Take Your Freak Show On the Road - Jeremy Griffin - FHR #237

Why Dave Decided to talk to Jeremy:

Jeremy Griffin is the epitome of Mr. Hustle. His marketing prowess and ability to be the "crazy guy from the outside" has given him opportunities to build multi million dollar businesses. He is also a member of the "2 Comma Club" Jeremy details how he has been able to create a national event paid for by sponsors. He provides the keys you need to take your show on the road. He also reveals how to breakthrough the resistance of people saying, "My industry is different."

Tips and Tricks for You and Your Business:

• Merging industries together to bring success: (16:45)
• Taking risks (19:45)
• Learning the fundamentals (20:08)

Quotable Moments:

"No matter what business you are in, you are in the people business."

"If you are going after national fame, you better be ready for national humiliation!"

"Every company needs a signature event that is outside of your facility that will bring everyone in your industry together, and  you can put your name on it and control."

Other Tidbits:

A lot of people focus on how can I bring my company the most value… when in reality, how do I put an event together that gives the sponsors the most value? If you don’t have the sponsors, you don’t have an event.

Links: FunnelHackerRadio.com FunnelHackerRadio.com/freetrial FunnelHackerRadio.com/dreamcar

---Transcript---

Speaker 1:     00:00           Welcome to funnel hacker radio podcast, where we go behind the scenes and uncover the tactics and strategies top entrepreneurs are using to make more sales, dominate their markets, and how you can get those same results. Here is your host, Dave Woodward.

Speaker 2:     00:17           Hey everybody. Welcome back. You guys are in for the ride of your life today. This is gonna. Be One of the fastest, craziest, next 20, 25 minutes or so. I have the opportunity to bring a dear friend on. Jeremy Griffin. Jeremy, welcome to the show. What's up my man? How are we doing? Oh, I'm so excited for this. You know, the fun part. I wish I could actually record and put it in. I made it. I'll have it at like the end of the. I should start recording there as soon as I start. First start talking because Jeremy, right

Speaker 3:     00:41           dude, stop. Yeah. You know the show behind the show is always the fun show.

Speaker 2:     00:49           So Jeremy feels the same way I do about title. So let's just say that Jeremy is just an amazing entrepreneur, has been crushing it and killing it. It's whatever. Two Comma club winters. He's got so many different businesses out there from real estate to blow and crap up on with events and honestly just one of the coolest guys out out there and a guy you definitely want to get to know. So check them out. Jeremy Griffin on facebook, but right now we're gonna dive in and kind of talk about. I'm still, again, I was going through all this, so background elite realty, real quick, your gut, but I don't know, $500, million different real estate properties yourself and you're going through and selling a couple here and there.

Speaker 3:     01:24           Yeah. That, that's all kind of just been a natural extension of, you know, growing up in the construction thing. I got the opportunity to turn a guy's portfolio around about 10 years probably. And um, you know, when we're growing up flipping houses and whatnot, you're, you're basically doing management and doing this, that, and the other thing and showing them. And I'm just doing it anyways because I'm just aggressive and I've always selling something. Right? So I got the opportunity to do that, hopped on it. Uh, you know, got there, got that revenue up to that, that portfolio right there is probably about four to $5 million worth of assets and got increased their revenue by literally about 35 percent in 12 months and really haven't looked back with that man, you know, so all growing up with crazy uncle Larry paid off.

Speaker 2:     02:13           Well, for those of you guys for listening, literally this is going to be just a popery of just random topics here. So with that, I'm going to just off the cuff here, how the world you. I've got a lot of real estate increase in real estate. Thirty five percent a year. What? How'd you pull that off?

Speaker 3:     02:27           Twelve months. Alright, I'll, I'll be, I'll be really honest with you. My whole key to we do a lot of property management stuff and the real estate area, my whole entire key to that is to, and this sounds crazy to a lot of your audience, to look at it from a marketer's perspective instead of a landlord's perspective. Okay. You will be shocked how many people treat the properties that they're running. The people that are renting them, their customers has a giant pain in the ass. Okay. I've had, I've had no listen. I've had three women in my office up there, got three offices in Tampa. I've had three women in my office in the last five years up there who were moving for whatever reason I want to move, started crying and saying, I've never had somebody treat me with a level of respect that you have.

Speaker 3:     03:11           You treated me like a human being and I will do everything. I'm getting referrals from people that rented it from, from our company, from 10 years ago. Still, you know, so it's. Everybody has to, oh you got to be tough. You got to be. And I'm like, so this is the first industry in the history of industry where if you act like a giant Dick, you'll get better results than if you're nice. Like, no, no, like, stop that, you know. So, and that was really the whole key to it was establishing really turning apartment complexes into actual legitimate communities. Okay. That people can be proud of. And when you do that, people stopped moving and you start. The one thing that I found was key. I started running and newspaper Ad. Think about who still reads the newspaper ads. Older people or people. Quieter people.

Speaker 3:     03:58           Okay. And I started off the headline. It says very, very, very, very, very quiet apartments for rent ads. Say the same thing. That. So if you're a party animal, like you're not even, you're not even messing with that, right? Like, and I get people that are sick of all the nonsense and, and I promise I will do everything in my power to maintain that, you know. So it's uh, it's that delicate balance of, of coming off his, you know, his understanding, but also assuring them that if things do need to get dealt with, like trust me, I'll get them dealt with. Okay. So that was it man, you know, get out, get out a lot of the bad problems, tweak the way that their portfolio here. They were actually renting everything on a income based on. They were negotiating everything. Everything. And I'm like, guys, it's like, they're like, well, what if you have to turn somebody down?

Speaker 3:     04:48           I go, then your marketing isn't strong enough. Okay, you should have an unlimited amount of people that are coming here to rent these things if you do it right. You know? So streamlining the operations, get the marketing right, develop an actual real community. I mean we're talking with you guys with culture, you know, and culture is so important and it's, it's, it's so definitive how things are going to go and do that. And I'll be honest with you, that is the honest to God's truth, man, with that whole entire portfolio. Thirty five percent by the end of that year and I haven't looked back since then. So

Speaker 2:     05:22           for those, you guys are listening, I know we're talking real estate. People are going, gosh, it has nothing to with the funnel. Understand everything is always marketing. You're always, always, always marketing. And it's one of the main reasons I wanted Jeremy on. We're going to talk about a whole bunch of different things, but I want to make sure you guys understand if you're listening here, everything is marketing. I love what you just said, Jeremy, as far as you shouldn't have to be catering to different things. You should literally, if your marketing works, you got enough customers. It's not okay.

Speaker 3:     05:46           Exactly, exactly. And it. And here's the thing. It is all marketing, right? And if you want to get into what you guys do, there's no reason why anybody in any industry at this point is not creating their content, putting it out there, driving the traffic, capturing the information and then remarketing to them so those people and then also taking the previous and current clients and remarketing to them through other means as well to get the referrals and all that stuff up. I don't care what industry you're in. Right? And that is kind of what's been really neat over the last three to four years of me jumping into marketing, into management and now I'm in manufacturing with grizzly over there and now we're launching this national event tour thing too, is that you start to find a lot of synergy between industries, between business and, and, and I tell you what man, and you probably will agree with me on this, almost everybody that you talk to when you start getting into things and you come at it with a very simplified way of how we can fix this as well.

Speaker 3:     06:44           You don't understand this industry is different. I don't know. This industry is different and I'm like, actually no, they're not. They're all people. Okay. That is the main variable with all of them. They're all the same. So, and you know what I mean, they have different minor differences and whatnot, but everybody always feels like there is this unique. And it's like, no, come on, I'm sorry. It's not, you know. So I've, I'm trying to get further down my goal of eventually becoming the next. Marcus limonus were being all over the place is my emo. Right? Right now I'm too right now too small and everybody I know that like as cash, it's like, dude, you're an idiot. What are you like, you're all over the place. I'm like, you're right. I am. How old am I going to learn all this stuff? You know, I going to get to a point where I could walk into any company and be able to put together a formulation to fix them, you know, and eventually then it get so good at it that I can walk in and get equity out of it too, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3:     07:39           And all that. Which is basically what I just did with grizzly. So you know, that's it man. You, you, you, you can watch all the youtube videos on the planet on how to change your brakes. Okay. I assure you when you go out there to actually try to change your brakes, it is a whole nother ballgame. Right? So that's the only way you learn. You got to do it, you know. So.

Speaker 2:     07:59           Oh Man, I hope you guys are listening to just writing a ton of notes. I mean, Jeremy's dropping value bombs like crazy here. Again, just to restate real fast, I want to make you guys all understand because if we just said it real quick and that is understand, everyone's always going to say that my industry is different. You are in the people business no matter what business you are in, you are in the people business and focus on people, people, people always. And then the other thing I just love is the fact that you've. You learned by doing so, get off your butt. Go out there and work. Next one I'm going to dive into here. We're going to go real faster and that is grizzly targets. Fascinating business. Dude. You've got equity in this business, so tell people what Grizzly grizzly targets is.

Speaker 3:     08:36           Okay, so grizzly targets makes a lot of steel reactive targets. You shoot them, they bounced down and pop back up there. They range anywhere from like 100 bucks a pop. We've got a couple of systems that are $2,500. We sell two military installations, endusers professional rangers. Uh, it's a lot of BDB grizzly targets. I started there with two other guys seven ago out of a guy's garage. I came up with the knit and marketing guy, right? Came up with the name this day and the other thing, all that about 15 months ago, the sole principle in that was like, I think I'm going to go try some other stuff out. I was like, no bro, like, come on man. No. So I was like, give it to me. And he goes, what? I go give it to me. And he goes, what do you go? Give me the business.

Speaker 3:     09:16           He goes, so you can do one with it. And I was like, what do you mean? So I can do what I want to do, you know? So we came up with a really, really, really great deal. Went out, found some investment partners, reopened the door and I have been on a terror to take that. And of course it's 12 months from a company that not a lot of people have heard about. Small company to an industry icon. And I got to tell you a like we are well, well, well on our way, I've got the whole product lineup is all fixed. We have literally have the best products in the industry. There are some of the most expensive products in the industry too. But when you're dealing with things like that that are functional and let's face it, like people are shooting at them, I want the best stuff.

Speaker 3:     09:59           Okay. So we got the product line all lined up. We've been doing a ton of. I mean honestly straight up just ripping off daily Vee, right? A lot of day in the life video. I do that with all the clients now, right? And they're like, well can you explain that? I'm like, go watch daily Vee. That's it right now when we do it with, when we do it, we make it a little bit more polished because I'm not trying to crank five of them out in a day like that. Maniac is right. So if there's a little bit more music in the b roll is better and this a little bit more set. But we started doing a lot of that, that really caught a lot of people's attention, um, and you know, by doing all of that and then taking that drops on gunner event and merging that in with grizzly has the lifestyle side of the whole thing.

Speaker 3:     10:44           I've really, I mean, and we're getting ready to. We're getting ready to grab a possibly merge with something else here coming up. I can't talk about it, but that's another seven figure business that is going to only further this whole thing. And uh, yeah man. Well I'll be honest, my goal was within six months to do all of this. Okay. That was bat shit. Crazy possible to do all of that six months. Right? So it's looking like by the time it's all said and done, we'll be on tour for drops on Grizzly with the drop zone gunner event will be on tour by the end of this year. Um, I just got back from a giant conference. Nobody in those boots is not hurting us at this point. So. And big boots. So I'm talking about boots that are like, you know, 10,000 square feet maybe with offices and I'm like those giant trade shows, right? So it's going to be about 18 months, man, where I've taken them from a company that nobody's heard of and turned it into an industry juggernaut and I tell you what, the formula that I created for this to do this can be applied to almost any other industry too. So you know, once we're done with this, we're going to put people on the hook here and hang on because I want to keep that little bait

Speaker 2:     11:54           out there. That's the hook. You guys, this people are listening. They don't know what drop the gun drop zone gunner is and you've got to get the backstory here because drops on. Gunner hardly know what it is. Explain to me, but I can. I think this is where people have to understand is this is what is so cool about when you get involved in marketing and you really get it and you understand it, opportunities present themselves. Here you've got this crazy business where you've got these grizzly targets and all of a sudden it segways and leads into what really the byproduct of grizzlies actually and become a bigger business possibly think grizzly targeted. So tell people what is drop zone gunner.

Speaker 3:     12:29           So drops on gunner was an insane idea I had about three years ago to essentially combine tough mudder with Spartan, with American Ninja Warrior, and then throw a bunch of pistols, shotguns and ars in the mix. Okay? And it was, it was crazy. It was, um, I learned on that first one, two and a half years ago that if you are going after national fame, you better be ready for national humiliation because works. One that I put on two and a half years ago was, dude, it bombed, it bombed. It was a sticker. It was an egg. Okay. And I tell you what though, a couple of a couple of really influential people in the industry flew down to check it out. And they said, you know, Jeremy, they said, everybody's always talked about doing something like this. And he goes, holy, holy cow. He goes, you're crazy enough, you actually did it, and I go, yeah, I go and look, it's working now.

Speaker 3:     13:19           A lot of people said, boy, that was a disaster. I bet you're never going to do the good thing that's done it, but you're never going to do that again. And I go, what are you talking about? I go, did you have any idea how much I just learned from that, like I logistically cracked the code on how to combine those two worlds in a safe monitored way that anyone can compete on. So I've taken the OCR world obstacle course racing world and then the shooting competition world, the gun industry and merge the two together in this act of fun medium that nobody's done before. Right. And, and I will say I'm very proud of that because you know, the, the word entrepreneur gets used a lot these days. I think a lot of us are small business people. We're not the entrepreneur that's trying to put something together that's never really been done, you know, which is kind of what that word used to mean a lot more.

Speaker 3:     14:07           That is something that actually, I mean, it was crazy as shit man. So I did it. It was awful on the first one, um, we couldn't even build most of the obstacles. The obstacles were, a lot of them were supposed to be built like 10 feet tall and 20 feet wide. They all came in and reverse why 20 feet tall guys flying over these things, like they're all going to. Everyone's going to get hurt. I mean it was, it was bad dude. Right? So it's. But we got through it. I put on another one once we figured out that we're doing this grizzly thing, I'm like, cool, now I can merge this right in with grizzly. Right? Because I think every company needs a signature event that is outside of your facility. I mean you guys know, you know, you need that signature event that's outside of your facility that will bring everyone in your industry together that you can put your name on and you can control.

Speaker 3:     14:56           Right? So that was essentially the initial event for startup street because I always wanted to have the craziest and I've toned it down a lot over the years significantly. But I'm like, no, we're going to be the craziest part getting group over. Like I found out that you can be too crazy. People won't call you. Okay. So that was supposed to be for that. So I was like, who, we can merge this in with grizzly now. And we put on another one. I got it all sponsored up. I mean it was uh, it was about $150,000 event that we put together. Okay. And I mean hundreds and hundreds of people were running it. A card, Owen's wife Elena, she's on team grizzly. She ran it. She was like, Jeremy, you are the craziest sop I have ever seen in my life. She goes, what is this? This was awesome.

Speaker 3:     15:42           And I was like, I don't even, I don't even know what this says at this point. I'm like watching this machine function, right? And I'm just like, whoa. Like how did we do this? So, so we did it in January, perfected the concept, just got back from that trade show a month ago, walked out of there, we needed about a quarter of a mil and sponsorships to put this national tour together, um, walked out with half of that ready and delivered a more than half of it promised, but has, we all know you can't count it until it's, the check is cleared and you took the money out, right? So, so we got enough money to get that going. And basically what we do now is I've built something where the tour is going to take place and go around the country and what we're doing is we're going to different firearms manufacturers, hometowns, and essentially what I'm doing is I'm bringing Lollapalooza to the gun industry and I'll be honest, I think that that is really unique and that's really different because you have an industry that has a lot of challenges obviously.

Speaker 3:     16:41           Right? And then this always takes some crazy guy from the outside in every industry to come in with something and push it through. And I got to tell you, man, if you saw the reactions of everybody in January, which I've never seen that many happy people in my life, right? So, so we're doing a national tour and that's how we have a setup is where we go to the home towns of these major manufacturers and essentially throw this party in their backyard and they love this because. And there's something to that I don't think a lot of people realize when they're putting events together. A lot of people focus with events on how can I do this to bring my company the most value, right? It's all about me. How do I get the most value out of all of this? When in reality, for most of us it's about, it should be about how do I put an event together that gives the sponsors the most value, more so than the other events in this industry.

Speaker 3:     17:33           Because if you don't have the sponsors, you don't have an event, right? So if you start off with that in mind, you end up with something that you can get sponsored, which is a hell of a lot better than having a really cool idea that no company wants to write a check for and it's dead on arrival. Right? So, so that's it. All of the company stuff is all staged. It's all getting used. We got backpack companies and people are running through the trails with their backpacks on, right. The gun companies sponsoring all the guns are getting used. Um, I mean, you name it, if it's a sponsorship item, it's getting used in it, which is just the most incredible user content. Right? So we'll see. Man, it's, it's, it's pretty far fetched. But uh, you know, I mean, I don't see why it's not gonna work at this point. I'm just going to keep hammering at it until it does. Anyway. So

Speaker 2:     18:21           dude, that's just so awesome. Again, you guys are listening. I hope you're taking massive notes. I mean, it's, you're listening to a guy who's out there just taking massive, massive action. And I love journey. I just totally transparent. You know what? Sometimes it just flops, it just doesn't work. But it's what you learned from that flop.

Speaker 3:     18:37           Yes, yes. And almost. And there's a rule of thumb generally in most media companies when somebody's putting on an event, don't sponsor the first one, right? The first one is the learning experience, you know, and, and I gotta tell you it like most people never even make it to the first one. Okay. And then they make it and they're like, Oh God, that was awful. We shouldn't do that again. And it's like, no, this is the time when you have to be so stupid and competitive that you're like, no, we're doing it again against all freaking advice whatsoever. Right. He threw up, we threw a party when I was like 17 or 18 and we called it. It was a keg party. We have bands come out and all that. And we called it. The freaks come out at night. And I was, the cops were called. I mean, for all intensive purposes, it was a disaster. Right? And I was the only one that was like, no, it's a good start. And everyone's like, no, never. Again. How about that Jeremy? So I, you know, I, I'm more than willing to fail a little bit and, and embarrassing myself a little bit for the good of everything else in the end because it is, it's the only way you get there and somebody has to be the one willing to risk the humiliation. You know, what risk it. You get all the freaking praise afterwards. If it works too though. So

Speaker 2:     19:52           and you've been getting again, you've been crushing it. It is so cool to see the different things your success. Again, I love the fact that you're in multiple industries and yet you're finding ways of bringing them together and you're using the same skill set that you've learned and I think I hope people understand how important learning the skills that you've got to learn the fundamentals. The fundamentals are the most important part in business. I've, you know, you're joking around about this whole idea as far as entrepreneurial right now it's kind of a popular word. I, I remember when I first got started as an entrepreneur basically meant that you couldn't get a job anywhere else. That's how most people looked at me, like, oh, so you can't make it, so that's what you're calling her.

Speaker 3:     20:26           So there's a lot of, there's a lot of truth to that.

Speaker 2:     20:31           I think there's these days. I, I love just your, your sticktuitiveness. I mean, no matter what, you just keep going. And that's the fight that I hold. People who are listening, you understand the only people that are successful, they keep fighting through all the losses. So as we kind of get close to wrapping things up, Jeremy, what other words of advice would you have for our listeners?

Speaker 3:     20:50           Um, I, I don't know, but thinking about what you were just saying, I think that, you know, not so much a word of advice. Maybe Elon Musk is sleeping in his factory right now. Okay. They're so backed up. He is sleeping at the factory. Okay. Now one guy did bring up a good point. He said, well, doesn't he have like five kids or something you think that might have something to do with it? But I mean, so not really. You know, that's not a word of advice, but if you take that and you look at that guy's level of success in what he's still willing to do to get those preorders taken care of for that new Tesla model or whatever that is, that is everything you know, and, and, and there's a lot of smash talk going on out there right now against old hustle.

Speaker 3:     21:32           Hustle is, you know, hustles overrated and all that. And I always say that it's very interesting that once that whole hustle culture came to fruition was about two to three years ago and most of the time in business it takes about two to three years to burn somebody out, right? So now we're seeing this, this whole movement came and it's a few years later now, all these people were like, oh, that's all overrated. Like, no, dude, you got your ass kicked. Okay, you couldn't hang man. You know, so that's it, man. It's, it's the, everything is the drive. You cannot work your competition. You can eventually hammer that square peg into that round hole if you hit it hard enough. And I'm not trying to, you know, undermine strategy or work smarter, all of that. These all have to happen. But that is the, that is something man, that everybody's got to take through it a to take from it because everybody who turns into a really, really, really, really big name has that.

Speaker 3:     22:27           I love it. It's the one common factor. So I have to agree. Well, tell me, people are going to be dying to reach out to you. What's the best way to connect with you? I would say just go, just go hop on the drop zone gunner page on facebook or go check out the grizzly pages. The one that's most pop in these days. That's where most of the efforts going into a grizzly targets on facebook. There is a lot. I do a lot of contacts and a lot of interactive stuff. We have a Friday night faceoff video series that we're doing now where people can bet and gamble on Monday mornings on who's going to win between a and B and under what time? And on Friday night, like Friday night fights at 9:00 at airs and whoever gets closest and picked the correct winner wins xY, , z. So definitely check that out. It's a, it's a lot of fun. So there, you know, I always love talking to you. It's so great having you on the show. Thank God. I know you've got a million things going on and today wasn't the most productive, as you've mentioned earlier. So, uh, I appreciate you suck. You saved by day. Okay. I haven't smiled all day and I'm so happy.

Speaker 3:     23:32           Uh, Jerry, always a pleasure. We'll talk soon. Awesome man. Thank you.

Speaker 4:     23:36           No, one of the things that means a ton to me is the personal reviews that you guys leave on itunes. You wouldn't mind going out, rate the show, let me know how I'm doing. Just go to Itunes, click on the episode and rate and leave a comment. I read all the comments. I appreciate all the stars and everything differently already left for me. Again, I really appreciate it and it's my way of finding out how I'm doing. So if you don't mind, I'd really appreciate it. And I again, thank you so much for all you guys do. Have a great day.