Cold open

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb life, the shared economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Run. Hey, what is up, Micah Man? I'm chillin', Stevie Stacks. How you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

I'm doing wonderful. A little bit beat down from the day. Today's my Sunday, you know. I got Tuesday, Wednesdays off, so you know, today's my Sunday. Out there messing with the pool and getting doing a bunch of things today. And out there hustling, looking for, you know, looking for property. You know how you're doing it?

Pool maintenance on a Tuesday Sunday

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Looking for properties, looking for stuff. That's the thing with that's the thing with hustlers, right? Right now, everybody's like the COVID thing. And um, and oh man, I'm so bored, and nothing to do, nothing to do. You and I, there's not enough hours in the day. That's real. That's true. Not enough hours in the day. And um, like most of our fans out there and uh listeners, and uh Scott Jennings will probably agree. Who and Scott Jennings is our next guest on episode 126 of your favorite Airbnb, VRBO, home away, all that stuff podcast. And I'll do a quick bio on Scott before I before I um before he speaks. He's sitting there, you know, patiently waiting. Uh Scott Jennings is a native of NC, which is I would assume North Carolina, an entrepreneur to the core. Scott was the guy selling you candy in school. He is the owner of Service RX, an installation service and maintenance company for commercial fitness equipment that operates from Pennsylvania to Florida to Atlanta. He is a COO in the newly formed Sojourn, a short and midterm rental management investment group. Scott has been a longtime member of Inmates to Entrepreneurs, where he is a board member, teacher, and mentor. He has been a guest of the White House and worked with members of Congress and the media to uh do to his work with inmates and entrepreneurs. Scott truly believes anything is possible with a great mindset, good work ethic, and creative, thoughtful approach. It is a pleasure for him to share his experiences with those around him. Scott sees himself as a student as well as a teacher. So give it up for Scott Jennings, everybody. I always wanted to do that. How you been, man? How you doing?

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Oh, we're hanging in there. It's the end of the day here. Um, you know, you said that entrepreneurs or those who are hustlers, whatever you want to call us. Um, we don't have enough time in the day. Ain't that the truth? And especially when you like what you do, more often than not, at least, um, you will get up and half the time before you've even finished your coffee, you will start rolling if into your office um or so forth, you know. Uh, and I'm sort of at that point right now, especially with the things changing, right? The way they have. Uh I'm more on the new side of uh the the short-term, midterm

Building the new website himself, patience tested

SPEAKER_03 3:11

rental game. We're now saying midterm because now all of us are looking to put people there longer than just 30 days, um, if at all possible. Um, and it's a you know, it's a new market. So I have been fanatical about learning and also building a new website, which I'm gonna do, I'm doing all on my own this time. 100% from beginning to end. And let me tell you, it's testing every patience I have, but I think I will be done over the next handful of days. So I'm I'm proud of myself.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

So you're so you're more of a do-it-yourself kind of guy.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

Well, normally, so with it, uh excuse me, with service RX, God, just changing the name, it's hard to remember. Um with service RX, I've always had a designer, but he designs, build templates, and then I just go in and make basic changes, right, that need to get done, and I can be creative over time. This I sp I wasn't sure what I wanted specifically. And so when you're not very specific, you're now talking a couple thousand dollars to do the website versus and I got the time, right? I have the time right now to be able to dedicate some hours every day or every couple days or whatever to doing it. So I wanted the challenge, it's just another opportunity to learn, I guess, essentially. That's what it comes down to. I can learn. And then if I want to do something else in the future, I'm more apt to be able to do it on my own because a startup cost is a website. And if I can do it myself, and the faster I can do it, and I can get more to the point. And if I'm I'm I'm okay with design, you know, I don't build something janky. Um, it might not be the most high-end, and some designers would rip it apart and have me fix all kinds of stuff, but it's good. And and um, so yeah, it's just more about me learning and and being able to do for myself so that that way when the time comes and I don't have to do these things anymore or don't want to do these things anymore, I'm I'm able to communicate to those who are much better.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

How long has your service RX been up? Okay, so well, we started at FitTech and Assembly back in um I've been in the fitness equipment industry since 2010, but I was a contractor for the first year, so we started in 2011 and uh we became service RX just here in the last couple weeks. Um and we did that because when you don't know any better and you name your business FitTech in the fitness equipment world, it doesn't matter if it says fit tech and assembly is the whole name, it's still fit tech and all the million different ways that people want to spell it, be cute. Uh, we get held up responsible for all the other fit techs in our industry. And there's a lot, supposedly. The vast majority of them, you can't find a website on them, by the way. You can't find them. You we just know that they're there. And um and we kept running into instances where we were being held accountable for another company, and then two sort of major, well, three things happened all at once. One, um, a high-end service advisor over at Core Health and Fitness. So Core Health and Fitness is the parent company for Star Trek and um and Nautilus and Schwin. Um those are brands you you've seen, right? Um, and Stairmaster.

The Detroit install that wasn't theirs

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Uh said the best thing you could ever do is change your name. You're being you you're you're the service reps are holding you accountable for everybody else as well. So we heard that and we thought, okay, let's start thinking about this. We already knew this was a thing, anyways. And then uh there's just a handful of miles south of me here. Uh a guy changed his name to FitTech. It was like, dude, you gotta know I'm here. I mean, because I'm easy to find. I'm not hard, I'm not hard to find. I had, I mean, the website, look, my website, the SEO, and it's it's it's been up for so long. They had a girl from California call and say, Hi, is this FitTech? Yeah. She says, Can you come see, you know, service my equipment? Where are you at? And she was like, somewhere in northern California. And I said, No. You know, why? Because she was calling a Fit Tech there, but they didn't have a website, obviously. You know, so we've had that, and then uh we were doing an install at LA Fitness in Atlanta, and um we're friends, we're pretty good friends with Neil, who's their head of operations, um, so for all of all of the LA fitnesses. And Neil pops in and sees my guys, and he's like, Oh, hey, FitTech's here. He's like, you know, talking to him, blah, blah, blah, blah. And my guys didn't know him, they didn't uh, but he knew who we were, and I know who he is. And he looks at the guys and goes, Hey, by chance, did you guys do the install in Detroit? That's just because they messed that up. Was that y'all? You know, and no, we don't service Detroit, but it should have just never been a question, right? And so changing it to service RX, we're still service, we still work stay in that world, right? But it's gonna be it's gonna separate us out enough that we can also do other things too. We have a good relationship with hydro massage. So if you ever go to Planet Fitness, those chairs that uh the that you get to lay on that massage you, not the mechanical ones, but the ones that shoot water in them. Um, yeah, we we fix and install a lot of those. Um, and then we've been messing around a little bit with some uh tanning beds, and um we're actually very interested in getting to the float industry. So um sensory deprivation chambers, you know, they're coming back, they're very cool. If you have not tried them, I suggest you go have you tried one, Steve?

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Uh Joe Rogan show. He always talks about that stuff. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Well, you know, you know, and yeah, I'd heard it there, and then I saw some other people talking about it, and I went here locally and tried one, and oh yeah, man, if I could own one. It's like it's like forced meditation, and the only way to explain it is after I went in for an hour, and when I came out, I had not been that centered as a human being in an extremely long time. Wow, I mean, completely grounded. It's it there's just no way to sort of okay. The closest thing I think that might make sense, you know that brief moment when you wake up, like as soon as you realize you're coming into consciousness and like you're perfectly in that moment, like just it's that best place in the world to be. That's what it was like as far as getting to that point. But this way, I I went to a point where I was doing some deep breathing, and I've I've learned I don't know enough about it, but I just know that you know good breathing work, whatever, is really good for you. But I was in there and I was doing some deep breathing, but suddenly, you know, when you close your eyes, you're you're you basically are sort of like two-dimensional. All right, it's no real depth to it. It suddenly grew depth for me. You know, like suddenly that darkness, that that blackness had depth. It just yeah. Uh one day it'll be a regular thing for me. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

What areas do you guys service? Because we're building a gym.

Service territory: DC Metro through the Carolinas

SPEAKER_03 10:33

Well, uh, so okay, so we got the DC office, and um, he's just outside of DC. And you know, so he's servicing basically DC Metro. So remember, the vast majority of Maryland becomes DC Metro, a lot of, you know. Um, so he's got the Northern Virginia, uh, Maryland. He ends up in Pennsylvania doing some installs, some Delaware doing installs. West Virginia actually is right by his place too, because uh that office up there is based out of Little Washington, which is the middle of nowhere, northern Virginia. Um and so he he does sort of that area, and and service-wise, we were splitting the the line at at like Richmond, Virginia, because it's halfway through the state. Um and then the North Carolina headquarters is actually much bigger, so that's North Carolina, Greenville, South Carolina. Um, we take care of Charlotte in Columbia, South Carolina, and this so most most of North Carolina and South Carolina parts of Georgia, we go over to Atlanta and stuff like that. And then we had a Florida office, but that's on its way out. Um, just not a good relationship uh with the person running it, just not working out very well. Uh, might come back. There's a lot of opportunity down there. But um, you guys are more western, so um I don't think we're heading in that direction anytime soon. However, if anybody listening to this podcast would be interested in teaming up with us. Sorry. Um, we're always looking for something new. I mean mahogany, call mahogany. Yep. Yeah, so yeah, so it's I just saw that recently. So mahogany is who's who's significant other? It's my wife. Okay, your wife, and it's she has a uh a fitness thing going on because I saw she's a uh personal trainer and bodybuilder. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Well, you know, if she wants to tap some of the people who might be service techs that she sees that want the opportunity to basically own a business, um that's sort of what we're looking to try to do for our growth. Find people who have experience, who have the dedication and the talent. We've already, you know, we'll make mistakes. We went to the person in Florida, it wasn't a good fit for us. Um, but the guy in DC has been awesome, right? So um what we bring to the table is being able to simply um I almost turn on the faucet for some people, literally. You know, instead of having a hard startup, right? You know, trying to do it on your own and make you know, make connections and stuff. We just start calling people and go, hey, we're in this area now. Oh, great, wonderful, you know, and um it's worked out well. You know, it happened in Florida and it definitely happened in DC.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

So now here's a question I have, because uh obviously you you dropped some names like of um Planet Fitness, big big companies that you set up you know gym equipment for. And um, so have you always done like you know, help people start up home gyms and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Not so much home gyms. Uh so the residential customer is much harder than the commercial customer. Um, the commercial customer has a level of experience. Doesn't mean the commercial customer is always easy either, right? But they're at least coming with knowledge, and the residential customer is not, and they're shopping on they are really shopping on price more often than not. They don't care about quality, they you know they just want to know that oh, I can get what I want for a thousand bucks or fifteen hundred bucks. You know, I tell people all the time that would that used to call us, um, they'd say, hi, uh, you know, I want to buy a treadmill, and I'd say, okay, you know, and we through some of our residential uh manufacturers, we have the opportunity to sell residential stuff. I'm like, well, if if you go under sort of this price point, you're wasting your time. Basically, if you go to Walmart and you buy a Walmart treadmill, you bought a Walmart treadmill, even though it still said the same brand name as uh as a higher end one, right? You know, it's just you you pay for you know you get what you pay for. And so we've done and the residential customer too, they they don't know how to think about how this is going to fit in their space. Um, it's just a lot more work. So it I mean, it will I do it for someone, yeah. I uh yeah, but let me help actually help you versus fight against you to get it done. Um, because you you have to spend some money to get what you want and you have to think about how it's gonna fit in that space.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

Well, see, because I the reason I asked is because the with obviously with the COVID 19 19 thing going on and gyms shutting down everywhere, and then they're barely starting to gonna start opening up again. I wouldn't think your phone would be ringing off the hook to be filling up these places with new gym equipment. So, or did you ever think of like doing a pivot

COVID pivot: dropping installs, keeping service

SPEAKER_01 15:07

like that and and marketing yourself as someone to set up these home gyms? Because everybody wants a home gym now.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

Um, well, see, that's the thing. So in North Carolina, we sort of we we stopped doing the in we stopped installing for right now. Um here's why. So I I'm I'm blessed in the beauty of now I get to show up part-time or no time. Uh so we we've been on the service side for quite some time, and two and a half going on three years ago, I started doing install, and we had more and more customers call. I come from the world of office furniture, so I understand the assembly of products, right? You know, I was in building office cubicles and installing office furniture for for 13 years on and off. Um and when by the time I left, I'd been project manager, a project coordinator, um, you know, I had I had very large territories for people that I'd worked for. So but so install came naturally. Um but then what happens, the more we grew, uh what I realized is that the more control we lost in the end product and how things happen, and I couldn't get it, I couldn't gain that control. And so it was a kind of it's okay, so we started losing money because I could, you know, I had issues on the crew, didn't matter how much I wanted to train you, just work ethic, things happening. It doesn't mean all the guys, but there wasn't a consistency, right? You need a consistency and work ethic to be successful, um, even in just teaching someone to put something together. Two, it's extremely I mean, we're moving thousands of pounds a day. I mean, you know, you know, we're not digging ditches, that's hard too, right? But we are offloading whole trucks that have, you know, each weight stack is a minimum of 200 pounds. Some of them, the the the heaviest piece of equipment that comes completely built is pretty much a piece of free motion functional trainer. It's about 1,200 pounds. Um and two guys will move that, they'll get it up on a dolly and and they'll get it moved. But they're doing that day in and day out, and they're fighting. There also equipment's not exactly always won't fit through doors. You know how many gyms have a normal size door instead of two doors? Um, so half the time you're taking things apart, you know, so it's a variety of things. It was just so I can't I can I can control my crew. That's the thing I can control, but I couldn't control all my dealers and my manufacturers, and my main dealer that I was working for got in bed with some very large players and started letting the very large players really control the boat. And they'd say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're ready. And then we'd show up and they cut the concrete out going into the building the day before. And so, yeah, we we charged you, but we didn't charge you at a profit. All right, we just we we charged for time, and then what happens is it's a variety of things, and they all sort of send like excuses, but I couldn't control that half. And when someone told me that, hey, Scott, you can still get your paycheck and not have to do this craziness anymore, I said, you know what? Um, I want to focus on my short-term rentals and um and grow that business because it's it's it's it's cash flow, it's good, and this is it's this is new and intriguing to me. And um and you know, I'm having fun at it.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

So uh so how does this bring us all the way back to short-term rentals? How did you get into that?

SPEAKER_03 18:28

You know what? I saw Brian Page go on Grant Cardone and offer his course for $997 or whatever it is. Oh, did you know that the the secret number and all uh pay for like gigs like that where they're selling you a product usually end in a seven? Just saw that the other day, and I actually started realizing that they all end in sevens. You know, so anyhow it was like 997, and you know, and then if you listen to some of the other people um you know who will poo-poo Brian Page and his course and whatever, I don't care. It got me it got me the information I needed to get started in a simple in a systematic way and helped me understand what I had to do first, right? Yeah, and uh it so we bought the course, like and for between the course and our first place, uh about I pitched three places and by the third one I'd already landed my first studio apartment. Nice. Um yeah, and I so we you know we're a mix now of arbitrage and uh managing for owners. I'm not sure which I like best. I think I like the arbitrage better because I'm in more control, uh, but I'm also learning what kind of owner I want to work with and who I don't want to work with, and how to control the situation, maybe a little bit better, but regardless. Um so you know, we were looking for something new. Uh me and my wife were both getting older, and uh more so my wife has had a hard time uh with employment because she is now 50 and you know has a mas got a master's degree and everything, but I guess age discrimination, whatnot, um doesn't matter. You know, she it doesn't matter what it was, she just couldn't seem to find employment, and so well let's do this. And um, so here we are, and actually I'm enjoying the hell out of it. And it it also gives me opportunity to work from anywhere, and that's what I'm really looking for in life right now is sort of to work from anywhere. How many uh how many units are you up to and how long you've been hosted? So we had six, we let one go.

Six units down to five, rough neighborhood exit

SPEAKER_03 20:27

Uh, we it was in a bad territory. Um someone I had partnered and sort of managing for a um a homeowner, and I went there at night, and the next when I came back during the day, it was sort of a rough neighborhood. Great neighborhood, everyone was great, but uh the the people that stayed there didn't tend to like the guys who were a couple doors down who would work on their car and get drunk and then want to talk to them. Nice guys, they just didn't want to really care for that. You know, they sort of beat us up over stuff, so um, so we let that go. So we're down to five. Uh, we we were planning to head to Panama and it's iffy. We were had full intentions on renting our own place here upstairs, um, and just locking off the basement and bringing our personal stuff down. Um but we're not sure if that's actually gonna happen or not when we leave. Uh and but we're still looking. So we we thought we had a bum, man. We had a uh a handshake deal on a place, and then the lady uh took it back. Um hopefully it's not over with though. Um, because she's also talked about upstairs. You know, she's got a uh in-law suite and a three-bedroom, two-bath upstairs uh that she might give us all at some point. Um a building that we have two studios in is uh potentially got a third for us, I hope. Um so hopefully we're gonna grow here in the next week or two. We started buying furniture on just in case. You know.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

So did um how'd I ask, how how did COVID 19 affect your business, your business? Model and dude, yeah. Okay, how did you adjust to it? What were the effects that had to adjust to it?

SPEAKER_03 22:05

Well, you know, it's it's just like uh I think everybody did, right? You know, anybody who has a rental most likely had full calendars and then suddenly didn't have full calendars, you know, and again I was new, you know, and so but I've seen this before, I've seen fear fearful things before, right? And so the best thing I can do is stop. Yeah, I'm gonna freak out. I I saw a post the other day, you get about five seconds of freak out, then it's time to go gangster. So mine was longer than five seconds, but I went gangster. Okay, what do I gotta do? And I just started diving into content and realizing and realizing the uh the power of um taking people getting people off platform at that point in time and getting them into direct booking. And um, and actually, you guys uh just you know, you guys uh interviewed Adam. Uh Adam was great for helping me understand uh a little bit more about it, wrapping my hand head around it a little bit better. I knew that when we had started this, that I wanted to follow a more corporate path. I know that. I already knew that, but it was easy money, and so I was not moving super fast. I was more worried about my my my channel manager working for me well than I was about direct booking and and working around that. So I was still in the figuring out what was my best channel manager stage when this happened. The example being is I'm now my third channel manager in in less than a year, and because I truly believe that you have to start with a good channel manager and then go out from there.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

Uh which channel managers have you used and which ones are you use which are you using now?

SPEAKER_03 23:47

I start off with it uh I IMGS, is that what it's called? IMG. Okay. Um, you know, and that was okay. And and uh then I went over to home away, hostaway, excuse me, hostaway. And now I'm at owner res. And let me tell you, owner res is the deal. And here and here's why here's my issue with channel managers, right? It doesn't matter how well they work, they're built by engineers, and and they're engineer-centric. Um, in other words, they don't understand what customer service

Third channel manager in under a year

SPEAKER_03 24:25

is. You know, so if you have a problem, it's not an instant fix. I do business in real time, and I'm sure you guys do business in real time. So then where there's a problem, you know, within 24 hours, we usually want to have some kind of a fix in process, right? Um, you know, it wasn't that way. Well, you know, I'm GS, it was just like too slow, and I couldn't pick up the phone and call anybody. And then um host, they're at a what Seattle, Washington area or something like that. And then hostaway is like Germany, Netherlands, somewhere anyhow. And again, I mean it might be a week before they're willing to even get on a uh a Google Meet, you know, or something. Yeah, it's just I don't that's unacceptable to me. Uh I've been using service-based platforms for for service RX for a long time. I understand the power of why your your software is extremely important and and how it makes me money. And so when I go to Owner Res, and NRS still doesn't have a phone call, you know, a phone number that you can call. Oh, it's listed on their website, but it's no one picks it up. Um you know, but if I send an email, there's usually one within back to me, depending on how busy they are, sometimes within an hour. Downside is is I mean, they you know, there it's still not customer service oriented. However, the software, while not plug and play like everybody else, the software is just it's built for me. It's built for me to be successful. Yes, does it it has an extremely hard learning curve, but it's built for me to be successful. And so like I've already hooked it up to the back end of the website I'm working on. And so for my website and their widgets that they that they produce for me, I plug them right into my website. It's got calendar, it's got rates, it's got everything. And someone goes straight from my website directly to a quote to a uh to a signed agreement to a payment to a signed lease, signed digital lease, the whole nine yards. It's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Um wait a minute. What what what this is with owner res? Owner res, yeah. So I can go from my website to a quote, they'll see immediately see the quote that just got produced. So it's just like a checkout, you know. Okay. And so and then all they got to do is say yes, I want it. And it will go and it'll produce the lease. They'll sign the lease. I will capture all their information. I don't have to do squat. It just has to, you know, it just has to happen.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Michael signing up right now.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Uh let me send you an affiliate link. I'm gonna be greedy. I'm gonna be a greedy SOB and send you an affiliate link. Um but it but it does have a hard learning curve because it's it's built by engineers. And and even when talking to them, they'll say, Yeah, we know, we understand, and and they're trying to get better, and they're they're starting to produce some videos and things like that. Um but they don't have a text messaging platform, but they have an extremely robust email platform. Like I can create any kind of email with any kind of trigger to do certain things. Um, there are some areas that are very lacking. Like, I can't send an email like like IGMS was great because you could send an email like every five minutes or a message, you know, you could stagger stuff, right? Host away, you could stagger stuff by the hour. Unfortunately, on a res, it's like by the day. And that's just you know, eventually they'll understand that at least by the minutes makes sense because I don't know about you guys, but when I receive a bunch of emails, they start becoming spam very quick, very f very, very fast. I can speak, that'd be all right. Um but what else can it do? You know, direct integration, obviously, with everybody else. And um it's got its own website, just like you know, Adam was talking about with he what's he use, he's hostfully. Yeah. Um it their website, I don't know what hostfully's website looks like. I haven't gone over and see what Adam's, he's never shared his stuff with me. Um, but it looks like a legitimate website, you know. I mean it it's a decent one. And what you do is you it will take your your domain name and you integrate your you just hook your domain name up and they'll give you immediately SSL certificate and it'll add just like any other website. I just wanted something that was a little bit more SEO friendly, in other words, WordPress, and um I wanted to be more corporate based and have more functionality, so that's why I've never really used theirs. Um you're you're building you rather build your own website thanks to the website. Yeah, uh because I want to build something that's not based in just simply the short-term rental lifestyle. I want to base something that, you know, I get like I have one apartment, I just lock some guy in for six months, you know, and that's what and I want to get people who are paying, you know, two thousand, three thousand in air, you know, for st stuff

Building a brand, not a short-term rental business

SPEAKER_03 29:21

because they're coming through a corporation and they want the the uh security of consistency and a good product. And so that's what I want. I want to build a brand. I don't want to build a short-term rental business, I want to build a brand. Um, so we start off as the name was guest house, and then we all make stupid decisions, we all make stupid mistakes, right? We base it off the fact of in our state that we could find guest house LLC as the website, you know, never even thinking to sh to to check with the Secretary of State's whether or not it was actually taken. I should I I should know better all day long. All day long. I should I already know where this is going. Yeah, and it was taken. And so but you know what? We're at the beginning of the journey. And so I just looked at my wife and said, All right, let's think about it. So we threw a lot of ideas around, and nothing was you were, you know, we're bickering back and forth about nothing that doesn't work. And um, she sort of so suddenly showed up with the name Sojourn, S-O-J-O-U-R-N, which means short stay or temporary stay.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

I like that.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Oh, okay. That works. Yeah, because we were talking about, you know, there's other people.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

Yeah, I know. You have a thing with naming things.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

I know.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

I know it's your kryptonite.

SPEAKER_03 30:43

Exactly. Um, you know, and well, because we were throwing around the fact that you have Lyric and you have Stay Alfred and you have all these other businesses that the name doesn't isn't very specific to the industry, right? And so that got her thinking in another way, and we were just throwing stuff around trying to find, you know, and my she's a longtime florist. So uh, you know, I was like, what's your favorite flower? So, you know, she likes irises and then a Hawaiian flower because she went to school in Hawaii called uh Hua Kenny Kenny. I probably said that completely wrong. It's hua kenny kenny. You know, we were looking up, you know, how to name things based like that, you know, things that would that would not confuse the the customer, you know, uh, because we want to build a brand. And especially if we take this brand and we go to Panama with it and other places as we start to travel the world, um, we wanted to make sure it could last.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

I like I like names that don't that aren't so like specific to what they're describing, you know what I'm saying? Well, and and you know, like like when I looked up podcasts before we started doing podcasts, if there was any uh Airbnb podcast, you know, there'd be the Airbnb podcast or the short-term state podcast, you know. Okay, that's cool, but you can never really expand, you can never even talk about anything else because that's what you are, you know. That's why I thought of um live, let thrive. You know, let was a little, you know, a nod the nod of the hat to the how the English people we have room to let, you know, we can you can rent you know, rent something out and so live, let thrive. I thought, yeah, that's a pretty cool title. It isn't, you know, if you looked at it right away, you might not know it's about short-term rentals, but it's just you know, it's just a cool title like Apple. What the fuck is you know, Apple is selling computers, you know, and that's just it doesn't mean you know, computer dot oh, you know, they have a good strong name. It doesn't have to be exactly what they're talking about, you know.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

Yeah, oh that's that's that's the perfect way to think. I mean, that's when we're teaching at inmates, right? Um we're always talking about making sure that you're building a brand, that you're thinking in those ways, right? Because if you're not, you you you think yourself into a corner, essentially, you know, and you will get yourself stuck. Um, and then it's harder to get out. And people don't really wrap their head around it until they're in it. So with Fit Tech and Assembly and the name change, we it was suddenly I wish we would have done it like about a week or so sooner, all right? But we're like, hold on a sec. Wait, there's no one coming coming to the website. And so we have a chat bot on the website. By the way, if you have a website, chat bots you can get for free, and they're just super easy plugins, right? But what they'll do is they'll just they give you the most basic of information. There's it's just like Google Analytics, they're still tracking. So suddenly I get a chat bot email of how many people had come the other week, and it hit three. I was like, huh, time to change the name. We're not gonna disturb anybody, obviously. And um, and you know, we had gone from probably about 160 people or so a week coming through the website, you know, to three. I said, time to change the name. Um, and we just jumped on it, and and but it was a good time to pivot and not paint, and again, the name change was about not painting yourself in the corner. So, like you said, to live, let thrive, you know, it doesn't paint you into a corner. Um, sojourn hopefully will never paint us into a corner. Um, you know, the world domination has to happen um in a way that is as smooth as possible. That's that's keep it simple,

Facebook and Craigslist ads, 80% occupied through the crisis

SPEAKER_03 34:17

stupid. All right. You go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 34:19

Oh, are are you now? Are you running ads to your web running ads so people can get to your website? And how are you advertising it to go to the website?

SPEAKER_03 34:27

I was okay. So I was uh, you know, so again, everything is sort of now that we changed the name, now my Facebook page is useless, right? My you know, everything starts becoming useless very quickly. But yes, I started immediately running Facebook ads, uh, again, learning uh from Adam about how he was searching for people, which made a lot of sense to me. Um we were doing Facebook ads. I didn't get into pay-per-click because I didn't actually have a really face, you know, I didn't have a real website to work with, and um and then so Facebook and Instagram ads together, and then uh Craigslist, um and then that was really it, you know. And I've stayed 80% plus occupied easily, maybe 90, you know. I mean, I've had a couple like bad spots, but you know, we we entered a world where suddenly for the vast majority of us, it became a price war. It wasn't about the quality of your place anymore, it was a price war. It was just surviving through this. And I would like to say that hopefully by the time I'm building and I get another year or two in it, it won't be a price war. It'll be uh it's a customer base war, you know. And that's that's what I learned out of all of this. It's a customer base. Remember, all these individuals who have suffered and complained and whined and said, Oh my god, Airbnb, and this, you know. The reality is is that you didn't own the customer. You have no customer base, you have none. So shame on you for not realizing that and realizing that you are living off of the scraps that are given to you, you know, and it's not there's nothing wrong with that in a good economy, but you see where it's wrong, where it's very wrong with what we're going through. And see, that's what I knew I wanted to work towards, but I was like everyone else, is being lazy. And then suddenly it's like, oh, that will never happen to me again. I will build my customer base.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

I'm happy you brought that up because a lot of people live that high economy. And we me and Steve talked about it. I'm like, we don't know what Airbnb will go through if the something ever happens to the economy. Well, we just seen what happened, you know. So I'm happy

You never owned the customer - Airbnb did

SPEAKER_02 36:47

you brought that up. Yeah. I tell people Airbnb is a gatekeeper between you and your customer, but once they are in your home, you can now make them your customer. You have that opportunity. A lot of people didn't take advantage of it.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

And by the way, Owner Res has what they call the uh Onar Res Bridge Channel bridging channel that scrapes information that you don't get from Airbnb and Home Away and Booking.com over into your stuff. And then also you build into your renters agreement that goes out to everybody, doesn't matter what channel they come from, to ask for all that information again. So guess what? I have 90% of the emails, so I will start direct booking through MailChimp and whatnot, you know, and I will start my own campaigns and I will do, you know, so again, build your customer base and start giving them the power. It's a great platform. I mean, yes, did the did they steer the ship wrong? Yeah. You know, Brian, whatever his last name is, the fact is that when he started, he's had a unicorn the whole time. Yes, he's had hard times in growing a business, but he's had he's never faced this. And what he doesn't have is the seasonality to steer the ship properly. So he what he didn't understand was instead of doubling down on the quality of his hosts, he doubled down on what you know the World Health Organization and CDC and everything was saying and not realizing that the professionals here, and I'll count myself as a professional because I understood exactly what needed to happen as soon as it I didn't freak. I mean, it's like, okay, we know we got to clean. I went out and got an ozone machine immediately because I didn't have one yet. Uh, dude, so we started asking before you got here, where have you been? What have you done? How have you feel? We ask you before you leave, where have you been, what have you done? Talking with all my cleaners. The professionals hosts here immediately started these practices and figuring out ways around and we're listening and paying attention. So we were ready. Oh, and by the way, we were we were self-isolating, weren't we? We had all the places that were self-isolating, but they suddenly rent or uh wrote algorithms that cut everyone's heads off. And why? You know, we we were set up perfectly. Oh, that's right, and but we saw real things happen, we saw hotel ads suddenly show up in place of us, and you know, we saw a lot of immature m moves happen in the way of business. And instead of backing us up and right, wrong, or indifferent, I I'm not mad. I mean, I'm you know, I got I think we lost, you know, since we're on the new side and our prices were only just gaining momentum. Um, I think we lost 12,000 that month. Um but you know what we survived and I learned I'm not gonna be mad at it, you know. Uh I'm gonna be a better player at Tom Salad.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

Stronger.

SPEAKER_03 39:43

Yeah, you know, because you guys know who the bad actors are. You watch them whine, complain, and moan about things that they should be able to control themselves, you know, and they should go out and and and figure out a a workaround to the problem. Um you know, and and and and learn more about being a business owner. You know, I would like to think that since there's three of us here and we're on a podcast and we're talking business, that we're all three good business owners, and we understand that we hopefully we all understand that we have so much more to learn, you know, uh because I talked to a girl the uh yesterday who has only been the business a year, year and

Email versus text marketing

SPEAKER_03 40:20

a half, and she went out and franchised with a company called Avenue West or something like that. She's now getting like Buku money for corporate rentals. I'm like, dang, I want your money, you know. I got a lot to learn here, you know. Um, but of course, I I managed to have a conversation where I'm picking her brain, you know. Um I'm letting her give me information that I needed to learn and and to know about and to know what kind of pool I can play in. All right, I want to be in the deep end.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

I have a question for your advertising. You said you do MailChimp, whatnot. I was just actually in a mastermind group when we were talking about this. Uh, which do you, because I know you've been in business, you have been in several businesses, which do you find more effective? Uh email marketing or text message marketing? Or have you used both?

SPEAKER_03 41:08

I have not used text message. Okay, so again, so I'm new to I'm new to short-term, you know, midterm rental stuff. So Facebook ads really paid off. And and just writing ads on top of Craigslist. On the fitness side, for what I do for a living, I mean, I even worked with some friends of mine who have a marketing firm, and there was just zero ROI for anything. Yeah. I mean, it if you're sending out emails, it's just to remind your customer that you're here. Here's why. All right. I am in such a niche that you're gonna type in specific keywords to find me. You're gonna type in treadmill repair, elliptical repair, a fitness equipment service. Um, you might type in the name of the manufacturer, and that's pretty much all you're gonna do. But if you're commercial, you have been introduced to the vast majority of us through our manufacturers. All right. So, and there's only a handful of players in every single state, you know. So you already know who's who, or if you do not, you know, you you only ask for specific things. So when I ran pay-per-click or Facebook ads or anything else, what I did was I uh attracted the residential owner who was not my ideal customer. Um, in the residential market, I don't want any to deal with anyone who has equipment getting past five years old. So um we had this rule that if you know, I think at five years they start saying no. By seven years, they're saying no, we're not touching that piece of equipment. Because in the residential market, as the equipment ages, they stop making parts. And then it's also the issue of you've probably never taken care of it. So once we it's the same thing as don't you know it's just a uh a can of worms. We we touch one part, and next thing you know, all the other things start to break. They hadn't just because you were removing parts, things are starting, it just causes more problems. So it doesn't really work too well that we have found, and we haven't found anybody who has been able to say yes. Um dealers, it works for fitness equipment dealers who actually sell equipment. It does been on the service side. Um and then in short-term rental, yeah. I mean, dude, I will I will eat the heck out of you know, MailChimp, whatever marketing campaigns. I will Facebook campaign, I will Instagram campaign. I have been amazed at TikTok here recently. Dude, take TikTok is where the happy people are. The happy people, the courageous people, not the ones who want to bitch moan and complain about politics and whatever else they want to complain about. Like Facebook. Such as a Facebook land. Um and so I'm trying to figure out how I can make funny videos on TikTok regarding one, the short term rentals, you know, and then two, can we do that for fitness equipment repair? You know, how do we how can I get my guys to get out of their comfort zone and be able to laugh at themselves and put put themselves out there and have some fun? You know, I have no problem being a goofball. You should meet my wife. Oh my god. Between both of us, anything is possible, more so with her. Um you know, uh, but yeah, uh, you know, and I but back to your point, I've never also I've never tried text message. However, I get a lot of them, you know, and uh I get them randomly. That's the problem, is they get them randomly. And they're always from financial people. Hi, capital loans would like to, yeah, rob me. Um you know, because that's what it always is, right? I mean, if you're if you're advertising to me more often than not, I've learned this the hard way by taking bad loans that you're gonna take advantage of me, you know.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

So yeah, I like I like that though. Yeah, I like that you've you gotta find where what the benefit of each platform and tick tock is a very underrated platform that Yeah, I want to learn how it monetizes too.

SPEAKER_03 45:03

Um it's just something about it. I've been amazed at watching the courageousness of people on it, you know, and willing to put themselves out, especially those, you know, that are handicapped and still get up and do the TikTok dances and and and cool, go for it. You know, I could care how you know I'm one of these people and I grew up in a household, and I'm I'm blessed to have a ton of friends that are you know in the same way in this world who could care less about you, you know, if you're big, small, tall, fat, you know, skinny, amputeed, not amputeed, whatever no one cares, you know, just don't be an asshole, right? And um, and so when I but on Facebook, it's like gotta get tired of the trolls, especially the intellectual trolls. You know, that you say black, they say white, you say white, they say black. It doesn't matter,

Turn off the news, refuse the talking heads

SPEAKER_03 45:53

you know. Um, and it's like, okay, you're making me dumb, and I'm leaving the room because I'm getting dumber the longer I talk to you. Um, you know, and it's just because the most people don't think for themselves, right? Uh I don't watch the news, by the way. Public, turn off the news. You want to get rid of 90% of the problems of the world, turn off the news. I do not watch news. Um, you have to tell me when something is going on. You have to tell me that there's a big storm coming. You have to tell me that there's about to snow or or whatever's there's a pandemic. I mean, it wasn't really it was only on my radar because it was coming through social media. But my staff has to tell me about major things happening, so I will start to pay attention. And I'll go, okay, just let me know if I need to pay attention. And then if they come back in a couple of days, go, yeah, um, let's start making decisions around this. I'll get on the news and I'll start watching and looking for information about it and we'll talk. You know, but I don't get my day ruined by talking head who tells me their what was their opinion that suddenly became a fact because they got to talk about it for three hours.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

Here's a burning question I have. You being in North Carolina, I'm a huge Tar Hills fan over here in Texas. And so obviously, this this all happened right when March Madness was gonna start, and it just destroyed the March Madness, and then they canceled it. And I you know, and I heard this one this one crazy this this guy talking about he's a bar owner, he has several bars, and he was saying that he makes half his revenue in that like one month of March Madness for the whole year, half of his revenue. And I'm like, and I started thinking about it. I was like, it's kind of like yeah, it's like kind of like a Super Bowl every day going on for like almost like a month, you know, and they just totally lost half the revenue, man. He was so dependent on March Madness.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Yep. So there's the reason why the Hornets are not what they should be is because we have Duke and UNC. And it's absolutely true. You know, the reason why we do not have professional baseball here is because we have the Durham Bulls. You know. Um hockey does well, redneck hockey does okay. The Carolina Hurricanes do okay. Now, all my you all my units except for one are in Chapel Hill. So man, I love the college because it it brings me money. Um, I'm a little bummed that 30,000 kids or whatever left and all their parents, I lost graduation money. Man, that was good cash, Kevin. That was good cash. Yeah. Um you know, but uh, and then my other one is uh our our our fifth one is over in Durham, uh just six miles from Duke. So, and then with you talking about ACC Madness, right? So that's held in Greensboro. All right, so my other unit that I let go in Greensboro was just a couple miles down the street from the Coliseum. So um it was a direct shot, poop, right there. So we were sort of banking on all these things, and unfortunately it changed. Um uh but yeah, that's UNC as a school brings so much. It's a fun town, it's a great town, it's grow,

College towns, hospitals, medical schools drive demand

SPEAKER_03 49:05

it's changing dramatically. They're going through a huge build process. It's gentrifying, it was already gentrified, it's gentrifying again. It's going to that next, it's it's they're tearing down and rebuilding now. Um, UNC as a school has literally probably built a swear on every square inch they have. You know, soon there's gonna be buildings in the middle of uh the football stadium, um, you know, because it's this flat piece of ground. Um but uh there's a lot of money around schools, and that's what I've learned. And so when when I'm thinking ahead now, I'm looking for how does a college, a medical facility, uh, because that's been a lot of our customers, is okay. So, and and we're just gonna go with chapel because that's where I have the most experience of having all these units in one spot. Parents coming to see kids, um uh alumni coming back to go to games, um, you know, they've been doing better in football, and so that really helped. Obviously, basketball was not a good year for them this year, um, but that's a rarity for them. But you can't stay, you know, and when you live in a place that's a basketball dynasty, Duke and Chapel Hill, all in the same, which they're 12 miles apart, by the way. Um, so it's a big rival. But um, you know, and then we have the hospital, so UNC hospital, because they're a big medical school. Uh, and then we get um we also get a lot of people coming in for uh uh to apply to work at the college. So with the college being shut down right now, it's a bummer. It's a big bummer. But that's what I'm looking for now when I'm out and about, it's like and we're driving for dollars. I'm thinking about what's close. Why does someone have to come here? You know, and uh I was doing some work up in Pittsburgh, uh doing an install up there, and uh man, I was like really close to Carnegie Mellon, I think is what they told me the school was. And the whole area, all I was seeing was dollar signs. I was going, you know, I need once I get a little bit better f hold of what I'm doing and understanding how to work from afar, yeah. Uh there's certain areas I'll be going too hard.

SPEAKER_02 51:16

You know, it's it's a lot of I think you bring the areas is really huge at this time, like it's people like aren't traveling in New York, but they say if you go upstate New York, people are going there like crazy just to get out of the city. So I think those little small towns, rural towns, or towns with a school, man, hospitals, those are hits right now.

SPEAKER_03 51:34

Yeah, schools are always gonna be good as long as they're uh a a big school, right? You know, um because schools bring have so much flow in and out, in and out, between parents, students, staff, you know, especially if there's a hospital built into it, you know. Um That's the interesting part about this, um, is that you're you're if you can think of a reason why someone needs to travel, then you have an opportunity to make income. I don't know if I have any real interest in straight up vacation rental because that is seasonal, unless I'm like the tip of Florida or like I said, we're going to Panama. Um, and when we go down to Panama, I I'm quickly in the time that we're down there, uh, we're gonna try to travel the vast majority of the country. Um and hopefully what we'll do is we'll get a we'll get a better understanding of the the the beat and the rhythm of the place. What is business oriented, what is vacation oriented, is how long is the vacation season, if it is, you know. Um because they're so close to the earth uh equator, they're only I don't know, man, 50 miles or so from the equator. So is it year-long? You know, I mean, because they have seasons too. They have their windy season, they have their rainy season, they have, you know, but they don't get hit by the hurricanes, you know, there they've they haven't been hitting one forever. It's like Hawaii rarely gets hit um by anything. Uh so they do have earthquakes, though. Fun, fun. You know, but that's what we'll do is when we go down there, we'll try to figure out what what is the market and and why do we feel like we could be profitable here, especially renting a place for two and three hundred dollars a month. Nice, yeah, and also too, it's different standards too. Um, it's a country that has a different standard from the US, and uh so uh that's how I uh I hit you guys up and said, Yeah, me and Adam were both going to Panama. Adam's wife is Panamanian, and he's going down there too. He was supposed to be there in December already, so yeah, in December, and I was supposed to leave tomorrow. And so um, but uh we you know we both had the same thought of going down there and figuring out this culture um and stuff. So, you know, this is just a business that can take you worldwide if you do it right. Obviously, we're watching people. I'm sure you guys are watching the the people on YouTube. You know, the guy optimized Airbnb or whatever he's called, you know, he's he's over in uh Philippines area, somewhere like that, you know, and then you got um Life Afar, I can't remember that guy's name. He is Columbia. Um and then uh I'm not that's that's all I'm watching for the Airbnb world at least. Short-term rental people.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

Yeah, here's here's what I'm seeing like in some spots that um you know it was already kind of a lot of cities being anti-Airbnb before this COVID thing, but this kind of like gave them like uh an excuse to say, all right, all short-term rentals are banned in so-and-so city until you know we tackle this COVID-19 thing. It kind of gave them uh I don't I don't know, um, I don't know why they would attack short-term rentals because I mean it seems it would be a lot safer to stay in a house where you could stay by yourself instead of like a big hotel full of thousands of people, right? But I just see I just see um like Maui, for example, they outlawed Airbnbs because of the COVID-19 thing. And I was like, why would why would they do that? And so, I mean, you don't know what's going to work behind the scenes, but um, do you think the cities are gonna be attacking Airbnb more or short-term rentals more?

SPEAKER_03 55:25

Um here's okay, I think our community needs to own its stuff. How do we own its our stuff? Uh, we need to embrace laws around short-term rental. It cannot be the wild, wild west, because if it is, that means all the bad actors that are out there will give us 100% a bad name. Um, and we all have to learn to be professionals. Um, as we saw, people losing their mind through all this, right? And um so here's what's happening locally for me. So, one, I got an owner who's asked me to talk take one over in Raleigh, which is great, you know, and Raleigh is really loosening up its rules. Here in Chapel Hill, we have been talking with a steering committee that has been put in place um about rules. And we came late to the steering committee, but me and my wife made sure that we went and and and and met with them and talked about where they were headed because we didn't want to keep growing in an area that we were gonna get our head chopped off, it just wasn't gonna happen. Um, and they were very uh welcoming to a good, really good conversation about it, and even the locals. So Chapel's this weird mix of extremely conservative and extremely liberal. It's a strange dynamic that it really works for a good environment to live in. And what it's probably gonna come down to is we're just gonna have to license and we're gonna have some basic inspection. And I think that's sort of what we need as a whole across the nation because we need to get rid of the bad actors who are just nothing more than slumlords who don't understand how to go to that next level, right? Let's be professional. I don't think they need to be extremely strict rules because I think it'll destroy the industry. But hey, why don't you register your place? Um, you have to carry insurance and you have to uh have one or two inspections a year. And but that inspection, let's just say you could do a video inspection where basically you have to show yourself say I took this from booking.com, um, being able to it if booking.com can't send you a piece of mail, they will get on the phone with you and watch you walk through by video call into the space and show that you have access and ownership of it. So I just thought the same thing, right? You take a video uh of yourself walking through showing, hey, here's my this, here's my that, here's my sprinklers, here's my you know, my smoke detector, and you do all those things properly. Be a video, not pictures. Pictures means that you can lie, you they could be for any place, right? Um and just let's make some rules that are for modern day, you know, but not make them crazy. Um I I think that's that that will destroy an industry. Um I don't hotels have to be more stringent because they're packing 200 plus doors into a building and completed the situation. But should we meet some of the same things? Yeah, we should have smoke detectors, carbon monoxide, we need to have a fire extinguisher, we need to have, you know, uh other safety features, whatever that might be, whatever they want us to have, right? Whether it be having the exit stuff on the door or or whatnot, right? So um I think as cities are trying to figure this out. There's the other issue too is well you have to also look at housing, right? What what kind of housing is available in a city? So um we in this nation are suffering from the fact of affordable housing. And some cities there's just nothing to choose from, right? So you have a very the the scale is is very tilted to extremely

Affordable housing and gentrification balance

SPEAKER_03 59:10

high-end housing and affordable housing, there's next to none, and um and people are being pushed out to the margins. Uh something that they're doing over here in Durham, where Duke is, uh Durham is gentrifying. And uh, but one of the things when they build a community, my understanding is all the new apartment complexes and remodels that are coming in, it is mandatory that a certain amount of homes are allotted for like five or six years or something like that for low-income housing. And that's even to accept Section 8s and stuff. So uh we have to consider the big picture and not just say, well, they they're not allowing it. Well, why are they not allowing it? And then as a community locally there, how are you giving a um an alternative to be successful? Are you just gonna see that's what I keep coming back to about being a professional here? Are you gonna complain and moan about it and not do anything? Or are you gonna try to lead and offer solutions and have an opportunity to be heard? Yeah, so again, um I'm blessed here, at least in North Carolina, to not be very strict. I know that Asheville up in the mountains, uh in the city itself can be pretty darn strict from what I heard. In fact, someone was posting that someone got arrested for opening up their like for having an Airbnb operating in the city proper or something. I don't know much more than that. Um but uh Charlotte's pretty simple from what I hear. You know, Charlotte's the 16th, 17th largest city in the US now. Um yeah, most people don't think about that, but it is true. It's getting to be a pretty big area.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:50

So, one major question I had for you. I wanted to know your uh inmates to entrepreneurship program. How did you start that? And how'd you get involved? How did you get started with that? And uh, what is it exactly?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

Okay, so oh man, I love inmates to entrepreneurs. Good stuff. All right, so for all who are listening, please go find inmates to entrepreneurs online. It is as simple as looking up the name, Inmates to and you start typing in E-N-T, and it will pop up because it is such a unique name that you will find it, and it's been around forever. Um, so Brian Hamilton, our founder, started going into prisons back in the 90s, mid-90s with uh, I think his name was Reverend actually Brown, I think. I why I don't remember I've heard this story a thousand times and can never remember it. Um and just going in and and started talking to those who incarcerated. And um uh he at some point in time he started Inmates to Entrepreneurs. Now, how did I meet him? Um just in my bio, I was the kid who would sell you candy and whatnot, but it was also the kid that got high the first time and started selling drugs. And so um I was a really good drug dealer.

Why he calls his hardest years the best thing that happened

SPEAKER_03 1:02:03

Uh I didn't have a single bit of problems except for my addiction until I got busted. And there was never a whiff of bust getting busted until until someone narked on me. Um but uh so yeah, I I developed a addiction problem and uh got myself in trouble. And I did three years. Uh whoop whoop. It's the best thing that actually ever happened to me. Um, I will not take it back. I talk about it all the time. That's how I ended up at the White House. That's how I ended up talking and with helping Congress um bring the prison to prior proprietorship program to light. Uh, you know, um, but anyhow, MH Entrepreneurs, what we do is we go, I met Braun and I was incarcerated and it was like 2008. And um I got out and uh stuck around the program and uh you know on off, and then over just over time became board member, became a good teacher, hopefully. Um we have a whole program. Uh we teach, uh we go into prisons and we give what we call the I have a dream speech for about two hours to covering some of the basics, reminding people that you don't have to be a drug dealer, you don't have to steal stuff, you can do things legally, you know, and uh and hopefully that that pays off. Uh we also uh teach here. So we teach in Wilmington, Fayetteville, Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, Charlotte, and we've tried Asheville, we just haven't got a foothold there yet. Um and we have an eight-week course. So it's seven weeks of class and one week of graduation, and we teach the basics of entrepreneurship uh between mentors, right? Um and then we also have an uh online course called Starter You, which is about I think I was told it's five or six hours of content, might be eight hours of content, um, and it's question and answer. Um we that's that course is also available in prisons, so it's in uh 130, 160 prisons across the US. Um, so inmates get to learn, the ones the places that do have internet access. And uh and so uh now we're transitioning to Zoom. That's the cool part. I think Zoom is our future because it removes borders. As we've talked about trying to go international nationally, the hard part is volunteers and and accountability and and in you know um in brand and and teaching the product correctly. We can sort of control that in the state of North Carolina. We can't control that the further it gets out of our borders. So uh we started doing classes on Zoom and I've started rewriting our curriculum for us, um, which will be, I guess, the 3.0. We've had 1.0, we've already we we cut it up about a year ago and did 2.0. Now that we've had a couple times of teaching it for each person, we said, okay, now it's time for 3.0. And I think it's gonna get 10 times better because now what'll happen is I can introduce videos to get a point across, a two or three-minute video to get a point across. And so what we're doing now is essentially we're teaching those who have a record. It's basically done on an honor system. We're not gonna pull your uh um your background. Uh, but if you're judicially uh involved at some point in time and it's causing you an issue, come hang out with us.

$9 an hour, $900 rent, $400 child support

SPEAKER_03 1:05:16

We'll teach you how to level the playing field because me as a felon, I got out and I couldn't find a job, dude. In in 2010, when I got out, February of 2010, I was making $9 an hour with my rent was $900 a month. I had $400 a month um child support and uh at the time, ex-wife now, but a wife that um that was on unemployment. You know, I couldn't get work. And so uh entrepreneurship levels the playing field. You don't get aster background. I did go down to Fort Bragg the uh a couple months ago, and it's the first time that they've someone looked at me and said, You'll never step foot on this place again, uh, which is uh a little Disappointing considering, you know, our president has been pushing towards a second chance reform. But also too, prior to sometime during Obama's reign and them changing laws due to terrorism or whatever, um, I used to go on the base after I got out. I mean, I would go down and do repairs and whatnot. And I don't, you mean what's the difference now? You know, um, because you because you had a couple of people freak out at other army bases, I don't know, you know, and I I it wasn't me, and it wasn't probably the vast majority of people. So anyhow, it levels the playing field, and so it's it's very cool. It's it's so you know, it doesn't matter my demographic of people who come through the door, or all people who have just been judicially involved, and um and we teach them an opportunity to we'll give them an opportunity to change their lives, and that's the coolest thing in the world I get to do. And it's opened up great doors for me. I mean, you know, to go to the White House and to to do things like that, that's just cool stuff. I just this kid never thought he would ever end up in the White House by any means. Man, I'm happy you're doing that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:08

That's pretty cool. Yeah, and that's I've always I tell people that too, man. If like I have friends who've done made mistakes in the past, and well, some of them turn to entrepreneurship and change their lives forever. So I'm happy you're doing that.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:20

You will you will definitely um get in touch with yourself. You have to be pretty self-aware to be in business, uh, to an extent. Um, and you know, the prison system's our new slavery. I mean, we we we we said we got rid of slavery, and if most people just don't have any idea what the prison system is. Because here's what we did somewhere in the 60s and 70s, we looked at our our our government and said, You protect us. All right. And when we did that, what happens our prison system stopped being about reform and switched into being warehousing. Um, and then through the years, we've had educational programs we don't in some places they they can't get educational

How the system changed in the 60s and 70s

SPEAKER_03 1:08:03

programs anymore. Well, we've already proven time and time again, education changes outcomes for people, you know. Um I mean, even if you don't use the education, you've been taught to think and activate your brain, and that's what we're talking about here. We're talking about getting people to think in other ways and understand reasoning, you know. Um and so we the world is trying to change right now. Um I'm not uh a Trump fan, but he is doing good things when it comes to the prison system. Actually, I don't have an opinion on Trump. I mean, he's he's great on great things for me in business, and there's I just see stupid statements. That's my only issue. I'm like, I don't I don't know. Uh why did you open your mouth? You know, I mean, you that was not needed to be said. Uh you were doing good, man, and then awesome. Yeah. Um, so I I don't have any real opinion either way, because again, you have to have an opinion if you watch the news and actually know what's happening. And I don't. Um, but uh, you know, some things have got to change. You know, uh our communities of color the uh on through all forms of color are the men are gone. The men are locked up, and we have women trying to raise men. That doesn't work, you know it doesn't. You know, so and shout out to all the single moms, you're doing your best. But there as men, we need to teach our boys to become men. And um, and that's important. And so let's I'm just trying to do my best to slow down that door the best I can. And and hopefully, you know, someone who gets a better opportunity to financially change their future, and then through that means they able to change the neighborhood that their kids grew up in or you know, or get them to a different school or or whatever it takes.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:52

So that's awesome, man. We appreciate you for that. Big time.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:58

I was gonna I was gonna I noticed real quick, you have a nice little mic set up there. Do you have your own show or what? So yeah, um well, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:07

In the world of pandemic, and you you know we all have time to do what we well, we had time at first. What did you always say you wanted to do? So I've been thinking about for a while my own podcast, and because I love to talk to people. I can sit here time and time again and just talk to you guys about business and life and and and pick your brain because it's all about scratching my own itch, right? I want to become better, and I love Joe Rogan, and I I love all kinds of people with long-form podcasts. Um, good conversations happen, amazing, you know, amazing things come out of people's mouths that I'm not gonna get to hear otherwise. And I still have a pro a little bit of ADD. So I love audiobooks, but I've realized I'd make it about halfway through the book, if that far. Um you know, and anyhow, so I started a uh I'm in the process of starting a podcast. It's called World Domination Um Conversations to Dominate Your Life. All right. So it's this is me playing around with this. Where am I? There we go. There it's very small, is the old fit tech, you won't see it, dude, is the old fit tech gear logo. And so I started making world domination shorts to give that to customers. I was just playing around with the print on demand places. Um, but they don't do that small, it doesn't come out well. Uh it's a crappy print. But um, I've been for several years hashtagging or talking about people say, Scott, how's it going? I'd say I'm just working on world domination. I've just talked about it for so long, to where it's become almost my tagline. And it's it's it's humorous, but it's very serious all at the same time because I'm just trying to figure out my own damn world, right? Dominate my world. And so I hashtag that stuff all the time in social media, you know, world domination. And it's um I believe it. Um, so I uh I've done a couple recordings with world domination, the podcast. Uh however, what has happened is I just don't have the time to dedicate the way I need to. And then the other thing I found out, and here's the big the here's the big time killer, and why I've just sort of said, okay, I'm gonna pause. I'm not done. I enjoy having all this and I enjoy talking to you guys and whatnot. I bought my laptop and I got a good laptop. I've had it for a couple years though, but I bought it to do business. I didn't buy it to render video. And um, once you hit most of my stuff has been about an hour or so, uh well, it gets frozen. It just says I don't like this, it shuts down, you know, it has issues. I have scrapped so much stuff out of it. Um that yeah, I've you know, and I just I'm gonna I'll probably still interview people and record it and save it, and then uh be working towards a new laptop that has the the the ability to process um what I

Dr. Phil off TV, YouTube Premium mornings

SPEAKER_03 1:13:05

want. But uh the podcast world is intriguing to me. I love even Dr. Phil. Have you ever listened to the Dr. Phil podcast? Okay, so all right, so here's a good one for you. Dr. Phil's uh series uh Design Your Life, I think is what it's called. There's like 10 segments. Oh my god, dude, you get Dr. Phil off the TV, and he's so freaking, he's brilliant, dude. I mean, just his approach, his delivery, he there's just so much more to him than the sound bites of his TV show, right? And uh so uh that's great. Um obviously you have Andy Frazella. It you know, sometimes that gets a little aggressive for me. Um, I'm a big John Maxwell fan. I love getting up in the mornings and they have a routine too, by the way. I get up in the mornings and I'm one of these people I'm 6040-ish or maybe more, I don't know, about how I'm gonna feel when I wake up, and usually it's bad, you know. So I have to do things to really work on my mindset. I'm just not a morning person. So I'll get up and I might start with uh affirmation stuff, gratitude affirmations, and it's all based on YouTube premium is the deal. So if you have not gotten YouTube premium so where you can listen to things and so your screen turns off, you know, and you can still keep listening. Um yeah, it's it's just the way to go. And the reason being is because I can sometimes even my wife is half deaf, anyways. I love her, but she can't hear very well. So I can wake up and before I'm completely conscious, I can turn on my phone, and you know how YouTube learns your algorithm of what you like, and I can literally turn my phone on and go to YouTube, and it will have uh affirmation stuff at the very beginning. And I just hit it and I turn it down low and I can stick it underneath the bell pillow, and I can wake up to telling myself about being a better human being, being in a better mood, uh thinking about you know abundance, gratitude, uh whatever I need to work on, right? So I do things like that. And then I will also I'll transition into whether it be clips on being a better person, you know, the Tony Robbins kind of mix of things, you know, by Goal Cast or somewhere like that, or sometimes I'm going into audiobook, but I'm learning for a little while. And then my new thing is I've added in after that because I'm not heading off to work, I'm heading, I'm still staying home, is uh like chill hop videos and stuff that are playing lo-fi beat things of the of the EDM world. And so that's got me, you know, it's sort of jazzy, hip hop-y kind of whatever. And it's so it's got me in a great mood through most of the day. And so it's it's routine of becoming a better person. So I wake up working on me for for the very first couple hours of the day, you know. Um, I that's what I teach all the time to inmates, right? Because these individuals are coming from a society where the society is continuously told them uh, you can't. You can't. And society tells us, right? How many of you uh of us here have had friends, maybe more so when you first started your journey than today, right? But they poo-poo your idea. I've accidentally done this in business. Yeah, exactly. We all suffer today. They look at you like you're crazy. And you've learned you've learned just not to pay attention to them. Right. I when I'm teaching in class, these people have been told their whole lives that they can't. Right? I can't, you can't, you can't, and I'm always saying, how can you? Right? So remember, inmates to entrepreneurs is based on the idea of you just got out of prison and you got a $40 gate check. And yes, that is 40 to 60 bucks-ish, something like that, depending on what your state is or or whatever. You could be locked up for 20 years, they give you 40 bucks. Hi, good, you know, good luck. All right. So, um, you know, it's so my my mindset is about constantly learning, and I'm teaching people to do the same thing and changing the mindset because I've been told my whole life in conscious or subconscious uh unconscious ways that I can't or that I should know things already. And my journey, I have I'm not the smartest guy in the world. I just said not. It takes me a long time to get things sometimes. Um, you know, and so my journey has been very long. And so all I'm doing is I'm preparing for when opportunities show up. Like, let's just talk about the pandemic here, right? I while new to this industry, I pivoted very fast in what I needed to do because I've been preparing continuously about becoming better, about becoming better, about becoming better, learning to be a leader, learning to, you know, learning from Grant Cardone or Gary V or or Ed Milette or you know Jim Rohn. I love Jim Rohn, by the way. Um, he's the man, Andy. And see, okay, so transition your life to waking up to to segments of Jim Rohn for 20 minutes every day as you wake up, as your subconscious, your subconscious is more pliable, at least that's what he taught me, and so that's what I do. When I first wake up, my subconscious is more apt to learn, and that's the hardest thing to teach, right? Because when we're born, only thing your subconscious knows how to do is breathe. That's pretty much it, you know, and function your body. Everything else it gets taught. So I have all these years of being taught whatever that don't serve me. So anyhow, um, yeah, yeah, YouTube premium, dude, all day long. Um five five bucks, six bucks, eight bucks, whatever it is, and then uh a subscription to Audible. And uh that's like a master's class right there.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:39

That's cool, man, because I I mean I could tell you have a busy mind. So you you've had but you know, you found ways to to tame it, to control it, to form it, uh to get it to do what you want it to do. That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:51

Well, okay, so Jim Rohn talks about E versus E, entertainment versus education, right? Which is more important? All right, so my entertainment now has become education. 90% of what gets played off of this device, because I don't this is pretty much my TV these days, right? Or something, or even here as I sit at my laptop and and you know, whatnot, it is education-based. It's in moving forward-based. I get off on it. Then again, that's my addictive personality, right? I'm an addict and alcoholic all day long. And so all I did was I transformed that addictive behavior. That obsessiveness is what me kind of has me sit down here going nuts around a website trying to figure it out on my own, you know, for hours on end, where most people would throw their hands up and walk away. You know, so I take all that craziness and I try just put it to the right space. But I fully admit, um, it can get overwhelming. It can get really overwhelming. I just want to shut it off. I would love to be able to be one of these people sometimes that is more comfortable to sit down and veg in front of the TV. You know, but I started my game late. I didn't get out of prison until I was 38, and everything else was was mistake after mistake after mistake. So you know, I'm just learning. Uh and I'm learning and I'm I'm playing catch up because I'm on I'm hitting the second I'm I'm coming to the second half of life. I got a you know, I didn't start in my 20s, I didn't start in my 30s, you know, early 30s, I I started late, so I'm

Started late, playing catch-up in the second half

SPEAKER_03 1:20:26

playing catch up.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:27

Man, that shows that age is nothing but a number because you're still doing it though, man. That's what's up.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:33

Yeah, and and and because Fit Tech Now ServiceRX now allows me to work part-time, no time, whatever. I got staff that runs it. I don't have to do anything specifically. Um it's gonna allow me to it's allowing me to take back my life. And so that going down to Panama, it's East Coast time. You know, so I can I can still get up and work with everybody else. I just work remotely if I have to. I can go do whatever. And plus too, man, the power of a good phone. You know, I'm a Samsung Note fan because these things are designed for work for sure. You know, I can run my whole business pretty much off of it. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:18

Well, Scott, thank you so much for hopping on, man. You've you've left so much tidbits. I'm gonna try that waking up stuff, you know. And um definitely gonna try that because I yeah, yeah, because it it is, it is how you wake up, you know, kind of like dictates the rest of your day in a way. And um, so I'm definitely gonna take that one.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:37

It pays dividends, man. Uh your morning routine pays dividends, and like when you when you put on the music finally, right? Chill hop, jazz hop, whatever you want to call it, lo-fi, it's one of those things that music directly affects your nervous system. And you will then you will react to it. You you have no choice to react to it. And I'm not a big EDM fan by any means, but in the morning, just that beat, you know, and and then suddenly it it picks up, and then uh, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:13

Very good when the morning, when the morning, when the day, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:16

Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:18

So where can folks find you?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:20

Uh well that's the hard part right now. Okay, so um, so service RX is uh go srx.com. Go srx.com. Um and then Sojourn will be, once I transfer over the new domain name, will be Sojourn S O J O U R N International, which is I-N-T-L. I think that's what she that's what hopefully she bought as a web domain name.com. Um that will be hopefully up and running in the next week, I would like to say. Anyhow, um and then uh I see on Facebook I'm Scott Jennings. Uh my my shining face is there. Um and uh eventually there'll be a Facebook page for Sojourn. Um what else? Uh that's really it. I mean uh on Instagram it's fit tech underscore uh and underscore assembly, um which I guess it should probably change that name too. See, you know, when you change your name, you got to figure out where uh where you've been branded everywhere, you know. It's just like we're rewriting contracts, uh, we're redoing websites looking for everything. Uh all these videos I had that at the end had uh are logos, I just had to take them down. I mean, it's just like golly, you know. Life is busy, you know, but busy is good, so I'm not gonna complain.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:52

That's awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for hopping on, and uh, we look forward to having you on possibly again in the future. And uh thank you for all you're doing in the in the inmate community and the in the you know the outmate community when they come out and you get and getting them you know into entrepreneurship. That's that you're changing lives, you're changing the world doing that. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:11

Well, man, I appreciate you guys having me. It's fun to talk to you guys. Thanks for letting me ramble on for a little while. Um, you know, it's good to sort of share opportunities with people and and thought processes, and uh hopefully we've helped some people today.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:25

Awesome. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:29

Thanks, guys. Thank you. And that was Scott Jennings with FitTech and Assembly, or my bad. I'm sorry. I said FitTech again. I'm sorry, what was it? Not Fit Tech.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:41

Go S service RX.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:44

Service RX, sorry, with service rx. And that was a really good episode. That was really um the In Mason Entrepreneurs program. That's awesome that he did that. Uh he showed just push through adversity, you can make it. Um, but yeah, you can find Live Let Thrive at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Uh, remember to subscribe below. Uh follow on Instagram. We're always posting on there. So uh yeah, thank you guys for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:06

Leave us a review on iTunes, that helps.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:08

Oh, yes, sir. Always leave us a review. And we are out later.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:14

Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Thrive. Be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world of Airbnb and all that entails. Bye-bye.