Austin Linney, CEO Crementum Capital and mindset coach, overcame addiction and has doubled his revenue every 6 months for the last 1.5 years building a business with a mission.
This episode of the First Customers podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms including YouTube.
He’s a serial entrepreneur, real estate investor, business and mindset coach, and podcast host. His motto: Your not in business, your in the people business. Austin tells an inspiring story about the ups and downs of his life and how he’s turned the pain of his past into a mission for his future.
Topics Covered
- People-focused business
- Starting a coaching business
- Buying and Building businesses
- HVAC & Plumbing business
- Addiction & hitting rock bottom
- Making an impact
- Mindset
Mentions
Show Transcript
Paris Vega (00:00.932)
welcome to the first customers podcast today we have austin linny the co of crementum capital he’s doubled the revenue of one of his businesses every six months for the past year and a half and he’s involved in several other businesses austin thank you for being on the show
Austin Linney (00:15.800)
thanks my man you know customer it’s how you it’s how you it’s how you put food on the table it’s an important podcast you know yeah yeah
Paris Vega (00:22.052)
that’s right it’s all about the customers for sure we were chatting a little bit beforehand i was explaining to them that you i’ve been involved in several projects and there’s always that moment where you have to figure out how to get customers no matter what you built or promised or whatever you gotta somehow connect with people and convince them to give you money and maybe you can give us a little pre view and then we’ll go into your background more but what do you think kind of the most important thing is about getting that first customer for a business
Austin Linney (00:52.440)
um well you’re not going to believe yourself that you can do it so there’s a couple of things that need to happen either you need to spend you need to suspend belief and kind of live in i saw something to day that i thought was great i think it’s kind of something i lived by on accident you know irrational optimism you know like energy creates everything right look i’ve coached sixteen people a week for four and a half years okay fifty years
it’s you know thirty twenty millionaires not millionaires addiction not addiction all that kind of stuff it all comes down to one thing with with with energy you crack a door open to a new opportunity with a new opportunity anything can happen it’s it’s the fact that we don’t have the energy we don’t have the belief and we don’t have that stuff and that really creates the momentum to feel like you’re stuck in the mud and so my suggestion is if you’re
you know and this is going to be the ant this is gonna this is going to suck for a lot of people because this is my i’m a different kind of coach i’m going to give you the freedom if you’re if you’re if you’re having a draw belt to just put it down seriously i call it the forty eight hours no decision decision just walk away you’re pressing you’re forcing the universe is not going to give you what you want because you’re wanted too much
Paris Vega (02:11.432)
m
Austin Linney (02:20.880)
spend time with your kids go for a drive get out change the environment turn on some music just put it down sometimes we can just press press i’m dude i’m a force by nature i’m a forcer and i read a book called the surrender experiment changed my entire life it was basically a story of a guy who was a freak ing multi millionaire and he basically just worked his entire life from start to finish on his gut
Paris Vega (02:26.892)
yeah
Paris Vega (02:40.232)
m
Austin Linney (02:51.640)
like he didn’t make any rat rational decisions it was well he would meditate about it and you go okay i feel this way and then he would do that and then and then he would never make it like oh this is what i should do and he would like and then he started this like business out of nothing and then like it became like worth hundreds of millions like i think i think sometimes in life we let our logical brain take over too much right yes you have to have perameters and you you know don’t go spend crazy money but
Paris Vega (02:59.512)
kay
Paris Vega (03:08.332)
m
Austin Linney (03:21.420)
but you could want it too much and that’s the reason that you don’t have it
Paris Vega (03:28.612)
so you’ve had a lot of success over the past few years especially and you’re in a lot of interesting projects but let’s back up a little bit and get into your background where you grow up
Austin Linney (03:42.260)
so i grew up in euston texas my dad as i grew up my dad was probably and i didn’t realize this because him and i didn’t speak for twenty years plus giver take he was the first entrepreneur i ever knew and i didn’t realize this till about a year ago actually in his costarica with my coach he was a dentist and he became one of the best dentist in the south probably in texas very successful as i grew up we started living in
Paris Vega (03:52.932)
m
Austin Linney (04:12.040)
ter in better houses i didn’t really know what it meant as a kid you know but then we moved across the street from like h avery johnson and like robert ore like rocket players on the golf course and i was like oh like you have money you know and so like you start realizing right i went to a very high in public school but when i was seventeen my parents they said look you don’t stop getting in trouble you’re in trouble almost every day so either you’re going
Paris Vega (04:14.712)
yeah
Paris Vega (04:27.552)
yeah
Austin Linney (04:42.100)
two military school or beaumont texas and i was like well i don’t know where beaumont is but i’d rather go there and so it’s where my parents grew up which is almost in louisiana and three months in the movie there and starting a new high school at seventeen i went from forty two hundred kids to a hundred and everybody wore came and it was way different and in the whole nine and we lived in the five acres my parents came to me and said we’re geting divorced and i proceeded
to blame myself for that internalized that and then that preceded me into a twenty year about with meth cocaine and an alcohol and was homeless briefly for a little bit slept underneath the stairs of a closet at a buddy’s house for for a couple of months lot of twist in turns a lot of you know i would say that i’ve had about seven or eight rock bottoms that would be an understatement even when it got better even when i got sober i got
Paris Vega (05:37.852)
no
Austin Linney (05:42.360)
during covid i got laid off for my private equity job and divorced in the same six day span and then i started a podcast the next week so it was like it was like it was like it was like i was like it was like my thertheraputic you know kind of thing right to do the podcast and i wound up recording two hundred and seventy five podcasts in eleven months and i was just meeting i was doing nine a day eight to day and just meeting billionaires and so many people
Paris Vega (05:48.592)
whoa
Paris Vega (05:54.972)
there you go
Paris Vega (05:59.972)
yeah
Austin Linney (06:12.580)
i looked back at that time and it was so it was so helpful it was like dude it was like having free therapy like just talking it out for hours with like random people who had been through bankruptcy and divorce and all sorts of stuff and it was it was really the catalyst to to what you see today was kind of taking the action all the all the contacts my business partners now or from the podcast the business you know the guy i met who was former majo
league baseball player his fiance is my my mentor and my business partner you know everything i have is because of you know i decided to not look at the ratings and the downloads of the podcast for the first two and half years because i knew mentally i couldn’t handle it right and i just i just recorded and i said if it affects one person then we’re good and that’s kind of where i sat with it and it’s been it’s been a wild ride
Paris Vega (07:06.692)
yeah
Paris Vega (07:10.352)
and what’s the name of your podcast
Austin Linney (07:11.980)
so it’s called construct your life how to build a lifestyle not a bank account we also had another one we did for fifty episodes called brain dump the psychology of the mind that i did with a buddy we stopped doing that when i’m about to start a new one all about trades trade jobs back plumbing man a business kind of just become that resource for for the text and the companies that we’re buying but yeah i love it you know i think that
Paris Vega (07:31.092)
okay
Austin Linney (07:42.460)
i think that you know i listened to a podcast this morning guy doing two point you know to to un million and one location of back and it’s like you that was an hour long episode but there’s but there’s two sentences in that episode that change my you know change my perspective on my company like that’s what it’s about it’s not about you know understanding everything it’s that that word hits you right in the right time right when you need it right in
Paris Vega (07:57.052)
crazy
Paris Vega (08:10.912)
yeah
Austin Linney (08:11.900)
you know one of my favorite things i’ve ever heard one of my quotes is i can’t control what i can’t the only thing i can control is what i say i can’t control with you here
Austin Linney (08:23.740)
so understanding that i can’t control when you hear my message if it’s three years from now or two years from now but all i have all i have to do is just give it the message and then everything takes out from there right and i think that’s what is so exciting about you know i’ve watched i’ve watched introverts you know who you know never you’ve never thought they would have done a podcast now they’re on their hundred episode and here like is so great and you know it’s just you kind of like
Paris Vega (08:51.332)
right
Austin Linney (08:54.280)
live through the podcast and you can watch yourself kind of like you know grow up right it’s a wild kind of marker for life
Paris Vega (09:00.412)
yeah
Paris Vega (09:02.832)
it’s an interesting way to make connections with people i mean that’s what i’ve experienced just the few episodes i’ve done it’s been really neat having that way of just connecting with people across the world about you know some specific nitch topic
Austin Linney (09:15.360)
for sure
Paris Vega (09:16.192)
yeah that’s cool when you were a kid you say and you know your getintothe trouble a lot and that kind of thing did you have any business related experience as a little kid like sales fund raisers liminadestand type
Austin Linney (09:26.600)
not yeah no not really i played lot of sports for me i always had a lot of abilities of reading people not really knowing what what it meant like so there’s a couple of things about me that’s a little interesting i have what would be classified as
Austin Linney (09:48.720)
we’ll call it a photograph ic memory but more like perfect recall where like i could do podcast three weeks you know today and i could tell you what you and i talked about three weeks from now like i have that kind of like weird you know memory right so i had that and then i had i was a big you know impact right i always knew what people were feeling thinking not really knowing how to utalize it but but really being really being looked down
Paris Vega (10:01.512)
yeah
Austin Linney (10:18.500)
upon and high school and oh it’s too much trouble and by by and you know all this stuff and there’s a lot of reasons you know i dropped out of college three times you know it just wasn’t wasn’t my thing and you know when i was in college the first time i got jumped by a bunch of guys and they broke every bone in the right side of my face so like there’s just so many stories right of just like trying to fit in the mold of what i should do right your dad’s a doctor and all this stuff
Paris Vega (10:37.692)
oh shoot
Austin Linney (10:48.640)
and just never really yielding my own path until i found like true personal development and true master minds and getting around people and just realizing that i didn’t even need to make i mean guys i turned forty you know two months ago and i would say that me and my dad six months prior to that so we’re talking thirty nine finally reconciled like it’s not like you know like i love how people are like i’m thirty two and like i need to get so it’s like yeah dude it takes some while if you’re
Paris Vega (11:13.312)
yeah
Austin Linney (11:18.480)
if you’re standing in your own way a victim hood it takes some while to clean out the years in the system but you know the older i get the more i learn to smile more and give grace more often and i think if you can do that with yourself and others i think you’re going to be in a good place
Paris Vega (11:39.692)
what was your first like paying job coming out of childhood you said you did sports what’s that first job
Austin Linney (11:46.720)
the first job was marble slab it was the true story and i’m sorry if i offended anybody but i just speak true okay sorry if i find you know like cold stone you know like like cold stone creamery like the ice cream place okay marvel slab was before colestone okay so like it was me it was me i’m not i’m sorry if i just offended anybody it was me and an indian owner and an indian staff i was the only white on staff and he said like you’re going to do bath
Paris Vega (11:52.312)
marvel lad
Paris Vega (11:55.932)
yeah
Paris Vega (11:59.952)
yeah yeah ice cream
Paris Vega (12:03.512)
oh okay
Austin Linney (12:16.360)
dud you’re going to do all the mop the floor you can do all the stuff i was like seventeen i had to clean up a lot of bathroom things and like it was just it was a lot and like you know and i think i worked there for like maybe a month and i was like i can’t i can’t do this so like i left well when i moved both my parents had been in the restaurant business since they’re like you really need to go in the restaurant business so i go in the restaurant business like seventeen and i’m like bar backing i’m doing some other stuff but i rememb
this day i swear to god this was twenty three years ago and i remember like it was yesterday so we did training for like three weeks or two weeks like training the back of the house training the front of the house and like it was my first shift my first shift ever um at the restaurant right so it’s me and this other kid and we’re working this small section in the bar which is like the cote area where it’s like first comfort
sir it’s a very busy restaurant
Austin Linney (13:19.800)
thirty minutes into the shift the person that’s training with me says i can’t do this i’m out i quit and just leaves so here i am first day and it’s busy as all hell and i’m supposed to only have like three tables but now i have like eight and so it was bananas but i got everybody served i got everything done it was awesome it was one of those moments and i had and i had some money to show for it and i was like
Austin Linney (13:49.900)
okay this is i was like yeah i was like this is cool i was like i can do this because like i’m a d d like really add and there’s a there’s a there’s a well known scientific thing it’s called hyper focus so meaning that if you’re a d d and you’re an you’re in your zone of genius and you’re in your flow than you could enter into what is called hyper focus which is even more focus than a regular human can get and that’s what i realized i could do when it came to barton waiting in
Paris Vega (13:51.432)
you got more tips right
Paris Vega (13:55.052)
yeah
Austin Linney (14:19.680)
so and so i started leaning on this and i started bar backing and and then i worked so hard that i got moved into the bar with like two top bar tenders and they loved me because i worked and i kept my mouth shut but i watched i swear dude if you ever want to literally screw a psychology degree if you want to see real life work at a bar for like five years dude she was she was good looking and he was good looking he was a model and i watched him take the women
and her take them in and we just made so much money and i watch the different reactions of people when you hear stories and it was really like nothing better if you ever watch me now if you ever spent time with me and let’s say we’re on a call with like six people i can juggle all the personalities on the call i’m leading the call i’m always leading the call that’s all from the restaurant business
Paris Vega (15:19.132)
m
Austin Linney (15:19.620)
it’s all from talking to hundreds of thousands of different people from all different walks of life hotel manager bar manager selling wine i sold wine for twenty years selling wine for twenty years and coming up with the stories and customers if you open your ears customers will tell you exactly what you need to do to be successful i’m not i didn’t say they were always right i said but if you open your ears there’s truth in there somewhere
Paris Vega (15:25.512)
yeah
Paris Vega (15:40.012)
there you go
Paris Vega (15:44.972)
hm
Paris Vega (15:46.992)
that’s good i was just about to ask okay any lessons you learned from those early jobs and there you go that’s solid stuff
Austin Linney (15:54.340)
the one of the big lessons was at some point you’re going to realize that no matter what you do not everybody is going to be hap
Austin Linney (16:05.420)
and when you can realize that it says more about them than it does you then you’re good
Paris Vega (16:12.232)
yeah
Paris Vega (16:15.392)
so let’s start so that’s like you know broadly looking at
Austin Linney (16:19.320)
that’s seventeen to like twenty six
Paris Vega (16:24.232)
all right so let’s talk about maybe getting close to start in your own business or getting involved with a business where you’re having to get those first customers
Austin Linney (16:34.080)
okay so so i had wanted to leave the restaurant business for like five years true story i had no problem saying that i was in the top one percent of what i did i came up with drink menus i was a i worked at the top restaurants in the in the country
Austin Linney (16:52.920)
my dreams were bigger than the people i was around and i just couldn’t get out because nobody bothered me i made money i worked when i want to i made cash and you know i started getting the itch for like for for airbnb so i started doing air b on the side and when i joined a master mine i started a company with these guys and i realized that the only way that i was going by the way
yeah i’m not saying i recommend this for everybody i knew the only way that i would get out as i would have to burn the boats it’s as simple as that i knew i couldn’t and so we started this company and we started i’m going to get to the i’m going to get to the story so we started the company and you know we got a couple of clients and like i was supposed to quit like six months later but like i got so upset i just quit and they were like oh my god what did you do and baba and i was like i just i can’t
Paris Vega (17:38.072)
yeah
Austin Linney (17:52.740)
any more and so like i went all in on this i’m traveling i’m doing all this stuff well three months into that business uh you know we had a disagreement with one of the owners i had to i lost thirty thousand dollars i walked away from the company because i just didn’t want to deal with this guy and then i worked private equity and then i didn’t like that and then the whole thing with covid happened in my divorce and i got laid off and all the stuff and so this is exactly i’m telling verbatim exactly how it happened i had a buddy reach out to me one of my oldest friends and
hey i like you i feel like you could you could hold me accountable he’s like i want to hire you to coach me and i’m like no no no no no no no not happening i knew i wanted to coach but i was i was i was thirty six forty five was when i wanted to coach i had my own plans and so he said well that’s cute but i sent you the money in vino already so deal with it and i was like all right fine fine fine fine and i’m actually going to
Paris Vega (18:41.552)
gotta yeah
Austin Linney (18:52.700)
a little audible here on your podcast were called first second customer pocket so he pays me a little bit i’m coaching him no big deal and it took me man it was like three months i couldn’t get another client like to save my life and i was telling one of my mentors who does i’m not kidding when i say this he does four hundred and fifty transactions a year in real estate he owns like nine companies dude as a savage
Paris Vega (18:54.972)
okay
Paris Vega (19:21.452)
oh that’s crazy it’s more than one a day
Austin Linney (19:23.040)
like five kids know marketing no nothing doesn’t own the laptop yeah he’s a killer okay so i’m telling them that i can’t i can’t find another client going through my divorce i’m down in florida i’m hanging out ith a friend just kind of biding my time same situation he says i need you to i just coach me four sessions and i go no what am i going to add value to you
Austin Linney (19:52.960)
no i’m not doing it he goes with tough crap the money is in your vino deal with it in the same situation right so picture me a guy that probably makes i don’t even know he makes like a hundred fifty grand oh what am i going to tell a divorced just started my business guy what am i going to stude i am hyper ventilating all the way up into the call i’m like oh my god my god what i do what i do
Paris Vega (20:18.332)
yeah
Austin Linney (20:23.180)
so we have the call and like forty five minutes in i’m listening to him i’m listening to him and then boom i crack him with like a great insight and he just like leans back and he’s just like oh my god ahe goes that’s exactly what i needed to hear i don’t even need to do any other sessions that was worth it boom i’m out and just leaves nd i’m like i’m like he’s a trip by the way and i’m like
Paris Vega (20:35.832)
m
Paris Vega (20:50.172)
crazy
Austin Linney (20:54.640)
okay okay i’m walking afterwards i’m thinking myself okay what just happened here okay he didn’t hire me to run his business he hired me to be an outside observer so so they don’t need to hire me for my skill they just need to hire me for somebody that cares about them that can see something that maybe they can’t see well in that case well in that case i can i can coach anybody and then i started getting a couple
Paris Vega (21:10.492)
yeah
Paris Vega (21:16.232)
hm
Paris Vega (21:18.232)
yeah a little different perspective
Austin Linney (21:24.460)
millionaires and then i started getting and then it just started snowballing and it’s like one of my favorite favorite things my friend has ever said to me she’s an amazing coach sometimes you don’t love yourself enough to change and you have to borrow the belief of others long enough to you believe yourself
Paris Vega (21:29.372)
m
Paris Vega (21:47.872)
it’s good
Austin Linney (21:48.820)
and i believe this guy dude if i can coach him who can if coach so so the question that you have to ask yourself is that five hundred bucks he gave me
Austin Linney (21:59.060)
how much you think that five hundred bucks is worth now that five hundred bucks is worth about four six seven million dollars when it’s all said and done
Paris Vega (22:07.512)
based on how it affected his decisions after that
Austin Linney (22:10.180)
no no no on him but i’m taking about me him him putting that five hundred bucks in and me bang to buy companies and me to grow to coaching business and me to start other companies like if i would have gave up if he wouldn’t send me that five hundred bucks who knows where i’d be
Paris Vega (22:12.792)
oh got you
Paris Vega (22:23.612)
right i see because that first customer kind of snowballed almost just within your own mind snowball and that confidence within you to keep going after more customers
Austin Linney (22:34.860)
exactly and the first customer i actually had didn’t pay me now that i just remember this but five minutes end of my first coaching call he’s got two kids he goes hey i want to divorce my wife and i go and my dude i started sweating i was like oh this is real oh this is real this isn’t some plaything and when you’re when you’re affecting people’s life and big decisions and jobs changing and all these things they’re spending money
Paris Vega (22:52.192)
dang
Paris Vega (22:58.112)
yeah
Austin Linney (23:04.620)
re investing in you you really realize how important this one in an interaction is that this little thing right when it’s a friend is just advice but when you’re a coach or you’re a therapist like it matters and i hope that anybody that that takes on the profession really really understands the gravity of what’s going on
Paris Vega (23:20.732)
m
Paris Vega (23:26.872)
yeah so it’s almost like you were kind of thrown into the coaching business by the first few customers they were kind of forcing you to coach them and then you kind of turned it into a business and intentionally started to go after people at some point
Austin Linney (23:33.120)
exactly but but i will yeah
Austin Linney (23:38.640)
hundred percent but what what i will tell you this and i’m an interesting cat and this has nothing to do with my one and one clients or me talking bad about them two weeks end i said to myself this isn’t enough it’s not the money it’s not that i’m not affecting them i love when i an coaching but my number one why is impacted scale how do i impacted scale and that’s when i landed on small business
Paris Vega (24:12.332)
that makes sense
Austin Linney (24:14.540)
i got thirty employes that have families and then we’re we’re providing for the customers now we’re talking about multiple layers of impact that we can that we can do
Paris Vega (24:18.332)
right
Paris Vega (24:25.832)
right now i feel that strongly uh one of my little mottos i say to myself sometimes and even on the podcast a little bit it’s like one of the best things you can do is build a good business that solves a problem that creates jobs because you’re making the world a better place if you’re doing those things you’re solving the problem for some customers creating jobs for people it’s one of the best things a person can do
Austin Linney (24:51.040)
i would say one of the most alarming things to me as i as i’ve taken on the co role multiple companies now over the last year and a half is how many times i get this statement while i didn’t know bosses like you could exist and i’m like the fact that you’re telling me that tells me that how bad it is out there that’s scary to me and so now we got to go create as many jobs as possible to change the narrative and that’s like my only thing i care about is creating jobs right now dude when you have a fifty one
Paris Vega (25:16.052)
yeah
Austin Linney (25:20.980)
your old man that sits in the parking lot and cries because he has a new job and he can support his family i mean what better thing in the entire world i don’t know i don’t know if there is and yeah it’s hard and there’s a lot of work and it’s crazy man i haven’t never felt fulfillment like this in my life
Paris Vega (25:28.992)
yeah
Paris Vega (25:40.172)
that’s awesome
Paris Vega (25:42.952)
all right so now you said you got thirty employees and started off i guess this phase of your life the coaching business was the first new business and i know your involved in other ones now how did the other businesses get started
Austin Linney (25:57.200)
so i’ve ran from a lot of businesses a lot meaning like i don’t want to start them but yet somehow they get started up or i just get asked so many times this one i would say is more calculated um i actually had the idea for what we’re doing right now two and a half years ago i would say i was searching for the right players to put in the right seats for that long had a couple of false starts read a book called by them build that changed my life a kind of understanding that
Paris Vega (26:26.032)
yes
Austin Linney (26:26.920)
i wanted to get out of start up game uh yeah and and and here we are and you we’ll close on the business in the next two weeks we’ve been in you know negotiations and contracts for six months so this would be the first one i’ve already got you two and three right behind a folding tuckin
Paris Vega (26:28.552)
yeah i love that book
Austin Linney (26:48.620)
it’s
Austin Linney (26:52.060)
when you understand what your purposes as a team right for me where this kind of hit home for me was like august september i guess of this last year i was sick i don’t get sick but i was sick i was down for like two and a half weeks like with a covid or something t do it doesn’t matter but i was i was sick and i was i was grumpy i was tired i felt terrible but we had so many deals going on i was trying to like work through it and i realized that
my team my other owners they were grumpy to and i realize that that that my sole purpose above everything else is to bring the energy is to bring the optimism the attitude i am the lightning rod to the way the engine runs and i realize that i have to protect that about myself more than anything and everybody has their own role but i’m the fuel in the train and if
Paris Vega (27:39.992)
hm
Austin Linney (27:51.880)
not giving myself what i need then we’re going to be in a bad situation
Paris Vega (27:55.872)
m what do you mean by that like if you’re not giving yourself what you need sounds like there’s some kind of self care involved in that
Austin Linney (28:00.640)
if i’m not if i’m not if i’m not yeah if i’m not taking time if i’m not if i’m not if i’m not if i’m not over pressing like meaning one of the things i do for myself and this is just me and you can steal it if you want i don’t really care i am all in or all outguy there’s no in between with me meaning monday is my coaching day and i do meetings and podcast monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday
schedule nothing nothing’s ever scheduled have things that are going on i’m playing off with investors or i’m catching up with people i’m working but i keep those days free in case i want to pack it in but like those days on monday tuesdays you know today i’m working from you know seven a m to you know seven straight through so i’ve kind of found the way that i work best and like i think what a lot of people do let’s say for instant
Paris Vega (28:44.652)
yeah
Paris Vega (28:57.012)
yeah
Austin Linney (29:01.480)
let’s say somebody wants to meet with you on thursday at two o’clock let’s just say right and you don’t have a meeting after ten on thursday well that person is going to schedule that meeting but i got a better idea is there an hour before after on monday tuesday wednesday of the next week that you could slot it in now you opened up your whole afternoon to do work for yourself or hang with a family it’s
Paris Vega (29:22.772)
yeah
Austin Linney (29:31.500)
what hit me like six months ago is i’m not selling anything any more i’m not selling anything i’ll dictate my schedule and i’m not this is i’m not saying this cause i have a bunch of money my ex wife took most of my money i’m just saying but i’m just saying i’m doing this because i value my flow and my work time and if you could spend that time doing something else or hanging out with kids or working on your own project and then slotted in like perfect example is let’s say you have a nine
Paris Vega (29:47.012)
yeah
Austin Linney (30:00.500)
clock on tuesday can they do ten on tuesday right and now you’re in the flow of the meetings instead of having this one off meeting that you had to wait for three hours for and it feels like a drag instead of in the flow of the work
Paris Vega (30:10.592)
yeah
Paris Vega (30:14.852)
just kind of group the meeting is together
Austin Linney (30:17.120)
exactly time block
Paris Vega (30:18.392)
chunk yeah okay and crementum capital that’s the business that’s buying up other businesses okay
Austin Linney (30:27.480)
correct we call ourselves the anti private equity firm so basically our premises cash loing businesses storage facility hotels to park money and then buy up existing businesses that have been in business for longer than ten years
Paris Vega (30:46.012)
okay and you said this vac company is the first kind of in the philosophy hat you have okay
Austin Linney (30:49.640)
yeah they’ve been in business twenty five years back plumbing
Paris Vega (30:55.252)
awesome and so as you’ve gotten into that business i don’t know this is is it already closed or you’re in the process or two weeks okay
Austin Linney (31:01.480)
two weeks two weeks now i have a unique relationship that i’ve struck with the seller i have never heard of this before i didn’t know it was not a thing so i’ll just take it as a win for me he was so ready to be done that he hired me and my partner as consultants for the last two months sixty days to run the business leading up to closing so all the things we wanted to do in the first quarter i’ve already done
Paris Vega (31:31.372)
so okay so you are learning about the operations of the business and how they get okay
Austin Linney (31:34.300)
no i’m running the business i have full control of the financials last sixty days i hired thirteen people i bought five vans yeah so i’m running the business already
Paris Vega (31:40.552)
wow okay okay so so i can ask you questions directly about that business then so how does an vat company get customers for example
Austin Linney (31:47.000)
of course
Austin Linney (31:52.160)
so it’s interesting
Austin Linney (31:56.000)
and you’re not finding out where i am to stay away from everybody but long story short i thought that i wanted to be in the city right it’s easier to get talent you know there’s more customers here’s the deal i’m in the mill nowhere and the seller his competition either went out of business bankrupt or they passed away or they retired so it’s just me we have done in twenty five years zero marketing zero nothing ever i think
Paris Vega (32:09.912)
really
wow
Austin Linney (32:25.880)
thing he did was maybe a radio ad once like that’s it like ten years ago right and so you have this very great business but but i describe it as this it’s like a boat going through the ocean that has a money funnel throwing in the boat but it has thirty holes that’s that’s this business you know efficiency they’re doing everything on paper no c r m you know there’s no efficiency whatsoever and so just bringing in the efficiencies sops e o
Paris Vega (32:28.832)
right
yeah
gotcha
yeah
Austin Linney (32:55.880)
system sales maintenance agreements like i think we’re going to double revenue in the first year
Paris Vega (33:00.492)
yeah
wow okay because yeah you are it’s just a pure opportunity then if they’re already profitable and established with customers then everything you do is just improving something that’s already profitable
Austin Linney (33:12.800)
hm
it’s gravy it’s gravy and understanding that understand that your think about it this way the only way to describe it is really simple it’s the titanic it’s moving in a direction and you have to literally take it with pure energy will and optimism and flip this baby one hundred and eighty degrees around that’s what has to happen because you have older texts that are stuck in their ways nd this is the only way they want to do it but
Paris Vega (33:29.512)
yeah
Austin Linney (33:45.320)
the problem is i thought that i would be met with a lot of resistance they’ve all wanted this stuff for years
so yeah i might lose some people well like i just i can’t spend my days focused on not people not like look he here’s the truth and i swear to god this statement is not an ego statement it’s just a true statement i’m a likable person i have people’s good will and interest in mind if you can’t get on board with that i don’t know what to tell you
if that scares you that says more about you than it does me like i’m buying a eighty acre honey facility for my text because they love honey like how can you not get behind that you know but so many people when they go to buy a business or like what are they going okay like i get it well i get it and they might and and that’s a possibility and if we were private equity firm maybe so
Paris Vega (34:45.792)
yeah i think they’re going to clean house or something and just fire everybody eh
yeah yeah
Austin Linney (34:55.040)
but that’s not me and so i more importantly have to because it’s a small town i more importantly have to gain everybody’s trust and so how i’ve done that is gone to dinner with some of the texts and their families going out to their house sit on the porch talk for two hours on monday next monday one of the owners are coming in the other owners and we’re going to go shoot explosives with automatic rifles like you know my advisor said can i come work for you and so
Paris Vega (34:55.231)
right
m
that’s awesome
Austin Linney (35:25.360)
you know like here’s what i’m saying and i hope everybody is listening that owns a business you have to go the extra mile these days have to it’s not an option have to and if it’s a two hour conversation with one of your lead managers or somebody they just want to be heard right the same way the customer wants to be heard i’ll tell you exact situation that just happened just happen i’m sitting there listening in the corner the guy doesn’t know i’m the new
Paris Vega (35:28.312)
yeah
Austin Linney (35:54.900)
owner and he is just i rate now well you came down and you worked on this thing and by and it was a twenty one hunder dollar bill and we weren’t in the wrong i know we weren’t in the wrong they told him it shouldn’t be looked at we did it anyway we charged him for our time he was pissed so he only wanted to pay a hundred bucks and i said you know what how about i take care of that for you and he was like oh really yeah yeah i don’t worry about you pay your
buck why would i do that you know what he did right after that he scheduled a walk through with our new salesman tomorrow on wednesday this week that we’re going to have to put in a fifteen to seventeen thousand dollar system two thousand so well you know i’m goin to make fifteen x
Paris Vega (36:40.292)
and how much did you cover on his bill yeah
yeah
Austin Linney (36:51.640)
but more importantly but more importantly i don’t even care about that money he’s sending a message to everybody else in the community they did this
Paris Vega (36:52.292)
that’s good
yeah treated him right
Austin Linney (37:02.560)
sometimes you sometimes you make money and sometimes you send messages
Paris Vega (37:06.712)
right okay on that note um because that’s like an extremely strong part of a marketing funnel you know that word of mouth that customer testimony getting put out there and i know we’ve only got a few minutes left in your availability but if we could do just a brief little audit of maybe your plans on the marketing side of things if you’ve got any to add to the business i know you’re taking about patching holes but also
is that part of the improvement you’re seeing the ability to do some kind of marketing effort
Austin Linney (37:38.960)
yeah i don’t i don’t know if yeah i don’t know if this is going to make me a bad guy but i’m sorry there is some so we do have a little competition like sixty miles away and the only reason why i’m upset is to try to steal for my guys and i kept every one of them so what we’re going to do is we already do a lot of work in their area we’re going to start running adds in their area uh and so so the basic premises is super simple
Paris Vega (37:48.532)
okay
m
yeah
Austin Linney (38:07.960)
at three more vans i hired thirteen more people i’m losing about three or four to retirement so i filled in some gaps got some guys got some helpers that we’re going to train up we’re putting in service titan c r m the streamline optimization on that we’re re doing moving off paper we brought in a third party pay roll a third party bookkeeper so those are how our stream line those operation i brought in a project manager to manage the project in wet
Paris Vega (38:21.672)
yeah i’ve heard of that
Austin Linney (38:37.900)
the sales person and because the sales guys doing everything and then we’re going to so the website and then we’re going to start running adds and april or may and then we’re going to re wrap all the vehicles and i clean up the logo and that’s basic that’s about it for the first sixty or ninety days we’re still so busy that i don’t really need to run s we get phone calls every day but that’s just kind of what i’m going
Paris Vega (38:40.252)
nice
yeah
yeah
yeah
Austin Linney (39:08.020)
de yeah
Paris Vega (39:09.672)
awesome and do you have any platforms specifically in mind like running adds on google or facebook or any of that okay
Austin Linney (39:16.420)
just just facebook one of the things i realize as i’ve talked to sixty five seven year old owners of businesses which the guy i’m talking to wednesday is one of those guys no matter if they hate tech guess what they always have facebook
Paris Vega (39:31.672)
facebook
yeah
Austin Linney (39:34.620)
he was oh yeah i saw it on the facebook i’m like oh okay well that’s where we’re going to run the ads then yeah so yeah so we’ll do it there one of the things that’s worked really good to in the past and we’re going to bring out well well thank them send them a magnet direct mail to our customers
Paris Vega (39:39.512)
yeah okay cool
okay direct mail
Paris Vega (39:55.852)
all right i think you’re one of the few that’s going to be utilized in physical mail because hat’s one of the questions i ask every episode and few people are actually using it while that makes sense especially yeah for a local business what about other traditional media like newspaper ads or bill boards
Austin Linney (40:03.100)
yeah we’re old school it’s old school up here man it’s older community
Austin Linney (40:10.580)
for sure
Austin Linney (40:14.880)
no one of the things i’m doing that’s super important maybe maybe here’s a little tip for anybody out there you want to this will shake it up best thing i ever heard in my life this guy ran a plumbing company he ran his add on a bill board upside down on purpose and he said he got so many he said he thinks he made half a million dollars because people calling saying it was upside down and then he got you ned plumbing services so one of the things i’m doing is i’m joining the board
Paris Vega (40:19.352)
yeah
Paris Vega (40:40.332)
yeah just getting the foot door that’s hilarious
Austin Linney (40:44.740)
chamber of commerce so that’s what i’m gonna do so that’s going to be my kind of indirect way and then we’re gonna be donating to the art the art field it’s a big artist community up here so a lot of lot of hand to hand stuff
Paris Vega (40:46.812)
okay
Paris Vega (40:55.512)
okay
Paris Vega (40:58.072)
okay a lot of in person okay um all right that makes sense and so this was a business in the place you were already living or did you like relocate to wow
Austin Linney (41:09.520)
no i relocated big big sacrifice for me and my fiance we have a lot of county contracts and i thought it was super important you can’t just be a nameless face where we are so i thought it was super important that i came up this way so
Paris Vega (41:23.752)
and so you said you have a sales team and right now they’re just or if sales person are they just okay and is that just servicing existing coal calls
Austin Linney (41:28.260)
they’re just fielding yeah yeah just random coal calls they’re not there’s no out yeah there’s no no no no they’re taking coal calls in we’re not we’re doing nothing outbound yeah so yeah the bigger issue that i’m solving right now is my my sales guys are spending about eighty percent of the time in the office doing dumb paper work so we’re going to hire a v a to do all their paper work for them so they can be out in the community taking people to lunches and setting menityands stuff like that yeah
Paris Vega (41:37.892)
oh got ya got ya so they’re getting in bound called
Paris Vega (41:49.032)
m
Paris Vega (41:54.332)
there you go awesome
Paris Vega (41:59.452)
well i think i mean we’ve covered it man and i don’t want to take you over the time but this has been really interesting and i feel like there’s a lot more that we can dig into and seem like somebody full of stories but i appreciate the time you’ve taken to day and i think there’s a lot of little golden nuggets people can get from this
Austin Linney (42:00.360)
m
Austin Linney (42:16.060)
awesome my last advice for everybody remember the most important first customer you need to sell is the person looking in the mirror
Paris Vega (42:26.532)
m
Austin Linney (42:27.960)
and if you sell that person on why you’re amazing and stop playing small then you can sell anybody else
Paris Vega (42:35.612)
that’s awesome um and once you take just one last minute here and if you’re like one of your target customers is listening whether it’s for the coaching side or even the local ah back side what’s that short little pitch to that person that target customer of yours who’s listening
Austin Linney (42:55.320)
you have to you have to believe that you deserve great service you have to believe that it’s important for you to feel comfortable in your day and day life i’m not here to sell you anything i’m here to give you an opportunity to be happier it’s it the moment that you start selling people they turn their ears off it’s it’s a proven fact one of my favorite people in the entire world orang
clap he wrote a book called flip the script pitch anything he’s he’s a rain maker they call him the rain maker he has crazy deals there’s three minds you have three minds and one of those minds is the crocodile mine the crocodile mine is the first person the first mind that exists when you walk into a room anything and the crocodle mine cannot understand numbers and facts so you have to you have to sell to somebody in the lowest form of what they would do as the second and third mind catches up
Paris Vega (43:29.672)
okay
Austin Linney (43:55.300)
and so pattern interruption don’t use big words all that kind of stuff but like let them kind of and then when they flip into mind two and three that’s when you can do it so just a little
Paris Vega (43:56.192)
okay
Paris Vega (44:07.772)
that’s good all right you said something before the show and i don’t even think it got mentioned but you said one of your mottos is you’re not in business you’re in the people business um what does that mean real quick
Austin Linney (44:20.280)
correct yeah doesn’t doesn’t matter what you well it doesn’t matter what you do i’ve got to service my text make sure they’re happy their home life is good because ye’re going to give better service to the customers i’ve got to make the customers happy to know that their needs have been wanted i don’t care what product you’re selling there’s somebody on the other end of that line that you have to understand the emotional levels that they’re playing in and realize that you know just ask the question is everything else right are you okay
Paris Vega (44:30.472)
yeah
Austin Linney (44:50.160)
is it really about this gonnounderstand that everything exists with around the people so just learned how to sell people learn psychology learn emotional stability and then you are going to be a great salesman you’re going to be a great company that gives your product to customers and stuff like that
Paris Vega (45:07.652)
awesome that’s a great place to end at austin appreciate your time
Austin Linney (45:12.080)
you gotta thanks man
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