Joining us is Mac Lackey, a true powerhouse in the business world. He started, scaled, and sold six businesses, along with raising $75M in capital, Mac has a lot to share.
We dive into making your clients dependent on your brand and the power of offering many services to fewer clients. He also discusses what are the opportunities when you reinvent yourself, and how to sell a business. Get ready to gain invaluable insights that can transform your business and drive unparalleled success.
Mac Lackey has been an entrepreneur his whole life. He has built, scaled and exited 6 businesses. Five of them were at an 8-figure exit or 8-figure in revenue so he has touched the 8-figure mark many times in his career. This week on Beyond 8 Figures, Mac reminisce the dot com crash and the 2008 real estate crash. Steve and Mac were stunned at the amount of businesses that weren’t able to navigate the crisis and eventually closed.
Mac shares that the real role of a founder is to navigate turbulence and to have staying power. Staying power means the ability to pivot to another way of serving your customers who are not buying your product. If you can sell a different product to an existing audience then you have given yourself staying power. Mac shares his experience in his first internet company in the mid 90’s starting it in a space where no one knows they need what you are trying to sell, having to educate a new industry and hire for jobs that don’t exist and then finally selling the “what is possible” vision to exit this company for millions in his 20’s.
Now’s the time, here is the neon sign, go do it and try something new but be careful of the “new” founders mistake don’t try to sell a market, find a product for a market that already wants it says Mac. If you have an idea, test for demand in the market and is that demand in cash? Mac suggests, you raise the capital to turn up the volume on something that is already working not the opposite. So many great nuggets in this interview be sure to tune in to get the rest!
Mac Lackey is an American entrepreneur who has started, scaled and sold six companies. Mac and his companies have been featured on CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Business North Carolina, USA Today and The New York Times. Notable ventures include: KYCK (acquired by NBC Sports), Mountain Khakis (acquired by Remington) and Internet Soccer Network (acquired by division of News Corp/Sky).He also served as a member of the Board of Directors for Lending Tree (NASDAQ: TREE) for over five years. Mac was a collegiate All-American and played professional soccer before starting his first Internet company in 1995.
[spp-tweet tweet=”Founders, your number one job is to figure out how to manage turbulence” @maclackey
In this episode, Steve, Mary, Richard, and Mac discuss:
- Make your clients chemically dependent on you, offer many services to fewer clients
- What are the opportunities when you reinvent yourself from a super star in one industry to unknown in another?
- What business was like on the internet in 1995
- How do you sell a business and enhance value “selling what’s possible”
Key Takeaways:
- Lessons from previous pivots from economy downturns
- What is the process and system to replicate an 8 figure business
- Founders need to manage turbulence
- Selling without a multiple
Best Advice I Ever Received:
Helping people achieve their goals and dreams is great business.
Best Advice I’d Give To Someone Who Wants To Build A $10m+ Business:
The fastest way to scale is through leveraged distribution. Finding someone who already has the customers you are trying to reach with your product/service.
Connect with Mac Lackey:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lackeymac
- Twitter: @MacLackey
- Website: http://maclackey.com
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/maclackey
- Email: mac@maclackey.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maclackey/
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