Ep. 250 – Only those who quit fail. never, ever give up. You just have to keep going

There are a few reasons why so many entrepreneurs fail, and around 90% of the entrepreneurships fail. However, many of the most successful entrepreneurs I interviewed for my podcast told me the same thing; Keep going. Only those who quit fail.

In today’s episode, I chose to focus on the stories of three successful entrepreneurs. The main reason for their success was their state of mind; no matter what happened and how big the failures they experienced were, they never ever gave up until they succeeded.

I think you will find those stories very inspiring.

Brian Roland: “A lot of failures look like trial and error. It’s an iterative process. It kind of hits the failure category but we learned so much through the process that it’s hard to see it as a failure.”

Brian Roland is a Social Entrepreneur and Founder of Abenity, the 6x Inc. 5000 Company that’s powering corporate perks for top brands including U.S. Bank and MasterCard.

And while Abenity provides millions of subscribers with private discounts, the company’s social mission is fighting extreme poverty with every program they deliver.

Abenity recently exceeded a million dollars of total giving and hired a CEO to accelerate growth with their fully remote team.

Brian lives in Scottsdale with his wife and 3 daughters and is investing his time in efforts that help like-minded entrepreneurs establish a social mission of their own.

 

Most passionate about

• In 2006, my brother and I built a SAS company (software as a service) that helps large corporations offer employee perks and benefits to their people.
• We’ve negotiated discounts on everything from pizza and the zoo to movie tickets, oil changes, car rentals, and hotels. We put it all in one spot for our clients and brand it to look like the company and the employees saved coupons all over the United States and travel offers across the world where they can enjoy special corporate perks.
• When we founded our business, we really wanted to stand for something outside of our industry. So, we built our business with a social mission. There was an output to our cause for every input into the business. That is what gives me the most passion and mission at this point in my career.

Brian’s career and story

• As a third-grader, I was making laminated folders because my folders would tear apart.
• I started playing the trumpet when I was young. It teaches you to be the entrepreneurial solo artist, where you’re running the show and everybody’s looking at you. It teaches you to be a team player, where you’re sitting in the symphony and blending in so that nobody notices your contribution, but they hear it, they see everything. That led to teaching trumpet lessons, which led to making a CD and moving to Nashville to go to school, which led me to sell cell phones—having the a-ha moment that the music industry is actually not that entrepreneurial.
• In that role, I discovered this gap: Companies would love to offer perks and benefits to their people but they had a hard time finding the perks to offer and vetting the purchase to make sure they were good.
• That’s how we built Abenity. We’ve probably built five or six businesses inside of it. This is what led me, two years ago, to realize that the business had grown to a certain level of maturity where the number of businesses that I could launch within Abenity reached its peak in terms of what the team could have accomplished in a healthy way.
• There was this moment when it was like our business didn’t need an entrepreneur anymore. It needed people to help execute and set standards and focus on growth. Those are areas that fell outside of my passion areas. So, there was time to put the right people in place to take the business to the next level. And that’s what we did. Today I’m kind of the chief evangelist for the brand, which allows me to be available here talking to you.

The biggest, most critical failure with customers

• A lot of failures looks like trial and error. It’s an iterative process. That’s like, “We spent a lot of time and money trying that, and it didn’t really work out as well as we thought.” It kind of hits the failure category but we learned so much through the process that it’s hard to see it as a failure.

Biggest success with customers

• I started the business with a social mission. Within five years in the professional world, I realized that no matter how successful you are in work, you hit a point where making more money just doesn’t hit the box of “meaningful.” Money is a tool that helps you accomplish your goals and helps you fuel your mind. But it’s not nourishing. It’s not enriching. It doesn’t make you healthy. And so money in itself, if you’re looking for money as your nourishment, is never going to be enough.
• We’re very focused on helping eradicate extreme poverty by the year 2030. To date since we started that mission, we’ve been able to give over $1.2 million toward these efforts through a group called World Vision.
• Now we have schools built. We have healthcare facilities built. We have microfinance loans that have fueled our entrepreneurs in starting and sustaining their own businesses so that World Vision is not needed here anymore.

Brian’s one key success factor

• I believe the biggest success factor is just showing up. It’s being willing to take small chances, go out on a limb a little bit, trust that the limb will bend but won’t break, and know that you’re not so far off the ground that if it does break, you won’t be in very bad shape. It’s just having a healthy perspective as you go out and take some simple risks.
• My best advice for people out there is to just show up—show up at work, see what you see, pay attention to what’s going on.

 

Serioja Glorie – Sergei’s best advice for entrepreneurs: “There’s just one simple rule and it’s never, ever give up. You just have to keep going.”

Serioja Glorie is an enthusiastic Serial entrepreneur. He has a wealth of knowledge on e-commerce that can be quite beneficial to every business owner.

His automation service journey started because of his personal success & demands by others to tread similar paths that yield positive results. He broke a lot of barriers and utilized an ever-evolving landscape that has helped to grow and establish a new formula.

Serioja has launched the first Multi-Market Automation Service and thereby proferring solutions to problems that are encountered by entrepreneurs.

 

Most passionate about

• I’m basically trying to provide the freedom of financial independence.
• It’s financial freedom, which we try to provide through e-commerce. E-commerce automation means you can own your own e-commerce store on Amazon or Walmart without having to manage it or handle it.

Sergei’s career and story

• I’ve been a salesperson my whole life. Really, I was a door-to-door salesman. I was an insurance salesman. I was a car salesman. I had tens of companies, if not a hundred companies, little startups that I was always trying. I sold LED screens. I was in construction, myself, working in construction. I tried real estate.
• I didn’t want to think about money or success anymore. I wanted to think about filling my emptiness inside. So, I packed my stuff and moved to Thailand.
• I started a kebab business. I started wine distribution. I mean, I had my own club. There were so many things I tried. And so many things still didn’t work for me. I tried the MLM thing too, which obviously didn’t work. It brought me to Forex trading.
• Finally, I started to take a break from Forex trading and opened my very first personal Amazon store. That was basically when my e-commerce journey started.
• I had a team of five running my store, doing $50,000 a month, making $10,000 in profit—which I paid them a share from, of course.
• I started posting that on Facebook. Before I knew it, someone was asking me, “Hey, can you manage my store too?” I told them, “Why not? Let’s just do 50/50 and give me a thousand bucks.”

Best advice for entrepreneurs

• There’s just one simple rule and it’s never, ever give up. You just have to keep going.
• If you have that kind of mentality, that kind of mindset, that no matter how many times you fail, you will learn from it, you will not get discouraged. You will just keep moving or try something else.

The biggest, most critical failure with customers

• I had already approved 50 clients and was making money for them. But for me, personally, it took 10 months. So, people complained to me: “I’m not getting approved in two weeks or one month.” Well, like I said, they basically gave up before they even started. These are some of the challenges that I face for customers.

Sergei’s one key success factor

• It really comes down to the fact that I didn’t ever give up on anything.
• If I have a passion for something, I just go for it. That’s the same thing I did with the e-commerce and it’s the same thing for which I will always have that flame burning in my heart. It’s having the courage—or having the balls, as they say—to do something and do whatever it takes until you get there.

 

Scott Turman’s key success factor is tenacity; never give up. Failure was never an option!

Scott Turman is an IT expert and entrepreneur that has been writing code and cryptographic systems for the last 25 years for the likes of NASA, the Department of Defense, Disney, and other Fortune 500s. He is the founder and CEO of BrightRay Publishing, an all-in-one writing and publishing service for busy entrepreneurs like himself. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

 

Most passionate about

• About a year ago, we started a company called BrightRay Publishing. We’re the writing partners for CEOs, founders, and anybody trying to build their brand. Typically, the book can be a vector onto podcasts, interviews, and the news.
• We’ve been doing this for about a year now. We’ve hired our ninth employee and things are going swimmingly.

Scott’s career and story

• Twenty-five years ago, I started my career at NASA, as a software engineer. I have a history at NASA. My father was an engineer during Project Mercury, which was America’s first foray into space.
• I started my consulting company. We grew to 25 consultants and that was great. Then, about a year ago, I realized I was sick to death of technology. I was absolutely done with it. I wanted to start something more interesting.
• I was writing a book on negotiating for nerds – “A Nerd’s Guide to Negotiating.” I’d been trying to write it for 10 years but I just could not get it done. My daughter’s friend was a writer, so we started working together during the pandemic, via Zoom. We got the book done pretty quickly. When I published it, friends asked, “How the heck did you get a book published with how busy you are?”
• Then someone said, “Hey, would you write my book?” We took the same process. And then we did another one, and another one. And here we are, a year later.

The biggest, most critical failure with customers

• In the last 10 years, I started a consulting company called BrightRay Consulting. We would have these projects involving two or three engineers. If you’re not trying to please the C-level executives at a company, you’re going to fail no matter how happy the senior management.
• It’s just a matter of time. In the past, I really can’t tell you who, but there was a fortune 500 top company, where everybody was just thrilled with us, except the C-level managers. The problem was not reporting correctly. We were not sharing our successes correctly with them. And as a result, we shuttled out of there.

Biggest success with customers

• It was the birth of BrightRay Publishing. We started with one client and then two and then five and then 10.
• I handled new customers correctly. As a result, we’ve exploded in growth.

Scott’s one key success factor

• Tenacity.
• Failure was never an option!
• Never give up. I know that’s such a cliche, but maybe you’re a day away from success, or a month away from success. Giving up is a great way to never find out.

 

I hope you found these stories inspiring. Whatever you are going through, I wish you always find your way to win.

 

The best ways to connect with Brian Roland

• Brian’s Website
• Company’s website
• LinkedIn

 

The best ways to connect with Sergei

• Sergei’s Website
• Social Media Profiles:
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

 

The best ways to connect with Scott Turman

• Scott’s Website
• Social Media Profiles:
  • LinkedIn

 

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