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Speaker 1: You are listening to Carrie Leutz's Financial Survival Network, where

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you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else

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to thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial

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Survival Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork

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dot com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial

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Survival Network now more than ever.

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Speaker 2: And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial

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Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Letz. Hey got a

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really incredible guest for you today. His story college dropout

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home depot, overpaid employee at eight dollars an hour, now

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has got on to run companies making millions and millions

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of dollars a year. Never went back to college, didn't

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see the value of it.

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Speaker 3: Cody. Welcome. Great to have you on the show, so

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thank you. Hey.

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Speaker 2: Home Depot, very humble beginnings there. They're paying you eight

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bucks an hour. Probably they were paying you too much

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at that point, but quickly you've realized you were worth

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a lot more than eight dollars an hour.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think Hope Depot was a great

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place to start out at because it's like a bunch

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of teams working together at a single location, right to

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build a business and actually took that and you know,

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through the rest of my positions took that model. So

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anywhere I went, I wanted to learn what every team did,

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and you know that's what served me well. Plus eight

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dollars an hour at the time, it you know, it

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paid the bills and it did feel like a lot.

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That is, you know nowadays not so much.

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Speaker 2: That's about you make that before you even wake up

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in the morning, just brushing your teeth, you're making probably

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well more than that at so unusual story, but actually

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it's not that unusual. Many of you out there started

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very humble beginnings and built it up and it built

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incredible things. If you could go back to your to

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your eight dollars an hour Cody at home depot, what

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would you tell them?

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Speaker 3: I'd give him the same advice I get if anyone

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I hire, which is be curious, be competitive, and don't

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be an a hole. So I going to take you

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a lot of polices in life. So be curious means

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keep on learning, right, yep.

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Speaker 2: Competitive means not so much or compete against others, but

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that you are ambitious and you have right and don't

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be an a whole means get along with people, find

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out what they want, how you can help them get

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what they want, and at the same time help yourself

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get what you want.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, especially on that last one. Is like everyone, no

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matter how much of a higher performer you are, everyone

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goes through a period of tough times, right where the

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results aren't coming in. And if it requires you to

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be a mean person to get results, as soon as

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you stop get results, So now you're just a mean person. Right,

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Very few people in my experience actually enjoy working with

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a mean person. All right, So you know, be nice,

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but don't be weak, be straw one hundred percent. I mean,

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it's part of being competitive, right, is you got to

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be ambitious. You got to want more from yourself and

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from your team. Otherwise why are you there, right, You're

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just showing up and going through the motions?

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Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, So, and you've encountered a lot of other people.

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How many people have taken your advice to heart and

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really succeeded as a result, Cody.

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Speaker 3: Uh, you know who knows how many? Exactly? I know?

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Right now, I've got a team of about eighty people,

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So you know, of the eighty, I've got my a players,

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probably five to seven A players, and you always have

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the people you need to show up. So I think

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if I had to quantify my impact, I can think

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of at least seven individuals who have gone on to

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go from being a junior marketer starting out at fifty

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a year to making more than six figures in some

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form of the marketing leadership position.

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Speaker 2: All right, So these skills are transferable, and maybe that'll

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be your legacy. I mean, obviously family whatever. You want

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to leave a legacy for your family, But you want

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to try to leave things better than you got them.

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Speaker 3: Right, that is the end goal. I am a results

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person and I do believe like reputation precedes you, and

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that's the one I hope to leave behind, all right.

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Speaker 2: So, hey, you know, when you're looking at it, there's

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a lot of paths to success, right, but every path

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begins with you.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, and you the amount of success you have.

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Speaker 2: I assume you have an attitude no matter whether things

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go right or wrong, it's all about you, what you've done,

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what you missed, what you could have done right, Taking responsibility,

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owning your failures. Your successes are real easy to own, Hey,

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anyone could do that, but to actually own a failure.

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That takes some fortitude, doesn't it one hundred percent?

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Speaker 3: I think that ultimately, you know, everything is on you

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because no matter where you're working, what business you're starting, like,

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what the world around you looks like, you really only

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have control yourself. And when you leave that company or

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that business doesn't work out, you can take that as

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you know your identity. You can say, oh, well, I'm

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the guy that worked it here or I'm the guy

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that you know started or lost this business. But the

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truth is a you know, we get an open book

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and you can write whatever story in it next you

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want to, and the main character, like you said, is you.

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So the more you focus on you and what's next,

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right the story you want to be written in that book,

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generally you get to the happy ending you want at

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the end of it. It may not be the journey

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you want, but you might hit the outcome. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Well, the most important thing though, is taking action right,

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getting your knowledge and learning what you need to learn

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the skills that everything else, and then it's actually to

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do something you can't just the lie in bed, visualizing

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and hoping that the law of attraction is just going

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to bring.

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Speaker 3: It all to you. No, not at all, And that's

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we talk about the company often of like being books

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smart is twenty per percent of the equation, right, because

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no matter how intelligent you are, if you don't do

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anything with that knowledge, then it's only going to live

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in one place and it won't have any impact. What

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you really need is a game plan, right, What you

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really need is to be able to take that YouTube

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video you watched and apply it into your real life.

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And chances aren't a twenty minute video. Maybe you find

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one thing, but you apply that one thing and it

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has exponential impact on what happens next. So you know,

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at the end of the day, you learn more from

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dookuhen than by reading. In my experience, doesn't mean you

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can't solve yourself some harsh pains by learning and reading.

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But the only way to the only way to get

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to where you want to go is to take the

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first step in every step after that.

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Speaker 2: And you know the old saying, if you don't know

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where you're going, any road will take you there.

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Speaker 3: That's the truth. That's the truth. And you know, more

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often than not you end up in a place you

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actually did and want to go in the.

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Speaker 2: First Yes, yeah, because you no longer the master of

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your own fate if you will. Hey, so tell us

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about what you're doing now company everything involved?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so right now, I'm a cheap marketing officer at

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a company called Stocks to Trade, and we're a financial

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education company, so spend a lot of our days. We

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have a platform, right that has NASDAK level stock information

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that we help people leverage. You know, most people get

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stock with a either like E Trade or Bloomberg Terminal, right,

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and the price difference between those two is pretty meaningful, right,

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I think Bloomberg Terminal is like twenty five pr. So

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the everyday person actually doesn't have a lot of access

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to resources or information that helps them make smart financial decisions.

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So we stream the same data to our platform and

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it's you know, it gets some level two data that

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gives them a lot of information. And that's the see

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of it all. It's like giving every day people access

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to you know, Wall Street great information that you would

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have to pay a lot of money for. And then

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me personally, I've got a podcast business Marketing from the Edge,

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and that's where I take everything I've learned about marketing

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and building businesses and I candense it down into information

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for others. I've gotten pretty good at building businesses. It is.

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You know, when people ask me what's one thing I'm

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good at that, that is the answer. Like, I know

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how to build a business. I can go from you know,

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six hundred thousand to three million, I can go from

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I can go from zero to sixty million, and I

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go I can go anywhere in between. All way been

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a part of a company that did just shy at

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half a billion dollars. So building businesses, I think that's

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what I do best. And marketing from the edge is

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the culmination of everything I've learned doing it pretty cool

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and it's transferable to any company. Huh.

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Speaker 2: When a new client comes to you, the how do

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you figure out whether they've got a real viable business

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or they shouldn't move on?

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Speaker 3: To me, the first thing is always the offer. If

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they show up and they say, I don't know what

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we should sell or you know, what I'm selling isn't working,

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you know, to me, that's the fundamentals of a brooken business.

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If you don't have clarity on what value you can

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provide to the end user, it makes like why bother

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selling it at all? You're not actually helping anyone so

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to me, that's the difference between like building a business

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versus reinventing a business, is it is your offer solid.

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Speaker 2: So you know, interestingly, when you look at a business,

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so you could either start it or you could buy it.

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Speaker 3: And in my.

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Speaker 2: Opinion, generally it's always easier to buy a business even

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if it's not profitable. In fact it's marginally profitable or

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break even, you could buy it for next to nothing

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and then you just have to improve on the systems

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that are already there.

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Speaker 3: What's been your experience, Yeah, I in fact back in

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I want to say, twenty twenty two, I don't know,

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a couple of years ago, I bought a business. It

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was doing like seven grand a month or something, right,

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it was nothing, and it was directly in the financial

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education space. So I bought it. Was it seven grand?

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Did an owner carry on it right? So out of

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pocket pretty much nothing and scaled it all the way

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up to I think we peaked at like fifty three

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k a month and handed it back to the guy.

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And it was more of just like a mental mental exercise, right,

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being able to take something build it like from year zero,

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buy a business, go through that motion, go through the

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you know it is somewhat of a painful process buying

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a business. That is like the one downside, right is

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they have a certain evaluation. You have the different and

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sometimes it's a little bit of a roadbound to get

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to something that's equitable for both people. But I tend

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to agree with you. Buying a business beares well than

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building a business. Right. You don't have to learn all

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the lessons the business has already has already done for you.

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Especially if you have a skill set, you can go

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in there, use your skill set and get a result.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so all right, So when you're starting a

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new endeavor, what's the most important thing that you need

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to do.

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Speaker 3: I think if you're starting a new career, I think

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learn right, go and talk to everyone there. If you're

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starting a new business, but whether it's building or starting

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a business, the most important thing you can do is

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talk to the customers. Right, even if you don't have

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like whether you haven't sold anything to anyone yet, if

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you have someone else in your space or you have

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someone else in your you know that you can access

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from the company you're looking to buy at the end

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of the day, knowing what your customer is thinking and

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what they're feeling and being able to implement that into

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the next level of what you want to start. That's that,

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to me, is going to serve you far better than

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any sort of of demographic research or like you know, quizzing,

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quizzing whatever. If you've got a great team and you

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know your customer, you can go a long ways.

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Speaker 2: That's all about the team, all right, Hey, Cody, I

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want to find a bit more about you.

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Speaker 3: Want to connect with you on the web. How do

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you go about doing that? Yeah, Marketing edgepodpod dot com.

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That's the best place, and I have any letter on there.

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It's free. You just got to apply. And like I said,

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it's where I share all the insights I've learned building

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businesses from zero all the way as high as four

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hundred and eighty million in a year. And you know,

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I'm just sharing that value now because like you said,

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it's it's about leaving something behind great. Just repeat that

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the website again, Marketing edgepodpod dot com.

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Speaker 2: Marketing ed Marketing edgepod dot com. The link is in

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the show. That's this interview on Financial Survival Network dot Hey.

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When you go there, please sign up for your free newsletter.

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Get a lot of really valuable info like you're getting here,

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and if you've got a question for Cody or myself, shoot.

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Speaker 3: Me an email.

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Speaker 2: Klatcarrie LUTs dot com. Cody, been a pleasure, Thanks so much.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network,

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your solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go

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to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more

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than ever,