Grant Cardone 10X – #1 Marketing Trainer in the World
Grant Cardone the 10X CEO, is a New York Times Best Selling Author and the #1 Sales trainer in the world. He is an internationally renowned speaker on leadership, real estate investing, entrepreneurship, social media and finance.
Originally from Louisiana, started from nothing and now has seven privately held companies with annual revenues exceeding 100 million. Named number one marketing influencer to watch by Forbes Magazine. Author of 5 books including: Sell or Be Sold, The 10X Rule, If You’re not First You’re Last and Be Obsessed or Be Average and the creator of 21 best-selling business programs. Founder and Fund Manager of Cardone Capital, with a $1.4Billion portfolio of multifamily properties. Cardone is also the founder of The 10X Movement and the 10X Growth Conference, the world’s largest business and entrepreneur conference.
My dad died when I was 10. He wanted to be rich – he never said that to me but I found out my dad wanted to be a wealthy man and he never got there. He fulfilled his personal obligations as a man to take care of his family, of his wife and his kids but he didn’t get the freedom part that he wanted. I think some of that may have been left in the environment for me to grab. I don’t think this is the reason why I do what I’m doing but certainly it was an inspiration.
At 16 years old I smoked weed for the first time. I was bored and when people are bored they become problematic. I knew when I picked up smoking that it was terrible and I didn’t know why I was doing it; I knew I was going to regret it but my brother was doing it, my buddies were doing it so I wanted in. Next thing I’m fully into drugs. From 16 to 25 years old I used drugs almost every day. It wasn’t just the drugs, it wasn’t what I was doing to my body, it was the number the times I quit and couldn’t quit and started again. At that point you start losing and sense of self-respect.
Grant Cardone Interview Miami
What was the Rock bottom that got you into rehab?
It was my mom, it wasn’t the drugs. I was beat up, I had 70 stitches on my face and head. I had an incident with a guy and he sent a buy to teach me a lesson. That event beat up my self-esteem even more, it degraded me another level because I felt I couldn’t even stand up for myself. This is what happens when you hang around the wrong people, sooner or later the day is going to come when you are going to pay the price.
After spending a few days in the hospital I said “that’s it, I’m done doing drugs, I’m not doing drugs again” and guess what happens? I am using drugs again 15 minutes later 10 times a day – in the hospital! See, you would think this would be the day I would quit; for two more years I would use drugs every day. I couldn’t get out, I couldn’t quit. Until one day at the age of 25 my mom says to me “I’m done – you are no longer welcome in my home, you’re no longer welcome in my business, I don’t want to see you anymore” and that was the day my life turned around.
Really everybody was pretty much done with me at this point. I’ve lost several jobs and I felt like a total loser. But I had this little light inside of me that said “you are special, you have something” but it was just covered up with all this stuff and all these problems (the drugs, the bad friends and bad choices).
I’m in a treatment center in the next 24 hours. I’m there 30 days, for the first time in seven, eight, nine years I stopped using drugs! Oh wow, I don’t have to use drugs! Finally that thing where I said I was quitting ten times a day, for the first time in my life I was able to quit successfully. So I’m leaving the treatment center because the insurance ran out, because that’s how those work, when the money runs out they boot you to the curb. I’m terrified; scared to go back to society and I’m going back to an environment where everybody around me, everybody I knew used drugs, and I have to start over.
Before I leave the counselor grabs me and says to me “look dude I’ll see you back here; if you don’t die I’ll see you back here” and I’m like “what are you talking about dude, I’m not coming back here!” and he’s like “oh no, you are coming back, you’ll never make it”.
When you go to a treatment center you tell them everything about your life, all your secrets, all the things you want to do in your life. So I’m telling them everything I’ve done wrong, I share with them what I want to do, my inspiration in life “I’m going to write books, I’m going to speak to audiences, I’m going to help people, I’m going to tell people this story about drugs and how damaging they are and I’m going to be somebody”. And their answer was “No no no dude; you are a drug addict and all you’re ever going to be is the drug addict, so you need to give up all the ideas of writing books, speaking to audiences, being rich – I always wanted to be financially rich! I always wanted to be like my dad, I wanted to be the guy that could take care of his family. They said “you need to give up all those ideas and settle for one thing – not using drugs; and if the days ends and you don’t use drugs Grant, that is a good day for you!
Grant can you share with our readers about your crucial beginnings in business and when was that moment for you that you decided to step up your game?
Absolutely, this was in 2010 after the big recession. There was a huge economy crash! I had three companies at the time and one of them got decapitated, all there was left was the head – 90% of it was gone! I had another consulting company and it was useless, it was me popping out on the road pitching stuff and selling – very transactional. That company got pretty much cut in half and anybody that was still doing business with me in 2010 were almost beat up, so everything was decided on price no contracts or any structure. The third business was real estate and in 2010 you couldn’t move this real estate. Even though real estate was decimated worldwide, the real estate I owned got us through 2010 and if it wouldn’t have been for that I’d gone bankrupt.
I had a moment when I had to detox of this easy was of doing business, so I had to sit down and figured out – what have I done wrong here?. Something is not working! When I was 25 I hit bottom with the drug problem and I hit bottom again; but I had a little bit of money now, it’s a similar bottom and I was like – Okay what am I addicted to? – I was addicted to easy, I was lazy, I was doing the same thing over and over again, I wasn’t recreating myself, I wasn’t spending money on marketing, I wasn’t learning about the internet and social media. “You need a reason to want to do this” and so I went to my wife and said “I’m never letting this happen to us again!
Could you share your journey of growth? What did you have to do to scale, to prosper and to become?
It’s gotten bigger than I thought It would get, I never thought this big. Number one I realized I could no longer be a great sales guy. This was no longer a sales solution, you can’t be great at sales, there’s no great salesman that’s financially free. Me learning sales was the foundation and the trap, it was the foundation to become a business person that I am today but it was also a trap because if you stay on the sales cycle you get stock and at some point you would have to build a business. Because if there is no business this can’t be business knocking on a door. There has to be a business that can operate when you’re not there.
So at this point I had to become a company and what do companies do? They market. I needed to become a household name. I needed people in Australia to know my name. I needed every household in America to know me, I needed Canada to know me, I needed the whole world to know me. I knew that was the solution. If anybody wants to be a great company you have to get known. So how do you get known, how does a person get known? I wasn’t aware of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and LinkedIn.
I did not see all these distribution channels, I saw it like places to maybe connect with people but I didn’t see it as a place to lay content down on. So we just started laying content, when I finally realize what it was like “Oh my God, there’s a road home”. This is better than me getting on a plane and flying to San Antonio or all the way to Melbourne.
I realized I could drop data content; I got so much content, there’s nobody living that has as much content. I have so much content on sales, marketing, finance, real estate, everything I’ve gotten good at I basically built a program around. And then I would have an opinion about it; I have a lot of opinions so I’d go on Instagram or Facebook and talk about it. I Have over 6,000 videos on YouTube.
You have built a business under your own name. Does that really scale, is that really building a company that’s beyond yourself but still has your name on it?
Yeah sure. We are doing Grant Cardone licensees right now, there will be thousands of people on this planet to continue selling Grant Cardone products after I’m dead. Cardone Ventures, we are buying other companies, we’ve added four companies this year and my name may stay on it or may not stay on it. But to be more skeptical, maybe some of these businesses could fail. Cardone Capital could never fail, it will go on forever, it will pay for my kids, my kids will be on the Forbes list because of Cardone Capital.
So this is why I’m always buying a business, partnering in a business, collaborating in a business where I’m actually putting money and energy and effort into a business or pushing on a business to expand it. Or the extra money goes in real estate.
At what point did start accelerating on the fire and heavily advertising and what has done to your business?
I started about two and a half years ago. We will spend about a million dollars this month in advertising and I wish we were spending a million dollar a week; I mean I’d spend a million dollars a day. You just have to find the money. “I RAISED $223 MILLION DOLLARS IN 20 MONTHS ON INSTAGRAM”.That’s like bank money, that’s these guys in these big buildings calling us and asking “can we have a meeting?”. It’s ridiculous! So the goal was to become a household name and once you become one then you realize “oh my God, this is possible!”. You have to have a team. I had three employees, seven years ago. You always need a stable person in the environment if you’re the wacko. If you’re the hurricane, tornado or whatever you call it, you need somebody to clean the stuff up. I have always someone twiking or cleaning this up or that off or whatever. I’m not trying to do things right or wrong, I’m just trying to do it. And how could anybody know what right or wrong is? You always have to have people doing this with you, you can’t do this by yourself.
How you’ve been able to scale up and still balance all other areas in your life?
That’s what 10X is. This program is like a refrigerator okay? So what do I need in my refrigerator to have a 10X life? Okay so I need people all over the world to know me, I can’t just have people know me on Instagram, that means I have to fly to Melbourne, I need to get a hotel room, I need to bring my kids with me and I need a nanny. I just started filling up the refrigerator, if I could do it what would I need?. So I started to look at what would I need. Elena and I sat down and said – what would we need in our refrigerator to feed our family, our life, our dreams? I need a Jet, I need a team, I need a business to work while I’m gone, I need connections all over the world. I need places where people don’t just buy stuff from me but you can actually invest your money. What would you rather do invest money with me or buy something from me? When we opened up the investment thing, I don’t know what I was thinking. We are paying people, my goal is to send people more money than people send me money.
How do you manage to still have the time for your personal life and everything else you do?
Oh that’s easy, once you decide “Hey, I want it all; you have it all”. 10X is about having it all! It’s not about getting rich, it’s not about being a health nut. 10X is “I want every part of my life to work”. And when you hear “you can’t have it all” is because whoever says that “gave up on having it all”. “QUITTERS ALWAYS HAVE BAD ADVICE, THEY QUIT AND THEN THEY ARE TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF WHY THEY DON’T HAVE IT ALL” It’s not true that you can’t have it all, I am the perfect example “THAT YOU CAN”. I don’t know if I have it all but I am in that top and I wasn’t 7 years ago. I’m not saying I’m some kind of genius, because for the first 50 years of my life I did not have it all.
If you were talking to a young Grant right now what advice would you give yourself?
Set yourself higher targets, you’re not going to stop, you’re going to say “hey, I can do this”. What do I have to do if is possible, who do I have to become, what do I have to be, how many people do I need working for me if it’s possible, what am I willing to put at risk in order to get that how much different would your life be? Stay with it, don’t give up on this.
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Photo Credit: Ray Kachatorian
