The Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster With Cameron Herold

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

Today on the podcast we have Cameron Herold, Founder of The COO Alliance.

Cameron is known around the world as The Business Growth Guru. Cameron was groomed as an entrepreneur as a kid.

By age 21, Cameron had 14 employees, by age 35, he had already helped build his first two 100 million dollar companies, by the age of 42, Cameron engineered 1-800-GOTJUNK’s, insane growth from two million dollars all the way up to 106 million dollars in revenue at their peak.

That was with 3,100 employees and he did that in just six years. His companies have landed over 5,200 media placements in those same six years including coverage on Oprah.

Cameron’s one of the most well-respected businessmen in the world, yet he still battles failure, hardship, insecurities and struggles.

We’ll be discussing the best advice he ever got at the age of 20 and how that actually was the defining point of his life. He shares what R&D means and why people overcomplicate business when just getting started. And Cameron openly shares his biggest insecurities and fears even after decades of success and much, much more.

Key Points From This Episode:

• “Just do it”: the best advice Cameron got at the age of 20.
• Being groomed as an entrepreneur at a young age.
• Why your RND should stand for rip off and duplicate.
• Listening and just getting started as your two cores.
• Building relationships and asking for referrals.
• Cameron’s God and Grandmother rule.
• Looking for the path of least resistance and working smart.
• The importance of transparency in business.
• Why Cameron wouldn’t recommend a franchise to someone starting out.
• How not listening led to failures along Cameron’s journey.
• Discover where the COO Alliance is heading in the future.
• The balance between being entrepreneurial and operational.
• Listen as Cameron defines failure as not trying.
• What the education system should look like according to Cameron.
• Hear about Cameron’s challenge for credit idea.
• Advice for somebody looking to get into business.
• Getting systems in place and growing your business.
• How Cameron steps out of his comfort zone.
• Assessing risk by starting with your goal and working backwards.
• And much more!

Tweetables:

“Try it. If you fail, it doesn’t matter but you’ll always regret not trying if you don’t.” — @cameronherold

Tweet This

[0:04:33].0]

“Your R&D should stand for rip off and duplicate.” — @cameronherold

Tweet This

[0:09:06].0]

“Momentum will create your momentum.” — @cameronherold

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[0:09:16].0]

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know and your network is your net worth.” — @cameronherold

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[0:12:23].0]

“I think failure for me would be not trying.” — @cameronherold

Tweet This

[0:26:10].0]

“To be successful you’ve got to dive in.” — @cameronherold

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[0:33:42].0]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Cameron Herold — https://www.cameronherold.com/

Cameron on Twitter — https://twitter.com/cameronherold

Cameron’s books on Amazon — https://www.amazon.com/Cameron-Herold/e/B00845CG2S

The COO Alliance — http://www.cooalliance.com/

1-800-Got-Junk? — http://www.1800gotjunk.com/us_en

College Pro Painters — https://www.collegepro.com/

Cameron’s TED talk — https://www.ted.com/talks/cameron_herold_let_s_raise_kids_to_be_entrepreneurs

Mastermind Talks — http://www.mastermindtalks.com/

Dan Martell — https://www.danmartell.com/

Eben Pagan — https://ebenpagantraining.com/

Connor Blakeley — http://connorblakley.com/

Gary Vaynerchuk — https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/

Kimbal Musk — http://thekitchen.com/

Peter Rive — http://www.solarcity.com/

UpWork — https://www.upwork.com/

Hire My Mom — https://www.hiremymom.com/login

Fiverr — https://www.fiverr.com/

Dave Asprey — https://blog.bulletproof.com/about-dave-asprey/

Hal Elrod — http://halelrod.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 025

“CH: Yeah, so a lot of times I’ll get people sending me a note saying, “Hey, would you mentor me?“ I’m going to say, “No, I’m not going to mentor you because that’s a long term relationship.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:12.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:38.0] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes embracing failure in a hyper focus way is the only way to achieve your dreams. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs. This is a platform for their stories and today’s story is of Cameron Herold. At age 21, Cameron had 14 employees, by 35, he had already helped build his first two 100 million dollar companies, by the age of 42, Cameron engineered 1-800-got junks, insane growth from two million dollars all the way up to 106 million dollars in revenue at their peak.

That was with 3,100 employees and he did that in just six years. His companies have landed over 5,200 media placements in those same six years including coverage on Oprah.

Cameron’s one of the most well-respected businessmen in the world, still battles failure, hardship and securities and struggles. We’ll be discussing the best advice he ever got at the age of 20 and how that actually was the defining point of his life. What RND means to Cameron and why people overcomplicate business when just getting started,

and what his biggest insecurities and fears are even today after decades of success and much more of course. But first, I have a lot of travel coming up and luckily, all I need to travel with is a backpack for one reason only, it’s a shirt from an awesome Toronto company called Unbound Merino, they have clothes and apparel made out of merino wool and get this, you can wear it for months without ever needing to have it washed.

It’s a traveler’s absolute dream and it would turn you into a minimalist really quickly. Never check a bag again, check in at the show notes page for an exclusive fail on discount that you won’t get anywhere else. And, if you like to stay up to date on all the fail on podcast interviews and key takeaway’s from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:26.3] RN: So, sitting here with Cameron Herald, we’re in Carmel California, just to give you a little context, we’ve got a beautiful backdrop here of the hills in Carmel, it’s not on the water, we’re inland a bit but Carmel Valley, it’s beautiful.

[0:02:41.4] CH: It’s pretty awesome actually.

[0:02:42.7] RN: You just got in?

[0:02:43.7] CH: Yeah, I got here about half hour ago and then got swarmed in the lobby and started – got into my panic attack right away and I panicked, I get nervous with stuff so I got nervous right away, realizing I don’t remember everybody’s name, they all knew me and I couldn’t remember them and so yeah, I got in my head a little bit but…

[0:02:59.5] RN: It’s stressful a little bit.

[0:03:00.9] CH: Good to be back.

[0:03:01.7] RN: You came straight form Phoenix?

[0:03:03.3] CH: Yeah, flew in from Scottsdale.

[0:03:05.8] RN: That direct American flight?

[0:03:06.8] CH: Yeah, to Monterey, it was great, there were six of us on the plane too.

[0:03:10.2] RN: Nice, I went from so, yesterday I came in, I did San Diego to Phoenix to Monterrey. Which is better than going like san Diego to San Jose then getting a car or trying to figure that out.

[0:03:21.5] CH: Yeah.

[0:03:22.5] RN: It was okay though. Cool, thanks for joining me.

[0:03:24.9] CH: You’re welcome, glad to be here.

[0:03:25.6] RN: Happy to have you here and happy to chat about your journey. Obviously you have COO Alliance, you helped kind of the right hand man, and entrepreneurs scale their current businesses but before we go in to kind of that, I want to go back to kind of your entry into entrepreneurship. Take us back to the first time that somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or service?

[0:03:48.0] CH: I’m going to go a little later than that then I’ll go back to it because I think that the whole being afraid to fail kind of concept for our audience and our listener right now. There was one defining moment in my entrepreneurial career when I was allowed, I was kind of given permission.

I was 20 years old and I was looking to buy a franchise of a company called College Pro Painters which is the largest residential house painting company in the planet. I was in university. They don’t sell you the franchise, they award it to you but you have to buy a vehicle and buy ladders and hire a bunch of people and you sign a 67 page franchise agreement and I was scared.

You’re getting a theme now, I’m scared. I remember calling my dad who was probably my very first mentor and he said, “There’s never a better time in your life to go bankrupt.” He said, “Try it, if you fail, it doesn’t matter but you’ll always regret not trying if you don’t” and the next day I signed a 67 page franchise agreement and had I not done that, I would not be anywhere today.

It gave me the foundation for all my business learning, it gave me the foundation for other business opportunities that I was presented with, it gave me the launchpad for 1-800-got junk. Literally that night, when he said to the word, “There will never be a better time in your life to fail because you don’t have anything, you got nothing, you don’t have any kids.”

I’ve got four kids now, I’ve got an estate that we live on, I got responsibilities, I’ve got homes in two cities, I’ve got – I have to make it happen.

[0:05:12.5] RN: You had a full-time job right now and you didn’t have any of those other businesses, you had lived your life like job to job.

[0:05:19.3] CH: I’d be too scared.

[0:05:19.1] RN: You have family, you’d be too…

[0:05:20.7] CH: Too scared.

[0:05:21.2] RN: Exactly, I wouldn’t be able to, I’d be paralyzed. Because failure would crush you at that point.

[0:05:24.1] CH: Even today in my business world today, it would be hard for me to pivot and do something completely different because I built a really great business now that the fear of failure is pretty big but I’ll tell you, that was the best advice I ever got at 20 years old was, just do it.

There’s never better time – you don‘t go bankrupt, you know, you’re always going to figure it out, you’re going to find a way. That was probably the defining point. If I go back to the earlier parts when the first time anyone – I was groomed as an entrepreneur, that’s why I had to start at 20 because the first time I ever did anything for money, I was eight.

I actually did a TED Talk about this. I have a talk that’s on ted.com about raising kids as entrepreneurs. It was originally subtitled instead of lawyers and then they cut out the instead of lawyers, it’s still been on the main TED site for seven years now.

My first entrepreneurial venture, my dad had these license plate protectors, you put them on the back of license plates and he made me go sell them door to door, I was eight. I was in grade two and I was knocking on doors and I was scared to death and the first guy said, “No.” I was like, all right, but if I go home and tell my dad, I didn’t sell any, he’s going to be mad at me so I’m going to knock on the...