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Episode 3: Keep an eye out for surprise opportunities with Drew McLellan
156 Plays8 years ago
There’s a fallacy out there that only the rich get richer and anyone who builds great wealth did it through some brilliant master plan. Our podcast guest and Uncommon Wealth Partner client, Drew McLellan’s story should serve as a reminder that you can start anywhere and if you’re willing to be open to opportunities, take the right risks and being very clear about how you want your life to be – anyone can build an amazing life and financial freedom.
In this episode of The Uncommon Life Project podcast Drew talks about the shift from employee to entrepreneur and how he has used each step of his journey as the launch pad for his next step.
Listen to his story and learn how opportunities began presenting themselves once he stepped into being a business owner and how he leveraged each opportunity to create and grow four companies and use each one to strengthen and grow the others.
Drew believes the most valuable currency generated by his businesses is freedom. Hear how he used that freedom to live the life of his dreams –an active, engaged, parent and son, checking off traveling to all of the continents with his daughter and spending at least one month a year on Disney property.
Drew reminds us all that the opportunities are all around us. We just have to be smart enough to see them and brave enough to chase them.
Drew McLellan has worked in advertising for 30+ years and started his own agency, McLellan Marketing Group in 1995 after a five-year stint at one of the world’s largest agencies, Young & Rubicam.
He is considered a national marketing expert. He launched MMG’s blog in 2006 and it has been on the AdAge Top 150 from the list's inception in 2008.
Drew’s writing has appeared in Forbes, The Washington Post, Entrepreneur Magazine, New York Times, CNN, BusinessWeek, and many others. The Wall Street Journal calls him “one of 10 bloggers every entrepreneur should read.”
He also owns and runs Agency Management Institute, McLellan Properties and Drew McLellan Unlimited. What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How Drew shifted from employee to entrepreneur
- How anyone can embark on owning their first piece of rental property
- The relationship between worry/risk and the rewards of being self-employed
- Business ownership, even after 25 years, is not a bed of roses
- The price tag on freedom
- How to design the life you want and then build income streams to support that life
- The importance of recognizing and exploiting surprise opportunities
- Creating your own bank and accumulating wealth through whole life insurance
- The reality that making money is about choices and consequences. You have to be willing to give up something.
- When you work to serve others with a genuine heart, you will make money.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Uncommon Life Concept
00:00:02
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit.
Podcast Purpose and Hosts Introduction
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
00:00:27
Speaker
A life worth celebrating and savoring. Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey. Welcome everybody to the Uncommon Life Project. This is your host, Philip Ramsey. And this is Brian Dewhurst. Thank you so much for listening to us, everyone. This is going to be an amazing episode this week.
Guest Introduction: Drew McClellan
00:00:45
Speaker
We have one of our favorite people to talk to, and I think he's going to be one of your favorites, too. His name is Drew McClellan. Man, he is a rock star. Welcome, Drew. Thanks for having me.
00:00:56
Speaker
Absolutely. So let's just talk really quick about Drew, his background. He's been in at least 25 years a marketing veteran, serves his clients very well. He also runs a different company called the Agency Management Institute where he teaches other marketers. He coaches them on how to be better marketers. And he has a third company, the McClellan Properties. And so he's got a lot of things going on. And my hope for this whole thing is just to give his listeners
00:01:25
Speaker
a little bit more inside of how he runs his business, how he has such a successful business, as well as give our listeners just a different way to go through this whole residual income and working off different businesses and how they all fit together. This is a great person to talk to. So he loves to create aha moments for his clients. We've definitely been a part of that. And so he's
00:01:51
Speaker
Written books brian you tell about that yes it is on the world's top marketing and branding bloggers according to add ages top one fifty index he's written the book ninety nine point three random acts of marketing co editing the age of conversation series books and he has launched a he wants mcclellan marketing group back in nineteen ninety five.
00:02:10
Speaker
He recently appeared in the New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, Business Week, and Fortune Small Business. And the Wall Street Journal calls him one of the top 10 bloggers that every entrepreneur should read. He also owns his own podcast called Build a Better Agency, which he helps his listeners scale and grow their own agencies. Again, we hope this podcast gives you guys a little insight on his listeners or for his listeners, just maybe give them a little bit different perspective.
00:02:36
Speaker
because he's usually the host and so now he gets to be the interviewee. So welcome Drew, welcome to the show. Thanks very much, glad to be here.
Drew's Journey to Entrepreneurship
00:02:43
Speaker
Alright Drew, so let's just start because it obviously hasn't been roses and sunshines for you and it sounds like it is now and I believe it 100% to be true but let's talk about before this was all happening when you're more of the common working for somebody else kind of employee mindset, let's talk about that a little bit.
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think a lot of people who find themselves as an entrepreneur or business owner, that wasn't really my plan. I think people who are in college today or in their 20s today, they were exposed to the idea of being an entrepreneur
00:03:17
Speaker
in a much bigger, broader way than I was. I'm almost 55. When I went to college, my assumption was I was going to work for somebody else for my whole career and that I might rise to the rank of president at someone else's agency. Honestly, it never occurred to me that I would want to be a business owner. I started my career. I worked for great agencies and things were fine.
00:03:43
Speaker
But I had the normal constraints that an employee has. I could only make as much money as my employer allowed me to make. I had a set number of vacation days. I didn't have a very flexible schedule. So there was nothing wrong with my life, but it wasn't everything that it could be.
00:04:02
Speaker
Sure. Let's talk about the good things back then because obviously there's good things and bad things. What were the good things that you were dealing with when you were an employee working your way up the corporate
Agency vs Corporate Work Benefits
00:04:12
Speaker
ladder? Yeah. Well, remember, I was never on the corporate side. I've only worked in agencies my whole life, so there's a vast difference, thank God, between corporations. Sure. But the good side of that was I didn't have to worry about making payroll. I didn't have to worry about whether or not we got a new client because I got a paycheck
00:04:34
Speaker
I never worried about all of the administrative expenses or hassles of negotiating with lawyers or leases or any of the stuff that comes with being an entrepreneur, especially an entrepreneur with employees, which I have.
00:04:50
Speaker
The worry factor was very different, but the worry factor and the opportunity factor are sort of in alignment. I didn't have to worry as much, but my opportunities were capped as well. I didn't realize that it never occurred to me until I stepped out on my own.
00:05:10
Speaker
that, yes, there were more worries and there still are even today. I mean, I don't want to blow smoke up anybody's skirt. There's still days where you go, okay, seriously, what am I doing? But all of a sudden I began to see that there were opportunities at a scale that I had never imagined before. Yes. So let's dive in on that, Drew. Walk us through those opportunities and the mindset shift that took place to owning your
Balancing Work and Family Life
00:05:35
Speaker
own agency.
00:05:35
Speaker
Well, you know, for me, the biggest opportunity was, you know, I have a daughter who's today 24 years old, but back then she was a baby. And then as my business grew, obviously, so did she. And while making more money was certainly a part of it for me, and that happened within the first year or two of starting my own agency.
00:05:56
Speaker
For me, the biggest currency, the biggest value of being self-employed was the freedom that it gave me. So I took my daughter to school every day, and I picked my daughter up from school, you know, at 3, 3.30, depending on what grade she was in, every single day. And then I hung out with her after school. So when she was ripe with news or whatever was going on, you know, I got it. It was fresh. And then I would work what I called the second shift after she went to bed, right?
00:06:25
Speaker
Or when she got older, when she was doing homework, I was doing homework. But the freedom to be able to do that, the freedom to take as much vacation as I wanted to, the freedom to be able to work from wherever I happened to be on the globe without having to check in or count it against a certain number of vacation days, that for me was really the ultimate freedom. It allowed me to be the kind of parent that I wanted to be. And I wouldn't have been able to do that as somebody's employee, not at the level that I did.
00:06:54
Speaker
So, when you talk about like that missing component, you talked about just the time with your daughter. So, when you first started, I think we're really feeling this like, I guess, undertone of just the sacrifice that you had to sacrifice. And for me, I heard that you had to sacrifice obviously your time because at first, you were just a father and then when she went to bed, then you were a business owner.
00:07:17
Speaker
So tell me, when you were sacrificing that, how big of a pull was the steady paycheck?
Building a Business Around Life Goals
00:07:25
Speaker
Because I feel like as entrepreneurs, we talk about the good of the old life, right? The common life. And sometimes that can outweigh what we're doing in the present. Did you ever have any moments where you thought, man, that steady paycheck is really appealing up at 2 o'clock in the morning? Or did you ever just, maybe you never had that?
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, for me, I never experienced that. I loved being able to decide what the business that I represented was all about. I loved being able to serve clients the way I thought they should be served. I loved the freedom of
00:08:03
Speaker
Not taking a paycheck if the business needed me not to but or taking an extra paycheck if the business had additional funds sure, but I love being in control of my own destiny and really shaping what my professional life would be like and understanding for the first time that I could build a business or as it is today businesses and
00:08:28
Speaker
that I first figured out what I wanted my life to be, and then I let the businesses support that. And no job is gonna ever do that for me, right? So for me, the sacrifices were and are worth the upside of it, which is huge, both financially and in every other way that an entrepreneur talks about the perks of being self-employed.
00:08:52
Speaker
Absolutely. What was your plan? How did you walk through that? When you first started, obviously you had to sit down and kind of craft this whole entrepreneurial, uncommon life. How did you start with that plan? Where did that go for you? Well, in fairness, if there's a theme to the way I've built my businesses,
00:09:14
Speaker
The theme would be being smart enough to recognize dumb luck when it kicked me in the rear end. So when I started the agency, it never occurred to me that I would have multiple businesses or I would be able to leverage the tax advantages that come with being an entrepreneur. I just wanted to do it. I just wanted to do the agency life the way I thought it should be done. That was sort of the extent of my lofty goals.
00:09:41
Speaker
And all of a sudden as opportunities presented themselves as i got smarter about tax strategy and things like that. All of a sudden i was taking advantage of those and then the real estate company honestly was.
Expansion and Opportunities in Business
00:09:56
Speaker
My daughter was getting ready to go to college and I had this big old house that I had raised her in that the cat and I did not need to live in a five bedroom, five bathroom house. I was trying to sell it. Well, I was trying to sell it when the market was slow and I had a great real estate agent and he said, well, why don't you use it as an executive rental? And I was like, what are you talking about?
00:10:19
Speaker
And he was like, oh my gosh, there's all this demand for the pioneers and the principles of the world bring these executives in. And their spouses are like, Des Moines, Iowa, maybe not. So a lot of them rent for a year to see if they want to stay. And he said, it's a huge market and we can't find enough houses like yours because they obviously want to live in a nice neighborhood in a great school district in a great house.
00:10:44
Speaker
So that was the stupid way that I started my real estate company. But I was smart enough to go, I want to downsize to a townhouse. I had the resources because of business number one. In essence, to float owning that house and buying a townhouse. And I immediately got renters. I immediately figured out how to do that in terms of the tax strategies and all of that. I became a student of real estate. And then I was like, I could leverage this house.
00:11:13
Speaker
to buy other houses and properties. So now I own a bunch. So that was dumb luck. And Agency Management Institute, I was a customer of that organization for many years as an agency owner. The guy came to me and said, I want to retire. I think you're the guy. And long story short, first I was like, I don't want to be the guy. And then I realized I kind of did want to be the guy.
00:11:35
Speaker
And we cut a deal and all of a sudden now what that business does for me is, as you guys know, I'm on 200 planes a year. And I'm staying in a hotel, as you can tell by the background, a lot, right? Because this is not what my house looks like.
00:11:51
Speaker
So what I realized from that is that one of the freedoms that is most important to me is to be able to travel with my daughter.
Leveraging Personal Interests in Business
00:11:58
Speaker
So our goal is to visit every continent before she's done with school. She's in nursing, a nursing program now. She got her undergrad and now she's in the nursing program. And we only have three or four, I think three continents left. But what I didn't really realize was flying on 200 planes means you have a lot of money.
00:12:20
Speaker
Right. There are a lot of perks around it. The other thing that was a big goal for me is that I love Walt Disney World. I've been on Disney property at least once a year since it opened in 1971. That's the depth of my love for Disney World. I want to be there a lot. Well, you know what? One of my businesses teaches public workshops and I can hold them anywhere I want to.
00:12:45
Speaker
So, guess what? In January of every year, I spend three weeks on Disney property at my company's expense and people actually pay me to be there because I'm teaching workshops there.
00:12:59
Speaker
How awesome is that? It's uncommon. But if you would have rolled back to 1995 and said, hey, Drew, you're starting this new agency, how is that going to help you live on Disney property at least a month a year, which we know would make you happy? I would have gone, I have no idea. But I was always open.
00:13:18
Speaker
to the opportunities that were presented, and I have exploited them to the nth degree to try and create this life that I want to have. Yeah, absolutely. That's really neat. So I want to kind of key in on that. You had McClellan Marketing Agency, which is kind of a marketing agency in the traditional sense that people might
00:13:41
Speaker
might interact with. And then you are presented with an opportunity to purchase another business, which is a coaching program that teaches other marketing agency owners how to be the best they can be. Is that correct?
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah. So I feel a little like that, you know, those hair club commercials where the guy goes, I'm not just the owner of the company, but I'm a, I'm a client too. So I, I, I as an agency owner was a part of this organization. And when the founder wanted to sell it,
00:14:12
Speaker
he offered it to me and I bought it. So all of a sudden the student became the teacher. And so now when I go out and I talk to other agency owners, what they love is the fact that I still also own an agency because I understand the pain that they go through every day because I'm doing it as well. But I also work with 250 agencies. So there are some best practices that I'm able to teach them that I've employed in my own business.
00:14:38
Speaker
that allow them to do their work better and smarter and make more money. So yeah, so I have those two businesses that sort of run concurrently and support each other. And then I have the real estate thing on the side. Sure. And so when we talk to our clients about residual income, you know, business is obviously one of the most important that we feel. So you've got that. And now you've added the real estate portfolio.
Financial Strategies and Life Insurance
00:15:02
Speaker
which is another key component. I also share infinity for Disney and the first time I was there, I got to go, there's a little movie theater in the park in Florida and they have a little 10-minute video on Walt Disney and they talk about the genesis for the idea of the theme parks. He was taking his daughters on daddy-daughter dates and he couldn't find anything to do. He was bored and that was actually how the theme park came about.
00:15:28
Speaker
And the banks, when he went to the banks to finance it, they thought he was crazy. And he ended up taking a loan from a life insurance policy to start Disneyland in California. So I know you also share an affinity for life insurance. So could you talk about how you've integrated life insurance into your strategy? Yeah, so one of the challenges of being an entrepreneur, obviously, and somebody who is leveraging every tax strategy that they can,
00:15:55
Speaker
To minimize their you know their tax burden so i'm all about paying. My fair share of taxes but i am really a poor the idea of paying more than my fair share which by the way for many years early in my business before i got smart about it i think now about the checks that i wrote to the irs water a little bit right.
00:16:15
Speaker
Anyway, as I've gotten smarter about tax strategy, I'm less attractive to banks. I own all these real estate properties. I'm self-employed twice. A lot of banks are like, I'm sorry, you want to buy a what?
00:16:35
Speaker
I knew that I needed, I needed in essence to be my own bank. I needed to be able to have this pool of money that I could borrow and pay back and borrow and pay back along with, you know, obviously I have HELOCs on a lot of my properties and I'm leveraging the equity in those properties now because I've paid most of them off. So now I'm leveraging the home equity of those to buy more properties, but I still needed a big pot of money that was bigger than what I HELOC might give me.
00:17:05
Speaker
So and I know sooner or later banks are gonna go no you cannot have yet another HELOC, right? So I I you know in full transparency somebody was talking to me about you guys a mutual friend of ours and was telling me about this idea of Overfunded whole life policies cash value like policies and I didn't know anything about it
00:17:28
Speaker
So fortunately, I'm a pretty good student and a great reader. I can read quickly. So I went out and got a bunch of books. I read about it. And then I reached out to you. And so now I've got two policies. I have one on myself and I have one on my daughter.
00:17:43
Speaker
and i use that as i think of it as the mcclellan private bank right so when i need fifty thousand dollars. I need it in a hurry i don't have to have a discussion with anybody i just trigger the loan feature of those policies borrow it.
00:18:01
Speaker
and then I can either pay it back in whole or I can pay back just the interest. Again, my daughter's 24. She's going to get plenty of money when I die. In fact, I don't like to go down the stairs in front of her because it's just not a smart move. Even if I am out $100,000 on my
00:18:23
Speaker
$3 million worth of life insurance because of the value of the life insurance keeps growing, right? So even if I'm out $100,000 and I haven't paid that back, well, they just take that out before they give her the rest of her $3 million. She'll be fine, right? So for me, it's just another way to be ready to, again, keeping in mind that my entrepreneurial theme is dumb luck followed by being smart enough to recognize that
00:18:50
Speaker
good fortune is kicking me in the rear end. So I need to be ready because it's not always some well thought out five year in the making plan. It's just something presents itself that I want to take advantage of and I need the money this week or next week. And even if the bank was excited about lending me money, we know how the speed at which a bank moves, right?
00:19:13
Speaker
So, this way, I can literally have $100,000 or whatever dollar amount I want in my checking account within a few days. And that flexibility and that freedom and not having to provide tax forms or my P&L year-to-date or any of that kind of stuff, because guess what? I'm a very lenient banker to me, right? So, I don't ask for any forms. I just give me the money.
00:19:38
Speaker
It's actually a very freeing feeling when you have that. And so it's great to hear you talk about that, especially how you integrate it in your plan. So for me, the greatest luxury of being where I'm at today.
Personal Reflections and Legacy Planning
00:19:51
Speaker
So again, remember, I've owned my own business for almost 25 years. So this didn't happen overnight. It was a bunch of small little steps. But I will tell you the freedom today of knowing that I spent the last five years being the caretaker for my mom.
00:20:07
Speaker
And she passed away about a year ago and having the freedom to come and go and care for her, to have the money to do what I needed to do to make sure that she was well taken care of, that she lived in a facility, that she had her own room and she had private nursing and she had a level of care that was worthy of my mom. To have the freedom to do that, that's an incredible luxury. And then when my mom passed away,
00:20:35
Speaker
I wanted to commemorate her, to memorialize her in a way that would go on forever. And to be able to pick up the phone and call a university and say, hey, I want to start a scholarship in my mom's name and I want to fund it in a way that forever and ever people will know who my mom is and what she was about. And to have the money to do that.
00:20:57
Speaker
That's an incredible blessing. And that's every day I am aware of how fortunate I am that I'm in this position. And I'm not a bazillionaire. Like, you know, I drive a Jeep, right? I'm not talking about, and I live in a three bedroom townhouse in Des Moines, Iowa. Yeah.
00:21:16
Speaker
but I'm planning a trip to Australia with my daughter and we're not gonna stay in crappy hotels and we're not flying coach, right? So where I want to spend money, I have the money to spend. That's an incredible luxury and blessing that I would have never ever had as somebody else's
Mentorship and Trusted Advisors
00:21:35
Speaker
employee. So good.
00:21:36
Speaker
So you talked about your mother and I know how special she was to you Tell us about the other maybe she is your kind of mentor in your career and in your life Tell us other mentors in your life can talk about those or who are you surrounding yourself with to help you? Live this uncommon life. So I think
00:21:57
Speaker
Think you have mentors at all kinds of levels. So without a doubt my parents have sort of taught me about what matters and family and Honor and commitment to the people that are in your life. I mean my parents were great role models around that
00:22:12
Speaker
And my dad is still alive and still continues. I talk to him almost every day and we talk about everything from business to what's going on with my daughter to his world. And so he helps keep me grounded. And my mom was that for me as well. But in terms of mentors, so I have people in my professional life that keep teaching me how to do my own business better.
00:22:37
Speaker
In a lot of ways, my clients, my customers are great mentors because I learn by teaching them, I learn a lot from them. But then I've also realized that I need a pool of people around me. So literally I have a list of advisors and this sounds morbid and I don't mean to, but I have a list of people who if something happens to me, my daughter needs to call right away.
00:23:00
Speaker
They're the people who have helped me put together this life. So they're people like you guys and the financial planner who I started with a long time ago that I still have a little bit of stuff with, my tax guy, my attorney. So I've surrounded myself with professionals who help me explore what's possible and help me make it happen. And so one of the things that I love about those people, so when I call you guys and I go, hey, I have a crazy idea.
00:23:30
Speaker
You never go, no, you can't do that. You step in and go, how can we help you make, let's figure out a way to make that work. How do we do that? As you know, one of the things I've done is I've started to marry those advisors and those mentors. You guys talk to my tax guy all the time, right?
00:23:49
Speaker
because I need somebody to help me look at the big picture and sort all this out because finance and investment and taxes, all of that money and math stuff, that's not my background. I need to have people around me
00:24:05
Speaker
who can explain it to me in little words very slowly so I can track with it and figure out how it fits into the grand scheme of this life that I'm building. Yeah, and I would say too just for Eric's just working with your tax guy.
00:24:21
Speaker
He educates and that's the way we feel like we do, right? You come up with an idea, we educate, you tell us where you want to go. Instead of you come to us, we sell you something, we close you and then you feel sleazy on the way out, right? There's definitely this common respect between the people that we work with for our clients and we never sell. We always educate and that's something that really resonates with you and many of our clients and so I appreciate you saying that.
00:24:47
Speaker
I think you're, I want to go back to one thing. You're in a unique position with all these business owners that you meet and get to spend time with year in, year out.
Business Scaling Challenges
00:24:57
Speaker
Looking at the transformation that you even said is taking you decades to get to this spot, right? What's like the one or two things that as you see with all the business owners you're working with that are preventing them from kind of giving themselves permission to go to this next level or this life they want to design?
00:25:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great question. So I think in a lot of cases, um, I think people who own businesses, especially if they have employees make a couple of mistakes. Number one, they don't really often understand. And one of the roles that I play with our clients is they don't really understand sort of the metrics that they should use to run their business.
00:25:34
Speaker
So how much money should I make from a client? What is an acceptable rate of return on that client? And then when I get the pot of money, how do I divvy that pot of money up appropriately so there's money left at the bottom line for me? Because what a lot of business owners do is they spend all of their money on their people and overhead and there's nothing left for them. And I was guilty of that in the beginning of
00:25:59
Speaker
winning the business until I really started to learn how to make sure that there was a net profit at the end and what to do with that in a way that it didn't just all go to Uncle Sam. Because if that's going to be the case, I might as well just give it to my people. I'd rather have them have it, right?
00:26:14
Speaker
So, number one, it's about understanding how to run their business in a way that is profitable for them. Number two, it's how to get the money out of the business. That's the other mistake they make. They leave it inside the business. So most of them are S-corps or LLCs. They pay tax on that money because it's passed through, but they don't get it out. And then they end up petering it away on bad business decisions as opposed to building their wealth outside of their business while they own their
00:26:43
Speaker
business. That's the biggest mistake I see business owners make is that we have this unique opportunity to build wealth. And again, it could be, you could own real estate like I do. You could own, you know, race horses. You could own fine art that, you know, is going to appreciate over time. I don't care. You could invest in the market. I don't really care what you do, but get it out of your business and put it someplace else, diversify your opportunities and create that passive income
00:27:13
Speaker
outside of the business so that you're creating an essence. So if at the end of the day, I don't sell any of my businesses, it doesn't matter.
Diversifying Income Streams
00:27:22
Speaker
Will I sell at least one of them, if not more of them? Of course I will. And will I eventually either liquidate the real estate or will it to my daughter? Absolutely. But I've built up enough other opportunities outside of say my agency, which was my original business, that if I end up just locking the door someday when I'm 82 and don't want to do it anymore,
00:27:43
Speaker
Okay that's fine but most business owners don't put themselves in that position so i think the biggest mistake they make is they think that there's some big pay out down the road as opposed to realizing that they have to create their own payout and they need to start today even if it's a buck today and two bucks tomorrow and five bucks in a month.
00:28:04
Speaker
and $10 by the end of the year, you start where you start. Again, my start was just keeping a house I had already bought. That was my start of diversifying my own portfolio. I have the 401K and I have some investments. I'm not saying I didn't do that, but in terms of really controlling my wealth and wealth being a relative term, but controlling my nest egg, whatever that is,
00:28:34
Speaker
in a business or businesses where I can sort of amplify my opportunities, that took me a while to figure out. And I think sometimes I wonder where would I be if I had done it when I was 30 rather than 45.
00:28:49
Speaker
Yeah. We talk about residual income a lot with our clients and that's exactly what we say is, yeah, that business is one form of residual income, but what are we going to do about the other six? You know, let's start pulling out that money and creating this other passive income outside of that. And so it ends up insulating, ensuring, or limiting your risk way quicker if you do that instead of keeping it on your business. So kudos to you.
00:29:15
Speaker
Drew, you've got a lot going on. What are you most excited about looking forward?
Future Business Projects and Client Focus
00:29:21
Speaker
In some ways, and this sounds odd given that I've owned these businesses for many years, that we've just scratched the surface on what's possible to do.
00:29:32
Speaker
There's always new ways to serve our clients and help them be better and get to their goals faster. So for me, even though I didn't know it at the time, I clearly have this entrepreneurial bent where it's like, why would I leave my company the same as it was a year ago when I could make it better? And what I love about that is when I make it better for my clients,
00:29:58
Speaker
they make it better for me, right? So if I do what's right for them and I build out products and services that genuinely help them grow their business, whether it's on the agency side or the AMI side, that's a beautiful thing for me too, right? Because they keep buying this stuff and they keep telling their friends about it and driving more traffic to us. And it all comes from simply wanting to keep getting better on their behalf. So what I'm most excited about is,
00:30:28
Speaker
We have some really big new projects queued up for 2018 that I think are really going to help people in a way that we have not been able to help them up to this point. So I'm super excited about that.
00:30:43
Speaker
Um, and I'm excited about the fact that it's going to drive more revenue into the businesses, which allows me to buy more houses and go to more continents and spend more time at Disney world. So it's all good. You know, and again, it allows me to put more money into my mom's scholarship fund and all of the things that matter to me. I, for the most part, I get to do.
00:31:04
Speaker
It's amazing. Okay, so you talked a little bit about what's next.
Seizing Opportunities and Personal Growth
00:31:09
Speaker
What would you say would be some advice that you would have to our listeners today? I think my advice would be you get one shot at this and every day you wait and waste means less opportunity.
00:31:24
Speaker
And so you don't have to be speculative. You don't have to be crazy. You don't have to do things that have a lot of risk, but you do have to make choices and sacrifices. So again, if I had kept that super big house and not rented it out, if I was driving a Jag
00:31:41
Speaker
Okay, then I'm probably not going to Australia this year. So for me, it's about choices and consequences. And the quicker you begin to realize, honestly, and I don't say this to be self-deprecating, but honest to God, if Drew McClellan can figure this out, so can you. So start small, surround yourself. Maybe this is my biggest piece of advice.
00:32:05
Speaker
Understand that the possibilities are endless, but you need the right people around you to take advantage of those opportunities. So I've been really fortunate that I have surrounded myself with people, people like you guys, people like my attorney, people like Eric, my tax guy, who genuinely have my best interest at heart.
00:32:26
Speaker
genuinely are good human beings that I trust. I would leave my daughter with them for an afternoon if she was little. These are people that I no believe in what I believe in in terms of ethics and honesty.
00:32:42
Speaker
And they're also willing to explore with me that for me to go, what would happen if I did this? And it may not result in a sale for them or more money for them, but they too understand that by serving me well, I'm gonna keep giving them more money.
00:32:59
Speaker
and I'm gonna keep turning to them for their advice and counsel. So it's in their best interest to be concerned about my best interest. And maybe that's the theme is that if you're not concerned about your own best interest and you don't know the kind of life that you could have for yourself and your family, no one's gonna hand that to you. And so even if you start super small, surround yourself with smart, ethical, good people
00:33:28
Speaker
and begin to explore what's possible and what you want out of your life, figure out where you wanna be in 10 years and then baby step it back and figure out, okay, maybe that means I'm gonna up the ante in my 401K. Maybe that means I'm gonna invest in something outside of my 401K. Maybe that means I am gonna buy a racehorse. Whatever your thing is, right? Whatever your flavor and your appetite will let you get into,
00:33:58
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with asking questions and exploring it. It doesn't mean you have to do it.
Hosts' Experience and Gratitude
00:34:03
Speaker
But today is the day to start. That's my advice. Today is the day.
00:34:06
Speaker
I totally agree. You know, it's great to be able to just sit here and ask you these questions just on a personal testimony for Brian and I. We also use you in your McClellan marketing and we interviewed about what last year we were thinking about maybe we need to take the next step in marketing. We need to get our story out to more people because we want to help more people, right? And so we started interviewing three other companies.
00:34:32
Speaker
And then we had you come in. And I remember it like it was yesterday when you were talking. Because you're a client, right? You know, you understand us. You know what makes us tick and gets us going. And so you talked about that. And I remember Brian and I looking at each other like, can we just bottle what you just set up and send it out?
00:34:48
Speaker
I think that would be the perfect commercial. And so I called all the other companies that we were interviewing with, and I'm not sure if I even told you this, Drew, but I remember calling each and every one of them and they all asked that question, right? That old salesman question like, do you mind if I ask you who you're going to use, right? And I said, Drew McClellan. And they all had the same response. And it didn't register until the second time, but the first guy said, huh, really? I'm like, yeah.
00:35:16
Speaker
where we're going, the second person had that same response. And by the third time, I was like, okay, what's going on? And then that's when I found out that you're one of the top blogists that help marketers get people to where they want to go and coach them. And so I want to just personally thank you for the way that you've helped Brian and I and the uncommon wealth partners get to where it's at.
00:35:37
Speaker
And like you, we surround ourselves with people that we can trust, honest and integrity that care about us and help us where we're going. And that's definitely been you and your company. And so we hope that this interview was one that was kind of fun for you to give. We hope that it gave your listeners of your own podcast something a little bit different angle into your personal, the way that you've set up your business. What else would you say?
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, I just totally humbled. Drew actually named our company and we were, I would say, at a point of really the fork in the road and needed help telling our story and branding or bottling, I guess, what we've been doing for five years. So just a huge thank you for all that you do for us and all that you do for so many. And you are definitely a role model for Philip and I and I can't wait to see what's in store for you in the future.
00:36:30
Speaker
Well, we just, we've just begun on you guys.
Client Relationships and Future Plans
00:36:33
Speaker
So I'm excited for 2018 to see what, what we can shake loose for you too. And that's, to me, that's part of the fun of the work that we do. So when I started the agency, one of my first rules was we're never going to work for somebody that we don't. And if we can't get excited about what they do and who they are as human beings, I don't want them as a client. And so that makes work pretty fun. When you're, when you're helping people that you like,
00:36:57
Speaker
that you genuinely want the world to know more about because they do something special, that's rewarding work in and of itself. I'm grateful that you invited us to be a part of your story and help other people learn more about you. I think we have some pretty cool stuff planned for 2018.
00:37:16
Speaker
your audience is going to get to know you and get to value who you guys are in a much bigger, better way as we march this out. So it's going to be fun. Appreciate it. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Drew. And again, if you like this podcast, definitely subscribe. Keep listening to the content that we have. We have a lot more for you guys. And we've only, like Drew said, scratched the surface. So we hope this is exciting for you guys as we take this journey down, helping people understand residual income and
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah, Andrew, you have a lot of different ways people can find you. What's the best way if people want to know more about you or where can they find you? So probably the easiest way is just to go to McClellan Marketing and McClellan is spelled M-C-L-E-L-L-A-N.
00:38:01
Speaker
McClellanMarketing.com and you can get ahold of me there. I'm also pretty much Drew McClellan everywhere, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, all of those places. That's my handle because I'm old and I've been doing it for a long time, so I was able to grab my name before someone else did. So happy to answer questions, happy to have listeners reach out.
00:38:22
Speaker
If you have questions about anything that we talked about today, I'm more than happy to be a resource if I can. So appreciate that. Thanks for your time today, Drew. And again, just wish you the best and enjoy Disney in January. I'm going to because it's going to be cold in Iowa. Thanks, Drew. You bet. Thanks, guys. Thanks. Bye bye.
00:38:42
Speaker
That's all for this episode of The Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.