269 - David Bach FINAL AUDIO
Corey Kupfer: [00:00:00] Do you want your business to grow faster? Are you open to new and out of the box ways to drive revenues and increased value? How do you imagine the most successful entrepreneurs and business leaders double, triple, or expand their businesses tenfold or more? This is a weekly podcast featuring conversations with business owners, executives, and leaders.
As we reveal behind the scenes details that give you, our listeners, the confidence to pursue your own deal driven growth on the show, we discuss a huge variety of deals, everything from large. Complex mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, joint ventures, strategic alliances, real estate, affiliate and sponsorship deals, and more, including smaller deals that you can do without significant capital.
My name is Corey Kupfer, and I've been supporting deal driven growth for businesses for over 35 years as a successful entrepreneur, professional negotiator, and attorney. My goal is to help you strategize, plan for, find, and complete deals that will help your company grow faster. [00:01:00] Welcome to the DealQuest podcast.
Let's get started. DealQuest community. I'm so excited to introduce you to a remastered episode of the DealQuest podcast. The podcast has grown so much. We started it about five years ago now, at least at the point I'm recording this in the beginning had maybe 60 or 80 listeners per episode. We now have many multiples of that.
In fact, we've got almost a hundred times that. And I realized that there were so many great interviews I did early on in the podcast. In fact, in the first year of the podcast. It wasn't even called deal quest. It was called fueling deals until we rebranded it. And we interviewed some amazing entrepreneurs and deal makers and just amazing stories, amazing content.
And I know that so many of our listeners have joined us over the last several years and may not have heard some of those earlier episodes from five years ago, four years ago, even three years ago. So we have picked the best of those old episodes. And the advice and the stories and the experiences are timeless.
[00:02:00] So we've remastered them, made sure the audio is great and put in our new intro and outro and that kind of stuff. And we're going to be re releasing some of these amazing episodes. So look out for them from time to time. And here's one coming up right now. My guest today is David Bach. In addition to being a phenomenal friend and client of mine, David Bach is the founder of Finish Rich Media, the company that manages and promotes the David Bach brand and Finish Rich programs that continue to inspire millions.
Prior to founding Finish Rich Media, David was the Senior Vice President of the Bach Group at Morgan Stanley, which managed over half a billion dollars for individuals during his tenure. From 2001. David's now a partner at AE Wealth Management, which is a six billion dollar other management firm and one of the, and the fastest growing firm in the country right now.
And he also, amongst his many books, has a new one coming out, which actually, when we air this podcast, will have just come out called The Latte Factor. I am so excited to have my friend and client David Bach on the show. [00:03:00] Welcome,
David Bach: David. Thank you, Corey. It's great to be with you. Congratulations on your brand new podcast.
Corey Kupfer: Well, thank you, man. We're sweaty. We've got, I think you're going to end up being somewhere around episode 15 or something, but we got about another 20 something in the can with bumping you up. In line because the book's coming out and I want to make sure that I promote that. I read it and it's phenomenal and I've read the other stuff and obviously we know each other.
I definitely want to support what you're doing because you make a difference for so many people.
David Bach: Thank you. I got to tell you, we're really excited. This is my 13th book. We've had nine consecutive New York Times bestselling books out. A lot of people know me for smart women finish rich or smart couples finish rich, the automatic millionaire.
But this is a book very different than anything I've ever done. The Latte Factor is a parable. It is a book that you can read like in an hour. And it's a story based book that we hope will translate all over the world. My dream is for this to become the Who Moved My Cheese of personal finance. And I really wrote it to go out and reach millennials, Generation Z and Generation Y and really inspire young people [00:04:00] today.
To not give up hope because a lot of young people today are struggling with student loans and credit card debt, and they really don't think that there's any chance for them to have the American dream. And so with this little book, we really hope to go inspire young people to realize that actually they're perfectly positioned.
To live and finish rich if they just take a handful of steps, so it's gonna be fun. But I know we're gonna talk about deals here and then later we can talk about the
Corey Kupfer: book. Well, listen, i'll spend another minute on the book because I I did and yes I read it took me under two hours to read the book on a lounge chair down in south beach and it was a A phenomenally great read.
And I do think it's gonna, and because it is a parable, it is a story. And I do think it's going to make a big difference to people. But yeah, but before we go there and before we even go to deals, I want to take you back, David. So when you were growing up as a little kid, what did you want to be? Because a bestselling author and owner and a major player in a wealth management business might not have been it when you were a little kid, but maybe I'm wrong.
So you tell me, it's
David Bach: funny because honestly, as a little kid, I was obsessed with [00:05:00] being wanting to be a millionaire. I wanted to be rich. And a lot of that started because of my grandmother, Rose Bach, who I dedicated my first book to smart women finish rich. She was a woman who had 30 had nothing. She was living paycheck to paycheck.
She didn't have a college education. My grandparents were poor and she made a decision to teach herself how to invest. And literally starting with nothing she brown bagged her lunch She worked at gimble's department store and she brown bagged her lunch to start saving a dollar a week And through that effort she started investing and over her lifetime Became a self made millionaire and she taught me how to buy my first stock at the age of seven I was at mcdonald's restaurant.
It was my favorite restaurant in the whole world and literally one day at seven She turned to me and said i'm going to teach you actually how to get rich and it doesn't come from working here And it doesn't come from eating here. It comes from owning this place. And she took me home and opened up the wall street journal and taught me how to look up the stock.
Showed [00:06:00] me how to read it on the ticker symbol, going across the screen on the news, and then took me down to a brokerage firm to open my account and buy my first share of stock. And I was obsessed with playing Monopoly, Corey, at that age. Like that was what I always wanted to do is play Monopoly. You get four greenhouses and one hotel, and then you're rich.
And my grandmother basically taught me how to start playing the game for real. I've just been, it's just been, that's what I do. You're, by the way, your video in South Beach was hilarious 'cause I know you posted the video of the review of the book. You guys, he posted the review of my book inside our Facebook group.
We've got a hundred people on our insider launch team right now and up Pops Corey in a pool reviewing the book . I'm like, that's the most creative review I've ever seen. We're going crazy over. I love your review. Everybody should do a review from a pool. That's when you know you're living rich, but it's funny cause I'm sitting here at 52 and I think I'm as geeked out and I love talking about money and teaching people how to free themselves as much as I [00:07:00] did 26 years ago.
And the cool thing now is I've got two little kids and my son's 15 and he just read the book and he's totally inspired now to open up an IRA account and my nine year old wants his stock counting. He wants to buy Shake Shack. So I'm just teaching my kids now, the way my grandparents, my grandmother taught me.
Oh,
Corey Kupfer: I love that. It's such a, it's such a great story. And that's funny because a lot of people I had to be on the podcast, what they wanted to be as a little kid was totally unrelated to what they do now. They wanted to be a fireman or a astronaut or whatever, but you were an investor at seven, which is phenomenal.
Yeah, I love it. So David, one more question looking back and that is what was your first business? However you define that, whether it was later or as a little kid or whatever, what was your first real business?
David Bach: Huh. That's an interesting question. My first real business was in college. I started a business that did t shirts and, uh, you know, all the corporate stuff, mugs and glasses, but it was t shirts.
I went to USC. I got myself in credit card debt. By the time I was a sophomore, I had 5, 000 in credit card debt. I came home, told my dad, we have to talk. [00:08:00] We have a problem. I literally said, we have a problem. I handed him my credit card bills cause I couldn't make the minimum payments anymore. And there was 5, 000 on these credit cards.
And my dad just looked at me, he handed the bills back to me and he said, son, we don't have a problem. And I said, what do you mean? He's like, you have a problem. Your name is on this, so we don't have a problem. You have a problem. And then I said, you're gonna need to get a job because I don't know how you're gonna pay these bills.
And I went back to school. I walked into the bookstore, right? On USC campus, cause they were hiring. They told me what minimum wage would pay. And I figured out I'd have to work 20, 25, 30 hours a week just to make minimum payments. And I realized there was no hope for me. And so I started my own little business selling t shirts to the fraternities and sororities.
At USC to help them raise money. I made football t shirts and fraternity and sorority t shirts. And then I started doing stuff for restaurants. And then from there I got into also creating my own designs. So that was really my first business. And [00:09:00] it was called deal with it sportswear. Don't worry, no worries, no problems, a new attitude, deal with it.
Corey Kupfer: I love it. I love it. It's funny because I think back, my, my first podcast episode was with Dave DeVoe, who's an investment banker in the, in the wealth management space. And, and they, one of Dave's first businesses was t shirts in college in California as well. Maybe there's some commonality there of people who end up
David Bach: in financial services.
I'll tell you something crazy is that Mossimo, who's now in all this trouble for. Apparently doing the 500, 000 cheating thing to get his daughter into USC, Mossimo went to USC. Mossimo had a t shirt business at USC. He was a couple of years ahead of me. When he left, that t shirt business with the vac, there was nobody there doing it.
So I was like, I can do that. He went off and built a huge business, but there's a lot of money in t shirts. So funny, like full circle. I'm like, maybe I started t shirt business again. I
Corey Kupfer: love it. I love it. So let's talk about what you're doing now, because it's obviously you've got the book, you've got your involvement with AE Wealth, you speak, you do.
So [00:10:00] give people an overview. Listen, a lot of people know you, but there may be some people who don't really know everything that's going on with you now. So give people an overview of what you're up to now.
David Bach: Yeah, I spent basically 26 years in the financial service industry, whether I started my career at Dean Witter, which then became Morgan Stanley.
So I was 9 years there. Then I spent from 2001 till really now running a media company that does all the financial education. That's what's produced the. Thirteen books we do and all the online courses and the seminar programs and the licensing and we create a lot of financial content that we license to other financial service companies.
So we've had other financial service companies, big banks and brokerage firms and credit companies utilize our programs to do financial education for their customers. And that's how we've been able to impact. Just millions of people by having these really strategic partnerships. So we've had partnerships with some of the biggest fortune 500 companies in America, and that's allowed us to reach millions of people in addition to all the other things that we do.
And then I am today the co [00:11:00] founder of a registered investment advisory firm called AE Wealth Management. We started that firm three years ago. It's based out of Topeka, Kansas, and we are an RIA that really helps. Individual RAAs grow their business. We provide a platform that provides the investment turnkey investment solution, the technology solution, and all the turnkey marketing.
And so we really specialize in taking an RAA that has somewhere between 50 to 250 million in AUM and really wants to grow. And we can help them scale much faster than they're currently scaling. We just have a paint by the numbers. Playbook that is really unique in the industry. And we have a massive marketing team.
We have 125 people in house on our marketing team and we do everything websites, radio shows, tv shows, rebranding, because we know that the hardest part of being in the financial service industry is to find a client. Anybody who's an independent R. I. [00:12:00] A. Their biggest struggle is how do they get clients Other than through referrals and we just have a massive turnkey marketing system in place to help them grow their business.
And some of those marketing tools are actually my program. So we have financial advisors that every single day practically now are teaching my seminars across the country. Our lead seminar program is smart women, smart retirement. It's a retirement seminar for women. And so we have our financial advisors trained to teach those seminars throughout the country.
And that's something that many of our advisors are using to really grow their business. So that's been fun. And we've gone from 0 to 6 billion, actually over 6 billion. I think we're at 6. 4 billion in assets on our platform. And, you know, we're not doing any acquisitions. So these are all independent RIAs that are transferring their Really their business from somewhere else coming on our platform and then growing with us.
And so that's been my, that's my full time job, if you will, besides the education side. That's
Corey Kupfer: great. And listen, [00:13:00] for those of our listeners who are not in the financial services and the investment advisor space, that level of growth of AUM assets on the management in three years to over 6 billion is phenomenally impressive.
The let's put it this way, probably 90 percent of the firms never get to 6 billion, no matter how long they take. And the ones that do usually take a lot longer. So it's a testament to what the David and his partners have built and it's providing a real service to the wealth management industry. So David, I do want to talk about the book a little more because I really thought.
This, this approach of, listen, you've had so many successful books, like you said, I think this is nine New York Times bestsellers on the automatic million. It was number one. And then you provide so much value, but this is a different book, right? This is a parable. Like you said, it follows Zoe, who's the main character.
She runs into a super interesting guy who in a coffee shop. And really, there are three very simple lessons that I know you've taught in your other. Work, but you've done it in a way where it's a story and I know that I already see That those people in your on your facebook group, [00:14:00] etc Who have gotten advanced copies and the buzz on this thing is just phenomenal.
David Bach: Yeah Thank you. I have to tell you this is the most exciting book for me I've ever launched because we've got this insider group Our the website that people can go to to learn about this insider group and learn about the book and buy it is The latte factor dot com and if they like to take action today, because you've got the special offer on our website that once you can still join our insider group, the first week the book comes out, we've got 1300 people right now on this insider group.
You joined us. You're a part of the Facebook group. It's really become an unbelievable community of people that are cheering each other on. Like I'm going in there and I'm doing daily check ins and I'm doing live Facebook live and I'm commenting and answering questions, but it's also 1300 people that are now a thousand people in the Facebook group, super active, like really just getting excited and going, Oh my God, I read this book and I'm applying all these lessons in my own life.
And people are cheering each other on and celebrating. Like one woman was in there the other day. Who just announced she's retiring and her story was about how she read the automatic [00:15:00] millionaire like 14 years ago and changed the way she was paying herself first, increased her 401k plan. And now at 59 was going to be able to retire and people were just jumping into there and commenting and, Oh my God, congratulations.
And she's in New Jersey and the day that we're doing an event at the Oculus book. Actually opens with Zoe Daniels, this 27 year old millennial who's coming to work at the Freedom Tower, and she takes the subway from Brooklyn to the Fulgerton Center, and she comes out inside the Oculus, and there's a story about that leads to her questioning her life, and we're going to do a book signing.
At the oculus. Oh, wow. Live on May 9th at 12 o'clock to 2 o'clock, and I'm going to give away 500 copies of my book. So if you happen to listen to this and you're in New York City, come on over. And that woman who posted, who is 59, who's in New Jersey, she's going to come over for the event. It's just been really fun.
I'm really, usually you write a book and you don't get to hear reviews until [00:16:00] after the book comes out. So this has been super fun to hear. How much this book is, is, is changing the way people think and giving people hope. But that's, that was my dream with this book. I went out to Geneva with Paulo Coelho, who was my hero.
He wrote the book called The Alchemist. And Paulo and I were having, we had dinner and we were up all night long. We closed this bar and we were out till two or three o'clock drinking wine. And he turned to me and he said, so David, it was 2012. I was taking a sabbatical and he said, I was about to take a sabbatical.
And he said, What is the book that your sole desire is to write that you have not written yet? And, you know, and Paulo Coelho looks you in the eyes and says that, and I go, well, Paulo, I have this dream to write this book called The Latte Factor that could inspire young people all over the world to realize that they're richer than they think.
And that just making a few small changes in their life could give them a lifetime of freedom. And he looked at me and he goes, Lynn David, you must write that book. I, I [00:17:00] literally left this bar. It's just like cloud nine. I like had chill. My, my, the hair on my arms is standing up right now. Cause I rethink about this, but I come home from my wife couldn't believe I was flying to Geneva to have dinner with Paul Aquila.
I go, are you kidding me? I will fly anywhere to have dinner with Paul Aquila. No question. So I get home and my wife says to me, so what did Paulo say? And I go, he said, I should write the Latte Factor. And she's like, I've been telling you to do this for 10 years. So now are you going to write it? So that's a totally true story.
And in fact, I gave Paulo credit and the dedication for this for the book. So he said that to me and I had this idea in my head for 10 years, but I didn't have the whole story. And then finally, that's one of those things, like the story finally appeared in my mind. And then I, John David Mann, who wrote this great book called The Go Giver, John and I had talked about doing this book together for over 10 years because when he sent me the Go Giver parable to read, I said, I've got this idea called the Latte Factor.
I want to write a parable someday. And so we kept talking for 10 years and then I called him. I'm like, [00:18:00] John, you know what? I finally have it. You got to fly to New York and I'm going to walk you through this story. And I literally took him into the Oculus and started walking him through the walkway. Wow.
As Zoe Daniels walks through in the first chapter. And I go, there's this LCD screen and she's going to see this LCD screen. It's going to say, if you don't know where you're going with your life, you might not like where you end up. And that's how the story is going to start. And then she's going to come up this escalator, and she's going to come up to the 9 11 memorial.
And then she's going to sit down on these marble benches right in front of the memorial, and she's going to ask herself, What is she doing with her life? And that's going to begin our
Corey Kupfer: story. David, I've got to tell you something. I read the book already, but I just got chills when you said that. Like when you said you brought him to the Oculus, right?
And for those of, by the way, for the listeners who are not in New York, who haven't had the opportunity to come to New York and be at that new Fulton Station that was built after the devastation of 9 11. [00:19:00] What David is talking about, and you can look it up online, is, is this Oculus, is it, that's what they built, and it's this amazing structure, and it's a great, not only saw the story, but as meaning in, in the latte fact that there's a reason why the Oculus plays into it.
So, yeah, it's, I literally got chills when you,
David Bach: uh, Well, and the Oculus, the word, words and pictures are hard to describe the Oculus. Like, it is So remarkable. You have to come down and see it. And obviously when people come down and they see the freedom tower and my office, I look right at it right now. But when you come to freedom tower, it's just a no brainer to go into the Oculus.
And I'll tell you one more crazy story here. Cause of course we're going over, but like, I go to, so I'm moving to Florence in 90 days. I'm taking a sabbatical and there's a sabbatical story in the book. And my family and I are moving to Florence, Italy for a year. My kids are going to go to school abroad and my family is going to have this whole adventure for a year.
And last June, as I'm finishing this book, we go to Florence to look, to decide if this is where we want to move. And the first morning we're having [00:20:00] breakfast on the water at this gorgeous hotel called Lungarno hotel. And it looks at the Ponte Vecchio and literally we have just woken up. We're having coffee.
And my wife starts talking to the woman next door. I'm like, Oh my God, can't we just have breakfast without meeting strangers? And so the wives are talking and talking. So finally, I look over to the husband. He's sitting next to me and we get to talking and he's just retired. Oh, that's great. Yeah. We're going to travel over Italy.
Where'd you retire from? He said, I used to be the CEO of a real estate company. Which one Westfield Westfield, you mean the large, one of the largest developers in the world, the one that owns the Oculus. He goes, yeah, I go, we live in New York city. I just finished a book. Where the main character starts in the Oculus, that's incredible.
So fast forward, the book's finished. We're coming. I go, I reached out to him like Peter, you got to hook me up because I want to do a book signing inside the Oculus, which is very difficult to pull off. And that's, but that's how it all came
Corey Kupfer: together. Oh, that's, that's phenomenal. That's amazing. It's
David Bach: making deals, right?
Corey Kupfer: I love it. Yeah. And we're about to get the deals, but I do want to [00:21:00] say in, in reading the book, what I love is, listen, personally. I really wish I had started like you at seven years old, but I had a relative would tell me to invest in stocks because I was maybe more typical of some people in that I was fortunate that I came out, I made a very good living, but I spent more than I made and I was in debt credit card debt, despite making money as a lawyer through my twenties.
And it took me until a little later into my thirties to. To start realizing that I need to have some fiscal responsibility. And fortunately, I was able to, you know, get to a point where I've gotten comfortable and I've applied the principles that you teach. And now I'm able to, to leverage and do deals, which we'll talk about.
But what I love about the book, and I love that you said, I bought 10 copies, just I'll probably buy another a hundred at some point because. I can think of so many people and we were, I'll just tell a person that we were at my nephew, my wife's nephew's wedding down. It's why I was actually down in South Beach.
They were doing a cruise out of, out of Miami to the Bahamas and doing like a one island wedding and a young couple just getting their financial act together. Definitely driven, but don't have a lot of money right now, but I think they'll get [00:22:00] there. And I'm like, okay, I need to get a copy of the book for them.
They need to understand this at 20 something or early thirties where I didn't understand until a lot later. And there are so many people that I want to give this book to because if you get a head start on that, then not only are you going to be able to not live paycheck to paycheck, because it's not just too many people with paycheck to paycheck in this country.
And there's so many opportunities. And then the stuff we're about to talk about, which is deals, you don't even get to the point where you can focus on that. If you're trying to figure out where you're going to pay for your rent and dinner and life bill. I'm so excited about this, uh, about this book.
David Bach: Thank you. This country is in a critical place right now. We have a, you talked about so many people living paycheck to paycheck. Let's talk about the stats, the real stats. Almost half of America today, according to the federal reserve, cannot get their hands on 400 in case of an emergency. The average American has less than six days of expenses set aside.
And when you go to paycheck right now, eight out of ten women are living paycheck to [00:23:00] paycheck, and seven out of ten men are living paycheck to paycheck. And so, you know, we have a real problem in this country. Only about three percent of America is really well off financially. And it's the, what's happening in this country, and the rich are getting richer, but it used to be the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
What's happening now is that the rich are getting richer and everybody else is just being left way behind in the wake. Since I wrote The Automatic Millionaire, millionaires have doubled in this country. We've got almost 10 million people now who have a million dollar net worth or more. But again, they're the exception, not the rule.
And when you talk about deals, Basically, there are two major asset classes that you have to own in order to participate in building wealth in this country. You have to own stocks and you have to own real estate. But if you're not either in real estate or in stocks, you're, you have, you're not on the escalator to building wealth.
And when you say things like you have to own these two asset classes, it sounds complicated, but in a lot of, a lot of day factory, we make it super simple. And [00:24:00] there's a little chart in this book that was the chart that actually changed my life. That it's the first chart we show in the appendix. And it's a chart that shows what happens if you save 2, 000 a year.
And so the example in the book is of an investor who puts 2, 000 into an IRA account. And never puts another puts 2, 000 away from the age of 19 to the age of 26. And that person never puts another dollar away. And then the chart shows compound interest, how it grows by the age of 65 to over 1, 035, 000.
And then there's this, which is amazing. It's you look at the chart and you can't believe it. This is what my son said. He looked at his dad. Is this real? Then it shows another investor who starts at 27 and invest 2, 000 a year, every year until they're 65. And that investor has 805, 000. So they still did well, but they have almost a quarter of a million dollars less than the first person.
But they saved for an additional 40 years and didn't catch up. [00:25:00] And that chart was handed to me. At training at Dean Witter, when I worked in the World Trade Center, that's where our training class was, it was handed to us by a retired, by an advisor who was going to retire the following week. And he said, kids, anybody in this, in all this room was young, right?
It was all men. It was all young. He goes, how many of you are under the age of 30? He said, I want you to look at this chart. He said, if all you, and this was back when IRAs were 2, 000, he said, cause today they're more than that, right? So he, but I use the same chart cause I didn't want to change it. I wanted the point to be made here.
He said, if you save 5 and 41 cents a day, you're going to go out tonight and you're going to have more than one beer. If you just took the money from the beer and you put it in your IRA account, when you go back to your office. By the time you reach retirement, you can have a million dollars. And he said, here's what I can tell you.
When you go back to your office, most of the financial advisors in your office in their fifties. Are broke. [00:26:00] They can't scratch two nickels together. They don't do for themselves what they do for their clients. And so at a minimum, you should go back and be doing this. You should at least open up the IRA account and you should be getting your clients to do this who have kids.
He goes, and then you'll be financially secure for life. He goes, the reason I'm retiring at 61 is because I can. It's because I did all this stuff and he goes, and I, as a retailer, one of the things you learn when you're a financial advisor is you work with all these clients who retire in their 60s, a whole bunch of them, the moment they retire, they get sick and they drop dead.
And so my average client's retiring at 62, 63, 64, 65. I'm retiring now because I can't. And I hope for you guys, you'll take this advice and you'll go do this for yourself. And that was like, whoa. And I went back and I did this. And you know, and he said, he's like, You're all going to make a ton of money. You shouldn't be saving 2, 000 a year.
You should do more than this. And today my IRA account, it's just obnoxious how much money I have. And [00:27:00] I'm 52 years old, but all it is is compound interest. I have done for less than 30 years. It's 26 years. What I talk about in the books and the weird thing is these charts, all this stuff takes, it takes decades.
It doesn't get done in days, but he's the last thing he said to us in that class, all you young kids right now, you look at me and you think I'm old and you think you're not going to be old too. And he's, and I'm here to tell you right now, you're going to blink your eyes and be this age and you can be this age with money or without money.
That was another thing I remember thinking. No, it's not gonna be a matter of blinking my eyes. And here's what's up. I'm gonna just one thing that's funny, Corey. So you and I are became friends because of EO, Entrepreneurs Organization. When we joined, it was YEO, Young Entrepreneurs, right? That's right. And I'm going to speak and I'm speaking for the EO group for New York on the 21st.
Of May. And at 50, I opted myself out of EO. And one of the [00:28:00] first questions I'm going to get, I'm going to be asked is, you're an EO for 7, 18 years, which one of the best things I ever did for my entire business was being that organization's greatest organization any entrepreneur could ever be in. And at 50, I looked at my, I stopped aging you out, right?
But I remember when I was in my 30s and I remember going to one of these events and I would see these guys in their 40s and their 50s. And I remember saying to my buddies who were in our 30s, like, If I'm still here at 50, shoot me and then blink your eyes next to your 50. You know, the decades go by fast.
Corey Kupfer: Totally do. They totally do, David. Let's take a break from the show for a minute so I can tell you about an incredible resource my team and I have put together for you. Secrets of deal driven growth. Creative ways to grow your business, even in challenging times. There's a powerful ebook that helps you take DealQuest podcast episodes and apply them to your own life and business.
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Now back for the show. So listen, I, I do want to turn to talk about deals cause that's what this podcast is focused on, but all this stuff is interesting because I already see people applying from that, from your insiders group, right? People already saying, I opened the 401k, I'm putting away, I'm increasing the money I put up, they're looking at their expenses and again.
Yeah, you always, all your material points out, you don't necessarily have to give up that latte, but you should look at what you really care about and what expenses you might be able to give up to be able to put money away. You should automate it, have it go automatically and pay yourself first and all that stuff.
So now people do that. And what I love about the book is that one of the mentors in the book is a very interesting character. I'll let people read it. Cause I don't want to, I don't want to give it because I love that character in the coffee shop. It turns out that there are various people in the book who not only have.
Apply the principles that you've done, but then they have basically done [00:30:00] deals, right? They've invested that money in ways it's real estate and businesses, et cetera. And listen, you've done the same thing, right? I happen to be familiar. We're not going to talk about the specific terms of any of your deals, but you've done a few different types of deals, right?
So you've been doing this for a lot of times, but most people may think, Oh, David makes all of his money because he's a writer and he's a speaker, right? Right.
David Bach: I would
Corey Kupfer: be poor then now. Exactly. That's the point. People don't understand that. That first of all, there are very few people who are getting any kind of book advance of any material amount these days.
And even though the people who do, you don't get to spend that money marketing the book and et cetera. And if that's the only way that you're going to live, you're going to be in trouble. I know I'm involved with national speakers association and listen, there are a million dollars speakers, certainly, but I gotta be honest with you.
There are a lot of people who are running around the world in the country, just trying to make a living speaking. And if they don't have any kind of backend that they put people into, they're really, they're not making a lot of money. But what you have done in addition to obviously just putting away money from an early age, which has set you up, is you've done a number of types of [00:31:00] deals.
So you've done book deals. Yes. You've done licensing, which is an area that I think is so underutilized for people who have great content and whatever, which I definitely want you to talk about. And then you've also leveraged your expertise and capital and programs that you have and everything into owning pieces of companies as well.
So let's start talking about some of the kind of. Deals you've been able to do because you applied all the principles in a lot. They factored from when you were young and now you can take things to the
David Bach: next level. Yeah, totally. For the, I should've made that comment report. Cause that's not really true.
Like you sell 7 million books. You, I've made a lot of money as an office. I've made a lot of money as a speaker, but the business is, I always say books are not a business. Um, and so when we put out a book, I don't really look at it as I'm putting out a book. I look at it always as like. We're on a mission and what's the mission and the purpose that we're trying to accomplish?
So if you go back to smart women finish rich, which was the first What I would call literacy program I created And that goes all the way back to [00:32:00] 1994 I started with a mission to teach women to be smarter with their money starting with my clients and that program that I created for my clients became so successful that I said geez if I could massively build my business for teaching seminars for women and money I could probably train a thousand other people to do the exact same thing.
And if I could train a thousand other financial buyers to teach the same seminar, I could go reach a million people much faster than if I tried to do it myself. One of our friends, like Tony Robbins, a mutual friend of ours, I was a huge fan of I've gone to Tony seminars and Tony would talk about how you'd be on the road for 360 days a year and I just remember thinking and it took him 10 years.
I think to reach a million I think he told me it took I think he said took 20. I forget hit He talked about how long it took him to reach a million people and how he was on the road 300 days a year Whatever was most of the year. He was just gone everywhere He still traveled all the time and I thought how could I do this in a shorter time frame and not have it be so hard on me personally, I thought I could train a thousand people to teach these [00:33:00] seminars.
I could reach a million women in less than 10 years. I just did back of the envelope math. First thing you learn about deals is one person doesn't like it. Guess what? There's always somebody else. So you fast forward. I not even 90 days later, I'm putting out the word that we're looking for a partner and a mutual fund company comes to me.
And so we turn around and we license this program smart women finish rich to this mutual fund company And they had 90 wholesalers and I go look we're going to train the 90 wholesalers that then we'll go out and train A thousand advisors across the country We do exactly that only it doesn't end up being a thousand advisors It ends up being thousands and thousands advisors and it becomes the most successful financial seminar program Ever taught across America to this day and that deal, that first deal is what really launched finished rich media as a standalone company.
And I had that launching while I was still Morgan Stanley. So I'm a financial advisor. Now I'm building a separate media licensing company. [00:34:00] Now
Corey Kupfer: let's take a second there. Cause I really want to break this down for people, right? Because you, so many people in that situation, right? Would have gone in, gotten paid as a consultant or as a trainer or whatever, to train a bunch of other people on how to do something, gotten paid a fee and then gone away, right?
Because this is what people do, right? Even people who have good content, whatever, they'll, they'll go in, get paid to do a training, or maybe they take the next level and get paid a little more to do a train, the trainer thing where they train people. But what they don't do is have the licensing element.
Which is ongoing money and builds a brand that you did. And I think that's a big distinction that I just wanted to make for the listeners because so many people don't take advantage
David Bach: of that. It's a really great distinction. And look, the reality is when you have licensing revenue, you have residualized income and that's the Holy grail of business is residualized income.
And of course, like these deals we do, there always is a consulting element and there's a certain amount of speeches, [00:35:00] but the real. Values sits on the IP side, right? The real value is intellectual property. It's having something unique that someone else doesn't have that adds huge value that people need to use over and over again.
And the truth is there's a reason why, like in my case, my specialty is financial services, but financial service companies, whenever they try to create the stuff themselves. It never works because they don't have a financial advisor creating it So they give a seminar to a financial virus the financial advisor looks at and goes this is never going to work And then they don't use it.
So You know being having spent 26 years in industry knowing what it takes to get somebody In our case like into the room confront a financial advisor And then how do you get somebody from being in that room into the financial virus? How do you convert them from being in the office through the first appointment, second appointment to closing?
How do you convert them from closing and becoming a [00:36:00] client to becoming a client advocate that gives you three to one referrals versus no referrals? All of that. Is proprietary turnkey knowledge that I have that we go out and say, look, we can give this to you. It's a turnkey system, but you have to pay for the system.
And if you get to a point that you don't want to pay for the system, you can't use the system anymore. It's like software.
Corey Kupfer: And that's great. That's great. And listen, and the other thing you do is that you create this and then you license it over and over again. Now you make custom. And I'm going to go through some examples.
And I'm going to talk about multiple licenses and how to customize it. Obviously updated that kind of stuff. But when a license ends with one, one company, you can go to, or you may have they're exclusive and non exclusive licenses. You may be able to license it to multiple people at a time. Or if you do an exclusive license, when that period ends, you can license that content again.
And if you think about it, people who really, have, listen, obviously your stuff's gotta be great. Your stuff is top notch, right? It's gotta be something the market wants, but there are great trainers out there and people who really have good stuff. And they end up selling it for that time or for a project [00:37:00] fee when the company's going to be using it over hundreds of thousands of people over a period of years.
And it's actually crazy to do a deal that way. The smart way to
David Bach: do it is the way you do it. And you know what? You need to have good attorneys like yourself involved in the deals because these corporations are really good. At ripping your IP out of your hands. Right, right. And if you don't, I've learned that the hard way too, right?
I've been backed by you. You've been a great ally of mine and I've had some really great attorneys that if you don't structure your contracts, you can lose everything. That's what happens to a lot of people. And so you really do need to know how to structure deals and you need to register all your trademarks, right?
The latte factor is something that i've been talking about for 20 years and we registered a trademark on it immediately And thank god we did because we immediately had people trying to say that the latte factor was theirs We had another person who will go unnamed who was a guru that was telling people Oh, the latte fact was my idea and this reporter came to me and said, oh really?
Why don't you go back and check the um, Trademarks because we had a trademark on it and here's the date And then they were [00:38:00] like, Oh, wow, you got to protect, you got to protect your IP.
Corey Kupfer: So, yeah, let's stick on this for a second. One more follow up on licensing. And then I want to talk about other kinds of deals.
So a few of the tips that we already heard from you are get trademarks, protect your IP. Obviously you get a good attorney, do a good deal, obviously do the licensing structure, not just. Selling it as a project. What else, any other thoughts around how you do licensing deals and maybe some of the mistakes that you've learned from as well?
David Bach: Okay. So I got off on a tangent here, but I always go back to when we launched a book, we launched it as a mission. So like smart women finish rich. We launched with that mission and the mission was to go educate and empower 1 million women to be smarter about money. So they could protect themselves, teach the kids and protect their families.
That was the mission of over 20 years ago. And so when we went out to look for partners, we were like, this is who we're trying to reach. This is what our mission is. You have to find partners that align with your mission. So, because then you're a team, right? So I'll give you, let me give you [00:39:00] like another real life example, the latte factor.
10 million millennials to start paying themselves first automatically. Using their 401k plans. What I want to do, I'll put this out here live on your podcast, I, I want to move the dial on savings in America, specifically in 401k plans. If I can just increase the savings rate in America by 1%, I will have made a huge little tiny massive dent in the world because 1 percent extra savings in America could be a game changer for Americans.
So, We want to partner and we haven't got the partnership done yet. We're pursuing right now some of the largest 401k providers in the world. And we want to do hopefully a licensing partnership with one or two or three or more. But we want to move the, we want to work with somebody like we're talking to one 401k provider coming up next week.
They have 15 million people in their 401k plan. They would be the dream partner for us and we could help them, right? Like it's [00:40:00] pretty simple with the Lotte Factor, with a turnkey seminar, with my videos and this book, you will be able to increase the savings rate in your foreign K plan by one or 2 percent for that company.
It's hundreds of millions of dollars in additional revenue annually. Probably it's billions and billions of dollars in new AUM. So it's finding the right partner that has the same goal as your mission. I think to get the right partnership.
Corey Kupfer: I love the drive from mission because right in that example, you think about it.
It's great for the 401k provider. It's obviously great for you because you, it helps you achieve your mission. And it's great for the end users, the people who you want to get to the millennials, et cetera, who really it would serve them to save more money. So it's, it is one of those truly win, win, win situations.
And that's how deals should be.
David Bach: So wait, let me give you another example too because I invest in fintech companies, [00:41:00] right? So there are a lot of hot fintech companies that I promote and one thing I decided to do is i'm gonna the companies I like i'm going to invest in so for example acorns is the hottest fastest growing Millennial focused financial service company now in the world.
It's we've opened up five million accounts So three years ago, what Acorns does is it makes the Latte Factor automatic. You can download the Acorns app and you can save small amounts of money, your change, every single day in a diversified portfolio of ETFs. So when I saw what Acorns was doing, I went out to Acorns and I basically got on a plane and met with the CEO, Noah Kerner, and I said, I want to invest in your company.
And then I'm going to just start sending people to you. So I'm an investor in acorns and I did that with lots of companies. So like acorns is taken off. We've just raised another a hundred million dollars. And the investor was CNBC, which is Comcast. So now CNBC is doing 20 people promoting basically [00:42:00] acorns all over their website.
Acorns is going to be. Huge. If you haven't been to Acorns, you should check it out. It's such a good company. I also invested in Clarity Money. It's the best financial app I've ever seen to track where your money goes. And so when I found out that Adam Dell was launching this app, same thing, went to Adam Dell and said, Adam, I'm going to promote your app.
I want to be an investor in the company. And I disclose this all the time. I'm like, I'm an investor in the company. I believed it so much and you should go check out this app. And Clarity Money is a company that we sold to Goldman Sachs, which is, was bought by Marcus. Marcus is rolling out a, is really focused on building a bank for millennials.
There's a, I could do a half a dozen more of these, but point is like, when I see something, I know I want to support and promote, I then immediately become an investor in that company
Corey Kupfer: too. I love it. All right. So let's talk about one other type of deals and we can like, we could spend hours on this, but obviously we have limited time on a podcast.
But I want to talk about, cause the other thing that you've done is you've become partners in and owners, but taking pieces of companies [00:43:00] as part of your strategy as well. And so talk about that a little bit, because you've been able to do that in a way. Basically the way I look at it and tell me if I'm wrong, but the way I look at it is, Hey, first you did what you're teaching in the latte factor, right?
Where you, you, you set up putting away money to create certain financial wealth over time, right? That's free job, right? Then you create all this content, you sell licensing stuff, whatever, then you create all this value. And now you have value at a level where you can end up having ownership pieces in significant companies that even take things to the next level.
David Bach: Yeah, and I guess that's pretty much summarizes exactly like that is and you get to a point where people will give you a percentage of their company just to have you be involved with their company. And so depending on my level of involvement depends on the level of equity I'm offered or I take, but that's exactly what happens.
And a wealth management was a great example of that where I became partners with these guys. I have two other amazing partners and I put my brand and my face and my talent and my time into it. And my two partners wrote the. The first initial checks to get the business off the ground. We didn't raise any [00:44:00] other outside capital and I did it for position of the firm in equity and I've done that with multiple businesses.
So it just depends, depends on how much time, energy and brand commitment I'm putting into something based on how much equity we'll do it for. But It's a nice way to go. And a lot of times it doesn't require me to be in an operating position. Like I get to do what I do best, but i've got actually other people doing the day to day operations
Corey Kupfer: Which is great.
So david is one of the one other thing there's a couple of questions I have you but there's one one other area I want to cover which is really interesting to me because I You and I, of course, as you mentioned, met through entrepreneurs organization, and there's a certain mentality that makes entrepreneurs different than people that work for someone else.
And I don't say better. Everybody is, should be self aware and find where they're best suited, but it's different, right? Being in my mind, the mentality of being an investor, of putting away money and investing, it's a different mentality than people who don't. And similarly, a deal maker. Is a different mentality.
There are people who deal makers and people who aren't. I'm wondering What in your mind are the [00:45:00] characteristics of somebody who becomes a deal maker versus people who don't?
David Bach: It's a good question. Nobody's ever asked me that question that way I think first of all to be a deal maker is you have to be an optimist Right.
And really being entrepreneur, you have to be an optimist, but to be a deal maker, you have to be an optimist because I think what most times, you know, you look at anybody who's gets good deals done, they don't just go to the first person, get a deal done, right. And good deals take a long time to do. Most of the big deals that I've done have been a year to two years before they close.
That's not, I think sometimes people think, Oh, you're going to go do a deal. Like. Anything that's a big deal, they don't get done in a couple of weeks. And so I think you have to be an optimist. You have to be able to, you have to be flexible, right? Like, I think you have to be able to see what the other person needs and wants and figure out if what you need and want aligns with that.
And I think what happens over time, you know, as you get smarter with deals too, is you start to have criteria for what makes a good deal and what makes a bad [00:46:00] deal. And I've learned over time, so I'm going to give some nuggets of wisdom that I've learned from pain and sacrifice and pain and sacrifice, like pain, right?
Like things I have learned. Number one, you can't do a good deal with a bad person. Yes. Corporations at the end of the day, you actually are working with a corporation, but a lot of times those corporations involve, they involve people. And you really, I've just found out that Good deals don't get done with bad people.
And it's really important to do due diligence on the people you do deals with. And you know what? I'm smarter now. I'm smart enough now to walk away from deals like that. Whereas maybe 20 years ago, I wasn't. I think from you can't do good deals with bad people. What's in writing is what's real. So when you do a contract, if it's not in the contract, it's not happening.
Like with that movie in McDonald's when, I'll never forget that scene where the brothers, it's not in the contract that they're going to get a royalty. And the actor [00:47:00] says, Oh, don't worry about that. It's not there, but we're going to take care of it. And they never get a royalty. That's how the real world is.
If it's not in the contract. You're never getting it. It is very difficult to ever go back and fix a contract and get more It just is. You can have a hugely successful deal. You can every year try to chip away at it, but you got to get the most important terms of a deal are the ones you get before you sign the deal.
And then those contracts, what you've got is what you've got a lot of times. And I think the other thing is going in, you're the king of being the authentic negotiator. And I think I've learned a lot from you on that side, which is just put the chips on the table. This is what we want to accomplish. What do you want to accomplish?
And does
Corey Kupfer: this work? Love it. So David, this is great. Before I ask you my last question and you let people know earlier in the podcast on where they can join the insider group for the latte factor, but in general, what's the best people, the place people [00:48:00] can find out more about everything you're up to.
David Bach: Yeah, two things. You can go to the latte factor. com. That's the website on the book with all the details on how you can pre order the book or order the book when it comes out with all the goodies and the bonuses. And then you can also join our community, which is free. We've got an opt in on our website and that's at David Bach.
com. So either one, David Bach. com latte factor. com. Those are the two primary websites. I'm on Twitter. I'm on Instagram and I'm on Facebook and I'm pretty easy to find
Corey Kupfer: all those places. That's great, David. So listen, my last question is that I was asked on the podcast is related to authenticity. And listen, you mentioned authentic negotiating already, and I've known each other for a while.
That's a very big value of mine is authenticity. And, and you addressed the part of it by talking about this deal where there wasn't alignment, right? And you didn't do it, but in general, how, what does authenticity mean to you? And then how do you apply it in terms of your life? And business decisions.
David Bach: Wow.
So it's almost you apply this in my life. So I always wanted to [00:49:00] be somebody who walks his talk. And when you're on stage and you're teaching, I remember the first time I was teaching the idea of pay yourself first, like the importance of paying yourself first and maxing out your 401k plan. I remember I wasn't doing it.
And I just remember that feeling inside my body of being like, I cannot be on stage talking about something that you should do and not be doing it. So that was a big trigger for me to go up my 401k plan. I remember when I would show clients what they should invest in, I could turn the screen and show them what I was invested in and say, I'm recommending this to you and I own it.
Great example of that today when I go out and I do my, I'm about to do a 15 city tour and a lot of these cities I'm doing on behalf of our financial advisors and. So I go out and do these client appreciation events where we talk to our retirees and talk about the economy. And a lot of those [00:50:00] advisors, clients are in portfolios that I sit on the investment committee.
I'm involved in what is allowed to go into these models, but more than that, I own the models. So when I'm in a room and I go, it's probably a lot of you are in institutional alpha balance portfolio. Oh yeah, me too. It's in my IRA account. A lot of you are on our diversified income portfolio. Yep. Me too.
It's in my IRA account. I put my money. Where I suggest other people put their money so That to me is an example wanting to live authentically with the way I teach For one of the things i'm a big proponent of is that it's not all about the money. It's about Family and living a really rich life. I'm picking up and i'm moving to florence for a year with my family Yeah, and there are huge Like, it's such a, it's, it's, that's going to be a life changing moment for my family.
And it's taken three years of work to prepare to take a year off and go to Florence. And there are ramifications to that too. It's [00:51:00] not like my business partners are thrilled that I'm about to go move to Florence for a year. They understand, they appreciate that this is what's important to me, but it also means I'm in Florence.
But that's what's, that's to me an authentic life. Like, I want, I have the financial freedom at 52 to not work. And I have the financial freedom to design my life. And I want to be somebody who, when I teach other people, you should go design your own life with your own dreams. I want to be, make sure that I'm doing the same thing.
So many people in the guru space that are out teaching other people how to live a great life, and they hate their own life, which is super sad. And I just want to do the best that I can do to live my own greatest life. Cause I think if I do that, it's an example for other people, what they can do.
Corey Kupfer: David, thank you so much.
I it's been so great to have you on the podcast. You and I have these discussions one on one when, whether we're hanging out over a beer, uh, in EO or when we're doing some work together, [00:52:00] but to have your wisdom, not only through your books and other speaking, but directly on my podcast for my listeners, I so appreciate you coming
David Bach: on.
Oh, Cory, my pleasure. And again, thank you for all you've done for me and good luck with this podcast. And I appreciate everybody's listened. And if you've enjoyed the podcast, I don't know if you've got commenting on your podcast, but come on over and tell me how you enjoyed it and what triggered you. And I always love to hear people's feedback.
So thank you.
Corey Kupfer: Thank you for joining me on this episode of deal quest, where we help you understand how deal driven growth can be your ticket to freedom. I want to invite you to a unique way to tap into the wisdom and experience of the deal quest community. The deal then is a place. It's where entrepreneurs, high level executives, and business leaders come together, support each other's growth and success, and share what's working best, as well as what challenges we are facing right now.
You will get input not only from me, but from all of our members. We collaborate and serve each other. To join us, go to CoreyKupfer. com slash [00:53:00] dealday. I'll see you there. I'm Corey Kupfer. Until next week, wishing you the freedom and financial prosperity that I know your deal quest. Wolbright.
