0 (2s):
Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs On Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network with great shows like Goal Digger. Today, we'll be chatting about done for you e-commerce to drop these value bombs. I brought Dawson Gant into EOFire studios. Dawson is a 22 year old serial entrepreneurial with a managed services company that oversees more than 250 online retail stores, a luxury car dealership, and an eight figure real estate company. Today, we'll be chatting about what a managed service company is and what exactly we can learn from it. Fire Nation, as well as the benefits, how you can get involved with companies like this and the most important lessons that Dawson's learned over his 22 years of being on this planet and acquiring such high levels of success and so much more Fire Nation.

0 (54s):
When we get back from thanking our sponsors, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs increase profitability by an average of 104% annually, all for less money than it would have cost to hire one minimum wage employee all on a month to month basis. Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former SBA entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire. Wondering what to do when you need motivation. Wish you had a go-to guy when it comes to preventing burnout tune in to Jenna Kutcher's The Goal Digger Podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Listen to The Goal Digger Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, Dawson say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 45s):
Perfect. Thanks so much for having me on again, what's up Fire Nation. So yeah, I think that what a big misconception about being successful is that you have to work really, really hard. You can't enjoy life. You have to put a ton of hours in and I would disagree with that. I think the most important thing is to work hard and when you're building and scaling to make sure that you hire the right people around you, because if you work really, really hard and you know, I use this analogy a lot. If you're swinging a hammer only you can swing that hammer, but if you have a, a really good team around you and they can all swing at a different hammer, then you're going to build a lot bigger empire. So I think it's much more important to work smart rather than working very, very hard.

0 (2m 26s):
Well being 22 years old, you definitely have the time to swing the hammer quite a few times with quite a few hands to build that empire that you aforementioned and today for nation, as I mentioned, we're going to be talking a little bit about done for you E commerce. So what first Dawson sparked your interest in entrepreneurship?

1 (2m 48s):
Yeah, so I started a real estate company in 2017 and that was my first taste of entrepreneurship. I was actually a real estate agent and then I started fixing and flipping and doing contracts and I've grown that company to a multi seven figure a year company. So that was like my first taste of entrepreneurship and what working smart can get you and where it can get you. Right. And then as I was in the world up until about two, two and a half years ago, I started realizing kind of the only flaw with real estate is it's very market dependent, meaning that if you know, I'm based on of Scottsdale right now, so Scott sells, market's very, very different than Mississippi's market and you can't have a large global audience because again, you're building a, a supply for, for local markets, right?

1 (3m 39s):
People only live where they want to live and it's, it's, it's in a very small market. So I've got into e-commerce with my two partners, Brandon and Tyler, about two and a half years ago. They had been in the business for, for roughly 10 years together. So they're a little bit older than me. And I saw an opportunity that, you know, would allow me to make money and, and provide a product or a service to people in any country because you know, people buy off of Amazon and Walmart from anywhere from Bangladesh to Canada to right here in Scottsdale Arizona. So that's kinda how I got started and why we kind of made the transition. Obviously I still have my real estate company, but I'm heavily focused on the e-commerce side of things now.

0 (4m 18s):
Well, you have quite a bit of experience of both owning and scaling a business. So kind of talk us through that because here at Entrepreneurs On Fire, we really like to get in the trenches and understand the journey, the ups, the downs, the successes, the failures. So what was that like for you?

1 (4m 37s):
I've been very, very fortunate to have really, really good people with me, but obviously that didn't happen overnight. And I think that if I was going to tell anybody anything about scaling personnel is so important who you have on your team and who's going to actually get in the trenches for you every day and then, you know, help build these companies is so important. I had at one time an office full of almost 30 people for my real estate company. And you know, now we're, we're pretty much a hundred percent virtual. I have only 10 American employees now, but I was able to leverage, you know, some really, really good connections and build out virtual assistant personnel and also keep, you know, the Americans that had the best interest of the company.

1 (5m 17s):
So I think that building any company, your personnel is the most important thing, because if you don't have people that share that vision with you and that are aligned and want to see you succeed and want to see the company succeed and want to succeed themselves, it's really, really hard to build, you know, a huge empire and built multiple companies that can do not only large numbers as far as financial, but also have a large impact on the world. So

0 (5m 40s):
F Y done for you commerce, that's a managed service company and you actually operate over 250 online stores at last count. So let's talk about what exactly your company DFY commerce does and, you know, really help us out by talking to us, maybe even defining what a managed service even is

1 (6m 2s):
And what we saw when we started our e-commerce businesses, that we had a lot of people that wanted to get involved in some, in some way, maybe it was people that had their own product and they wanted to get it on Walmart or Amazon, or they just wanted to be a part of e-commerce because they saw what a large market, you know, it's a multi-trillion dollar market, what a large market it could be. So after we had started running some stores for our friends and families, we decided to start offering it to clients. So what, what we do basically a done for you commerce, it's really just in the name. We, we do almost everything for our clients, from product procurement to actually fulfilling the products out of our warehouse in Scottsdale to making sure the products are profitable, pictures of products, all that good stuff.

1 (6m 46s):
And then, you know, when you have buyers on Amazon or Walmart, that may say, Hey, I was unhappy with the product, but one of our employees handles that. So we do manage everything. And you know, it's also a trend lately. We've, we've been in the business for quite a few years and we see that, you know, e-commerce is super trendy the last 12 months. And, and a lot of people want to provide automation, but we don't really agree with the word automation because it's not an automated passive business. It's not, you know, a stock portfolio, this pain, you dividends, it's a real business that, you know, you can either run on your own or you can choose to leverage a company like ours to manage it. Right? So we have employees that are working hours for you, you know, every hour you have up to seven employees working on your store.

1 (7m 26s):
So that's why we went the route of a managed service company, because at the end of the day, that's what we are doing. You know, you, you pay us a consultant fee and we're running the store for you, but it's still your business. And it's still, you know, you have some say in the products and the final decisions, obviously,

0 (7m 41s):
And there's a lot to kind of take in here. And I kind of do like the fact that, you know, it's not all about just automation. There has to be some personal flavor up in this as well. If you're really going to make this work in a meaningful way. And we have a lot to get to on the specifics. When we get back from thanking our sponsors being customer centric means focusing on what matters most building and growing sustainable customer relationships, maintaining unique customer needs and personalizing the customer experience. If you can do this right, then you're already a step ahead of the competition. And a HubSpot CRM platform is designed to help you do this best build, maintain, and personalize your customer's experience into a remarkable one.

0 (8m 24s):
How do they do it with a CRM powered CMS? This means both your marketers and developers can personalize the customer experience and ensure all engagements are timely and relevant, no more miscommunications internally or with your customers. Also, you can be connected to your shared inbox, no matter where you are. This offers secure customer portals to keep ticket conversations going between customers and reps offers access to your knowledge base, and it can be customized to fit your brands. No coding required. Learn more about how a HubSpot CRM platform can help build, maintain, and grow your customer relationships at hubspot.com, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs increase profitability by an average of 104% annually, all for less money than would cost to hire one minimum wage employee all on a month to month basis.

0 (9m 12s):
Fire Nation meet Clay Clark. Clay has been coaching businesses since 2006. Yep. Even through the great recession and he does it for less money than it would cost to hire a minimum wage employee Inc. Magazine reports that by default 96% of businesses will fail within 10 years. Yeah. Clay's clients grow by an average of 104% annually. How's it seem impossible. Clay only takes on 160 clients. So he personally designed your business plan. Plus Clay's team helps you execute that plan with access to graphic designers, Google certified search engine, optimizers, web developers, ad managers, videographers workflow, mappers and accounting coaches visit thrive time show.com/fire to watch thousands of testimonials from real entrepreneurs who Clay's helped over the years.

0 (9m 55s):
Do your research. If you thousands of documented success stories from real people, like you ThrivetimeShow.com/fire, then schedule your free consultation with Clay himself to see how he can help you with proven business coaching on a month to month commitment basis, ThrivetimeShow.com/fire. So Friday we're back. And to us, I want to talk about specifics like specifically foreign nations listing. And they're like, wow, 250 online stores that are being managed. You know, obviously there's that luxury car dealership, eight figure real estate company. I mean, you have a lot that's going on. So you figured some stuff out. Let's talk about how our listeners, how Fire Nation, or just how a person in general could get involved with a company like this

1 (10m 39s):
And reach out to us. Obviously I have Instagram installing Dan, but we do have a website, DFY, commerce.com. And if you're interested in potentially becoming a client, you know, you decided that you want to take advantage of the trillion dollar market that is e-commerce and start selling some products online and, you know, increase your market availability and go global. That's something we're happy to talk about. We have a ton of really, really talented account managers that went to talk about the specifics with you and get you guys started. And, you know, we're wrapping up Q4 and you know, most of our clients, we actually just did a census or a little bit over 300 clients. Now they're making pretty sizable money. You know, it's, it's definitely not change your life money where you're going to get to retire, but it does help what a lot of our clients will call it as, you know, comfortability money, right?

1 (11m 25s):
It pays a car note every month. It pays a mortgage. Maybe it, it affords them a nice vacation every couple of months. So, you know, making five to $10,000 online is, is really, really nice because, you know, they can work their day job. And when they hire a company like ours to manage it, they're able to still focus on their passions or maybe it's a, you know, a w two job that they're still focused on or, or a tertiary business that they want to scale up. And they just want to make sure they have a little bit of income on the side in order to, you know, provide more comfortability, right? Like provide a little bit of ease. You know, they're not worried about paying their rent. They're not worried about paying their car notes cause they have a little bit of money coming in

0 (12m 5s):
Comfortability money. I like that phrase and Fire Nation. I'm sure that an extra five, 10, maybe even if you're really rocking it $15,000 per month, you know, would be a big help for most individuals in this world for very obvious reasons. And you did talk about some of the benefits to Austin, but let's get into a couple more like what really are the big benefits of getting involved with a company like that?

1 (12m 29s):
Our ideal client and someone that's going to really take the benefits and run with it as someone that, you know, like I said already has maybe a really good paying W2 job or, you know, has businesses that takes their time, their sweat equity and that they can come and pay us a consultant fee in order to kind of put their equity in, in dollars rather than sweat equity. And they're looking for something that's going to scale up in the next six months to a year and make that five to $10,000. That's the ideal client, right? We want, we want clients that are using this as a second vehicle to build a wealth and build income. And that's the client that's really gonna be able to take advantage of this because again, like you and myself, time is the most viable thing to us.

1 (13m 10s):
We can pay for someone else's time to manage something like this, but still reap the benefits of being an online seller. That's the most beautiful thing. There's, there's some other underlying benefits as well. Like I have got over a couple million American express points, right? So that's really cool. Once you start selling on these products and you're getting credit card benefits and things like that, you get to travel for free. You get to, you know, get cashback rewards, things like that. That's not really calculated into the, the monthly income that this store would make you, it's also just kind of a park, you know, so we have a lot of clients that have their main gig and, and they want to continue that, but they're just looking for some diversification, right? And maybe they're in crypto, they have some real estate rentals, but they're looking for something that's going to be a really, really good cash on cash return to add to their portfolio.

0 (13m 57s):
So before we let you go here today, let's kind of get into some important lessons that you've learned over your journey. Like really give us some takeaways that, you know, of course you would know. Now, if you had to start out completely from scratch, that you would make sure that you implemented in your life

1 (14m 14s):
Top three or four takeaways is making sure that you do business with people that align with your end goal. I very young obviously started a couple of businesses and I had a couple of businesses not do so good. I think it's important to talk about losses. I had a couple of businesses fail that, you know, I tried to bootstrap from the ground up because at the end of the day, the business that I had jumped into, maybe the partners or the employees or, or over all the business model, didn't really align with my end goal. So being strict on that, you know, doing business with people you align with invest the money with people you align with is very, very important to me. The second thing that kind of builds off of that is, you know, always holding true to your ethics and your morals because there's been situations where, you know, maybe I could have made an extra few dollars, but I would have to go against my ethics or morals.

1 (15m 2s):
And at the end of the day, it always pays off to be authentic. I tell people that, you know, when you're, when you're authentic, you really don't have the competition in this world because there's only one of you, right? So at the end of the day, there's only one Dawson GaN, as long as I'm authentic as possible, I'm not going to have competition because there's no one like me, just like, there's no one, like, you know, Joe blow down the street because that's who he is. So those are really, really important things for me. And then the last thing I say would be bet on yourself. If you're going to take a risk, the most highest payoff risk is to bet on yourself. There's been a lot of times in life as I was building businesses that, you know, maybe it wasn't the best play, but I knew that I was going to work hard and I was going to work smart and get it done.

1 (15m 46s):
So I'd bet on myself. And it ended up paying off really, really heavily in the long run

0 (15m 50s):
Fire Nation, do business with people that aligned with your end goals. I mean, it's easy to say, but I mean, you really gotta make sure you follow through with this hold true to your ethics and morals. I mean, you have a gut, you had intuition for a reason, follow that embedded in yourself, invest in yourself. People are like John, I've got an extra $10,000. Where should I do with it? Should I put it on in crypto? I'm like, well, what about betting on yourself? What about investing in yourself? I mean, what, what better long-term play? Can you make than in yourself and Dawson, you shared a lot of awesome stuff throughout this entire episode. Give us the one key takeaway you really want to make sure Fire Nation gets when they look back at this episode.

1 (16m 29s):
I think that it would still be the first thing I mentioned today is a work smart. Don't work hard. There's a lot of ways you can save a few dollars while, you know, maybe not paying for mentorship or investing in yourself because you think, you know, it all or paying for a service or anything like that. But if it's going to take a lot of time, you know, I like to look at everything is like, how much do I make an hour at my peak performance? Yeah. And if there's, I can buy out, you know, hire employees and hire services or, you know, masterminds to cut that time down so I can make the most money possible for my hour of work. I do that. So I'm really big on working smart, not hard.

0 (17m 5s):
Give us one final call to action for Fire Nation to connect with you with your company. And then we'll say goodbye.

1 (17m 12s):
Awesome. Yep. So the best way to schedule a call with one of my account managers is Dfycommerce.com. You know, these guys work all the time. They're happy to take your call, answer questions, get specifics and see how we guys can make a symbiotic relationship.

0 (17m 25s):
Dfycommerce.com. Get on a call Fire Nation, learn more. Your time right now is worthwhile taking steps like this in Fire Nation. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with DG in JL D today. So keep up the heats head over to EOFire.com type Dawson in the search bar. The notes page will pop up with links to everything that we've been talking here today. Dawson, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge value with Fire Nation today. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thanks so much. Hey, Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by Dawson and Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals.

0 (18m 8s):
That's why I created the freedom journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in a hundred days, and we're talking, step-by-step visit the freedom journal.com and I'll catch you there, or I'll catch you on the flip side, looking for a business coach who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs increase profitability by an average of 104% annually, all for less money than it would cost to hire one minimum wage employee all on a month to month basis. Schedule your free consultation today with Clay Clark, a former SBA entrepreneur of the year at ThrivetimeShow.com/fire. Wondering what to do when you need motivation. Wish you had a go-to guy when it comes to preventing burnout tune in to Jenna Kutcher's The Goal Digger Podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Listen to The Goal Digger Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.