Ricardo Torres – From Military to Business Domination- Why Most People Stay Stuck

I did really, really well there. And then I got fired.

And man, let me tell you, that was a big kick in the mouth.

I see your business. It looks very lucrative.

I want to buy your business. And he looked at me and he said.

Yeah, I'll sell it. I bought a job is what I bought

with that, and I didn't realize it, you know, being in the

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Today I am really excited. I have Ricardo Torres joining

me. Ricardo is an Air Force Guard

major as his primary career and he also runs numerous

businesses. He has a lot of experience as a

real estate investor in multi family properties.

He's owned a few different dry cleaners, some luxury cleaning

companies. He just has his fingers in a lot

of different things. So I think you guys are really

going to enjoy this conversation with Ricardo Torres, so welcome.

Awesome, Eric. Thank you very much for having

me, brother. It's a pleasure to be on the

show. Yes, yes.

And this is a, it's taken some work to get this together.

We we tried this once before and had some technical issues and

have had to reschedule because of illnesses and a number of

different things. So I'm, I'm really excited that

we can make this happen. And I think you have a lot of

information, a lot of content that our listeners are going to

enjoy. So we'll, we'll dive right in.

Awesome, thank you. Well, we like to start every

show just getting to know you a little bit about where you came

from and maybe some of the experiences that led to you

being the the person that you are with the the risk taking

personality and and the parts of your personality that really

have helped you thrive. So can you tell us a little bit

about your childhood and what things were like growing up?

Yeah, I grew up in a military family.

My mom and dad started their journey in New Mexico, where my

mom is from. My dad's from Puerto Rico.

He joined the Air Force. So look, the fruit doesn't fall

far from the tree, you know what I mean?

I followed in his footsteps and in one of my brother's

footsteps. Born in New Mexico, youngest of

three boys, We're all about 5 or 6 years apart.

We grew up playing a lot of sports, so acceptance of failure

and pushing for success was a very common theme in our family

as well as culture and, and just the, the notion that family's

close and we do whatever it takes for family.

So those were kind of some of the pillars that shaped how I

kind of function as an adult. Still very close relationship

with my mom, dad and, and brothers.

And let's see, traveled around a lot.

So the resiliency factor, I think is a really big component

of what it means to bend and flex and kind of pivot, if you

will, as as men, as business owners, as investors, as

entrepreneurs. You have to be able to pivot

when it's required. And you can't be too staunch in

one antiquated mindset, especially right now in 2026,

there's so much changing with AI and, and what's happening on the

war front with Iran. It's very, very important that

we have a lens that we look at things through that we can

continuously clean is like how I like to call it, clean the lens,

clean the lens, clean the lens because every day is a new day.

So I kind of grew up all around, met friends everywhere, settled

in kind of Florida, if you will, in my high school years.

I met my wife in in Florida. I actually met her in the 7th

grade. We were 12 years old.

And lo and behold, man, I always had this notion, this idea that

I wanted to go do something with business.

I wanted to be ACEO or a leader of some sort.

And so I always enjoyed being at the head of the table.

And, you know, my first opportunity, my first crack at

that was I worked at Citigroup right out of high school taking,

you know, I was a debt collector.

I collected on, on bad debt. That was my first kind of

glimpse into sales experience because it, it is a sales tactic

to, to, to, to, you know, get the debt or to get it paid

despite somebody running up that bill and not wanting to pay it

at a later time. So, yeah, that's kind of a

little bit of me, man. And that, that was all well

before the, the Air Force even presented itself to me.

I, I was in my early 20s. I had this this kind of

experience that allowed for me to scale up at the company.

I was working for, Citigroup, and I went through management,

team lead management, and I had a blast doing that.

That eventually fizzled out. I don't get a chance to tell a

lot of people this, but I started off at Citigroup.

I did really, really well there. And then I got fired.

And man, let me tell you, that was a big kick in the mouth.

You know, MM Tyson talks about this all, all the times.

Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the mouth, then

what you going to do with your plan.

So for me that was one of my biggest pivots and that was

something that was an attention to detail thing.

We had wired out too much money that went to a customer and the

money ended up bouncing. But in the process of us, we

should have waited a longer period of time.

That customer received money. It was a they were part of a

Nigerian scam. I signed off on sending it back

to him too early. It was an attention to detail

thing and that was kind of the bedrock for what my career would

look like. I immediately got hit in the in

the mouth and needed to pivot. And so I decided I wanted to go

back to college and that was where my that was where Chapter

2 would begin for me after kind of a failed career in what I

thought was going to be management for a, a Fortune 500

company. OK.

And you said back to college, did you you start some college

education following high school? Did a little bit.

I went to Pima Community College out of high school in Tucson, AZ

Went from Florida to Tucson to live with my parents and it just

wasn't the right fit for me at the time.

I wanted to make too much money. I was like, look, I need to be

making more money than this. I don't know what I'm doing in

that this this literature class, it's not for me right now.

So yeah. So I went back in my mid 20s to

University of South Florida in Tampa.

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And what did you study the second time around?

So second time around I studied International Studies, so like a

poli sci type degree, but the big premonition and like the big

uncover or discovery for me there Eric was while I went to

college. I was balancing a job at GEICO,

working at night, taking phone calls.

Again, Spanish Q for personal injury protection claims.

There was a lot of fraud in Florida at the time.

And I was, I was doing my best to help out there.

And so I was working at night and I was going to college

during the day. And on my way back from new

student orientation on day one, I saw the ROTC building and I

decided, you know what, I'm just going to pop upstairs and just

see if they have any like, openings.

I looked at it so in such a simplistic way, that's not how

it works at all. But I went up and I said, hey,

you know, I just want to be a second Lieutenant.

Like, can I? How do I be an officer?

And without going into too much detail, Lieutenant Haynes, the

gold bar or the second Lieutenant recruiter was there

and he said, yeah, you just got a PT, you know, physical

training twice a week and you got to go to this leadership lab

once a week. And, and I was like, that's it.

Like, wow, sign me up. So I signed up.

And and that's, that's a tenant to what I think the

entrepreneurial world looks like a little bit is if you ask too

many questions, sometimes you get bogged down by what we call

analysis paralysis. And analysis paralysis is Eric

or Ricardo is spending all the time in the world analyzing what

this deal may look like or what this journey may entail that you

actually scare yourself out of it.

And so oftentimes it's like the naive ones are the ones that are

are find the success because they didn't ask the tough

questions, they just showed up. And in fact, I argue that nobody

does it first, right? You, you have to, you know,

through action comes clarity. There's a, there's a wonderful

quote I love and it's it, I'm paraphrasing it, but essentially

it, it's, it states that you only get clarity from action.

Clarity doesn't come before action, it comes from action.

And so if you have AY or a pursuit or if it that that's not

as clear for you, just take action.

Try to add value to the workplace or to the marketplace

that you're in, and I think it'll help.

And so I did the same thing through ROTC.

I showed up as a cadet over the course of the next 3 1/2 years.

I eventually commissioned in 2013 as a second Lieutenant,

United States Air Force. I got my degree and the wife and

I and, and our daughter, we packed up to Columbus, Ms. where

it would be our first duty station as AT6 instructor pilot.

And it was there that I really kind of honed my, my skill set

as an officer and as a leader that I believe I implement a lot

of things in my civilian entrepreneurial career with now.

And so I'm very, very grateful for the experience that college

gave me #1 but more importantly, what the Air Force provided me

from a discipline, organization, and a leadership perspective.

And that is a bit of a bedrock to a lot of my success as an

entrepreneur. Being a pilot is such a unique

job. One, there's not many of them,

and especially in the Air Force. And two, what it does is it

teases out of you things that you do and don't like.

And so you're able to bring those to the surface.

You reconcile those. It helps you become a better

planner. It helps you become a better

leader. I always used to think that

being a good pilot meant you knew physics or calculations, or

you could compute, you know, complex equations.

That's not it at all. Sure, you have to know your

times tables one through 12, but you have to ultimately be

decisive. You have to have a good

attitude. You have to be a leader.

And so I've always said, if I could be a leader in the sky, I

can be a leader on the ground because in the sky, you can't

stop an aircraft. You have to make a decision

right there on the spot, right. And so that's actually helped me

frame a lot of challenges in, in business and in life that I've,

that I've encountered. And so I went through that pilot

training and I, I graduated with my wings in 2015.

And in 2015 I wanted to go be in the big Blues what they would.

Call it the Air Force and and I wanted to go fly an F22 Raptor

and I was not able to do so. In fact, I I spent so much time

with my peers and different students trying to help them

where I could. I've always been a proponent of

if you don't know something as well as you should, put yourself

in the hot seat, better understand it, and then let

people poke holes in your game so you can further strengthen

and, and, and identify those chinks in your armor.

I believe that's a good philosophy for anybody who's

looking to learn business or who's looking to expand their

horizons, is put yourself in a hot seat.

Much like a lobster that over grows its shell, it requires

pressure to get larger, to shed that into, to, to create a new

one. And so that was a very pressure

filled year for me. I tried to help others along the

way and in doing so, I help myself more.

I was selected to become a first assignment instructor pilot or a

FAPE is what we call it. So I stayed back.

I went to pilot instructor training in San Antonio, and

then I went back to Mississippi and I started instructing those

same students that were. My peers a couple of months

earlier, which was kind of wild and I thought, man, I'm I'm a

bit too young to. Be a FAPE or an IP, But

nevertheless, the Air Force believed in me.

So I spent 2015 through 2019 honing my skills as an Air Force

officer and as an instructor pilot, amassing over 1000 hours,

flying at night, in the weather, upside down, in formation, you

name it, man, we did it. It was tremendous.

The only thing we didn't do were drop bombs or expend any any

weapons, but that was for later. Man, well, there's a lot of

information there. I know you said when you moved

you had a wife and a child then and that you you met your wife

at 12 years old. Did you guys stay together from

12 years old or? No, we were, we were always

excellent friends throughout that period of time.

But we we split up a couple of times from high school through

our early 20s. But you know, when there's love,

it comes back. And it's like that old adage of,

you know, let the bird, let the bird fly away.

If it comes back, it loves you. I guess it's true for us.

So we're 19 years later going strong and she's she's, she's my

rock support system. I was having a great

conversation with her this morning on just opening up about

what it looks like to find success and then to have

somebody who supports you in what that successful journey

looks like. So very, very grateful and

indebted to her for for all of what she's given me in a very

selfless way. Oh, man, that's awesome.

That's wonderful to hear. And I know I want to dive mostly

into your, your businesses and the leadership advice you might

have for us. But I know in your Air Force

career, you've gotten to operate some pretty interesting aircraft

and, and have quite a distinguished career with the

Air Force. Do you mind giving us a a brief

summary maybe? What were your favorite

platforms that you got to fly? Yeah, great question.

I started off flying the T6 as an instructor pilot.

The T6 is a it's a Texan 2. It's a turboprop aircraft, 1100

shaft horsepower. It's a 2 seater.

Student sits in the front, instructor pilot sits in the

rear cockpit. It's like a Mazda Miata.

So there's no hard points. There's yeah, there's no hard

points on this thing. It doesn't drop any bombs.

It doesn't shoot a gun. But it is really fun to fly and

it's like easy to start, easy to shut down.

It's perfect for a, a new student pilot.

So I got about 1000 hours in that and I moved on to the A10

Warthog A10 CA 10C. That is absolutely phenomenal.

The A10 is a close air support, essentially a killing machine.

And that is only a single, that's a single seat fighter.

It's a fourth generation aircraft, fighter aircraft.

That was absolutely tremendous. The A10 is built for loitering

in adversarial territory with a lot of fuel that allows for you

to expend, whether it's guns, missiles, whatever is going to

be the appropriate weapon solution for for what's taking

place in that threat environment.

And so I had a blast flying that I transitioned to the EC 130

compass call, which is considered ISR intelligence,

surveillance reconnaissance. It's actually what President

Trump was talking about. He, he said something about a

discombobulator the other day on the news and, and that's what

the aircraft does it, it discombobulates the enemies from

an unclassed perspective, electronics, if you will.

And so I had a blast flying that I flew the T38 Talon for a

little bit that has a, a small debut and Top Gun, the original

Top Gun, it's the Mig that they're flying against.

It's a black aircraft. It looks like an F5T38.

And anyways, I've had a blast. I broke the speed of sound in

that aircraft. And so man, it's just been so

much fun. I, you know, I guess my, my, my

most favorite would be the A10 that I because it's, I'm, it's

only me in there. No one's telling you what to do.

That's kind of nice. But the T6 is probably a #2

because it's so nimble, man, you can just turn on a dime.

You do loops, Sparrow rolls, Cuban aids, you name it.

It's just a fun platform to to fly.

And that is where, you know, you have to learn attention to

detail. You have to learn what it means

to be an expert as a tactician in your aircraft.

So I simply took that mentality and I said, I'm going to apply

this to business and I want to see if it works.

And sure enough, it works. It works pretty well.

Well, that's a a great segue. But we learned about you growing

up a little bit, starting a career that ultimately didn't

work out, going back to school. So you're serving in the Air

Force, working your way up as an instructor.

How in the world do you get into luxury cleaning, dry cleaning,

property investments as a an Air Force pilot?

Yeah, it was 2019. My business partner and I were

established captains in the Air Force at the time.

We wanted to make more money. We wanted to try to increase the

velocity of our capital quite frankly is where the genesis of

this begins. And so we explored different

avenues. The 1st Ave. we explored, we

thought we would buy one single family home every year and then

at the end of 20 years, we would eat, We would own 20 houses in

our portfolio and we'd split that equity and we'd be well

off, right? Well, that didn't, that didn't

last very long. We actually did a lot of due

diligence on single family homes, went into contract, fell

out of contract for multiple reasons.

Along the way, we met someone who said, you guys need to think

bigger. And so you'll notice I do this a

lot, Eric, at, at at points in this, in the conversation that

you and I are having, I'm I'm I'm flagging a moment that was

remarkable enough for me to look back and to say that was a

moment where I pivoted or that was a moment that I consider a

checkpoint of progress. And this was another checkpoint

of progress and that is surround yourself with the people who are

going to push you to make you better.

Proximity to success is is huge. If there is someone who is doing

what you want to what you want to be doing in life, hang out

with them. Take him to lunch, buy him

dinner, buy him a beer, buy him a coffee.

Learn from them, by the way. To the listeners who want to

learn and to level up, you have to put your money where your

mouth is. Take someone out to lunch.

Try to add value. Don't just take, take, take.

You hear this a lot, man. Hey, let me.

Can I? Can I?

Can I take 30? Minutes of your time, you should

actually go into a deal and be somewhat offended if you can't

reciprocate in some way, shape or form.

And the least of which should be to say something to the effect

of what are you working on how can I help you with what you're

doing? They may need they may need some

level of assistance, right. So to the listeners, please

implement that. It's going to go a long way.

And then don't just learn, but. Execute, right?

There's analysis and then there's time and there's

execution and that little try trifecta is going to equal

success. Anyways, I started to surround

myself with people who are telling me you need to think

bigger, you need to think bigger.

And I said, well, how big? Why?

I was liquid at $120,000 at the time.

My business partner was as well. He's a good friend and so

together we had $240,000 and we were able to afford a 14 unit

apartment complex in Tucson, AZ. It was in the hood actually.

It was probably not the Best Buy in retrospect, but it worked out

for us. We bought this man in 2020,

which was about to hit and we didn't know much about

commercial multi family investments.

I mean I knew what net operating income divided by the cap rate

was and that that gave you the value of an apartment complex of

an asset. I knew that there was a bit of

financial arbitrage that we could take advantage of and that

meant we could invest money, renovate a unit, rent it for a

higher price and that that would that would go towards our bottom

line, our net operating income. And I knew that if the cap rates

continue to compress over time, I would make more money on this

deal. And so for me, we went in in a

very simplistic mindset, the same simplistic mindset that I

went into being an officer with. And that was that I would just

PT twice a week and go to lead lab once a week.

It was just kind of, I was so naive with it.

And I think to myself now, what am I by being naive about, you

know, but that's a, that's a side conversation for another

day. And so we bought this apartment

complex for 970,000. We put 240 down.

So we're about 75% leveraged in the deal.

Local credit union and we started to get to work.

We didn't have any money after that, man.

We had to figure out how we were going to turn these units and

renovate them. And we spent a lot of time and

effort. I, I painted inside, I put new

blinds up. We figured out what that looked

like. But we were able to take the

rents from around 625 bucks a month to around $900 because of

these unit turns. And so that delta of almost $300

per month on 2 units equated to 600 per month or 7200 per year.

And over a 6% cap rate, we were seeing a nice little increase.

And so I had this, this moment of like, aha, like this is a

really good industry. I want to double down here.

And so here is kind of the how this unfolded on me, though we

bought this apartment complex strictly a JV deal, joint

venture deal 5050 on equity, but we were illiquid again

afterwards. And like many of your listeners

and like many folks out there, you can be equity rich but cash

poor, right? And that's a tough feeling.

You know, like I read Creative Cash by Bill Hamm and one of the

chapters talks about like you have a four O 1K or your

retirement. Like can you prove it to me?

Can you not don't prove it to me?

Obviously people know they have money in their account, but can

you buy a candy bar with it? And it's like, I can't actually

buy a candy bar with it. OK, well, can you take me to

Disney World with it? No, I can't.

It's say it's being saved for 40 or 50 years later, you know, and

that's like, that kind of sucks, right?

So these are some of the things that are swirling through my

mind at this time. And so I figured out, so COVID

hit. They the Air Force didn't really

know what to do with us all the time.

There was like an A shift, AB shift, AC shift.

I had more time on my hands than usual.

So I read a lot of books. I picked up, you know, different

podcasts, Bigger pockets is where it started and it

eventually evolved into other more concentrated podcasts,

ultimately best ever real estate syndication podcast by Joe

Fairless and Rod Cleef, you name it, I was listening to him.

But I learned how to syndicate and I learned how to raise

capital for deals. And that is a, I'll go back to

another progress checkpoint in my, in my entrepreneurial

journey. And that is leveraging other

people's money to essentially build yourself a a platform that

is going to allow you to grow. Up until now, I had never

perceived that concept as something that was viable or

realistic for me. And so because we were illiquid,

but because we knew we added value to the marketplace by

being able to underwrite a good deal, I knew I had something.

I knew I had an opportunity. And so to make a Long story

short, I met and became friends with other people who are moving

in the industry, became a member of my first million in

multifamily, a Facebook page that had 10s of thousands of

members making moves. I befriended a lot of operators,

general partners who were running multifamily assets that

were doing what I had been doing, but for many years.

And I met brokers and bankers and I learned how to syndicate

some deals. And within a year of that, Eric,

we had syndicated 2 more apartment complexes, raised the

capital forum. And so now we're operating three

different apartment complexes. We syndicated two of those.

The first one that 14 unit, I ended up selling 31 exchange

that for a nice profit into a 25 unit in South Carolina, which is

where my business partner was, was located.

I still being in Tucson after having syndicated these three

deals, we had some some capital built up.

So lo and behold, man, you know, I go to work every day at the

Air Force Base in Tucson, Davis Monthan Air Force Base, and I

see this little laundry mat, man, that called the Happy

Laundry. I drive up and forward and back

and at night it's popping. In the morning it's popping,

man. And so one day, lo and behold,

man, I walk in and, and, and I say, hey, look, I know closed

mouths don't get fed, right? I'm like, look, my name is

Ricardo. I fly right across the street.

I'm in my flight suit. This, this older gentleman is

like looking me up and down. Like, what are you doing, man?

You in a costume or what? You know, so, so I, I just say

point blank, hey, I see your business.

It looks very lucrative. I want to buy.

Your business. And he wasn't expecting that,

nor was I. His response.

And he looked at me and he said there's a long pause.

He said yeah, I'll sell it. And I thought, Oh my gosh.

I didn't realize that that someone could reciprocate in the

manner that you wanted. And so I'll come up for air now.

That was the first point for me, man.

That was an inflection point that I I went from being a

professional W military officer to owning apartments.

To then making a what I thought was a significant pivot to

something that was uncharted territory in, in buying a

laundromat. And so lo and behold, man, six

months later, I owned the happy laundry.

I structured an SBA deal, 7A loan with the majority of it

being allocated to real estate in the minority to the business.

So I enjoyed a 25 year amortization.

So for anybody who's looking at SBA loans, I'm, I'm happy to, to

expand on that at a later time with them versus on 7A versus

five O 4. But so we structured this deal

and this is how I got my start in the textile industry.

I bought the happy laundry. And so, you know, if over a

period of time you get to know me, Eric, you'll know that I'll

try to go deep and try to go wide in an industry that I work

in that is in terms of subject matter expertise as well as the

people that are around me. So I try to make friends and

build those connections with a lot of folks over time.

And so after having owned the Happy Laundry, I did that.

I went to Expos conferences, I met different people, and that's

how I became Privy to Tiffany Couture Cleaners.

It was a pocket listing for a luxury dry cleaner based out of

Las Vegas, NV. 2223 employees doing a couple million in

revenue and I knew that it catered to the affluent and I

wanted to capitalize on that because of my lessons learned in

both real estate and in business.

I knew that I was in an asset class with that apartment

complex that was in the hood that I talked to you about and I

had issues with that. I had issues because I had a big

turnover rate with tenants. The eviction was high, bad debt

was not appropriate. And then the laundromat was also

the same while I was adding value to the marketplace.

And of all, Ravi Kant talks about this all the time.

You add value and that's your path to wealth in some way,

shape or form. And value is interpreted in

terms of convenience, time, save, ease, whatever that may

look like. And I was adding value to the

local marketplace, but I did wasn't doing it at the scale

that I needed to to be AT. And, and so for me, I was able

to put myself in a predicament to set my sight.

If this were, if I were a Rifleman or a sniper, I set my

sight more precise and more accurate.

And that was buy a business that is catering from a luxury

perspective to the affluent and the price elasticity will be

there and, and you'll do better because of it.

And so that was kind of how we we ran into the opportunity for

Tiffany Couture cleaners. OK.

And I know it was quite a journey figuring that industry

out with the happy cleaners. Do you still own that business?

No, I sold the Happy Laundry. It was too small.

My mom worked for me. She did wash, dry fold.

She blew that up. We renovate.

She blew it up in a really good way.

We renovated the place. But you know, this is something

that I'll tell the listeners like you got to cut ties if

something's not working or if it's taking too much of your

time, you got to cut ties. And for me, the happy laundry

was it was a very small business.

It was doing 17,000 a month in revenue.

So we were sub 240 a year. I bought a job is what I bought

with that. And I didn't realize it, you

know, it was too much. And, and really I bought the job

for my mom and she, I paid her whatever she wanted to make.

So that was also not a good economic deal, but it, it was a

great family deal because it's my mom.

I'll do whatever for her, but very important to note for folks

aspiring to want to buy a business or buy a bigger

business, you need to establish a business acumen and you need

to you need to earn your stripes in some way, shape or form,

especially if you're looking for financing from a bank.

If it were not for the happy laundry, I would have never been

approved that long for Tiffany Couture cleaners.

If it were not for the happy laundry in the textile industry,

I would have never had the lens that I had going into Tiffany

Couture cleaners. And so I'm very grateful.

I'm, I'm a big, like glasses, very full type of guy.

So when I look at something, I'm looking at it from a perspective

of learning growth and what I got out of it that is going to

help me at the next level. And so going into an industry

that you don't know of is sometimes very challenging, but

it's not something that is uncommon.

You look at Chipotle, for example, in Starbucks, right?

So Starbucks had haunted the CEO of Chipotle because of sales

growth. Starbucks implements new CEO and

he knew nothing about coffee. I mean, maybe he did, but I

don't think he did not on that level.

So many other industries demonstrate and, and, and

utilize similar techniques and practices.

I knew if I was going to go in, I wasn't going to be the one

steaming or pressing or spotting or taking oil stains out.

I knew I was going to be the one who was the visionary, who had a

strategic mind that I would use to grow the business.

So I went in with that mindset. Unlike the happy Laundry where I

was like, I'll help wash, dry, fold, I'll, I'll paint the

walls. I was still too knuckleheaded.

And when I went in to Tiffany Couture Cleaners, I went in with

clear, standardized expectations and guidance, which allowed for

me to hit the ground running immediately from an expectation

management perspective. And that was to install a

general manager who was the leader who would report to me.

And I would have a funnel through one person that would

then cascade out to the rest of the employees.

And so this whole journey took me from Air Force learning of

attention to detail, being precise as a tactician.

To. Buying real estate, ultimately a

business learning it was too small, learning the real estate

was situated in the wrong class asset neighborhoods to getting

more precise over a period of time to finally buying the

business that I wanted. And so when we went in, we were

extremely excited. We bought Tiffany Couture in

2023. And so it's been about three

years now and the business has grown 25% since we originally

purchased. We're very excited about the

growth. 80% of our business is route pickup and delivery.

We cater to the rich and famous in Las Vegas.

We do Absinthe, Cirque du Soleil, Ka, Magic Mike, Donny

Osmond, Dita Von Teese, you name it, these beautiful, these

awesome shows. We have a retail presence with

103 retail stores. So Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Brioni,

these stores that that require that their employees wear a

uniform or wear in, in Nevada. If you, if you require that your

employee wears a uniform, you're obligated to launder that

uniform. So for us, we capitalize on that

because those stores have really high end, their garments, their

clothing is extremely nice. They're not going to mess that

up with a washer and dryer in the back.

So they come to Tiffany Couture. So our business is, is is very

well established. It's been around since 1970.

There's no one client that takes up more than 3 1/2 percent of

revenue. We have contracted revenue very

consistent. It's not seasonal like a lot of

dry cleaners. So these are a couple of really

positive attributes of the business that that continue to

exist and succeed to this day. When you first bought it, was

there a learning curve getting that spun up and and running

that, or was it a pretty seamless transition?

Were you able to step in smoothly as the old owner

stepped out? Yeah, that's a great question.

There was definitely a learning curve as there is with with most

businesses that you're not used to.

For us personally, we went in with this massive action

mentality. Not only that, but what

mitigated that learning curve was there was a lot of employees

that had a sound knowledge base that understood the inner

workings of the business. They simply needed leadership.

They needed some guidance. Not that the old owners, not

that they were void of that, but that they simply were looking

for someone with that vision, someone that would continue to

keep things going and, and, and frankly, for us to try to take

it to the next level. So I still do not, I don't, I

don't know all of the chemicals behind dry cleaning.

There's a bunch of interesting pieces that we have where we get

an Oscar. Rent a dress man that's

extremely expensive. My head dry cleaner is

responsible for taking care of it and he does a bang up job.

He does a phenomenal job of it as well as the rest of the team.

So you know, the inner workings of a small business implied that

the owner should be as involved as possible.

But when the business gets a little larger, you can freely

step away in a calculated manner and still you know right the

ship, if you will, and navigate the ship without needing to know

exactly the inner workings of the engine on that ship, if that

makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah, I know. I've talked to a few roofers

that know very little about roofing, but they know how to

run a business and they hire people that are great roofers.

So, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

I I can attest to it and it makes a lot of sense.

So I, I think I heard in there, correct me if I'm reading too

much into this, but you have a history of kind of buying and

selling both real estate and business.

But it sounds like with your current holdings that you're

pretty satisfied and and have more of a long term outlook,

you're not looking to turn those anytime soon.

Is that accurate? Yeah, kind of accurate, I hear.

I'm always open to a deal. There you go, there's the

entrepreneur. You're never going to say it's

not for sale. Correct.

Yeah. Like, you know, if somebody came

up to me in my, I have this beautiful home.

I we live on 3 1/2 acres in Florida.

We love it. My wife's like it's not for

sale. I'm like, I know it's not for

sale, but like if somebody came up to me with a stupid offer,

I'll have AI may respond and if they want to go with the deal,

but we may have a deal, you know what I mean?

So, so yeah, it's not for sale. However, I'll entertain

opportunities. Here's what I will say, and I

know you have a little bit of experience with this as well,

Eric. You know, there's a lot of

buzzwords that are that are that are flying around right now.

Private equity is one of them. And I'm getting smarter over

time by the folks I associate myself with, as well as books,

podcasts. I'm part of the blue collar

millionaire network as an advisor and then member success

coordinator. And there's a lot of members in

this group that have successfully sold to private

equity. And, and as you know, there's

triggers that they have. Your EBITDA needs to be likely

higher than X number. Your financials need to be

airtight. You need to have the owner who

is likely not the owner operator unless they want to structure

the deal that way. And these are a lot of

attributes that I share with Tiffany Couture Cleaners.

I live in Tampa. I'm an absentee owner.

Tiffany is a profitable business, best in class, part of

America's best cleaners, you know, Green Business Bureau

certified. So when a, when a private equity

firm or when PE looks for a business, I think in my mind

they're establishing a grade or a scorecard, if you will, to

that business. And I'm very proud to say we

have a high grade. I would say we're AB plus or an

A minus, probably closer to an A minus.

We're just a little smaller than I think what they're looking for

right now. So to answer your question

appropriately, we are in, we're in a bullish stance, we're

growing. I'm interested in what

opportunities for growth look like for additional drop stores

as well as growth, route development and route growth.

Because even if I don't sell to private equity, I still want to

have a more successful business, right?

Yeah. And I think that's the stance

that any entrepreneur should maintain is that set yourself up

so that way you could sell if you wanted to, but if you don't

sell, you still have a cash flow in business that is positively

impacting the local community. And so for me, that's kind of

where my mind is at right now with the potential of a

disposition for Tiffany Couture cleaners.

Yeah, yeah, that's the best place to be as a contractor.

I used to say I loved jobs where I was excited if I got it and

excited if I didn't. Yeah.

You know those jobs that are days?

That way. No, those jobs that are a little

bit of a pain, you're not really excited about executing the

work, but you give them a price that reflects that.

And it's so like, hey, if they go for it, we're getting paid

enough to make it worth it. And if they don't, we don't have

to deal with it. I love it.

I love it. It makes absolute sense, yeah.

So, yeah, we've been talking about you kind of leveled up

both in real estate and in business ownership.

I know we didn't go into a lot of detail, but I know there were

some struggles with the happy cleaners that that wasn't

necessarily a pleasant process. And it sounds like you've really

levelled up on the real estate side as well.

What lessons did you learn or or maybe what metrics do you really

look for or pay attention to now to find great deals that are

things you want to hold for a long time versus the the

stepping stones you took to get there?

Yeah, this is a great question and it's by box criteria is very

important for a a potential business owner to identify

before they go into a deal. For me personally, I'll, I'll

break this up into two categories, real estate and then

business. First off, real estate is going

to appreciate in value over a long period of time.

It's going to perform plus or minus within what the S&P 500

may do. In addition to that, I like to

look at real estate from 4 perspectives. 4 quadrants that

have. Tremendous benefits to the owner

of real estate #1 the tax implications for real estate are

great. If you take advantage of them

appropriately with your CPA, you can reduce your taxable income.

You can write off a lot. And what that does is that's a

tax shelter for a business owner in many respects.

So quadrant #1 is tax implications, quadrant #2 is

cash flow. So with real estate, you have

the opportunity to charge rent. And when you charge rent, if you

charge rent greater than what your debt service is or your

mortgage, you're going to cash flow.

Now that's a very oversimplified way of explaining it, but that

is a, that's a, that's a true statement, right?

So first category tax implication, second cash flow,

third, amortization pay down South, unlike rent, when you

pay, there's a portion of your payment that goes towards

principal. There's a person that goes

towards interest that principal pay down is amortization gain

over a period of time, you owe less debt on that.

And, and so that's one of the things that really excites me

about the industry. And then the 4th, the 4th

quadrant is equity. Your equity will go up over a

period of time, whether it's 2% per year, two and a half, 3% per

year for even doing nothing in many respects.

So from a from a real estate perspective, those are the

benefits. Buy box criteria are going to

vary depending on whether what asset class you're buying.

If you're buying commercial multifamily, you're going to

want to buy in a region that has cap rates that are likely not

too high. In my opinion, the lower the cap

rate, the less risky the deal is.

The higher the more risky, but there's a potential that some

stuff could happen there and that you could end up

capitalizing on that. Number 2, the the the building,

the building's age. I'm finding it more and more

difficult for a deal to pencil in from an underwriting

perspective. If you own a building that is

older than 1975, the cost to rebuild it is going to be

difficult. In addition to that, the

insurance is likely going to be higher.

Also, you don't fetch the same fervor or interest from a, from

a tenant perspective. And so it's just challenging,

man, it, it really is challenging to do that.

The economy has to be doing certain things.

The buy box for business is more exciting for me though.

Buy box criteria for a business. I like to look at it in this

perspective. Number one, anything sub $1

million in revenue per year, you're likely buying a job.

It just there's not as much meat on the bone for a business

owner. Now there could be a potential

you're at 750,000 in revenue with a potential lockdown of two

to three contracts. But even then, I would make the

subsequent argument that if you gain those two to three

contracts, now you have a large preponderance of your revenue

that's coming in from a small sample size.

And that in and of itself is the single point of failure.

So I like to see a business that is doing more than $1 million in

revenue. I like to see a business that

has been around for over 10 years.

And so most businesses are going to fail within the first three

to five years. And so a business that outlasts

that statistic demonstrates some level of resiliency and

strength. You're not selling a faddish

item that attaches to the back of a phone.

You're not subcontracting something that is waning and

desire over a period of time. You're not.

You're doing something that should be based on needs based.

Adam Coffey talks about this in Private Equity Playbook and an

Empire Builder, two of his really good books that I

recommend listeners pick up and that is buy a business or start

a business that is needs based. Think about now I'm going to

sound like a little bit of a hypocrite in saying this because

I own a dry cleaner and and dry cleaners are not needs based.

This. I know there's a big asterisk

with the dry cleaner that I owned that I could get into at a

later time, but that is price elasticity and the luxury

catering that is a really good business and industry,

especially in Las Vegas. But HVAC, plumbing, welding,

electricity, glass, concrete, you know it from the kind of the

GC world and stuff like those are needs based businesses, man.

Yeah, if a huge asteroid hits my roof tomorrow and leaves a

gaping hole in it, I'm not going to leave that there.

I got to get it fixed. You know, conversely, if there's

a very, you know, expensive pool that I want in the backyard, but

I can't afford it right now or a recession hits, I'm not going to

proceed with that gun Knight or that, that that shot Crete,

right. So, so picking a needs base.

So over 10 years in business, over 1,000,000 in revenue needs

based industry, preferably blue collar has an opportunity to

capitalize with an AI plug in and it's not disrupted by AI

from AAI takes it over perspective.

You remember a couple years ago everybody was talking about

coding and stuff like you need to know C++ or Python And stuff.

Now it's like I just open up ChatGPT and it does it all for

me, right? Yeah.

So blue collar industries are going to be very key.

And then I will look for a business that has meat on the

bone. Finally, as it relates to can I

reposition this, does it demonstrate strength and

profitability with antiquated systems if it has antiquated

systems? A case in point man when I moved

here to Florida, unfortunately my HVAC died out on me like day

like day three and it was like July dude it was.

That's pretty necessary in Florida.

It's pretty necessary in Florida.

Number one, it's needs basement. Number two, I identified in

dealing with this local HVAC company that like they were so

antiquated, man. Like I got a phone call the day

before from the office manager saying someone will be out

Ricardo from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM or in that window.

And I was like, OK, can you have him text me?

She's like, we don't text. I was like, OK, I was like, how

do I pay you? She's like, well, we can invoice

you via. We'll send you APDF e-mail.

You can send us a check. I think she even said fax.

Man it was weird. I was like what's going on here?

Great reviews on Google. You you don't carry a portable

fax machine with you. You don't.

Yeah, right. You don't do business that way

all the time anymore. Yeah, yeah.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm behind the power curve here.

So that's a great example of a business that I can buy and I

can say, look, they're not on Servicetitan or House called Pro

or Jobber. I'm going to implement a new

point of sale or a CRM. I'm going to immediately

eliminate antiquated procedures. I'm going to offer both ACH and

credit card with a transparent view on a merchant fee.

And the technicians, not only will they text on the way there,

but they will take before and after pictures and we will keep

an accurate representation of what the the client demographic

looks like, a picture of the home address.

So we can nurture that client over a period of time from SMS

or a marketing campaign or automations through go high

level right. So many business owners are

missing out on low hanging fruit in their business and in their

industry because of their record keeping and their data

understanding and distribution. They're losing out on potential

opportunities. Yeah.

For an HVAC, I have 383 ACS in my house for an HVAC company to

come out and I've been talking to HVAC business owners and

entrepreneurs in Tampa recently. You know, there's a lot of

there's different industries out there that you know Eric, some

of them are like 1 and done right, HVAC is kind of A1 and

done on the surface. You buy an HVAC, you buy an AC

and you don't need them again for 15 years.

Hopefully. Well, it doesn't have to be that

way for a business owner. A business owner can go out and

say I serviced Ricardo's old AC on one side of the house.

His other two ACS are actually probably gonna die in the next

three to four years. Yeah, Let me go take a quick

glimpse of how old they are. Let me get him an idea, tell him

that Freon is limited and a couple of things.

Let me help him by putting one of those mesh Nets over his air

conditioning unit so the leaves don't fall in it.

And now I show a little bit of goodwill.

I have his e-mail address. I'm going to nurture him, but

I'm not going to hit him over the head and bother him every 25

days with an e-mail because I don't want him to hit

unsubscribe. Right.

Yeah, so these are these are tools that business owners are

not all using. Another one is AI after hours

text. Dude, you know I use House Call

Pro for one of my companies, the Carpet Monkeys, and you'd be

surprised. People spill a wine or oil or a

dog will make a mess. And some people stay up really

late at night right till midnight, some 2-3 AM where they

work the swing shift. We get a lot of text messages at

like 1:00 AM for some reason, like 1:00 to 2:00 AM.

Hey, how much do you guys charge for carpet cleaning?

My dog just made a big mess. So we have an AI text that

immediately responds. And you can go deep on this.

We can just say, hey, Eric, thanks for reaching out.

We're currently closed, but we'll have an agent get to you

ASAP tomorrow morning. Number one, that shows like a

response. Yeah, people in many cases, they

want immediate service, man. Oh, yeah.

There's no reason as to why we couldn't automate what that

immediate service looks like. You can even go go further.

And we've built out the AI text to ask Eric the appropriate

questions. Absolutely happy to help.

Is this a condo? Is it a single family home?

Are you in a high rise? And the AI algorithm and what it

asks, but it's the process of deducing exactly what Eric needs

to give him a quote that can be done via text with this new

generation. So anyways, I could talk to him

blue in the face about what I think are opportunities to

business owners can capitalize on.

But the final piece in that a in the buy box criteria is they

have to have some sort of systems that I can reposition

and change to make it more sophisticated and ultimately

justify a higher price point. Well, you mentioned kind of

stepping out of your two job earlier and focusing more on

entrepreneurship. Is there another lesson that you

wish you would have learned earlier?

Yeah, to think bigger, you know, I was.

So I spent a lot of my time at a very, very small laundromat when

I had the means to do something larger.

I didn't do something larger for fear that that larger thing

would fail. And, and fear is a real thing.

And I just spoke about it a moment ago.

And, and look, the sooner you can, this all boils down to

action. It all boils down to taking

action as soon as you possibly can, because the more action you

take early on, the more you accelerate the timeline or the

events in the timeline can happen at a sooner rate, putting

you in a position where you've already experienced and you have

those lessons learned. And so the the first piece was

the W2, which I couldn't control.

I was on a military contract. The second piece was thinking

larger sooner. I should have bypassed the

laundromat for something slightly larger.

And I try to look at it from that lens now, Eric, as I

approach new deals again. You can't just bite off more

than you can chew. You have to be able to chew.

It or have a reasonable expectation that you have a team

who can do it right. However, if you are, if you're

doing it the appropriate way. Then don't be afraid to think

big because your 24 hours in a day, your effort, your

precision, your approach, It can be applied to something that

makes $5 a day. It can be applied to something

that makes 55,000 or 500,000. And it's so long as you trust in

your, your system, so long as you trust in your movements and

your actions, the larger, the larger side of that is going to

have a greater impact and and as a result, you'll be more

successful. Good advice there.

Yeah, interesting. And I know you've bought a few

existing businesses, the the Happy Dry Cleaners, Tiffany

Couture you mentioned Carpet Monkeys and other business that

you own. Would you ever consider starting

something from scratch, or are you pretty firmly in the buying

existing camp? This is a great question.

And like, most entrepreneurs were squirrels.

And we're like, always distracted, right?

Always. So there's a great book I

actually recommend. It's called Buy then Build by

Walker Diebel. Yeah, it's tremendous, man.

It was probably the book that I learned the most about how to

value a small business. Buy then builds.

Premise is don't buy. Excuse me, Don't start up your

own business. Buy an existing business.

And what that does, Eric, is that mitigates you and your risk

in the deal in a couple of ways. Number one, if I start up a

business that is going to offer HVAC services, I am incurring a

lot of risk upfront #1 because I don't have any contracted or

expected revenue out the gates. So my time is being traded for

nothing. Ultimately later on down the

line, hopefully I'm building something so human capital

translates into actual capital #2 finding employees and help

with no pay is not happening. So you have to bootstrap things

yourself. The benefit is you don't have a

lot of debt. But I rebuttal that with you do

need to go into a little bit of debt to do some of this stuff.

Case in point, you need a truck. You need a uniform, likely a

wrap equipment to to maintain an HVAC unit.

And then, oh, by the way, you need to front the cash and the

capital to buy that HVAC knowing you may not get paid until a net

30 or a net sixty term, right? If it's B to B, if it's

residential, then you hopefully you get paid within a couple of

days, right. So and then oh, by the way, you

need a little bit of inventory. There's still a financial

investment with a start up that a lot of folks don't talk about.

I like to buy a business that I can buy at a fair multiple of

EBITDA or seller discretionary earnings.

And then I ride the wave of their success that they've had

over the years and then I can pay down debt over a period of

time. Ultimately, Ricardo as a

business operator is going to end up succeeding more by taking

a business and supercharging its revenue and its profits.

And ultimately, I capture that delta of where they were

previously to where I take it from an equity perspective.

And that helps me justify the debt that I incur because of it.

And so I like that. Here's where I will do a start

up and I'm actually working on something right now.

It's a digital marketing agency. OK.

Yeah. So when you are exchanging a

service, a remote online service, I'm a business operator

who knows the insurance and outs of how to run a business.

I also have experience working as an employee in business

flying airplanes and real estate.

So I bring a unique perspective to the table as A and I call

myself a partner in, in, in with one of my clients who would use

my services for digital marketing.

I will start up a digital marketing agency and we're going

to find a lot of success with it because there it's a little

different. It's almost considered a bolt on

to what you're currently doing and you're not going to incur a

whole lot of debt because of that.

You simply incur the exchange of your human capital for your for

time. So that is 1 instance that I

would justify starting something versus building it, but or

excuse me, starting it up versus buying an existing business.

But when we're talking brick and mortar and we're talking

exchange for a product over a period of time, I am in the buy

a business camp, not start it yourself.

OK, great. And I know you mentioned that

you're an admin for the Blue Collar Millionaires Group and

you super roll there. You also do some business

coaching, don't you? Yeah, yeah, man.

I'm like, I do a lot of different things, but I love it

and my life is busy, but it's great.

I am a member success coordinator for Blue Collar

Millionaire and Blue Collar Millionaire is a 290,000 member

group on Facebook. It's tremendous, man.

It's owners, operators, entrepreneurs, people thinking

about buying their business, people who've already exited

their business, a lot of really solid players in the group who

are offering advice, who are receiving advice, who are

providing tangible tips, experiences and lessons that

really are going to help you guide your path to your success

as an entrepreneur. So in that capacity, I provide

small business consulting to any number of the members.

Honestly, man, there's two groups.

There's the free group, which is all 290,000 members.

And then I'm in the Boardroom elite, which is a paid group,

coaching and mastermind that is full of business owners that are

doing anywhere from 1,000,000 to 25,000,000 in revenue that are

ultimately scaling their business to try to get it to

either continue to be successful or successful in a higher level.

And or like you and I talked about earlier, sell to private

equity perhaps. So for the larger BCM group, I'm

providing the the coaching to a lot of business owners.

We're likely rolling out a potential war room here soon,

which is a a three month Sprint to valuing and buying your first

business or streamlining your current business from like how

to look at your PNL, what cash flow actually means to you?

How much runway do you have left of ahead of you?

I find that a lot of business owners are, are messing up on a

couple of things, Eric, and we want to get after helping them

and adding value to them. Number one, they don't know what

their cash flow looks like. They can't predict cash flow.

They're using the old school version of looking at their Bank

of America checking account to determine if they have enough

for payroll in two weeks, which look, we've all been there at

some point, but it's kind of dangerous.

And when you look at it that way and you don't have a predictable

view of what April, May and June of 2026 look like, then you're

setting yourself up for a little bit of failure because you're

that close away that that close to a potential catastrophe and

missing payroll. We tie in what a line of credit

looks like and how you could potentially get help with that.

But ultimately that's one of the issues.

The second one is businesses with sub 1,000,000, the owner is

the operator and in many respects has an issue with

letting go of the business for really good reasons.

They they can't let go of that business, right?

And so we and I teach owners how to separate themselves from the

business by implementing standard operating procedures

and clear guidance and expectations for what your

number 2 looks like. Now that is as a non starter, if

the business financials are not taken care of, the business

financials, predictability and sufficient cash flow are the

fuel to solving step #2 and then step #3.

Most business owner and the number 3 issue.

Most business owners do not have a predictable lead generation,

lead conversion and a nurturing system in place, whether that is

you don't have a point of sale or ACRM system or you do and

you're not capitalizing on using it appropriately.

And, and we talked about a couple of those things today.

Automation as it relates to nurturing those clients that

have done X amount of money with you over a period of time or

greater. Case in point, in the carpet

cleaning industry, if I get into your house three times there to

clean your carpets, there's zero reason as to why I shouldn't be

your exclusive carpet cleaner for the rest of your 10 year

living where you live, right. Yeah.

One, carpet cleaning, you have a 20% chance of coming back.

Two carpet cleanings, you have a 40% chance of coming back.

Three, you have an 80% chance of coming back.

Because up up until that point, we've done as much good as

possible. And you clearly like our quality

and service, right? So I coach business owners both

in the BCM world as well as independently through Vectored

Equity, my company. And look, man, I'm just trying

to add value. I try to help business owners as

best as I can. I find that the issue that a lot

of owners are having is in front of them, but they just can't put

all the pieces of the puzzle together and I find a lot of

fulfillment and helping them do that.

That's awesome. I know like we mentioned, this

is kind of a follow up call. We had some technical issues the

first time and you had some great input when we chatted

earlier. If we can salvage some of that

video, maybe we'll plug it in here.

But that was a key value you have is to always have a value

add, even if you're. Meeting with someone to kind of

pick their brain, try to learn from them to find a way that you

can add value to them. Can you speak to that a little

bit? Yeah, that's a great point.

And I do that regularly here in Tampa or when I'm traveling.

You never know when an opportunity is going to arise.

And for me, I don't know if you Did you ever see the movie Yes

Man with Jim Carrey? I don't think I ever watched the

whole thing. It's a you're probably like me,

you just fall. I fall asleep on movies.

My wife gets yeah, sometimes. And I'm like, I'm not asleep.

Yes. Man's premise was that he lived

this very disgruntled, negative life, and he never said yes to

anything. And he missed.

He didn't have opportunities. He didn't have a girlfriend, He

didn't have friends. He didn't do anything fun.

He just, you know, kind of very mundane, just kind of boring

life. I can't remember how, but he was

asked or vowed or promised to say yes to everything for 60

days. And his life absolutely turned

around man in such a great way. He started saying yes to things

that took in places that he would meet people and he kept

saying yes and he kept saying yes and it was so fulfilling.

So here's what I'm getting at with this.

When I meet somebody, I try to identify what their need is.

And if I without blowing smoke, because that's not me.

I'm a straight shooter. I'll if, if I don't know it, I

don't know it, man. And I, I don't claim to be an

expert at, at many things, but I do have some experience at a few

things. And I'm audacious and confident

enough to clearly communicate, you know, my thoughts.

If there's a need, then I can help you fulfill that need.

From a value added perspective, it's a win win for both of us.

Here's why. It's a win for the recipient of

the value that it, that they're receiving, because they could

potentially use something and tangibly execute on that.

And it's a win for me because I've, I have somebody in my

circle that took some of my advice, implemented it and found

value in it. So now we have symbiosis.

There's an ecosystem that exists amongst us.

And so if they need something or if they have an opportunity,

hopefully they'll think of Ricardo in the future.

And, and you know, I can plug in any number of services that I

think are going to add value over a period of time.

And a good entrepreneur knows to strike a balance between fair

price, fair value and consistency over a period of

time. And that's a lot of what I, what

I try to do. I do it in and out of the blue

Collar Millionaire network. But I really do think that there

is something there. And that goes back to what you

and I had chatted about earlier and that was surrounding

yourself with the right people. You know, you show me your 5

closest friends, I'll show you your future.

And proximity, as I've talked about, is huge, huge, huge being

in the proximity of the people that you want to be in.

Ask yourself the question, is the person I'm talking to living

the lifestyle that I want, or is the person I'm speaking to

achieving the goals that I want to achieve?

And if the answer to that is yes and that you admire that person

in some way, shape or form, then hang out with them, spend time

with them, learn from them, because there's going to be a

lot of value there. Now, if you answer no to those

questions, then move on, go hang out with somebody else.

And that's how that's been a lot of the, I think me leveling up

as I've done that and and I've not been afraid to pivot and

I've and I've really hung out with really high caliber people

that have pushed me to be better and myself and I'm very grateful

to them for that. Wonderful.

Well, if if some of our listeners are interested in

engaging with you with your coaching services or something

like that, is the the blue collar millionaires group, is

that going to be the West best way to get in touch with you or

what avenues do they have? Find me find me on LinkedIn or

Facebook Ricardo Torres and and if you need more Ricardo Torres

Tiffany Couture cleaners, you could put in any number of

combo. You can't miss my bald head.

Look, I'm very happy to help any of the listeners out.

Eric, I'd love to have you on on our podcast as well so we can

talk a little bit more and kind of flip the script.

And, you know, we were a really big group, but we're a very

personalized, authentic group as well.

So I try to live that out. So if somebody has any

questions, comments, concerns, or if you just want to chat with

me, find me on Facebook or LinkedIn.

I'll get you my calendly. We'll get you on the calendar.

We'll, we'll set up a, a time to chat and we'll go over what,

what's working and what's not working for you.

And hopefully we can help out. Awesome.

Well, I would love to come on your show and chat about roofing

for anybody willing to listen and my business experience

there. And I know for me personally

that the blue collar millionaire group has been a great benefit.

There's so many people that are so willing to help provide

advice, just bounce ideas off of them.

And you know, a big part of this podcast is letting

entrepreneurs, business leaders know you're not alone, because I

think that that leadership, it's often lonely at the top.

And, and when you step into leadership, you deal with

problems nobody else understands or faces.

And so connecting with people that you can share frustrations,

you can get advice, you can just bounce ideas off of them.

It's a great value. And for a free Facebook group or

a a nominal fee to be part of one of the more elite groups, I

think it's a a great thing and I'm excited to be a part of it.

Yeah, 100%, Eric. And you know there are a lot of

roofers out there like you talked about.

We talk a lot about adjacent verticals and how to capture

those and what they look like to increase your revenue.

And there's so many opportunities that exist out

there, man. Whether I'm talking to a

landscaper who is doing Christmas lights in the in the

winter now to, to bolster their revenue, right?

There's a lot of money there as well.

Or if I'm talking to somebody doing irrigation who is now

offering French drains or some other number of design work,

right, hardscaping. There's so much that exists out

there. And for me personally, you know,

that was the reason I bought the Carpet monkeys, was to cross

pollinate and offer to my dry cleaning clients carpets and

tile and and and grout and stone.

And so these are the things we're talking about.

If any of this resonates with you as a listener, reach out

again. You got an ally in me who's

willing to talk till I'm blue in the face.

So take advantage. Well, I know we're a little bit

limited on time here coming up against a bumper here, but I

wanted to dive in a little bit, maybe more to the, the insight

you can provide, less on strategy and more on kind of

the, the emotions of a leader. You've lived a lot of life, had

a strong language, but somewhat failed career, a job you got

fired from, you know, returning to college as a older than

average student, Air Force career, owning businesses.

You've taken a lot of risk and dove into a lot of business.

This is at what point in that journey were you most afraid?

Great question. I'm not naturally a fearful guy.

I think if there was any fear that I had, it was probably

before I actually got fired. It was fear of the unknown.

And when I got fired, that fear came to fruition.

You know, like, we worry a lot about what we don't know.

And then sometimes if somebody solves that for us, we learn it

wasn't that bad. And so it's like, you know,

being afraid of fighting. And then one day, somebody just

punches you. You fall down, you get back up,

and you're like, that wasn't that bad.

So This is why I speak terminated my employment.

It was the best thing that happened to me.

And I, I know a lot of people say that and it sometimes it

sounds cliche, but in my case, I learned how to fail early and I

romanticized what failure look like.

I like failure now. I lean forward with it.

I welcome it. Why?

Because failure is just a word, another word for a lesson

learned. If you take the word failure and

you just replace it with a lesson learned, it romanticizes

that a lot of people don't want to fail because of how they how

they're perceived, how they look.

I don't care about any of that. Why?

If you zoom out far enough on us, Eric, we're pretty

inconsequential, you know? Yeah, it's pretty trivial, man.

You know, we're getting, we're not getting out alive, you know,

and I, and I am, I am a man of faith.

But at the same time, I recognize that my destiny is I

control. I control how I move and how I

function. And so to, to, to more

appropriately answer your question, the fear that I had

was more pronounced before that turning point in my career.

Afterwards, the perception of that fear changed.

And now I welcome it. And, and the sooner you welcome

it, the sooner you fail forward and learn from those lessons.

You actually turn the concept of the definition on its head.

And now you're like, bring it on.

Now you can get calculated. Robert Kiyosaki talks about this

all the time. He talks about it in Rich Dad.

Poor daddy said don't take risk, manage risk.

And it's a very important element, you know, you're not

just Willy nilly just doing stuff.

You need to think through this and you need to have a plan and

then that plan needs to be refined over a period of time

and that fear factor will then go down when you have a more

refined plan. Absolutely good advice there.

Do you have an? Opinion that you once held

strongly and because of your life experiences you've changed

your mind about. One opinion that I used to have

that I have completely changed. Now was that I wanted to do a

lot of things on my own and I didn't want to go into it with

partners. That was was a self limiting

feeling and behavior more than anything.

It wasn't that I didn't want to share equity, it was that I

didn't want to share the consequences of a bad decision.

But we're all grown-ups, we're all adults and I'm not engaging

in business unless you are an adult.

So we know those risks and we're just open and transparent about

those risks. So for me, I haste.

I used to maintain the idea that I would do it on my own and I

would definitely find I would find success before I brought

anybody in. But that that's the opposite.

It shouldn't be that way. If you do it on your own and you

find success, then you may not need to bring anybody in.

But if you bring somebody in, you can mitigate a little bit of

your risk. And now you have superpowers,

right? I'd work really well with people

if you asked me to go get into trigonometry and and calculus.

I'm probably not going to do the best with that.

So I will get somebody who's strong in that department and I

demonstrate strength in the department that they're

insufficient or weakened. And together we're stronger,

right? This concept of I'd rather have

10% of a watermelon than 100% of a grape is true.

It's very real. Jeff Bezos doesn't own all of

Amazon, right? And, and people, people think

that he does. He gave away, he raised capital

in exchange for the equity that he gave to his mom and dad, his

sister, his friends. I think he 70 people or, or

something like that. You are original owners of, of

Amazon, right? So that was something that has

changed over a period of time. I very much welcome it now.

And it's part of an abundance mentality.

That is to say, there's enough meat on the bone, there's enough

food at the table for all of us. And when there's not, we can

create more wonderful before we wrap up and let you get going.

To your next engagement, a question I ask of every guest.

You, you alluded to it just a moment ago, but are you a person

of a particular faith tradition? And if so, how does that affect

your leadership, how you conduct yourself in business, your path

as you built your businesses? Yeah, no, it's great.

Christian man raised Catholic. I believe in Jesus Christ.

For me, what that has done is given me a bit of a moral

compass that I use that I fall back on to try to do the right

thing even when no one is looking to try to be kind to

others and to be respectful and to treat everyone as if they

have value to give to you because they do.

And for me personally, I was raised in this manner and my mom

and dad and my brothers harped on this a lot.

And that is your level of respect for other people is

going to go a very long way. And so I, I don't, I don't half

step when it comes to that. I've taught my daughters the

same thing. My wife and I teach our kids

very similar principles and practices.

And that is how you do anything is how you do everything.

And so I try to be a man of my word, I try to hold myself

accountable to being the best version of myself, not to

compete with other people, but simply to compete with the

version of who Ricardo was yesterday.

And so my spirituality has allowed for me to sharpen what

that moral compass looks like, to treat everybody kindly, with

love, with compassion, respect. Not to be confused with the

elimination of consequences. There are consequences for

actions and we do need rule and order.

And I'm, I'm also a very big proponent of that.

But yeah, I would say in that sense, Eric, it's it's it's

really kind of not only lit my path, but allowed for me to know

where my guardrails are AT at all times.

And it's worked out thus far. Yeah, that's great.

And sometimes that rule and order comes in the.

Form of a ten, Yeah, that's right.

That's awesome. And you Swift.

Consequences in in store there. Yeah, awesome.

Well, thank you so much. I want to be.

Respectful of your time here. I really appreciate you making

you've made a lot of time to facilitate this and I know we're

just we're just barely scratching the surface of the

value that you bring. So I, I hope our listeners

engage with you. I know you run your own podcast,

you're on the blue collar millionaires.

You really do offer a lot of value in a lot of places.

So I hope they engage with you there and I I hope we get an

opportunity to speak again, whether it's on your show or

having you back here. You just have a lot of knowledge

and a lot of value, and I really appreciate you taking the time.

Well, listen, Eric, thank you so much.

The pleasure is mine. I appreciate your patience.

With me over the last couple of weeks and like I said, I'm here

if you need anything or if your listeners need anything.

Very happy to try to help out and to to dive in and and see

what we're working with. Awesome.

Well, thank you very much and thank you guys for joining.

Us here on From the Ground Up show.

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