, you know, spend time with me. So I was basically raised my by my grandma, and I literally thought, and like, this woman raised me, like gave me, you know, 10 years of her life, you know, so that I can become who I am, and what do I have to show for? You know, I’m bankrupt, you know, I’m starving, and I’m in the middle of nowhere, you know, and so on. It was, it was a very low moment, because I felt that I really let her down, like she invested so much love and time and energy and education and so on, dude,

 

Rick Jordan  

it’s good to have that outside pressure.

 

Robert Indries  

It’s good. I would have preferred it some other way. Yeah.

 

Rick Jordan  

I mean, I don’t think anybody would want that type of outside pressure. Sure, but I can’t remember what I was reading the other day, but it was like two things and that actually truly can cause change. And one of them is outside pressure, like, it’s one of the only two ways to actually enforce a change otherwise. Oh, the other was intentional action. You know, it’s either intentional action or outside pressure. Those are the only two things that cause change. Yeah. So, yeah, I’m sure you would have rather have had something different, yeah, beyond that, man, but that’s cool, that even in that and she still served an amazing purpose in your life. She

 

Robert Indries  

did. I i At that point, like, cried for three days, like I was uncontrollable. I was so upset, so down, but I said that I would never again work for free, other than if it’s intentional, pro bono work or volunteering, or whatever. But as long as it’s a project, that you’re a business and you need technology or you need marketing or whatever you need, you need to pay for it in advance every single time too,

 

Rick Jordan  

because that’s some, I mean, it’s an issue of you’re not the first one that I’ve ever heard of this too. And, dude, I suffer from it sometimes too, man, is that I I’ll give and give, but I won’t ask for for a fair exchange. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, some of its generosity, but then others, it has to do with understanding your own value, that you provide your own self worth,

 

Robert Indries  

yeah, yeah, and, and so I dealt with that. And when I made that decision, the first month, I made around whatever 100 something dollars. It’s more subway then, yeah, I had enough to eat for another month. You know for sure. The month after that, I made like 500 the month after that, I made like 750 or whatever, close 1000 then I made 1000 something. So long story short, exactly one year to that day, when my grandma passed, one year later, I was making 17,000 grand in profit, right? 17,000 sorry, in profit. So just in one year, in one year, in one year, I went from almost zero to, you know, basically almost a quarter million dollar business, right?

 

Rick Jordan  

Pressure, sucks, but it does the job, doesn’t it? Dude, it did for me.

 

Robert Indries  

It did. It really changed my optics on, you know, asking for money and so on, and cash flow and everything around that. And it just skyrocketed from there or so. We went from 1517, grand a year, next year at that time, I think we had like 60 something. The year after that, we had over 100 a month, you know, and so on. And so on. And so it just kept growing and growing growing and I kept adding businesses as time went on. So I add, on average, I added one business per year to my portfolio, and all of it is with intention. So I had 11 businesses until now and then. Basically, I had, let’s say, three good luck exits, you know. So because, like, exits are are not easy, you know, to have a good exit to a strategic buyer that gets the value and actually can maximize the value of what you’ve created, that’s not easy. So we’ve had three of those exits, a little under 20 million in total. Deal value. Nice. Thank you. 

 

Rick Jordan  

This is just in 10 years. 10 ish years, right? 12 years, yeah, yeah,

 

Robert Indries  

yeah. Exactly does take time.

 

Rick Jordan  

I think there’s a misconception too, that you know, it’ll take 12 months, rather than 12 years, to do these kinds of things. But this is the thing, though, man, I want to, I want to, you know, I wish I could just high five you and hug you right now, because you’re being vulnerable. First, which dude I so appreciate, and being so transparent. And the second is that you are really hitting your the nail on the head in that, you know, people try to overestimate what they can accomplish, you know, in such a short period of time, but then also undermate, underestimate at the same time, you know, because they’ll have these fantasies of all of a sudden, I’m going to have a million dollar business in a year, which is possible in some areas, but the reality is more like what you walk through to where in just a year’s time. And this is the important part, dude, that I think is probably going to be the most important. To be the most important thing of this episode today, in just a year’s time, you went from being 130 pounds, having a six pack for the wrong reasons, right, spending only, only having $100 your name to buy subway once a day for a month, to having $17,000 in profit on a monthly basis in just 12 months. That’s it, and that’s because of outside pressure and because you responded to it in the appropriate way. So like I said, dude, high fives and hugs all the way around. Man, that’s, that’s awesome.

 

Robert Indries  

Thank you. Yeah, it’s, it’s something that you. And people go through, as you said, you know, either intentionally or force, forcibly or whatever the word is, right? Yeah, in my case, it was force, because I didn’t want to change. I wanted to believe my belief system at the time, right? I wanted to believe that I can just do good and be good, and good things will happen to me. But then I learned the lesson that I need to ask for money for, you know, whatever it is, I do change exactly what you’re worth, yeah,

 

Rick Jordan  

exactly like, truly worth, not what, not what other people might, might have told you when you were a kid that you’re worth, right? But truly what you’re worth, you know, and you can engage things on the outside, dude, that’s, that’s awesome. Can I ask? You know, almost like, well, it’s personal and selfish reasons here, right? Though, you continue to add these businesses over the course of 12 years to where you got up to 11. I caught what you said there. You know, how were you able to structure those? Because, I mean, most people be like, Holy hell, 11 businesses. You know, where it’s like, I’m focused on just one producing the revenue of your 11 and some you know, versus but it’s intriguing to me from a scalability perspective, how are you able to do all, all of those you know, and and what was your involvement in those? Did you put the you know, people in charge and play with just give me a quick framework that you went off of.

 

Robert Indries  

So I actually explained all of the framework in the book on shackled. We’ve launched a book earlier this year. I written like 300 something pages, or whatever it is the book.

 

Rick Jordan  

Well, then everybody needs to go buy it. And I will do, yeah, man, unshackled, I’m assuming available everywhere, Amazon, yeah, everywhere

 

Robert Indries  

audiobook is coming out, I think in maybe February or March, the publisher just said, Do not release the audiobook at the same time as the print version, because you want the print version to sell copies, and then after that, people get the audiobook. It’s like, it’s like you get the opportunity to launch twice.

 

Rick Jordan  

That makes sense. So like, a year later, right?

 

Robert Indries  

Six months minimum. Basically give it at least six months from the launch of the book to the launch of the audiobook. I wanted to launch the audiobook because I honestly listen to most of the stuff that I read. Right? I just search for audiobook versions, and when they don’t have it, they’re like, Okay, fine, I’ll get the book, but I do get the book, you know? So I did get them. I get the book, and then I read the chapters that interest me, and then later I get the audiobook. So it’s perfectly logical business decision. So they’re the specialist. I just wonder, with the publisher, we have a great New York publisher, right? That’s working where it’s fastest growing publisher in the US, that’s cool. We really like that. And then it was, it was very cool because we gave the manuscript to some high up people, because we really wanted to get their feedback on the book and on what we talked about. Yeah. And we were blown away by the responses. So we got, we got pulled responses from, imagine the the former president of Warner Brothers International. Oh, wow. We got one of the sharks from Shark Tank. You know, Kevin Harrington, one of the originals. 

 

Rick Jordan  

He’s a very good friend of mine. Yeah. Oh, nice, nice. So he gave

 

Robert Indries  

us an endorsement. We got. Who else? The founder of Uggs boots, Brian Smith, I believe, founder of Priceline, Jeff Hoffman, like so many people,

 

Rick Jordan  

yeah, yeah.

 

Robert Indries  

They’re like, yeah. This is amazing. I love this part about the book and so on. Is like, so, so cool. And we got like 20 something endorsements, so we put most of them on the book. It was, it was very nice. I really, I really enjoyed the process, and I we really did. I’ve written it with my co author, Aaron. Everything I do, I do in partnership. I never work well alone. For some reason I don’t like it. I don’t like working alone. I thrive in community, and I’m always the support person, and I think this is how I could get to these many businesses. I like to think I don’t have any ego in anything I do. So I don’t need to be the face or, you know, the anything. I don’t need to be anything, you know. I just want to support the people you know that I work with, and I think that has helped me tremendously, even, like, I was born in the era of video games, yeah, and we played a lot of multiplayer games with my friends,

 

Rick Jordan  

same dude, all the way back to gold. And I yeah, when Nintendo 64 Yeah. And

 

Robert Indries  

all in all of the games, the co op games and the team games, I was always the support role, right? I was always either the tank or the healer or something, you know, like, I would always help my team in some capacity, right? And that’s what I enjoyed. I loved being the guy that helped the team win, you know, not not school, not the, not the main damage dealer, the main guy of the I don’t. Didn’t care. I’m actually a pacifist. I used to play violin games, you know, like where you like, five versus five or whatever. But I tend to not like to kill anyone. You know. I tend to just help the team, you know, do whatever they need to do strategically,

 

Rick Jordan  

even in like, Call of Duty or something like that. Or, you know, you’re like, I’m not shooting anybody, no problem. I’ll go grab you some extra health or some extra ammo or something. Yeah, Mario Kart, nope, nope. I will block for you, but I will not throw that red shell. Yeah,

 

Robert Indries  

that’s great. I like I like it, and I was always that type of person. I really enjoy it. And whenever we had those type of events, you know, whether that’s games or that’s in, you know, a reality, I thrive on seeing people be incredibly happy with what we have accomplished, yeah, man, you know, and that at the end of the day, that’s so rewarding for me. You know, even if, like, you would play a game, or you would do something in real life, and you lost, but you enjoyed the product. You learned this. Hey, let’s do this. Next time you try and do this, you try and do that, we will give each other feedback that that’s so cool, right? You can do that because in business, you lose 90% of the time. You lose you it’s just you can’t win. And people think that, you know, we had these businesses and we had these exits, and we made millions, and they think like it’s win, win, win, win, win. But the reality is that you lost, lost, lost, lost, lost so many times, right? Like he lost the, for example, bad hiring decisions. How much time, money, you know, energy lost on hundreds of bad hiring decisions that I’ve made. I mean,

 

Rick Jordan  

I consume a lot of content, too. And something that really resonated with me the other day was, you know, someone posting around to make my first 100,000 I lost my first 10 Yeah, to make my first million, I lost 100,000 to make my first 10 million, I lost a million dollars. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It’s insane, but that’s, that’s how it is. That’s they phrase it as losing, you know, and I would say it’s more like investing, right? It’s investing in the failures in order to have the wins. That’s so important, man, yeah, yeah.

 

Robert Indries  

The only thing is that there’s a concept of fail, quickly, fail, fast, fail, often, whatever you know, like these things, they’re on failing, and people wear this shield of, I’m failing more than you are, so I will win eventually, not true. You can literally fail for the rest of your life and never make it so please be very careful.

 

Rick Jordan  

I’m laughing because it’s so true, but that’s a, it’s almost like, like, there’s a, there’s a glorification of failure, yeah, very similar to how there’s a glorification of hustle culture or grind culture. You know, it’s like, that’s great, it’s essential to learn the lessons. But I think that’s the difference, you know, because if you’re failing, and you continue to fail, you get like, that, dude, you could fail the rest of your life, like you’re saying, and never make it, because you’re not taking the lessons from those failures 100%

 

Robert Indries  

I just read the community post from, I think it was Alex from Oz, or something like a picture from, like, 1020 years ago, whatever, before anyone knew him, and he spent $3,000 and back then, $3,000 a lot of money. Even now it’s like significant, but back then, you know, dollars, you know, because that was

 

Rick Jordan  

like 1020 years probably when he was starting his first gym.

 

Robert Indries  

 Yeah, before, before? Yeah, he invested in an in an ad scores or so Google or Facebook or something, ad scores, right? It was $3,000 right? And everyone was telling you, oh, waste of money, and so on and so forth. Right? Now, he creates what some of the most effective funnels on the internet, right, for selling whatever his stuff is, that’s basically what he sells with his franchise, right? The funnel that just churns money, you know, for whatever it is you bought from him. So, so that’s what he does. And, you know, he he invested that. And I’m sure his first campaign sucked. I’m sure they were horrible, you know, but he learned how to create ad campaigns and landing pages and everything. And then, with those lessons, then let’s say he lost 500 bucks, and then he lost another 500 bucks, but then the second loss maybe generated the lead, right? But it was $500 a lead, but it was still a lead, you know? And then the second $500 maybe got him three leads or four leads, whatever, right? And so that’s what’s most important, that you keep evolving. As long as you keep evolving and your results are better and better and better every week or every month, it depends how ambitious you are, how often you want to grow, then you can basically script Your future, right? It’s what I can’t remember. Stephen COVID. Said it or the other guy, but they said, probably Peter Drucker said that the best way to foresee the future is to create it, you know? So you’re literally creating it bit by bit by putting in place everything you need so that your vision becomes a reality. So let’s say your vision is to have, you know, an amazing restaurant. Okay, well, what are some of the things you know you need to know how to do. You need to know how to, you know, talk with vendors, how to get good prices, good offers for your fresh food. You need to know how to cook, right? Because if you don’t know, you don’t know, yeah, right. How are you going to give feedback to the chef? How are you going to know if, like, whatever, like, you need to know some basics, right? You need to know some form of, you know, marketing, some form of, you know, whatever, like you need to learn these things. You take those lessons. You do all of that, maybe whilst you’re a chef, or whilst you’re a waiter, or whilst you’re doing something else, right? So you don’t starve on $2 a day like I have. And then you keep learning those lessons from within, and you don’t know what the future will hold. Maybe the business like maybe the restaurant tour that you’re working for, maybe they’ll say, hey, I really like you. I would like you to go to the city and open a restaurant for me there. And then you really get the experience of wearing a restaurant and doing everything right and so on. And you might get to keep 70% of that, and the other guy keeps 30 right, like because you might negotiate or whatever, 5050, doesn’t matter. But if you’re very good, you can then open another city, another city, and if you don’t have any ego, and there’s another quote that says, so many, so many more things would get done if no one would care who gets the credit, right? And so if, if you don’t care about the name, or maybe you work on it with that guy, maybe you will own that chain one day, right? Like you can literally buy the other guy out, and you wouldn’t be unique in that this has happened for sure. So many times when an employee, Agent grows to, you know, Director, VP, you know, President level, and then buys out, and then, you know, takes it from there, yeah, man, yeah. It’s very cool. And I think a lot a lot of amazing things can happen if you learn your lessons, as you said earlier, and then implement those so that you just keep evolving and get closer and closer to

 

Rick Jordan  

religion. Yeah, that’s a man I love that you got on a roll there. If I can circle back as we as we close this out, because I was asking, you know, your your book sounds phenomenal. You know, I’m definitely getting it. I think everybody should unshackled, right?

 

Robert Indries  

Yeah, the seven levels of business excellence,

 

Rick Jordan  

that’s incredible, yeah, can you give us, like, the like, a quick overview? Don’t to give us everything, because I want everybody to buy your book. But just according to my question, it’s like, what was the way that you were able to establish all of these businesses and have them be successful? Just a summary, sure.

 

Robert Indries  

So the very first, most important thing is that you always need to go back to basics, because if you have your basics covered, you will always win. Cover your fundamentals, cover your basics, and you’ll always win. So some of the basics are, for example, start with the end in mind. Never start a project, a business, anything without knowing exactly where you’re going, right? So even if you’re making a hiring decision, you need to envision exactly how that role is going to look like. How are they going to succeed? What does a day in their life look like? You know, what does amazing performance look like like? You need to envision everything about what it is that you want to do. If it’s restaurant, how is it going to look? How are people going to be treated? All of that you describe, and we explain in the book how to do that. So that’s one principle. The other principle is the principle of validation. You need to validate all of your assumptions because the thing that costs most money, time, capital and lives, because lives are measured in dreams, if you don’t achieve your dream, it’s a wasted life to a certain extent, right? For sure, not doing what you wanted to do. So one of the things that waste lives is the lack of validation. Like I we talk about this, we have the seven levels. The first level is level zero, right? So are

 

Rick Jordan  

you talking about your own validation or so you validating somebody else, the validation

 

Robert Indries  

of the product or the idea or the business

 

Rick Jordan  

reason why what you’re doing matters?

 

Robert Indries  

No, no, no, no. The validation is, is, is at the core of making sure you actually have a market for what you want to do. So, for example, if you want to sell marketing, and, you know, devise the product, and then before you create the business, before you do anything, try and sell it

 

Rick Jordan  

exactly, right? Yep, it has to matter to people exactly they want to, need to, want to buy it. That’s what, how it matters, yeah, with

 

Robert Indries  

actual money, not just, yeah, I’ll buy it. No problem. No, no. Here’s the link. Get your credit card in there, and I’ll do it tomorrow. Final, check up tomorrow to see if you have. Right? And so you have to collect on that before you do anything. If you don’t validate, like, I have an M and a person, they are, they are a seller side person, and I have some businesses for sale. And there they literally asked me about validation, which I thought is amazing. I immediately resonated with them. I said, you can rest assure 100% of my businesses are validated, even if they’re not generating almost any revenue. I’ve sold that to 150 people, right? And they are paying me monthly for it and so on. Like, maybe it’s not making a million, but it’s working. People love it. The feedback is great. So if someone you know comes in, puts marketing dollars on top, they can just skyrocket it from where i created,

 

Rick Jordan  

giving them all the ingredients of the cake. And you’ve baked the cake before, over and over and over again, you just decided not to bake that particular cake anymore, but you still know the recipe.

 

Robert Indries  

Yeah, exactly, yeah. So I this year I became a father, right? So I’m readjusting my priorities and my time and so on. So I said, let me see if I can sell a few of my businesses. So I reduced the amount of time I spent a week. So I started that maybe three weeks ago, and I already have offers for a few of them. So that’s awesome, man, I I’ll, I’ll probably sell three more, you know, knock on wood businesses by, you know, maybe Jan, Feb. So we’ll see how that goes. That will open up a lot of time. They’ll put me in a very good financial position. They’ll put my employees in a good financial position, because I give them bonuses as well when we exit. Always give them, you know, like a significant amount, half, half a year salary, or whatever, something, you know, so we’ll see, depends on the offer. Because some people are very they like negotiating a lot, right? You don’t, you don’t get good offers. Would

 

Rick Jordan  

you say when it comes to M and A right now, because I’m curious, I’m in this too, would you say it’s more of a seller’s market or a buyer’s market right now, and maybe it’s dependent on

 

Robert Indries  

industry. You nailed it on the head. It’s dependent on industry. Every industry will be different. So in real estate, for example, this is the time to buy up things that are cheap, because they will stay at the same price for a long time, and then they will skyrocket at one point, like 2x 3x or whatever you know, because of all of the inflation that’s going to come in. And like, for example, let’s say you have 10 acres of land that you could buy for like 100 grand, or whatever, you know, and it’s under value, like, it should be worth 150, or 200 grand, whatever. You might not be able to sell that particular plot of land for like, 510, years. But when you’re gonna sell it, you’ll sell it for like, 300 or $400,000 you know, because it’s literally just because of inflation, nothing is gonna be at that price, right? Good place to store your cash in terms of everything else, I think it’s a ripe market for everything, for everyone that has a plan. It’s an amazing market if you have a plan, if you don’t have a plan, if you’re going day to day. It’s very dangerous right now, because a volatile market kills everyone that doesn’t have a plan. 

 

Rick Jordan  

It’s ruthless individuals, no matter how hard it was even to execute that plan. It’s just even having the plan to begin with. Yes,

 

Robert Indries  

exactly. So if you have a plan, let’s say your plan is to create a conglomerate of digital agencies to do this, or to go IP or to do whatever. You have a plan. You have structure in place. You know how to do it. You’re working with the M and A consultants. You’re doing everything by the books. You know everyone can say, hey, no, you know you should be selling if you have an agency, but because that’s maybe a rhetoric, maybe, if this isn’t the rhetoric I’m just saying, like, as an example, if that’s rhetoric, then it’s a it’s a perfect time to buy, right? Because then you can buy up, you know, like 10 marketing agencies, and then have this conglomerate of 150 companies that you get 150 employees that are making, you know, five, 10 million a year that now you can sell to WPP, you know, for whatever, 20 million. And maybe you spent 5 million in buying them, you know, yeah. And so if you have a plan and it, you know, you tick all of the boxes you validate, as we explained in the book, everything is explained in the book, you know, step by step, then it’s a good place to either buy or sell. So in my case, the reason why I want to sell some of these businesses is to get some of my time back so that I can then focus on other parts. Oh, for sure, I realized that I function best when I have time to think, when I my biggest values are building partnerships, building strong partnerships with people, where we can win, win in both cases and strategic thinking. Yeah, you’re prioritizing your time

 

Rick Jordan  

and. Far as what you feel your lane should be, was everybody’s guilty of this, and it’s not even bad, because you, you pour and invest your time into things for so long to grow it, but you start to recognize it’s like, that’s not what I really wanted to do. You know, it was successful because I did it, because I could, you know, and now that I’ve put it to a certain part I’ve impacted some lives with this. It’s like, now it’s like, what about me? You know, let’s get back to my side of this to be able to figure out, because it’s important, man, because it’s not even, it’s not even a self list or a self centered thing, when you regroup, is the bad is a bad word? I think it’d be more like, realign, a better word, realign. Yeah, to be like, what’s serving me? Maybe that was good five years ago, but now it’s a realignment. What’s gonna work for me for the next five years? What’s gonna be in alignment with my life and my priorities, my dreams for the next five years?

 

Robert Indries  

Yeah, yeah. 100% and I really like people that, I mean, I like all people in general, but I like I resonate most with other people that plan and strategize so people can, people look at acquisitions and, you know, exits and so on and so forth, like it’s a thing that just happened. Typically, you spent 369, 12 months to get that acquisition or that exit

 

Rick Jordan  

It takes so long validate that from experience, yes. So yeah. 

 

Robert Indries  

So I want to have my second child next year, right? And so if I want to be out of

 

Rick Jordan  

that takes nine months too, exactly I need to start now. Yeah, right.

 

Robert Indries  

I can’t play exactly when my next child is being born, okay, let me sell my businesses now. No, it doesn’t work like that, right? You need time, and people do their due diligence, and they ask for PNLs, and they ask for testimonials, and they ask for this, and you have to sign NDAs, and you have to be careful. How much information do you give them without, you know, it is detrimental to your business because they own 10 other businesses like yours, you know, so you need to be careful? And it’s, it’s a lot of planning and due diligence. And so if you have, again, your vision straight, and the book starts with this, it starts with, let’s, let’s get the basis straight. Let’s have a vision. My vision for the next, let’s say, 10 years, is that we have a family of four children, right? God willing. You know, everything goes well. We have a family of four children, and I spend half of my day with my children, yeah, right. That’s beautiful. Like, half, literally, half of it, because I, I love it, like, I’m, I’m so corny I watch, you know, family movies, you know, like, one of my favorite movies is The Blind Side. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, amazing, amazing story. And we have basically, like we, my wife and I envision together, and we envision these big Christmas dinners, you know, and and Easter and, you know, everything, like with everyone together. So we have a lot of joy, even from the imagination of that event, right? And so imagine how much joy we get from the actual event when we get there, right? Yeah, okay, like with children themselves, like our our child, Olivia, fills us with so much joy. You would never imagine this level of love and connection to another human being, right? And so it’s very cool. And so that’s my vision for next 10 years. And so in order for me to get there, I can’t, I mean, I can be, but I don’t want to be at the helm, you know, of eight businesses, maybe I’ll have 234, right? And so that takes years to get there for me to wind down right, and to get good offers for everything I’m doing, and to consolidate my efforts and my team and my generals, that’s how you call them. They’re my, like, General,

 

Rick Jordan  

strategic places. Well, that’s part of your framework that I was getting at, right? You need to have a general, yeah, yeah,

 

Robert Indries  

yeah. I have generals in all key areas, and then I re-consolidate that key staff, and then we, you know, push towards something else.

 

Rick Jordan  

I love it, brother, dude, I think you just laid out the framework for designing your life. Over the last 30 minutes, we’ve been talking just absolutely incredible. Seriously, I appreciate you coming on, Robert, thank you. This has been awesome. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Well, everybody needs to buy your book, dude, unshackled, and then the audiobooks coming out in February. So man, thanks for enlightening me today. It’s been great. Thank you for the questions.

 

Robert Indries  

I really enjoyed them.