My Worst Investment Ever October 2022
Ep612: Kim Barrett – Check Your Capacity Before You Hire
BIO: Kim Barrett is a world-renowned million-dollar marketing strategist with a focus on Facebook. Kim is an international speaker and trainer, having taught marketing worldwide and helping businesses grow to six, seven, and even eight figures.
STORY: Kim had a successful start to his business. He was bringing in lots of sales, and he felt he needed more staff to handle these sales. The problem was that he spent too much on those people without looking at their achievements and his team’s capacity limits.
LEARNING: Have a clear understanding of your business numbers. Dive deep into the capacity that you have before hiring. Avoid a business model that makes it easy to grow costs and hard to increase revenues.
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Ep.611: Rick Jordan – Be Careful When Helping Friends
BIO: Rick is the Founder & CEO of ReachOut Technology, which just had its initial public offering. He appears on global media and speaks on stages across the United States as an inspirational speaker, cybersecurity expert, and mindset motivator.
STORY: Rick wanted to bail out a struggling friend, so he offered to buy his business. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a legal structure during the acquisition to include a non-compete clause. Six months later, his friend started another company and took back the clients Rick had acquired from the sale.
LEARNING: Get the proper legal structure when buying a business. Refrain from letting emotion drive your decisions when investing. There’s no such thing as a bad asset, just a bad price.
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Ep610: Conor Riley – Don’t Throw Good Money After Bad Money
BIO: Conor Riley is a global executive who has worked in investment banking, private equity, and consumer products.
STORY: Conor heard about the Washington Mutual stock from his workout buddy. He invested without doing any research. The stock price dropped significantly when the global financial crisis hit in 2008. Conor thought it was best to buy more. The price never went up. The company finally went under. Conor lost 70% of his net worth.
LEARNING: Don’t have more than 8% of your portfolio in a single thing. Do your own research. If an investment is going wrong, get out as quickly as you can.
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Ep609: Dave Clare – Don’t Buy Stuff to Band-aid Your Unhappiness
BIO: For over two decades, Dave Clare has been a practitioner who has led multiple businesses in and through commercially and organizationally challenging times.
STORY: Dave was trying to fill up his unhappy life and thought investing in a community leadership center was the answer. The center only hemorrhaged money and never brought in any revenue.
LEARNING: Don’t buy stuff just because you’re trying to make yourself feel happy. Keep the absolute minimum on costs, and drive revenue. Never compare your insides to other people’s outsides.
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Ep608: Craig Handley – Revenue Is Your Shield From Your Mistakes
BIO: Craig Handley is an author of a best-selling book: Hired to Quit, Inspired to Stay: How Focusing on Employee Dreams Built an Exceptional Culture and an Unbreakable Company. He is a musician writing music for artists all over the world.
STORY: Craig’s company invested over a million dollars in software that was never used.
LEARNING: Find a niche and concentrate on that. Review your financial statements monthly.
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Ep607: Amit Kumar – Invest Long-term but Don’t Forget About It
BIO: Amit Kumar is a nuclear scientist turned serial entrepreneur who never thought of being an entrepreneur and now coaching and mentoring thousands of small business entrepreneurs through the MSMEx platform.
STORY: Amit got so engrossed in his first entrepreneurial venture that he forgot about some investments he had made. When he remembered them, he learned that the companies he’d invested in had long been delisted.
LEARNING: Define your long-term. Always track your investments. Take care of your own money.
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Ep606: Mark Longo – Don’t Be Afraid to Look That Gift Horse in the Mouth
BIO: Mark Longo is the Founder & CEO of the Options Insider Media Group. A former Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) member, Mark created the first options podcast over 15 years ago.
STORY: Mark was working as an equity puts trader on the floor of the CBOE when, one day, every broker on the floor started calling out orders for puts. Mark, however, was hesitant to join in the funfair. This caused him a few dollars but saved him a lot more because the S&P futures started tumbling, traders lost millions of dollars, and many lost their jobs after that.
LEARNING: Listen to your intuition. Don’t be afraid to walk away from an option that looks too good to be true. There will always be other options to trade.
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Ep605: Harriet Mellor – Do You Have the Time to Invest and Take Action?
BIO: Harriet Mellor is a Sales Transformation Coach, Serial Entrepreneur, Consultant, and CEO of Your Sales Co. She is passionate about growing businesses and removing the stigma from sales.
STORY: Harriet invested thousands of dollars in courses, programs, and coaches she never used because they didn’t align with her values.
LEARNING: If you don’t take action, you won’t see any results from your investment.
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Ep604: Hugh Grover – Choose to Listen to Your Gut Feeling
BIO: Hugh Grover is the founder of the Digital Sales Community. He has helped Fortune 100 companies and some of Australia’s leading businesses massively turn the dial on revenue.
STORY: Hugh spent over six years studying a course he was uninterested in and working a job that he hated just because he thought that’s what people thought was right for him.
LEARNING: If something doesn’t appear right, listen and unpack why your gut feeling is off.
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Ep603: Mihir Koltharkar – Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They’re Hatched
BIO: Mihir Koltharkar is a Global Award Winning Trainer, TEDx and Keynote Speaker, and Author with a rich experience spanning 22 years.
STORY: Mihir partnered with a friend to offer his services to a government company in Mauritius. The profits from this deal would have been in millions in just about 45 days. Then, out of the blue, the company declared bankruptcy nullifying the contract.
LEARNING: Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. Be careful not to get into the entrepreneurial seizure. Even if you have a signed contract, the deal is not done until the money is in your bank account.
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Ep602: Andrew L. Howell – Don’t Invest in a Business With Family
BIO: Andrew L. Howell is a Co-Founder of the Salt Lake City law firm York Howell, known as one of Utah’s fastest-growing companies.
STORY: Andrew was convinced by his second cousin to enter a business deal with him and another family member. They took out a loan of $1.7 million. The business was a flop, and the two partners abandoned him, leaving him to bear the burden of repaying the loan.
LEARNING: Don’t get involved in a business you’re unwilling to invest your time and effort into. Don’t bring partners into your life if you can avoid it. Avoid getting involved with family members.
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Ep601: Annie Duke – Do Things in Parallel
BIO: Annie Duke loves to dive deep into decision-making under uncertainty. Her latest obsession is the topic of quitting.
STORY: Annie’s worst investment ever was becoming a poker player.
LEARNING: It’s ok to do a few different things at a time. Quit more if you have to.
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Ep600: Mathew Frederick – Look Beyond the Surface When Buying Property
BIO: Mathew Frederick specializes in finding and securing under-contract, off-market multi-family, and office buildings for conversion to their highest best use.
STORY: Mathew bought a building without knowing that it had underground storage tanks of fuel that were polluting the environment. It cost him $400,000 to clean up the mess. The mess further reduced the property’s value to $1.7 million from $2.1 million.
LEARNING: Make a minor adjustment to your ego and humility. Do your due diligence. Know the fights to walk away from.
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DISCLAIMER: This content is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Readers should not consider statements made by the author(s) as formal recommendations and should consult their financial advisor before making any investment decisions. While the information provided is believed to be accurate, it may include errors or inaccuracies. The author(s) cannot be held liable for any actions taken as a result of reading this article.