011: Success With Business and Life – Adam Farmer

00:02 Beau Henderson: Welcome to the richest conversation on the radio, the one place for success with life and money. Here’s your host, The RichLife Advisor, Beau Henderson.

00:13 Beau Henderson: Isn’t it funny how in life we all go to school, a lot of us go to school for a lot of years and we learn things like Math, English, Social Studies, things that are important, but we don’t learn things that probably are the most important things in our lives, like how to handle money, how to stay married, and how to run a business to where we can provide for ourselves and help others. I’ve got a guest today that’s gonna help us with all of that. Mr. Adam Farmer is Co-Founder of Getting Started Right HQ and he’s got a three-step formula to teach us how to excel in all these areas. How are you doing, Adam? Welcome to the RichLife Show.

00:50 Adam Farmer: I’m doing great, Beau. Thank you for having me on the RichLife Show. This is gonna enrich my life just as much as it is anybody else that’s listening.

01:00 Beau Henderson: I had a feeling when I met you and we had a quick chat that we’re gonna have a lot of fun.

01:03 Adam Farmer: Oh yeah. Fun is my middle, middle name.

[chuckle]

01:07 Beau Henderson: Well, let’s dig into that. I tried a little bit tongue in cheek but not so much as that we’re really not taught about how to handle money, how to handle relationships, and much less, how to run a business. Where do we start? Because I don’t think anybody listening is gonna disagree that those are probably the most important things we need to be able to master in our lives.

01:28 Adam Farmer: Yeah, man. I agree. So, the thing for me was, like most people, I was taught go to school to get a good job, so that you can retire Adam Farmer at 40 years and you retire with 40% of what you made in your income, and you work 40 hours a week. That’s what most of us was sold. And so I bought that ticket. I went and got a Bachelor of Science degree from Illinois State University. And then, when I got out, pretty much like everybody else who say, “Okay, is this it?”. And, so when I meet people today and they ask me where to get started, the first place I ask them is if they’ve ever heard of a man or read a book called ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ by Robert Kiyosaki. And… Go ahead.

02:16 Beau Henderson: No, you know, that was funny and I’ll tell the story that came up when we were introduced to each other is, Robert Kiyosaki was… The Rich Dad Poor Dad was the book that got me on the path to what I guess has turned into the RichLife now because I was going to be a counselor or a psychologist, and I was reading a book one night, in a setting of a group home, as I’ve been taking care of some people in a group home with some minimal issues. And, they went to bed early and I was up reading books and studying. And I read a book and I’ll never forget the story of Robert Kiyosaki when he graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy.

02:56 Beau Henderson: All his friends went and bought a Corvette with the money they made while they were attending school. And Robert Kiyosaki’s rich dad told him, “Why don’t you buy this duplex? It throws off enough real income that can pay the car payment and actually buy the car. So, now, you have not just the car like your friends but you have an asset that pays for it”. And something about that simple story, Adam, just did a mind shift for me that put me on an entrepreneur path that’s lasted for 20 years.

03:25 Adam Farmer: Yeah. So, much like you, I was reading that book, then I read his next book, ‘Cashflow Quadrant’, and I was doing all of the things that he said to do in the book. So, there was a lot of theory and I was applying the theory in the books. Well, I started buying real estate here in Chicago and flipping homes and that sort of stuff and I decided to quit my… Well, I was actually laid off from my Corporate America job. I know I wasn’t cut out for Corporate America. So, when I quit, what I didn’t realize at that time was my lack of income from a W2 job, a wage earning job, threw all of my debt to income off because I didn’t know how to leverage my real estate the proper way. So then, I was in, kind of in between where I wanted to buy more property, but I didn’t have the income to show because I was laid off from my W2 job.

04:21 Adam Farmer: So, there are a lot of things that you have to kind of learn from the school of hard knocks and then you gotta lose a little and gain it back and lose a little and gain it back. That sort of a roller coaster. But we keep persevering through all of that stuff and you find mentors along the way that can help you to say, “Okay, well, you got this part right, now let’s add this piece to it because there’s this sequence of building businesses. Businesses are assembled.” Much like, I live in Chicago and it’s the city of skyscrapers.

05:00 Beau Henderson: Right.

05:00 Adam Farmer: And two blocks from my house, Beau, if you ever come, they’re building an 82-story residential apartment and right now, they are drilling down into the ground and they are putting the caissons into the ground, which are the steel rebar, that then holds the concrete beams as the building goes vertical. Right?

05:28 Beau Henderson: Right. So, building a deep foundation.

05:30 Adam Farmer: You gotta build a deep foundation in order to take what you see over the ground. So you gotta go down, into the roots or underneath the ground before you can bring the building or whatever that, which you are trying to erect above the ground. So, I had to go and do some deep root kind of work on myself before I could build on top of the ground.

05:56 Beau Henderson: Now, as I was saying Adam, that’s one of the things I see most common in the financial planning practice over the last 15 years is, I don’t think there’s any exception between entrepreneurship or managing your money, or anything else really is that, I think the tendency or the sexy thing is to go work on level-3, level-4 activities before you have ground zero and level-1 built out properly, so you can build something substantial.

06:21 Adam Farmer: Gotta start at the ground floor. You gotta work underneath the ground. We’re all students of the Napoleon Hill ‘Think and Grow Rich’, sort of that, that way of thinking, if you are entrepreneur and you haven’t read, you know, that ground breaking work, that’s the other book that I recommend to people, you gotta start there. Because in the introduction of that book he says, “Thoughts are things.” You know, and as you start to progress through this entrepreneurial journey, you start to understand that the way that we think about what we’re thinking about, it will start to manifest itself.

07:04 Adam Farmer: And so, whatever result you end up seeing in your life, then you have to ask yourself the question, “Am I pleased with this result?”. And if the answer to that question is “No”, then you know you gotta go back through a process, to understand how you’re thinking about what you’re thinking about because what you’re thinking about is not getting you the result that you want, which means you gotta start thinking differently, which means you gotta start doing things differently.

07:30 Beau Henderson: You gotta act different. Right.

07:33 Adam Farmer: Gotta. You got to. So, thoughts without proper action is not going to get you what you want. So, once you think right, then you gotta do right.

07:42 Beau Henderson: That’s right, it’s just a good idea, maybe, until you start doing something different.

07:46 Adam Farmer: Right.

07:46 Beau Henderson: Now, we kind of hit on that, that scenario or that example of the Robert Kiyosaki buying the asset of the duplex to throw off the revenue to pay for the Corvette. And he had both, he had the car he wanted, like his buddies and he had an asset to build from. Now, I know you guys believe all about building assets and building cash flow. So, are there some things you recommend for somebody out there that’s like, “Where do I start in this journey of trying to do kind of a Robert Kiyosaki model of building some assets that actually could pay my bills?

08:21 Adam Farmer: Yeah. So, I always… That’s a great question, Beau. I always start with people and helping them to focus on the one problem that they know… It’s a knowing, it’s not even a thinking, that they know God has put them on this earth to solve. And so once we start with a purpose filled life, then we can build business structures around that. But it’s gotta start with… You know, so, we don’t really do well in our academy with people who say, “Oh, I just want to make a bunch of money”. Because if that’s all you wanna do, then you can go do that on your own. And because that’s really self-serving.

09:06 Adam Farmer: And so we know, as entrepreneurs, we have to serve more people. We have to contribute to the lives of people outside of just ourselves or our immediate family. And the more that we can contribute to others, and helping them get to what they want by solving problems that they have, that they’re willing to pay us for, then we can build better businesses, have better relationships, be better leaders. And so, that’s what I focus on. I help people focus on the one thing that they know that they were here to put on this earth to do.

09:45 Beau Henderson: So, if I get clear on what that is, we get some clarity around that, what’s the next step to actually create an asset? How do we turn that into something, again, that we can monetize?

09:56 Adam Farmer: Oh, absolutely. So, then I take you to… I’m in the digital space. So, everything that I do is online. So, how do you build online relationships? Because you have to start attracting your customers. So, who is that attractive customer? Who is the one customer that you’re going to speak to, that’s gonna want what you have to buy? Right? Because you gotta sell something to somebody, that’s what business is. It’s a transaction based on value and then, someone exchanging their treasure or their currency with you in exchange for the value that you provide for them.

10:35 Adam Farmer: So, we do that in the online space. So, we teach people how to build digital assets like using something like this, a podcast. How do you use a podcast or an internet radio show, to then attract your perfect customer to you, so that you can develop a relationship, or nurture a relationship with them, so that when you have something for them to support you with, that they can buy from you, they will be willing to do that? Now…

11:09 Beau Henderson: So that’s the first step, is to get clear on… I think that’s a good point, Adam, is, how do you find out what people want to buy from you?

11:19 Adam Farmer: Yeah.

[chuckle]

11:21 Adam Farmer: The way you find out is… So, you know that you have a problem, right? We all have our own problems. And so, it stands to reason that if I have this problem, chances are there’s either one or more people out there who have that same problem that I have. Like, a lot of people think, and I don’t know if you get this too, Beau, but a lot of people think that they’re the only ones who experience certain things.

11:45 Beau Henderson: Right.

11:46 Adam Farmer: And so, we have to overcome that myth to say, “Look… ” For example, I have a problem where I know that having a strong spiritual life as a married man who’s the head of my family is important. Right? I even have a Master of Divinity degree.

12:09 Beau Henderson: Wow.

12:09 Adam Farmer: So, I went to seminary for this stuff and, guess what? I struggle with having a consistent prayer life. Now, if I have that problem, then I know there’s gotta be somebody else out there like me who has that same problem.

12:27 Beau Henderson: Right.

12:28 Adam Farmer: So then, how do I communicate that this is a problem and if people want a solution to this problem, then I have a solution, right? So then, that’s not only communicating but then that’s marketing and promoting what it is that you have. So, all of these things are kind of assembling the confidence and the clarity around the problem. The solution that you have, as a potential business owner, to believe that it’s valuable, so that people will wanna pay you for it. So, that’s a long answer to your question.

13:08 Beau Henderson: No, that’s perfect, and by building, taking the time to build that community that we talked about, I believe you can get a lot of good feedback as you go.

13:17 Adam Farmer: Yeah, because they’ll start to tell you, “Well, not only do I want this but can you do this?”. Right? So, I’m sure, Beau, now that you’re a radio host, I’m sure you get the question all the time, how did you get into that business?

13:33 Beau Henderson: Absolutely.

13:34 Adam Farmer: How did you do this? I get it all the time. How did you start podcasting? What kind of equipment do you… Well, they’re asking you that question because they want you to help them solve that problem. They don’t want you to say, “well, you know what? You should go and read so and so’s book because that’s what I did.” No, they’re asking you for the solution. So, give it to them, and then, as you start to increase your following and those people have success and you get testimonials, then you can start charging for that same information. And it can be the same information that you got from whoever you read it from, but they wanna hear it from you. Does that make sense?

14:14 Beau Henderson: That absolutely makes sense, because you showed up and added value when you weren’t necessarily there selling something, in the beginning.

14:21 Adam Farmer: Yeah. And it comes from them asking questions. So, instead of sending them somewhere else… If you have a restaurant and it’s a brick and mortar, you live in Georgia, I live in Chicago. So, we had a restaurant and we served breakfast from 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and somebody came in to say, “Hey, I want an egg and cheese sandwich. Can you show me how to make it?”. And then you say, “Well, yeah, go down the street to the grocery store and go get a dozen eggs.” No, they’re in your store. Why would you send them anywhere else?

15:00 Beau Henderson: Right.

15:00 Adam Farmer: They’re there to transact with you because, for whatever reason they wanna know from you.

15:05 Beau Henderson: So, it’s almost coming full circle, Adam, that we’re talking, this conversation about money seems to come full circle to the relationship.

15:13 Adam Farmer: Yes. Everything is relationships. I heard a pastor say one time, when I was listening to a revival, he said, “The richest man in the world is the man who has the best relationships.”

15:27 Beau Henderson: That’s it. If you have…

15:28 Adam Farmer: That’s it.

15:28 Beau Henderson: Yeah, you have the people there that care about you and will help you, you can go through just about anything and be okay.

15:34 Adam Farmer: That’s it. Then people don’t care how much you know. We probably know a lot of stuff, you know a lot of stuff about the financial literacy business and that whole industry and how to plan but nobody’s gonna give you their money if they don’t know that you care about who they are and what their needs are and you don’t take the time to discover how best you can contribute to their lives in exchange for whatever service they want, they wanna engage with you. So, you’re absolutely right. If people don’t know how to build relationships, you’re gonna to be in trouble.

16:13 Beau Henderson: One of the things I really liked, Adam, about your message, and I get, for people to find out more about some of the tools and techniques and the things you teach, what’s the best place to go? Is it to check out the podcast?

16:28 Adam Farmer: Yeah. So, gettingstartedhq.com is where everything that we have lives. So, that’s the website or you can just follow me, most of everything that I have on social media is AdamFarmerTV, like television.

16:45 Beau Henderson: Got it.

16:45 Adam Farmer: AdamFarmerTV. So, that’s Twitter, that’s Facebook, that’s LinkedIn, that’s Periscope. All of those crazy things that I’m doing [chuckle] nowadays.

16:56 Beau Henderson: It’s the platform, it’s the distribution of that message.

17:00 Adam Farmer: That’s right. And it allows you to do it continuously. It makes it so that it’s more uniformed and we can control our own message at that point. That’s the beautiful thing about this technology, man.

17:16 Beau Henderson: What I love that resonated with the RichLife and I know the Richlifers would love to hear is, you teach success with money, relationships and running a business. It’s a little more holistic than just the guy trying to show you something on a spreadsheet and show how you can make some money. So, for those areas for them to all interact, do you have a formula or anything that could… Could be… How do they all come together and how do we be more successful in that big picture in our lives?

17:46 Adam Farmer: Yeah, it’s all… And that’s a great observation. You can not… What do they call it? Bifurcate your life.

17:57 Beau Henderson: Right.

17:58 Adam Farmer: It’s an integrated, and a holistic life, it all works together. And so, what we’ve learned over the years, Beau, is there’s this component of being able to focus, which we talked about before, which is then… You know, you finding out what you’re supposed to be doing, what your purpose is, and focus on one or two things, because a lot of people approach it from a passion standpoint, and I always tell people, “You can have so many passions, but you can be passionately broke.” Right?

18:32 Beau Henderson: Right.

18:33 Adam Farmer: So, we have to start focusing on what your purpose is. And then, what happens when you start, when you know that one thing, like Gary Keller talks about in the book ‘The ONE Thing’, then you can start to grow your capacity around that one thing.

So you have to grow as a leader, because you have to be the person that is going to lead this mission and attract people to this mission. You’re gonna attract human capital, and then your human capital, the team that you’re able to assemble, will then allow you to attract financial capital. Most people… If you ask most people what they would need next in their business, the first thing they’ll say is, “Oh, I just need capital.” Okay.

19:15 Adam Farmer: And they are talking in terms of financial capital. But then, when I look at their organization, Beau, it’s just them, they’re a one man band. And so, then I put on my investor hat, and I say, “Okay. So, as an investor, let’s say I got $100,000 that I want to give you for your idea. Why would I do that when it’s just you? You haven’t even been able to convince anybody else to come and join you to further advance this mission and this vision.” So that’s…

19:51 Beau Henderson: Yeah, that’s a great exercise in clarity as you think through that. Okay, you have a business. What would you give to an investor if he came to your door, a week from today, wanting to give you money? You’re not necessarily, if it’s not a buddy, you’re not gonna be able to just talk your way through it. You’re gonna have to have something very official and thought through and some income statements and things like that.

20:14 Adam Farmer: There you go. So then, so, what we teach people is we take them back to the basics to say, “Okay, so, how about you… As you grow, how about you just grow by one person, so it’s two people on your team. Go find a co-founder. Go find somebody. You have to know at least one person who you can cast a vision to, now that you know what your mission is. Cast a vision, so that another person would say, “I want to ride along with you”. Right? Steve Jobs had… Who? Steve Wozniak, right?

20:48 Beau Henderson: Right.

20:48 Adam Farmer: Everybody has a co-founder or two or three, which then allows them to grow as leaders. And, more specifically, that co-founder needs to be someone who has complementary strengths from you. So, for example, you know, Beau, what you love doing. You know what gives you energy, you could do it all day even if you weren’t getting paid for it, right?

21:12 Beau Henderson: Right.

21:13 Adam Farmer: So, your co-founder needs to be the person who loves to do what you hate doing.

21:18 Beau Henderson: [chuckle] Right.

21:19 Adam Farmer: That right? Most people wanna go and find somebody that’s just like them, but that’s not going to be sustainable over time. You need someone that’s going to complement you and doing the things that you hate doing. Right? And then, once you have your co-founder, then you guys can go and develop a dream team that is gonna be anywhere from three to seven people. Right? And so then, that dream team, as you can assemble those people, then you can go and talk to investors.

21:52 Beau Henderson: Now, you’ve done the work upfront.

21:53 Adam Farmer: Now you’ve done the work, because as an investor I’m gonna say, “Well, who’s on your team?”. And if you don’t have a team, I’m never gonna give you my money, because the only thing you’re gonna do is like Robert Kiyosaki’s poor friends did, they went bought liabilities, they paid their rent, they went and caught their bills up with my money, and then they’re not able to give me a return on my money. And I’m too sophisticated of an investor to do that. So instead, I wanna teach people how to really get to the place where they can actually talk to investors and know what investors are looking for. And the other thing that I do is I teach people how to watch Shark Tank, and I say to people, “If you watch Shark Tank… ” To date and how many seasons they’ve done, 13 seasons now, something crazy like that?

22:46 Beau Henderson: It’s been a lot.

22:46 Adam Farmer: It’s been a lot, but they’ve never asked anybody for their report card, I’ve never seen them ask anybody to show them their diploma. I’ve never even seen anybody, them ask anybody for a business plan.

23:00 Beau Henderson: Right.

23:00 Adam Farmer: The only thing they ask is, “What are your sales?”. Because that’s all that matters in business.

23:06 Beau Henderson: That’s right. Yeah, is it viable?

23:08 Adam Farmer: Is it a viable business? And then the other thing that you notice is, if it’s just one person and that person has a business, and they have sales, and they don’t have a team of people, then most of the sharks will not invest because they say, “This is just a hobby for you.”

23:25 Beau Henderson: Right.

23:27 Adam Farmer: Most of the money that they invest are in people who at least they’ve been able to get their family to help them, or it’s just more than just that one person, is the point that I’m trying to make. So, that’s the grow part of it. So, that’s the next thing that you have to do when you’re trying to build a big, sustainable business. You have to be able to grow, not only yourself as a leader, but you have to be able to grow your team as well.

23:52 Beau Henderson: So we focus, we grow, and how do we wrap it up?

23:57 Adam Farmer: So, once you start to focus, and you grow, and you got some sales and they’re respectable sales… They don’t have to be in seven figures at that point, but you gotta be able to show that you have something that people want and you have a plan to expand, so, you’re going to the future. Then you can prosper, and the prosper phase is “I got money coming in. I’ve learnt how to manage my money”. So, in order to learn how to manage your money, I’ll send them to somebody like you Beau, how do you get your personal finances in order? Because if you can’t get your personal finances in order, and know how to put together financial statement, income statements and balance sheets, if you don’t know those basics, then you’ll never get an investor’s money, because they know that’s the only report card that matters in business. It’s your financial statement.

24:56 Beau Henderson: Right. And I think that’s an important thing that you’re bringing up Adam, that a lot of times I have people want help or coaching on their business, like we’re talking about, starting their business and growing it. And I do this in a way and I try to be careful not to… You don’t want to insult somebody but one of the first things I’ll do is I’ll send them through a course I built, for just the basics of personal finance. Because I know if they’re not… And this is the majority of people. I know if they’re not able to do a basic income statement balance sheet, they’re not gonna be able to transition that to a profit and loss and have those skills in their business, to run a successful business.

25:37 Adam Farmer: That’s right. And so, they will never get an investor’s buy-in… So, the only investors that they will ever be able to attract are what we call “family, friends and fools”, right?

25:47 Beau Henderson: [chuckle] Right.

25:48 Adam Farmer: And that’s only gonna last for so long. You may be able to raise $100,000 from family, friends and fools, but how do you get somebody like Mark Cuban, who’s a billionaire, to invest in you? And the only way you can do that is to become, to be able to demonstrate that you’ve been a great financial steward over the resources that God has given you and it’s a smaller amount. So, if you can’t even demonstrate that, then you’re never gonna get an investor’s money. And unfortunately people are taught, “Well, if you just get an investor to give you some money, then you’ll be fine”, and that’s really not true. That’s not true at all.

26:33 Beau Henderson: Well Adam, as we kind of wind down here, you’ve given us some great information and people that are out there trying to grow a business, Richlifers, those of you with a business or growing a business, plug into gettingstartedhq.com, find Adam online. I know Adam, you’re happy to field questions on social media, etcetera.

26:56 Adam Farmer: Absolutely. Absolutely. Anyway that I can contribute to the RichLife community, I’m on board. I love what you’re doing, Beau. I love your personality. I know that you have a great heart and I have so many friends who live in Atlanta, the next time that I’m down there, we have to go meet up on Peachtree Street…

27:16 Beau Henderson: There you go. We’ll do a show live. That will be a lot of fun.

27:18 Adam Farmer: Man, that would be great. I want it. Oh, yeah.

27:21 Beau Henderson: As we take it out, wouldn’t be a show unless I ask you, Adam. What is it, that makes your life rich?

27:30 Adam Farmer: My big ‘why’ is when I come home and I see my wife and my son, that’s it. Being able to live life with them and experience life with them, it enriches my life and then, if we’re able to share with our friends and our family… As a matter of fact, we’re having a big get together this weekend, where we’re just having a bunch of friends over and we’re just talking about relationships and how to support one another. That for me, that’s what is all about. And Beau, if you were to ask me that, that same question 10 years ago, I would be like, “Oh, man. I need to make $10 million”.

28:11 Beau Henderson: [chuckle] Right.

28:12 Adam Farmer: I’ve learnt over life, it’s really about the people that God has placed in your life, letting your light shine, letting my light shine, so that when people encounter me, they leave better off than when they first came to me. And that’s really the enriching part of my life. So, I seek to be of contribution each and every day that I live and that’s what makes my life rich.

28:37 Beau Henderson: That is a way to wrap up the show, with the definition of a rich life… Yes, we’ve talked a lot about growing this business, to successful business, this big business, but what if it’s a business that… The money we make it’s just a tool. It’s a tool to do the things and take care of the things and people we believe in. And Adam, you wrapped it up very well. So, let’s do this. Check out gettingstartedhq.com, find Adam. Appreciate you, Adam. Hope to have you on the show again in the future.

29:08 Adam Farmer: Oh, yeah. Anytime. Anytime, anywhere.

29:11 Beau Henderson: And we’re going to… We’re gonna roll it out here and think about it. We talked about a lot of things. It’s funny how so much of the same principles for success with business is the same principles for our personal finances. They’re the same principles for our relationships. So, what if we committed our lives, everyday of our lives, to being the best we can and living that definition of a healthy, wealthy, fulfilled life on purpose. That’s what we’ll do right here, next time when I see you, on the RichLife Show.