Don't Let Bankruptcy Ruin Your Life! The #1 Thing You're Doing Wrong with Max Emma

Join host Alain Dumonceaux on the Revolutionary Man Podcast as he interviews Max Emma, CEO of Bookkeeping Corp. Max recounts his inspiring journey from the former Soviet Union to the United States at the age of 18, overcoming bankruptcy during the 2008 financial collapse, and establishing a successful franchise business. The discussion covers the challenges of entrepreneurship, the importance of financial discipline, the role of networking and mentorship, and cultural perspectives on success and leadership. Max shares valuable insights on resilience, adaptation, and finding balance between work and personal life.

00:00 Introduction: The Immigrant's Journey
01:15 The Revolutionary Man Podcast Begins
02:39 Meet Max Emma: From Immigrant to Entrepreneur
07:57 Overcoming Adversity: Bankruptcy and Beyond
15:53 The Importance of Financial Planning
18:52 Navigating Cultural Differences in Business
22:21 The Power of Reflection and Journaling
28:27 Max's Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
31:03 Conclusion: Building a Life of Purpose and Success

How to reach Max:
Website: http://www.franchisewithmax.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/max.emma.5
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxemma/

Chapters

• 0:00 Immigrant's Journey to Success
• 7:14 Learning English Through Ingenuity
• 14:10 Bankruptcy and Business Rebirth
• 19:01 Financial Mistakes New Owners Make
• 22:38 Journaling and Subconscious Problem-Solving
• 27:41 10X Mindset and Gut Feelings
• 33:12 Episode Closing and Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

just imagine leaving everything you have and behind your home, your language, your comfort zone, and stepping into a foreign country with nothing but ambition and a desire to succeed. You're starting from scratch. There's no safety net, there's no connections, and every challenge feels like an uphill battle for many men dreaming of building a business, but very few truly understand the resilience, the adaptability and the financial discipline it takes to turn that dream into reality. What does it take to build after failure, to pivot in the face of economic collapse and to create a business that not only survives but thrives? And in today's episode, we're going to uncover the journey of a man who did just that overcoming bankruptcy, adapting to a new culture and, ultimately, helping others achieve financial success through entrepreneurship and franchising.

Speaker 1: 0:53

Now, if you've ever faced challenges in business, career or personal growth, this episode is going to be for you. So I want you to take a moment, hit like subscribe and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. Your engagement helps us bring more conversations that inspire men to take control of their lives, redefine success and build lasting legacies. And so, with that, let's get on with today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:19

The average man today is sleepwalking through life, many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Yet the hunger still exists, albeit buried amidst his cluttered mind, misguided beliefs and values that no longer serve him. It's time to align yourself for greatness. It's time to become a revolutionary man. Stay strong, my brother.

Speaker 1: 1:48

Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man Podcast. I'm the founder of the Awakened man Movement and your host, alan DeMonso. What would you do if you had to start from nothing? Think about it there's no network, there's no financial support, no familiarity with the environment that's around you. And how do different cultures shape the ideas of masculinity, success and leadership? And what can we learn by comparing perspectives, not only from where we live, but from abroad? Mastery in life isn't about forcing outcomes. It's about learning how to align our life with our natural rhythm and cultivating a mindset that leads to lasting fulfillment. And today we're going to explore how mindfulness, ancient wisdom and international living can transform each and how we experience success, happiness and relationships. So allow me to introduce today's guest.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Max Emma is a successful entrepreneur, a franchise expert and the CEO of Bookkeeping Corp, a nationally recognized bookkeeping service, and he arrived in the US from the former Soviet Union at only a ripe young age of 18 years old, with no money and no connections and no English. And he built his career from the ground up and ultimately he created a thriving business that now operates in all 50 states. And, after facing bankruptcy during the 2008 collapse, max transformed his experience into a mission to help people and business owners avoid financial pitfalls through clear, reliable bookkeeping and franchising opportunities. And so, when he's not working, max enjoys traveling, reading and spending time with his two kids, always embracing the next great adventure. Welcome to the show, max. How are things, my friend?

Speaker 3: 3:30

Everything is good. Alan Great to be here. Thank you for the opportunity.

Speaker 1: 3:34

I love the idea of having you on the show, and your journey is so amazing, and so I want to start off by asking you a little bit about your hero's quest, and so tell us about that time when you had to move completely from one country to another. How did that moment transform you into the man you are today and the work that you're doing?

Speaker 3: 3:54

It was very interesting. It happened 32 years ago. I moved with my parents and two of my grandmothers and as soon as we crossed the international airspace it almost like I took over, because back in Russia growing up, my parents were overprotective and that was, the Soviet Union just collapsed and there was a lot of crime, so they weren't very happy when I was coming back home late because simply it was dangerous and they were literally protecting me from anything that could happen because they were scared. As soon as we crossed into the United States I took over because even though I didn't speak English really well, I spoke at least a little English. So all the appointments, all the doctor's appointments, government appointments, for all five of us was on me. My older brother already was in the country for a few years before, but he had his family, he had a job, so he helped as much as he could but really just took charge, and so for me it's like literally crossing the border at the JFK was when I stopped being a boy and became a man.

Speaker 1: 5:02

No kidding. Having to bear the weight of helping your family get themselves settled into a new no kidding. Having to bear the weight of helping your family get themselves settled into a new country and then having to be the only one who could speak at least a little bit of English, and still being only 18 years old. There's so much adversity and so much in front of you, and so you went from that from the former Soviet Union now to the US. Tell us a little bit about how that experience of getting the education and starting your business and how that has transformed.

Speaker 3: 5:30

So before all that, when we came, I knew that I had to learn English and I had to learn English fast and there was a old way of just going to school learning it. But it would take time and I did not have time Even though I was 18, I'm like I want it to happen as fast as possible. So I had to think outside of the box and I came up with my own way to learn English. It wasn't any planning, it was just an idea that worked.

Speaker 3: 5:58

Back at the time, all the back offices for all the credit cards were actually in the United States. So every day I would go to a pay phone because in my house we obviously had a phone it was for adults besides me and it was just too crazy and people speaking Russian, I'm like I've had it. So I would go to pay phone and get a can of Coke and call every credit card out there asking them why I can't have a credit card. And I knew I couldn't because I didn't have a credit history, but I had a 40 to 45 minutes of speaking to a native speaker about that, going back and forth, and because they were getting paid, they couldn't hang up on me. Now you probably cannot do it that much because 90% of the calls at 999 are being outsourced, but back then it was all in the United States.

Speaker 3: 6:44

So as soon as American Express finally was done with me, after 45 minutes I would call Visa, I would call MasterCard and I would call again. And I kept doing it until I started understanding everything they're talking about and they, strangely enough, started understanding me. So that was the first thing and that helped me to get a great job at Costco, which not only paid through five years of me going to college but also gave me a scholarship to go to college. So it was a great job. And then got a corporate job doing corporate finance and accounting, and from that the rest was history. I worked for Qualcomm for four years until I realized that I'm just not designed for a corporate job Not for me.

Speaker 1: 7:26

Yeah, for sure, and that's pretty typical of many entrepreneurs, right, they realize that they're not a great employee, but they're great at entrepreneurship. And what an ingenious way to learn the English language is just to dive in and start calling credit card companies, and I just think that is so phenomenal to consider doing that and then being able to then take that and get into university in this, this knowledge, now, at this point, completing your school. When did you start the franchise business and when did that sort of take off for you?

Speaker 3: 7:57

oh, it was a long journey. I didn't even think about franchising. My first business, after working for Qualcomm for four years, was a small family maintenance business that I grew from three employees to 96 employees and made it a construction company and everything was doing great, until they stopped building truck homes because there was 08 or 09 recession. But at the time I had all the trucks and the cranes and the equipment. So a lot of loans and pretty much no income. So we didn't have a choice but declare bankruptcy and because you had to personally guarantee most of the debt, it would be both business bankruptcy and personal bankruptcy.

Speaker 3: 8:40

So with one kid at home and one on the way, it wasn't that much fun. It was actually super scary. So probably one of the scariest situations in my life. Now looking back, at least, it seems at a time but turned out it was one of the best things that happened. It didn't happen to me, it happened for me, but again, I didn't see it at a time. At a time I thought this is the end of it. Maybe I shouldn't be an entrepreneur, maybe I should go back and work for somebody. It was a nice try, but, hey, maybe I should just give it up, but luckily for me, nobody was hiring me tonight. It was a complete recession. So, like nobody was hiring, everybody was letting people go. So I didn't have a choice. I started another business and that time it was more successful and we were able to sell it later on and actually make money on it.

Speaker 1: 9:31

It's so interesting that you say about how losing the first business, and then in the 2008-2009 recession and how scary that was and you didn't use that word talking about coming over into the US, and so it's really interesting the perspective that you had on it. What do you think was happening there? Is it just that you were too young to understand to be a subgrade, or was it that there was so much opportunity that you were looking at that side of it?

Speaker 3: 10:00

Maybe because I didn't have that much responsibility. When I was coming here, I was 18 years old. I don't have family. I had family, but I didn't have any kids that I'm responsible for. I'm like okay, I know I'll make it. I don't care what kind of job, but I'll get some kind of job. And I was looking at people who came before me and they made it somehow. So I wasn't scared. I didn't have a doubt in my mind that I'm going to make it. I had no idea what I would be doing. If you ask me franchising, all I knew that McDonald's was a franchise. Life is a very interesting thing. I did not even guess I'll have an accounting business. Forget owning a franchise and selling franchises.

Speaker 1: 10:39

Very true, very true. Another thing that I found was interesting is that you went from graduating, getting through university, you're starting your first business, but you see that collapse, nothing out of any fault of your own, and then you already were jumping back and you knew that. You know, the entrepreneurship was the model for you to go after. But let's talk a little bit about what that does to men and there's a bit of their psyche and they think about that as a pretty big failure. What point? What was a key turning point for you? That you realized that the bankruptcy could be a platform for you to launch other parts of other businesses and for yourself.

Speaker 3: 11:14

So with my wife at the time, who later became a co-founder of Bookkeeping, we were looking at it and I had bachelor's in finance and years of experience in corporate world and she had master's in accounting. So accounting and finance wasn't strange things for us. We understood how it all worked. But we were so busy growing, and we were growing so fast that we did not pay attention to our financials. So we were talking, oh, we wish we had somebody who would be looking out for our financials. And that was the first idea when we were thinking about maybe creating an outsourced bookkeeping company. But again, that was just an idea. Then we opened the second company, which again was more successful, and at the time we were looking for a bookkeeper for this company and we got 20 estimates and the estimates varied from $200 to $2,000 for exactly the same scope of work. And I knew at the time it's a huge fork, it's not healthy, you can't have such a big difference. So that's when we finally said you know what we're doing it. There is an opportunity, let's grab it. And that's how the name Bookkeeping, that's how the company started.

Speaker 3: 12:21

We were still going back and forth. Who came up with the name bookkeeping? It was just we were playing with words and thinking what can we do? So later we can trademark it and bookkeeping came up and we were told by an attorney don't even try it, you have zero chance of trademarking because you only change one letter. I'm like what do I have to lose? I went to another attorney and applied and we got it from the first try. Like what do I have to lose? I went to another attorney and applied and we got it from the first try. If I listened to the guy, it probably would be called Max's Bookkeeping, which, if you ask me, is not as sexy as bookskeeping.

Speaker 1: 12:51

That's correct, but your mom would love it because it has your name. Yes, I'm sure she would. That's amazing. In order for you to grow this business, though, even throughout this time, now networking becomes really important, and mentorship, for sure, I'm sure, had played a success in helping you achieve the success that you have. And so what would you say, what would you tell us about how to leverage these relationships in growing business?

Speaker 3: 13:18

If you can always hang out with people who are more successful than you, because I've read somewhere that you are an extension of five people you are hanging out with.

Speaker 3: 13:26

So if you're hanging out with five losers, then you're going to become one If you hang out with five people who all they do is drinking and having a good time and don't get me wrong, alan, if I am partying, this is like there is no tomorrow. But I always go by the rule work hard, play hard. So it's not that I'm going to be sitting here and you have to work 24 hours a day. I'll be the first one to tell you no way, just it's not healthy. You have to have a balance and life should be ahead of your work. It's not work-life balance, it should be life-work balance. But hang out with people who are more successful. Who've been there, done that, ask them questions, ask for their advice, believe it or not, people want to help and they actually want you to be successful.

Speaker 1: 14:14

So that's what you need to do. Yeah, it makes total sense. And I like how you talked about life, work and balance, Because I think there's a lot of mis-ideas here about having this balance in life and at times you're not going to have that balance. I always think of it as a teeter-totter, right, there are times when business tests it needs most of the time, but it doesn't mean that the quality of the relationship is deteriorating, as long as you're mindful of that, and vice versa. So I like how you position that. For sure I'm wondering oh sorry, go ahead there, Max, I was just going to say that I'm sure I'm the same as most entrepreneurs.

Speaker 3: 14:48

There is always something to do, like I can stay by the computer 24 hours and I'll be busy 24 hours, but then my recovery period will be longer. I have to get some rest. So instead of doing that for two, three days and then sleeping for two, three days, I just pace myself. So I start my day early, but I purposely schedule my workouts around 4, 4.30 PM, so I don't have a choice but shut down the computer and go to the gym. Because again, if I don't, if I just say I'll get to it when I get to it, before I know it's 8 PM, before I know I just had dinner and I either don't go or I just worked in our days and again I can do it for a long time.

Speaker 3: 15:32

Yeah, that makes complete sense. I don't want to do it because I'm like, really not concerned, but I value my mental health and my physical health, so I'm here for the long haul. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 15:42

So I'm here for the long haul, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Between your experience in growing business and then having the bookskeeping franchise opportunity for folks, you're meeting lots of people who want to be business owners and so, in your experience now, where do you find the biggest financial mistakes that new business owners are making?

Speaker 3: 16:02

One of the mistakes people don't have enough money when they start the business. They just jump into that. But keep in mind, unless it's magic, I haven't seen businesses that started making a lot of money from day one. I mean, if you prepare for it and you've done everything you could while you were doing other stuff maybe, but if you just start a new business, it'll require some time to ramp up. So if you don't have any money to support yourself, then you're going to have problems.

Speaker 3: 16:33

So there is a reason why when we sell bookkeeping franchises, we're making sure that our franchisees have money that they can support themselves for a few months while the business is ramping up. Because what I don't want to happen then? Well, I need money to support my family, so I'm going to go get another job. So you won't be able to be successful if you work full-time and sometimes more than 40 hours and then after that you run your business and then you have your family on top of it. So it's not going to be good for anybody. So before they qualified to buy a bookkeeping franchise or, for that matter, any franchise because I'm also a broker, I can help people to buy over 600 different franchises if they're not a good match for a bookkeeping. Pretty much every franchise has the minimum value that you have towards networks.

Speaker 1: 17:25

That makes total sense, and I see that my career was spent in the hospitality business. And just because you have grandma's favorite recipe of yours doesn't mean you're going to be a successful restaurant operator. And most of the time they don't make it past the first two years because they don't recognize all the incoming costs there are to run a business. And so it's so true that being able to understand that makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 3: 17:48

Absolutely. I see it all the time when people mix hobby and business, they're like I make the best pizza you ever tried. I'm like that's probably the case and I really going to believe you. But it's one thing to do one pizza for your family for dinner, Another one to do 100 pizzas that look exactly the same. They all come out of the oven in a given point of time. You know how many pieces of pepperoni to put on each of them, how to put it in the box and ship it to the clients, Because if you don't, if you don't have a production, you're not going to make any money in this business. And same goes. I'm a great painter. I painted my whole house myself. That's great.

Speaker 1: 18:26

But I can argue that you can run a very successful painting franchise without knowing how to paint exactly, exactly, because it's about the business mind, business mindset and I want to talk a little bit about your experience and coming coming over from from Russia and here now I'm looking at, you said 32 years, I'm looking. So that was a late you in about mid-1990s, give or take. And so, if you recall, what do you see now, as you've been in 32 plus years now in the US? The culture differences in business, especially when we're talking about leadership and masculinity.

Speaker 3: 19:01

Yeah, now obviously you have to watch what you can say, what you cannot say, what's allowed to discuss, what's not allowed to discuss. Obviously, it was different in the early 90s when we came here. Now, with social media being everywhere, when you say something, you're always under risk that somebody is filming you and you can't really speak. You speak your mind and look, I'm an immigrant and I have working for my companies people from 10 different countries, so I have employees. So you can't say that I don't understand. I definitely understand. I value and it's multi, multi, multicultural all of my businesses. It means that I can't even just something, cannot sleep out of my mouth, because if somebody is filming at a time, I'm in trouble. And now the new iPhones, you can actually record conversation, which is again, I'm not discussing anything that I'm going to be ashamed of. So that's not what I'm saying, but it's a little bit different. I think the society is changing, and it's not just in the United States, it's pretty much everywhere in the world, and I'm blaming technology for it.

Speaker 1: 20:16

Yeah, I would totally agree with that. I think we're in a time and period right now where we're in that gotcha state where they have somebody, does have their iPhone and it's sitting there and next thing you know a recording's happening. I knew a gentleman that used to do that, and when I found out that he was doing it, it wasn't let's just say that the conversation him and I had would did not end well, because I think it's really, it's really inappropriate when you're doing that with people and they're unaware and you think that you're in a safe space to to talk about things and maybe things aren't always politically correct, but that's about being able to share and be in a good spot, and so I think it's really true. What you're saying is that we have lots of. We have to be so mindful today, and as a business owner, even more so, because the stakes are even higher. Stakes are higher if you have employees. You might look after out for them, and I think that's a really great point.

Speaker 3: 21:08

And the labor laws that are changing all the time. And, hey look, we need to protect employees Absolutely. I am all for it, but sometimes I just think we are doing a little bit too much, especially some states. I can tell you that, having employees in different states. There is one state that employment handbook is 100 pages and another state employment handbook is 20 pages Same employee doing exactly the same work. It just really depends on the state. What are they doing in this other state that they're not doing in the state?

Speaker 1: 21:40

A when I live in an environment. I'm in Canada here and I live in an environment where the birth of the labor movement started and it's a very labor-friendly event, and so you can see that the laws around employment, especially around labor, are much larger than they are, say, with some of my counterparts. Not that they're bad or anything. It's just that it's been around for so much longer and things have. Ultimately, they just progress and right, and so a little bit more challenging at times to work through it. But those are the parts of being an entrepreneur. Right Is that you have to learn how to navigate and narrow all the different areas that you're working in. I know I read somewhere, and I think it was on your website. There you talked a little bit about journaling and the important practice that was for you, and so how has that helped you really make better decisions and move your business and your personal life forward?

Speaker 3: 22:37

So it's just giving me time to reflect. And I was always laughing like, well, I'm an adult man I mean me journaling, probably a little bit older than a 15 year old and what do you want me to color it too? So I was like always laughing in my head until I tried doing it and it actually gave me some time to reflect and being gratitude. What I'm grateful for. My journaling is very short, so I'm not spending hours doing it, but I do it in the morning for maybe five, seven minutes, and then about the same at night. So reflecting what's going on, talking to my future self, what do I want to tell max? Five, seven, 10 years from now, three years from now.

Speaker 3: 23:17

And another thing that somebody taught me, which I'm doing it every night and it changed my life never go to bed without asking yourself a question, and it shouldn't be an open-ended question yes or no. You just ask how can I sell 15 more franchises in the next four months? And you're not looking for an answer. You turn off the light, you go to sleep, your subconscious is working on it while you're asleep and then, more often than not, you wake up with some ideas, sometimes not, and sometimes I have the ideas and I know I had something, but I sleep through it. But once in a while I wake up in the morning wow, I had this idea. So I write it down and some of the things are outside of the box ideas. That's how I end every night, unless I'm partying that night. That's a different story. Then I'm usually not asking myself any questions.

Speaker 1: 24:11

Except where's the headache medication?

Speaker 3: 24:14

Yes, exactly when is my Advil? Yes, 100%, but it's always by my bedside.

Speaker 1: 24:25

I hear you. I hear you. You talked earlier about using the phone booth and to learn English, and that Did you get an opportunity, and then, obviously, you went to university. So there's reading. Would you consider reading as something that's important to you and, if so, is there any books that really stood out over the course of your life that has really helped you grow into who you are?

Speaker 3: 24:39

Yes, I'm going to plug the book and I'm going to plug the organization that I became a part of and it actually changed my life as an entrepreneur. I'm a CEO of three companies right now. They're related, so the name of the book is 10X is Easier Than 2X, by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy, and Dan Sullivan is the founder of Strategic Coach is the coaching organization for CEOs. I became a member about three years ago, alan. This completely changed. I was a micromanager. I was not letting anybody doing anything because of course, I can do it better. And, come on, I was very impatient until they worked with me and it's group settings and talking about being with more successful people. That's definitely the case.

Speaker 3: 25:31

I hired the executive assistant and then all of a sudden she took over 80 of my daily tasks. I'm like first few weeks I'm like, hey, I have nothing to do. That filled very fast, don't you worry. But but the first couple of weeks were like, wow, I was doing all of that and now she's doing it.

Speaker 3: 25:50

She's way better sending the proposal, doing the follow-ups, because before I would talk to a client, sell them a bookkeeping product and then bookkeeping service, and then at night I would go watch a movie at home and do a proposal and just send the proposal and in my head, but I'm not really working. I would go watch a movie at home and do a proposal and just send the proposal and in my head, but I'm not really working. I'm watching a movie. If you ask me what the movie was about, I probably would not remember. I would make a mistake doing the proposal because it would take me double the amount of time and I was working long hours. Now everything is done by my executive assistant. She's doing all the follow-ups. She's actually scheduling the meetings.

Speaker 1: 26:31

All I have to do is just show up. It's interesting to hear you saying that. To think about it, I had a mentor years ago. He talked about working on your business versus in it, and that's what I hear you saying, and I think so many times as young entrepreneurs not talking about age, but in terms of just getting into the starting a business that we become skillful at something and so we spend our time doing that and so we're in it all the time, all day long, and we never really get an opportunity to grow it and if we're lucky, we get it to maybe 2X, 3X the business. But being able to take a step back and realize the value of the work that you're doing needs to be on a higher paying role. So if you were to outsource that, what would you be paying that out? And why are you doing something at remedial wages? I think that's really a key point.

Speaker 3: 27:17

I agree with you, but I think there is one extra step. What will get you to 2x will not get you to 10x. You just have to change the strategy of what you're doing. You just have to understand. And there is nothing wrong with growing the company. 2x and look, x, 2x, 10x, 5x. It's not always the dollar amount, it's also the quality of life. It's 10x. Am I 10x in my weekend when I can go for a walk on the beach and enjoy and just listen to a podcast and, you know, be with myself, and then hang out with my friends and go see a show or whatever. Go out, that's one thing. 2x is nothing wrong with that. Everybody decides for themselves where they want to be. For me, 10x is more fun.

Speaker 1: 28:04

I think for a lot of us we were to. When you accomplish something like that, we realized that it was. It is a lot more fun and great point 10X isn't always about the dollars and cents in life. It's 10X in all aspects of our life. And how can that? How much better can life be when we look at it from that perspective? I really appreciate that. For sure Of that, for sure of everything that we spoke about today, max.

Speaker 3: 28:32

Maybe there was something we didn't get a chance to touch on, what would be a one takeaway you'd want our listeners to have. Look, I learned the lesson long time ago and it helps me a lot growing my businesses and growing as the human being, as the man is. Actually, I open every door that I see on my way. So if I see a door, I'm going to take a peek and see what's inside. It might not be for me, I might absolutely don't like what I see. Then I'll close it. They thank you and move, but I know that I will not pass any door because later I'm not going to have a regret. Oh, but there was a door. Maybe that was something that I should have looked in. So, no, should have in life. Just I'm looking, I'm not spending a lot of time and I can tell you it'll be like three more podcasts the stories where I did that and it led me to the biggest contracts, the biggest connection.

Speaker 3: 29:20

And another thing just listen to your gut feeling, just like I always. It helps me a lot and if I go against my gut feeling, trying to use my brain, like, oh, you can do it, and gut feeling was against doing something and I didn't listen and all this goes wrong. So now I'm just slowing down for a minute and journaling does help. Hey, how do I feel about it? I still do research, not that my gut feeling is. I'm always listening and doing it. And look, if you are not stable and your gut feeling tells you to jump from the 23rd floor of the building without the parachute and see if you're going to make it or not, I would not suggest that okay.

Speaker 3: 30:00

Then it's a different problem that you're having. But gut feeling, should I pursue that or not? When I was studying a bookkeeping franchise, people were telling me why are you doing it? You have a successful bookkeeping company. Come on, why are you opening another company? Just keep doing what you're doing. You're going to get great results. You're on your mission. But my gut feeling was telling me no, there is more that I want to do and more that I can do. And so that was just like, literally, I came up with this idea. I woke up in the morning I'm not kidding you I took a couple pieces of paper and wrote down the original business plan for a bookkeeping franchise within a couple hours, because I came up with this idea at night. Nothing unique, but again, that was just like boom, I woke up, let me look into that. So I wrote it down and after that analyzed it. It was a good idea. The business plan changed, of course, from these two first pages, but that was the beginning.

Speaker 1: 30:59

What a great way to wrap up our conversation today. I really appreciate that. I just want to say again Max, thank you so much for spending time with me today, sharing your wisdom on resilience and entrepreneurship, and this really showed us the power of adaptability of everything that you've gone through, and so it's a testament to what's really possible if we're going to commit to learning, taking a bit of risk, building financial success with some purpose behind it. And so if men are interested in getting a hold of you and participating in your work.

Speaker 3: 31:30

What's the best way for them to reach you? So the best way is to contact me through FranchiseWithMaxcom Again FranchiseWithMax, and once you're on this site, you can decide if you want my assistance for buying a bookkeeping franchise, if you need a bookkeeping for your existing business or if you're looking for a business outside of bookskeeping, because, as I said, I opened the brokerage and now, if it's not a good match for bookskeeping, then we can help people to get a franchise of their choice. I have a portfolio of over 600 franchise brands that we are working with, and a lot of them even are clients with the bookkeeping for them. So that gives me the view into what's going on, and so I can speak from the industry.

Speaker 3: 32:14

I just want to say one thing, alan, that I do have teams in all three businesses. So it's not me. So I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy. So it's not just me running three businesses and working 24 seven. So I have teams in every business. So it's not just me running three businesses and working 24-7. So I have teams in every business, and then once somebody chooses why they want to talk to me, they'll talk to my team first, but eventually everybody ends up talking to me.

Speaker 1: 32:36

Love that. That's beautiful. I'm going to make sure that information's in the show notes for today's episode and, as we look ready to wrap up today's episode, I want to leave everyone with this thought that success isn't just about talent. It's about persistence, adaptation and a willingness to take calculated risks, and if you're ready to build a life and a business that aligns with your goals, don't wait for the perfect moment. I'd like you to visit memberstheawakenmannet. We have a free integrity challenge. I'd like you to take that today. It's your first step towards learning and understanding financial freedom and personal growth, and all it takes is your decision is to act, and so I want you to live with intention, lead with integrity, and let's get started now. And thank you very much for being on the show today.

Speaker 3: 33:18

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 33:24

Alan, thank you for listening to the Revolutionary man podcast. Are you ready to own your destiny, to become more the man you are destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the Awakened man at theawakendmannet and start forging a new destiny today.