TCC Podcast #328: Generating Income from Multiple Businesses with Andrea Grassi

Andrea Grassi is our guest on the 328th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. Andrea is a serial entrepreneur with 6 businesses, and he shares how he’s able to manage, build, and grow each business. If you’ve ever thought about expanding your sources of income, you’ll want to tune into this episode. Here’s how the conversation goes: How Andrea became a marketer and entrepreneur. The reality of growing a business. Why he decided to start a second business… and a third business and… The most important part about starting a business. A breakdown of each of his vastly different businesses. Why he doesn’t need to be the expert in every business. The ingredients needed to build any business. How to create profit in your business and create a successful chain. Why your revenue isn’t that important – here’s what is. The importance of paying attention to each weak link in your business. The 3 pillars to any successful business. How to begin making a marketing plan. The mindshifts that take place while growing multiple businesses. Are you making it harder than it needs to be? The 3 positions you hold as a business owner. How to calculate your business value in each position. Finding out when it’s time to grow a team. How to look for the right business partner. The balance between multiple businesses, business partners, and employees. How Andrea breaks up his time and energy between each business. Measuring success through KPI’s. Splitting the stakes in business – what’s the first step? Are you really working or are you just working? Why you need to add in your rest block FIRST. The importance of deadlines for you and your team. The benefits of compartmentalizing. Andrea’s biggest strength and weakness are the same? How riding horses has anything to do with business. Listen to the episode or read the transcript below. The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Join The Copywriter Accelerator waitlist The Copywriter Think Tank Kira’s website Rob’s website Andrea's website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Free month of Brain.FM Full Transcript: Rob Marsh:  There's a well known and much shared idea that says that the average millionaire has seven different streams of income. They might earn money from serving clients in their business, from selling evergreen products, from a property rental, from stocks and other financial assets and so on. Our guest for today's episode of The Copywriter Club podcast is Andrea Grassi. He's a partner in six or seven different businesses that generate income for him and more importantly, he makes a major contribution as the marketing expert in each of the businesses he runs. And because running even a single business is a big challenge for most of us, we wanted to find out how he does it all. How does he find partners? What exactly does he do in each of his businesses? And maybe how more copywriters can create businesses like the ones Andrea has. There's lots of great business building advice in this episode, so be sure to stick around for all of it. Kira Hug:  This podcast episode is sponsored by New Orleans. This is a city that Rob and I are currently in right now. We're together in New Orleans. We're actually here for our think tank Mastermind retreat, which we just wrapped last night. And Rob, did you have a good time? Rob Marsh:  That was amazing. Hanging out with these guys. They're doing such cool things with their businesses and just talking about the challenges they have, working through some of those solutions and also listening to the presentations, the speakers that we had, talking about all kinds of things from processes to running a minimalist business that works, people who are doing amazing things, running six figure businesses, sometimes working three or four hours a day, four or five days a week. Yeah, it's been really insightful. Kira Hug:  It was so fun to have everyone in this same room together. It's in a really intimate space for a couple of days just because we weren't able to do it for a couple of years, and were finally able to start gathering together in person and doing more than even just learning together, which was fun to hear all the different presenters and learn, but we also had a lot of fun. We went out to dinner, we went on a ghost tour, a cemetery tour. We went out to a comedy show. It was just great to get out, and New Orleans is such a magical city and place to visit. I feel like it was the best place for us all to be. And so it was all part of the Think Tank because that's what the Think Tank is about. It's about gathering copywriters together so you can share brilliant ideas with each other and build your own network and meet new friends, build your network of other copywriters and create new experiences. Get yourself out of your comfort zone. Even traveling here was out of my comfort zone and just putting yourself out there in a new way to continue to grow as a business owner and to continue to grow as a person. And that's what the Think Tank's all about. And if that's something that you would be interested in and being part of a mastermind and being part of a retreat and multiple retreats, then check out the Think Tank and apply. If you're interested in joining, we can jump on a call and talk through it with you to see if it's a good fit. Rob Marsh:  And to apply, go to copywriterthinktank.com. And now let's jump into the interview with Andrea. Kira Hug:  So, we do want to know how you ended up as a marketer and entrepreneur. Andrea Grassi:  Okay. So, long story short, I never had the feeling to have a job. I always wanted to create something, so the first thing is that I never had a job ever. When I was 18, I was just working for a real estate company going around to look for property to be sold, and I was paying on a commission. But then when I was around 19, I started my first company, let's call it a small business. And then I started to understand that wasn't enough to be passionate about something. In order to create profits. There were a lot of things that I was missing, how to market my products, how to sell my products, how to make the numbers at the end of the month, mark a positive sign and all that kind of stuff. So, just because I'm very curious to learn things, I started to study this and study that and go deep in these things and I mean try to unveil something that I was missing. And then suddenly I understood that I was liking that. I mean, I was satisfied and happy. So, I started to grow that business. And then probably just because I'm curious, I started to look around and I realized that there were opportunities around me. I mean, people have needs and nobody was satisfying those needs. And then I said to myself, okay, why don't I try to do this? And then the second business came out and suddenly I realized that there were two different businesses in two different markets, but the main concept that were at the basis of those businesses were the same things. The marketing rules, the accountant things or the people management or all the other things that were around the business were the same. So, I said to myself, or maybe if I start another one the year was going on and was getting more expert, and then I said, yeah, maybe if I start another one, I can use the experience that I did to have the business work properly.   And then the third business came and then the fourth, and basically I was right. Not that I was right, it's how things work. The basis, the foundation of the business. I'm sorry for my rotten English. The basis, the foundation of a business are the same, doesn't matter. Yes, there are little changes, but the main column, the milestones are the same. So, it is probably like when you learn languages, it's hard to learn the first one, the second one is a little bit easier than the first one. The third one gets easier. And so and so and so. Now I'm 49 with six businesses up and running. One of the past businesses has been closed, another one has been sold. And a few months ago I did things that I never did in my life. I bought a business. And so this is my long story made short, I hope. Rob Marsh:  Just to be clear, because we didn't say this at the beginning, but you are in Italy. Andrea Grassi:  Yeah, I'm based in Italy. I live in Italy. Rob Marsh:  And the business environment in Italy is a little bit different than here in the States. It's not always as easy to start a business. There's a lot of things that go on. And so the fact that you've gone through a lot of those challenges is even maybe more impressive than if we were talking to somebody who's started this many businesses in the States. But just briefly describe what the businesses are that you started. What were you doing in each of those businesses? Andrea Grassi:  Basically I grew up in the training and coaching environment. So, two businesses are about that, a company that does training and coaching services in the personal development area. One of the important things, in all these businesses, I am not alone, I don't like the model of the solopreneur because I mean I like to bond. I like to create teams. And I think that I don't know everything and some of my strong points are also some of my weak points. And that's why I trust and believe that if a business if you have at least two business partners, it's much better than one. So, in the training and coaching company that does personal development services, I have three business partners and I don't run a lot of seminars there because most of my time is into another business that does coaching and training programs for small entrepreneurs. And in that business we have a big revenue stream,