580 [Repost] Wisdom Of Show With Simon Bowen And Jeffrey Feldberg

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] Deep Wealth Nation, welcome to another episode of the Deep Wealth Podcast. Today's episode is a little different. I recently had the pleasure of joining Simon Bowen on his podcast, The Wisdom Of... show, and I want to bring that conversation right back here to you. Now, many of you will remember Simon from his appearance on the Deep Wealth Podcast.

Simon has spent more than two decades working with influential leaders and organizations, helping them elevate the quality of their thinking and to communicate complex ideas with greater clarity. And what I really appreciated about Simon, it's his ability to ask the question behind the question. He doesn't settle for the obvious answer.

He keeps digging until the real issues come into view, and that's exactly what happened in our conversation. We explored the difference between building a business that's genuinely valuable and one that's simply genuinely busy. We went into hidden Rembrandts, [00:01:00] due diligence, founder dependency, AI, resilience, and some of the lessons behind my own journey from a seven-figure offer to a nine-figure exit.

If you haven't heard Simon's conversation on the Deep Wealth Podcast, there's a link in the show notes. I encourage you to listen to that.

And Simon, a heartfelt thank you to you for having me on your show, The Wisdom Up Show, and for allowing us to share our conversation here with Deep Wealth Nation. Enjoy the episode

Meet Simon Bowen

Simon Bowen: Welcome to the Wisdom Of Show. I'm your host, Simon Bowen, and every week, I'm speaking to the world's greatest leaders, thinkers, and entrepreneurs about complex issues and impactful leadership. Join us in the renaissance of wisdom Well, welcome to The Wisdom Of, where we talk to people who have deep wisdom out of what they've done over the years that they've spent in business and in life.

And today, I'm with Jeffrey Feldberg, who's the co-founder of Deep Wealth, and he's the host of The Deep Wealth [00:02:00] Podcast, now well past 400 episodes, producing podcast episodes, I understand the enormity of that. He's also the creator of Deep Wealth Mastery, which is a 90-day system that helps founders build businesses that are genuinely valuable.

Not just genuinely busy, businesses that have inherent value in the asset, as well as creating value in the marketplace. And his work is founder to founder. This is from trenches, it's not from theory. And his mantra says everything, "Resilience trumps resources all day, every day." He has his own incredible exit story, and he has a wealth of wisdom to share with us today.

So Jeffrey, welcome to The Wisdom Of. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, Simon, great to be here, and a heartfelt thank you. You came onto The Deep Wealth Podcast. You made such a terrific impression on myself, the community. Everyone, it's my pleasure to be here today with you and your community. Thank you. 

Simon Bowen: it's a joy to host you.

It really is. 

Seven Figure Offer

Simon Bowen: And, I need to start at the beginning really, 'cause I think the starting [00:03:00] story of the podcast i- is sort of fascinating. You built Embanet from your parents' attic, which tell people what that is. A buyer for the business put a seven-figure number in front of you, right?

And you went, "No." Which is, yeah, which is a, a pretty bold move. And then some time later, we'll get to this, some time later, I think that became a nine-figure exit for you. I think people would love to hear that story. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, I mean, the story behind the story, and I gotta tell you just before we go in there, I don't know who was, and I say this half jokingly, half serious, I don't know who was more upset, the buyer or the family and friends when I said no.

I know the family and friends, "Jeffrey, you're crazy. You should have taken it. You can move out of the attic. 

Lessons From Saying No

Jeffrey Feldberg: Look at this." But anyways, like so many business owners, I was focused on the business, and full disclosure, I'll put this out there, as much as the buyer was a wolf in sheep's clothing, as the saying goes.

When you point a finger, all the others are pointing back at you, [00:04:00] and yes, it was a lowball offer, and yes, buyers do what buyers do. That process, though, taught me so much- Yeah ... in terms of what I wasn't doing. I have two other business partners and pulled them aside and said, "My goodness, wow, what an education we just got going through this process," because we are vulnerable in so many areas.

So now that we've spent the money on going through the due diligence and everything else with this particular offer that we said no to, why don't we put it to good use and begin to make the business better? And that was the very beginnings. Little did I know that would later become Deep Wealth Mastery.

Selfishly, we were just doing it for ourselves of- 

... 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Making the business better and losing the golden handcuffs and the shackles and having this for the team so they can be at a business that has a future that doesn't depend on the founder and the bottlenecks that were coming with that because we were, I was the bottle- I'll speak for myself, I [00:05:00] was the bottleneck and making all the mistakes.

So it was eyes wide open with me in terms of wow, okay, not necessarily a great offer, and we had no idea what was coming down the road. 

Simon Bowen: Yeah. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: What I did know, though, was, okay, there are some skeletons in the closet, some blind spots that we have that need to be addressed immediately. We gotta fix these.

We gotta address these and fix them and get back to business here. 

Simon Bowen: Yeah. 

Instinct Over Spreadsheets

Simon Bowen: There's just so much to unpack in what you've actually just shared, but I just want to get a reference point as well. How old were you at this point when the offer was made, the seven-figure offer? 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Oh my goodness.

You're taking me back a little while. So it- I would've been at the tender age of 35 at the time- Yeah ... when the offer came through. Two years later, at 37 Nine-figure exit, everything else, and- Yeah ... off we went with that. So it was, And I didn't have a lot of business experience, just to throw that out there, so any of your listeners- Well, well, that's what 

Simon Bowen: I was [00:06:00] gonna, that, that's what I was gonna ask.

Yeah. At 35, had you been through anything in another, worked in another company there where it had been sold? Had you been through anything? Or where did the instinct or insight or whatever it was that came from that caused you at the seven-figure offer to go, "That's not right. It's not the right thing for us to do"?

Jeffrey Feldberg: Let's just set the record straight. I never held a job before. The only one I ever had, I was, it was an internship in my MBA program. I would have fired myself on day one. Yeah. I'm a terrible employee. And so when I started Embanet, Embanet was really my first kick at the can. That was my first company.

Sure, in high school, university, I had little things going on here and there, but Embanet was really right out of my MBA program. No money, no experience, no team. I was figuring things out as I went along. I was very fortunate. I don't believe in the saying that someone is self-made. 

Simon Bowen: Yeah.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Never [00:07:00] resonated with me.

My own personal spirituality aside, with the big guy upstairs being a big part of my life, everyone needs someone. We all need help, and I give a lot of thanks and gratitude both to my father and to my uncle, who growing up were an inspiration. They're entrepreneurs, successful, doing their own things, and what I learned from them was, "Jeffrey, you can do it.

It's within you. You just have to figure it out. It's not just gonna be you. Get the right people around you. Never settle for something that doesn't feel right. Never settle for mediocrity." Doing what's easy often isn't right. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's easy and right. Oftentimes it isn't. So when the seven-figure offer came in, it would've been easy.

Sign the dotted line and move on to the next- 

... 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Thing, and I already had my first child, second child was upcoming, and I looked within and I looked at my business [00:08:00] partners and I said, " Just something is off here." And so for all those that are the logical and the spreadsheets and the formulas, it's gonna frustrate them.

I went within and it just felt off to me, and that's where I said to my business partners, "Let's not do it. Let's just see what we can do. No guarantees. Maybe we'll look back and we'll regret this. What if, though? What if we get it right?" Yeah. "What could that look like?" Yeah. And that really began the journey.

Founder Blind Spots

Simon Bowen: Well, the difference between seven figures and nine figures is not linear. No. No way. It is, it is- It isn't ... it's not a linear jump, right? So- 

Jeffrey Feldberg: No ... 

Simon Bowen: and you've said before that you think 90... And look, sometimes, when you're in entrepreneurial networks and forums, some people wear the number of exits like a badge of honor.

"I've had three exits. I've had four exits." And, but that could just be they've had four lowball exits. They had four relatively easy deals to close because... And you've also said that there's a difference between, a business that is busy versus a business that is [00:09:00] valuable, a business that's busy selling value into the marketplace versus a business that is inherently valuable within the asset.

And you've also said that you think that a lot of founders leave 50 to 100% of the value on the table when they exit the business. So the difference between seven figures and nine figures is, is, definitely not linear. There's a certain amount of self-belief. Why do you think founders and entrepreneurs actually have such a blind spot about- Building the value within the business as opposed to just bringing value to the marketplace, and then being able to exit that value properly.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, what a great question. My goodness. We could talk on and on about that. And no judgment here with us as founders. 

Hidden Rembrandts Explained

Jeffrey Feldberg: To me, it all goes back to human nature. I'm gonna share a very quick story with you- Yeah ... that has nothing to do with business and everything to do with business. Both my grandparents, may they rest in peace, anyone who walked in the front door would've said they're not hungry, but they left eating even more when my grandmother would come, "Here, [00:10:00] take this," or, "Take this."

And she was always baking. And it's human nature when something like food in particular is put on the table, and my grandparents, just such loving people, "Ah, sure, I'll have a bite of that." And everyone ate when up front they said, "Oh I'm okay. Don't worry. I'm, not so hungry." It's the same thing in business.

When we have these numbers, these deals that are put in front of us, it's human nature, we'll just take it. And then as the founder, and I'm speaking about myself now, I started with a terrific idea, and as the business grew though, I got entrenched in the business. I lost sight for a, a part of that journey of what this was really all about, and it was Jeffrey who was the janitor all the way through to the board of directors, everything else in between, and I began to lose sight of this business could really be valuable.

I could really create a market disruption here. Started that way, had to really get a wake-up call and get back to my [00:11:00] North Star, and that's why what you referred to earlier, the hidden Rembrandts in the attic, these incredibly valuable parts of the business, whether it's a service or a product or whatever that you're doing, there's something incredibly unique.

Most businesses have at least three to five. They have these X-Factors. Some of these X-Factors are hidden Rembrandts in the attic. We are the only ones that are doing this. We are world-class in it, but oftentimes don't recognize it, and sometimes it means, Simon- To get that value out of the business, we need to put ourselves out of business.

And when I was, again, very selfishly for myself and my business partners, putting together what I now refer to... I use all these fancy terms, the Deep Wealth 9-step Roadmap. We didn't have nine step, by the way. Some of those steps came from our failures, even though- Yeah ... it was a successful deal. In step one, big picture though, what we began to do was, okay, what could put us out of business tomorrow?

Because when we said no to the seven-figure deal, and we went through the diligence and- ... across the [00:12:00] table, all these Ivy League MBA guys and these number... And they were firing questions, and I had no idea how to answer that, and I just wasn't schooled in that sort of way. I understood, though, what they were looking for and where they were coming from, and the holes they were poking in the business.

And you know what? They were right a lot of the times. Yeah. Now, they were wrong in some times, but a lot of times they were right. And so we began to look at, well, what would put us out of business today? What's a problem that we don't even know about that our customers, it's a whisper in their ear right now that we could latch onto?

And that may mean putting ourselves out of business to go into this other area to make it a bigger and better business. And all of that- Yeah ... happened with us because of that one experience. And so for all the founders out there, or in the C-level, it's a lot of time and effort to do that. It's not easy.

And Simon, I didn't have you back in the [00:13:00] day. Had I known you, you could have taken part of our journey and shrunk it down with your genius model and your future models and- Yeah ... made it very clear. We didn't have that. Well, it's- So it was trial by fire for us. 

Simon Bowen: Well, it's really interesting, Jeffrey.

You've triggered a thought for you. I'm just... I'm actually just going to draw There's a whole conversation here, right? a founder starts a business because they get an idea. That's generally where it starts. And invariably, the idea is pretty good. And then the goal is to be successful with that idea at the top.

And along the way- this spiral occurs. And so y- to be successful, you should stick to the knitting and carry that idea true to form. And so you mentioned the genius model. If we codify that idea into a genius model, we can stay true to form. But what happens is these side rails form around us, and on one side it's the opinion [00:14:00] of others who say, "You should do this now.

You should do this now." "You should add this bit of technology to your solution. You should include this additional product suite to your business." And so there's a whole lot of there's a whole lot of dilution out to the side that distracts you from the thing that's really producing the value in the middle.

The other guardrail are the demands of others, different to opinions. Demands of customers saying, "Well, we want this now, and we want that now. We want it delivered in this way, we want it delivered in that way." And that also creates distraction, and both of those things dilute the, the true value of the business inherently.

And- AI is one of the biggest opinionated sources that we're exposed to in today's... AI will tell you to do stuff, then when you call it out and say, "Yeah, that's not right," it goes, "Oh, my bad. So sorry." But you might have made a multi-million dollar commitment on the back of, some of that research.

Due Diligence Reality

Simon Bowen: And I wonder, in [00:15:00] the due diligence process, I've not been through due diligence for the sale of a business, but I want to... You'd also mentioned in the opening story the due diligence thing. I think due diligence is something for business founders and owners to think about. It seems to me like when a buyer of a business is looking at it there's a starting point, the non-disclosure agreements have been signed, there's a starting position of this is what we think we're gonna offer.

Now let's do due diligence. And it's almost if we can find something out here or out here that is wobbly, that can reduce the price we're gonna pay for this business or diminish the perceived value. If we find the core to be super strong, that's a harder position to move away from in terms of the price we've offered.

And, I heard someone once saying, "Start your business from day one with the data vault ready." So start your business from day one with the data vault ready for due diligence should someone show up out of the blue and say, "I wanna buy your business." [00:16:00] Which is an incredible discipline to have, but due diligence itself just seems like a pretty fascinating process.

They're firing questions at you. Are they just on the hunt for some way of diminishing the value of the offer on the table and keeping more value in the business for them and away from you? Or just talk us through the due diligence experience, because I feel like they're looking for the dilutions, where you've leant into the opinions of others.

The thread of your story is you had a clear view yourself. You had that core through the middle, right? And so you were sticking to the knitting, so to speak. But I'd love to explore the due diligence perspective. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: I will get to that. 

Build To Keep Or Sell

Jeffrey Feldberg: Before I do that, though, let me take us down something that's related, but slightly off to the side.

Yeah. And again, in the 9-step roadmap, step four, due diligence. Our thesis, our whole being at Deep Wealth, it's not about the exit. A lot of people find that hard to believe. What I like to say, it's an oxymoron. [00:17:00] I want to have a business where it's so profitable and as effortless as possible that I can keep it forever, or- Yeah

I can sell it tomorrow. And people say, "Well, Jeffrey, what do you mean? You wanna keep it forever and sell it tomorrow?" Absolutely. That, that tension is where we wanna be. And so Deep Wealth isn't just about an exit. Let me be clear about this. What's the point of an exit if you go out of business? And so the 9-step roadmap, it's first and foremost, how do we maximize our profits, give value to the shareholders, take those skeletons, expose them, remove them from the closet, and get those hidden Rembrandts out of the attic and out there?

And then I can decide maybe I want to have an exit three decades from now or three years from now, or maybe never. Maybe it's gonna go to the family, next generation. And so let's keep that in mind. I love the picture that you drew, and for someone who's listening on the audio side of things, on the one side it's the opinion of [00:18:00] others, on the left side it's the demand of others, and in- you have this vortex and it's confusing at the side, but in the middle it's like a bright light shining right up to the sky.

That's really where we wanna be. That's what success is, that, that's what our value is. And I've been very fortunate to have private equity, venture capital- Yeah ... buyers to speak to them and interview them and hear their thoughts. And there's all kinds of buyers, and there's no judgment with what I'm about to say.

There are some buyers, Simon, who wanna come in, "I wanna buy something pennies on the dollar." The buyers that we would want to work with They're like everyone else. Hey, if I'm going to invest fill in the blank X dollars, whatever that is, let's just call it 100 basis points. That 100 basis points, it could be a million dollars, it could be a billion dollars, it could be everything else in between.

What a reputable buyer is saying, "I don't just wanna get my 100 basis points. I wanna get double that or triple that- Yeah ... or quadruple that or 120 basis points. And so I wanna make [00:19:00] sure that I know what I'm getting. I wanna know that when Jeffrey rides off into the sunset with my money, whenever that's gonna be, that I'm still gonna have a business and I'm not gonna have a second full-time job, otherwise known as running Jeffrey's business because he's no longer there."

Yeah. And so part of due diligence is to do that. But Simon, to your point, buyers are so smart. They're very savvy. When we're going down the path, they're already coming back. They do this all day long. And so it never hurts to infuse into the process the opinion of others. 

Today it's coming from AI.

For them, it's coming from themselves and all these smart MBAs that they have and these genius numbers people that they have, as well as the demand of others to distract us from what's really going on. Look, a Fortune 10 company gave us that offer. And by the way, part of the story just to make it a little fun and interesting, we arrive there, there's a black limo, picks us up, we go to this boardroom, it's all mahogany like out of the movies.

There's this huge boardroom table. [00:20:00] They hired a private chef. We're having this meal. The president is coming out. It's just crazy what they're doing to impress us and taking us out to dinner later that night, and the wine is flowing. All these crazy things are going on. They knew what was there, and they had us focused on that.

I heard a great saying today that when a magician is asking you to follow the magician's hand- Yes ... you've already lost before you've begun because you're not- Yeah ... seeing what the other hand is doing. That's really where, the trick is. So you're absolutely right that as a founder, it's easy to get distracted, the opinions of others, the demands of others, and to lose what that success is.

Embanet One To Two Pivot

Jeffrey Feldberg: The one little nuance I would put to that, sometimes that success though is creating a second path, and let me give a, a visceral example of that. So Embanet, I call it Embanet 1 and Embanet 2. Yeah. Embanet 1, to make things simple, we kept the seats filled. So we started in online. The internet was a brand-new thing.

It was just [00:21:00] around and they were losing 70 to 90% of the online students. So im- imagine you have a business that seven to nine- Yeah ... of your customers are asking for their money back and never coming back. We kept 90% of the students in the seats. We got known for that. Nothing stays the same though.

And so part of the opinion of others, and the demand of others that came to us it was actually an offhanded conversation. I was phoning the dean of Colorado State University Jon, and, "Hey, Jon. Haven't spoken to you in a few weeks. What's going on?" He said, "Actually, Jeffrey, it's funny that you called. I have a board meeting coming up, actually right after this call.

I've got to go in front of my board now and tell them why next semester our enrollments are down. And by the way, your billing is gonna be down. Just giving you the heads-up. We're not going out of business, but we have this new thing called the internet. We've got this thing called video conferencing.

Could you help me?" I'd never done marketing before for other people. We were doing it for ourselves. Not great, [00:22:00] mind you, but we sat down and said, "My goodness, this is an opportunity." And it was such an opportunity that I realized if we didn't do anything, we were gonna be put out of business.

Because sometimes good enough is good enough, and even though we were doing circles around the university's IT departments, we had 24-hour tech support, live support, this is before you had all the cloud hosting, we had our own data center, all those kinds of things, we were doing that, it was catching up, the technology, and I could see a day where these programs are saying, "We're not gonna write you the check, Embanet, sorry," because our IT department, yeah, maybe it's not as good, but good enough.

Yeah. And it's not coming out of pocket for me. And I saw that day, and then I heard what Jon was saying, but we didn't have the capabilities. And so we had a tough decision to make. Do we do the easy thing, keep on coasting, collecting the profits, 'cause we had just turned a corner, or we do the hard thing, reinvest those profits?

And we ended up bringing in a new business partner, [00:23:00] Steve Wells, came into the mix. It was myself and Waleuska at the time. Steve brought the marketing side. He was looking for an online company that was already doing those things. We were looking for someone who already had the marketing experience. It was a terrific fit, and we essentially began to dismantle Embanet One.

It didn't dismantle, but we put it into the background and we created Embanet Two, which not only kept the seats filled, but filled the seats. Created a unique business model, took all the risk off the table. So sometimes the goalposts change, and we have to be resilient enough, to use that word- Yeah ... to, number one, recognize that, then number two, are we prepared to have some experiments that we're probably gonna fail at?

It took us a few years to figure it out. I told Jon, "Oh, Jon, no problem. Give me three weeks. I'll figure this out for you." It took close to three years to get it right. Yeah. But thankfully we did, and along the way it was because of that we were able to create that market disruption and add the value, to your point, add the value to the business because there was a runway [00:24:00] ahead.

Thinking Selling Serving

Simon Bowen: Well, there's a really interesting number of- thinking concepts, if you like, that come out of what you've just been talking about. If we think, if we go back to this vortex, this expanding spiral heading upwards, and we look at the bottom where the entrepreneur has an idea, the base of that iceberg is where we outthink the marketplace.

We bring an idea to market that the market hasn't really experienced before in the form that you're bringing to market. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yes. 

Simon Bowen: At the top of it, we need to outsell the marketplace. So, this is the thinking work down the bottom. At the very top, where we're market facing, this is the expression of that value.

This is the communication work. All business is thinking and influencing, right? They're the two big systems of business. The middle bit is how you out-serve the marketplace, the actual delivery of the product or solution, right? Now, people come at you with opinions. They're actually telling you the [00:25:00] answer.

On the other side, people come at you with demands. They're telling you the answer. They're saying, "I want that thing." Opinions, "You should do this thing," right? Both of those are giving you the answer. What you heard from Jon was not an answer, what you heard from Jon was a question and the, brain that asks the question is different to the brain that offers an answer in the form of an opinion or a demand.

Then you said something really interesting, "We decided to do the hard thing in order to expand, that ray of light through the middle so we still stay true to our core, but we can, keep it relevant." You said, "We decided to do the hard thing." My version of that is you actually decided to do the creative thing, which is let's create a different solution for the question.

Oftentimes the question is trying to figure out w- what actually is the problem. There's something off, but I don't even know how to articulate the problem. Can you help me with that? That's what Jon was [00:26:00] saying, and you in a way did the hard thing, which is the creative thing, and said, "Well, to create, we've got to understand the problem first and fix the problem," which is, the entrepreneur's world, it's the Deep Wealth Mastery roadmap, the nine steps. There's a couple things I wanna do. I do wanna get you to tell everyone the nine steps, but before we leave this part of the conversation, you and I both use the term, Rembrandt in the Attic. It's just we probably should just clarify that for people that haven't, aren't familiar with that, 'cause I think it's such a powerful paradigm or a powerful analogy for business owners to keep in mind when they're thinking about the asset value inside their business.

Do, you wanna share your articulation of the concept of the Rembrandt in the Attic? 

Rembrandt Examples In Practice

Jeffrey Feldberg: Sure. we'll give some examples along the way, but what you can think about... And by the way, just before I lose the train of thought and we'll talk about the Rembrandts in the Attic, when we're in that creative mode- Yeah

So many founders, they shut themselves down before they even get there. "Oh, someone else has already done this." [00:27:00] Embanet 2- Yeah ... didn't create anything new. If you look what Embanet 2 did, we did at the very basics, I'm taking this right down to the basics. So we already had the hosting, the 24/7 support.

We added marketing. We weren't the first- Yeah ... marketing around, we weren't the last marketing around. We a- but we added a marketing element that was unique to tier one institutions. Because the first thing I did was I looked at other marketing solutions, and I can see why- They weren't having a path beaten down the door, "Hey, help me with this, help me with this."

They weren't meeting the need. And we combined different elements so you don't have to be, "I'm the first to do this." You can be the best at doing it. And right there is a great example of a Rembrandt. We were able to assemble these disparate pieces, if you will, that was hard to do back in the... A little bit easier today.

So we had the technology down with the data center, the 24/7 live support, with the course [00:28:00] development, the course conversion. That was keeping the students in the seats. That was getting the online programs out there. Then we had a way of acting as though we were the university itself when we did the marketing.

Very high-ranking universities, Vanderbilt University, George Washington University, Boston University. You couldn't tell the difference between their marketing and our marketing. But to the outside world, it was this very classy marketing.

In a way that got other people's attention. Then behind the scenes, we had a whole process of sales, but we put all that together, and we managed that, and we ran that from our world headquarters. And for a university to do that, they simply couldn't do that. They would've been outsourcing to all these disparate parts and all these different companies, and it was just mayhem.

We made it risk-free We changed the business model. This was so valuable, and what I'm gonna say now, this is another Rembrandt in the attic. So our system was a Rembrandt, that it was a done-for-you system. All you had to do- ... was sign [00:29:00] the dotted line. And by the way, we addressed their concerns. You own the intellectual property.

You're the one who admits the students into the program. You have final say over what's going on. It's all of your IP that's in there. We'll get the students, prospective students in through the door. We'll vet them. If I give you 10 prospective students, you'll accept 10 prospective students unless they've lied to us, because I'm gonna do my job and exactly what you want, and then they're gonna be such high quality they'll be as good or better than your traditional- on-ground student. We were doing master's and doctoral programs, which people said impossible, you can't do that online. That's a whole other side of things in terms of what we're doing there. 

Risk Reversal Revenue Share

Jeffrey Feldberg: We didn't charge anything for that. So Simon, this was a multi-gazillion dollar operation that we were doing for them, and we said, "Hey, your first student that you enroll, you're profitable because we're paying your faculty for the time to create the courses, to train them, to [00:30:00] run everything.

That's coming out of our pockets. And by the way, if it fails, you'll never pay a penny. That's coming from us." Right. "If it succeeds and when it succeeds, through profit sharing and through a 10-year agreement, we'll e- equalize things out over those 10 years though, in the beginning we're gonna get more than you because we need to equalize it out and we have higher expenses."

That business model, that was a Rembrandt. We're one of the only ones... We didn't invent that. Others were already doing that. Yeah. We applied that to what we were doing. And so from a prospective buyer, so step three, future buyer means different things The buyer, as in a university, a client loved it.

As a president of a university says, "Oh, so I can add all these zeros to my bottom line. I can be a rock star here at the university, and my dean is saying that he or she's gonna be profitable by 5X or 10X for the first time, and you're, telling me, and I don't [00:31:00] have to pay a penny for that?" That's right.

And so that's an example of a Rembrandt, where we made it so ridiculously easy for them that, okay, sign up here, it's an exclusive 10-year agreement. That's our ask, and that is a Rembrandt. Most businesses, it's pay as you go. Subscriptions are nice. That's the next level up. I have some predictability, some cash flow.

Building Rembrandts Everywhere

Jeffrey Feldberg: Very few are able to do revenue share. We talk a lot about this in Deep Wealth Mastery. You can only get that if you're solving an incredibly painful problem, because customers are smart. Why would they do that unless they can't and they need you? 

Simon Bowen: Universities are businesses, and they really struggle.

They, they really struggle to be profitable, and so a deep understanding of their pressures and then risk reversal is, probably one of the greatest products on the planet. If you can build risk reversal into every product... you have Rembrandts at every level.

You have Rembrandts in how, in your thinking and how you outthink the [00:32:00] market. You have Rembrandts in your delivery. Your thinking, by the way, includes the business model and how we make this full risk reversal for a customer in how we bring it to market. How, there's Rembrandts in how you serve the client, and absolutely there's Rembrandts in, in how outsell.

Rembrandt in the Attic Story

Simon Bowen: I, one of the best books on IP I've read is called Rembrandts in the Attic, and it is about this notion of there's a house for sale for $4 million and three buyers are going to look at the house, and one loves cooking and entertaining, so they're focused on the kitchen, and the other one loves the outdoors, so they're focused on the backyard and the patio area and everything else, and the third buyer's just trying to buy a property, right?

And so the first one races in, looks at the kitchen's nice. They go to the agent and they say, "Have a l- I, you want 4 million, I'll give you 3.9," right? The second one loves the outdoors, really wants the house. They go to the agent, they say, "I love this place, I'm gonna give you 4.2," because they really want to get the property.

The third buyer's just walking all over the house and finds h- their way up to the attic, and there's [00:33:00] a little bit of the drywall peeling away from the corner. So they just pull the drywall away, and there's a Rembrandt in the wall cavity. The, some owner at some point had hidden it and forgotten it Or died or left.

And he pushed the drywall back, and he went down to the agent and said, "I'm gonna give you six for the property," 'cause he'd found the Rembrandt in the attic. And that's often, business owners can easily forget just what's cool. Like I, I study stage magic in order to use it in keynotes, right?

And the magician that taught me said, "Listen, before I do this, I need to tell you, you will never be amazed by a magician again." 

"

Simon Bowen: Because you'll know what they're doing. Now, you might not see it, but you'll know what they did, and 'cause you know all the techniques, right? And so you'll have a new appreciation for their skill, but you won't get the wow factor."

And that's true. That's been true. And I think when you live every day in a business- You stop being amazed by your own business and just how clever the idea was, or just how good your delivery is, [00:34:00] or just how switched on your marketing is. It's like you're in it every day and you forget, you stop seeing the Rembrandts.

You walk past them, they're hanging on the wall, and you walk past them every day and you never look at them, right? You never stop to actually admire them, and that's interesting. I'd love you to step through all nine steps- Absolutely ... of the Deep Wealth Mastery roadmap for 

Jeffrey Feldberg: people. And by the way, Simon, business, busyness, if we just say it out phonetically, that tells you everything.

Yeah. And you're absolutely right. Everything that we do in the business, every aspect of it, there is a Rembrandt if we know how to identify it and bring that to market. Yeah. 

Nine Step Roadmap Overview

Jeffrey Feldberg: So step one is big picture. What can put me out of business tomorrow? What is... Right now it's a small problem, "Jeffrey, my enrollments are down.

Can you help me?" That's going to be a market disruption later on down the road. It could be a year from now or 10 years from now. Timeliness, as my good friend always tells me, is next to godliness. If we're too early, forget about it. If we're too late, forget about it. So it's gotta be that- Yeah ... Goldilocks, just right [00:35:00] when we identify that.

Step 2, X-Factors. What is the business really good at right now that differentiates us from our competitors? That we're not gonna use the same boring language, "Oh, great customer service. They love us, our customers. We're the world's best." What really makes us different? And it's the truly exceptional X-Factors.

Those are the hidden Rembrandts in the attic that we can take out there to the marketplace. Yeah. Step 3, Future Buyer. That could be an existing client that we want them to re-sign. It could be a prospective client. It could be an investor. It could be an ultimate buyer in the business. Step 4, Due Diligence, which is, hey, forget about an exit.

Forget about raising money. I've gotta be in business to be in business. In due diligence, how am I removing things that are slowing me down? That is friction in the business, or maybe I have these liabilities, or maybe I have these back taxes I never realized, that if I don't get to it, it's gonna put me out of business because of interest and this and that, whatever it's going to be, or [00:36:00] maybe some regulations have changed.

So Step 4 is always doing due diligence. Step 5, Winning Mindset. And it's not a hard science, but it's everything for a business. What's my winning mindset, and how do I take that as the founder and I instill that not just with the executive team, the leadership team, but the company itself? In fact, one of the X-Factors for us at Deep Wealth is culture.

And a winning culture starts with the founder's winning mindset. So winning mindset and then how you take that into getting your next client or your next investor or next buyer. 

Advisors and Banker Lessons

Jeffrey Feldberg: Then step six, advisory team. An advisory team, depending on the stage of where the business is. No plans to sell? Okay, well, do you have a great business lawyer and a great tax planner and great accountants?

Do you have a wealth advisor? And a lot of founders say, "Well, Jeffrey, I'm not rich enough yet for some of those advisors, or the business can't afford it, or personally I'm not [00:37:00] there." And I say, "Bonkers. That's crazy. Of course you're there." The right people, when the team works, the dream works. I wish I had said that, invented that.

I didn't, but it's a great saying. So are we surrounding ourselves with the right people? One quick story before I get to step seven. I kept Embanet under the radar very deliberately. Yeah. And when I found the investment banker that I knew this was the guy And his name was Chas, happened to be with Credit Suisse at the time.

He could have really been anywhere. I was investing not in the logo, but in the person. Chas didn't believe us at first, and he had to do his own due diligence on the company to make sure that everything was real that he was seeing behind the scenes, because we were 51 to 53% net profits, not gross profits.

He wanted to validate that for himself. Had I been not as, I'll just call it for what it is, had I been not as cheap, not as shortsighted, and worked with investment bankers earlier on, not to sell the company, but just have a working relationship, have them look at the [00:38:00] company, I could have grown the business faster.

They would have known who I was. I would have been a known entity. "Hey, Jeffrey, have you thought about this?" Or, "Here's what we're seeing. What are you seeing?" So having a great advisory team around you is important, not just for what you're doing today, but also down the road. 

Execution Skeletons and Launch

Jeffrey Feldberg: And then we go to step seven, timing and execution.

Now, that depends on what your path is. Keep the business forever or sell it tomorrow. And depending on where you are with that, it's all about communication plans and how we deal with our stakeholders and answering frequently asked questions. Maybe we're introducing a new service or a new product. How are we gonna deal with that?

Or maybe we raise some capital, or maybe we're exiting. 90% of liquidity events fail, but then another 90% fail after the deal closes because the mergers just never happen. And so timing and execution gets to that. What I love about the nine steps, though, are step eight and step nine. So in step eight, it's skeletons and Rembrandts.

And [00:39:00] in every single step along the way, we are asking ourselves, "Well, what are the s- hidden skeletons in the closet, and what are those hidden Rembrandts in the attic?" in every step along the way, and we're either removing the skeletons where we can and putting the hidden Rembrandts for public display.

And then step nine is launch. When we go through Deep Wealth Mastery, for each step, we're doing between three and five launch plans. Not theory, not something that one day, that you're doing immediately within the 90-day program that you're putting out there in marketplace if you choose to today or down the road if you want, regardless if you want to keep the company forever or sell it tomorrow.

And so you walk out with over 26 launch plans that can take the company anywhere that you want to take it. All the launch plans are, okay, what are the skeletons? What are the Rembrandts? How are we removing that friction, increasing the profits, working with our stakeholders, doing all the things for market disruption?

But very high level, those are the nine steps in the [00:40:00] 9-step 

Simon Bowen: roadmap. 

Founders Avoid Due Diligence

Simon Bowen: Out of that roadmap, what have you found founders and entrepreneurs most keen to avoid? Addressing or talking about 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Let me answer that question in two ways, I'll get to your question. Like so many things, Pareto's Law, the 80/20 principle, by the way, the first three steps, steps one, two, and three are not easy steps because busyness, business, we're- 

Simon Bowen: Yeah

Jeffrey Feldberg: as the founder, so caught up in all of that. If we did nothing else but the first three steps, most businesses would, not 20% or 10%, they have the opportunity to 5X, 10X, 100X the business if they chose to. Forget the other six steps. So here it's 70/30. 30% of the steps are gonna get you over 70% of the results.

Yeah. Where most founders, and forget founders, most business people aren't willing to make the emotional investment or the time investment. [00:41:00] It's due diligence, step four. As we like to say at Deep Wealth, how do you see a grown person cry? Two words: due diligence. When you do it each year, though, and it becomes a ritual, part of the culture, it becomes so much easier.

And Simon, to your point, I've had the pleasure of getting to know brand new founders who used to work on Wall Street or they used to be investment bankers. "Jeffrey, It's not even day one of business. I don't even have a single customer. I'm already doing my due diligence. I'm already understanding what the end looks like because how I run the business will change how I prepare for it.

How I prepare for it will change how I run with it." If we did that every step of the way, and it's not easy, I get that, and it takes time, it takes effort, it takes money, but if we were to do that, we are moving so much of the noise and the friction off the plate that we can remain creative. Yeah. Find those market disruptions, and I'll use the F word, have some fun along the way too- Yeah

because we're dealing with the other stuff along the way to get that done. [00:42:00] So step four, due diligence, is where most founders, "Oh, I'm not going there. I'll wait till I get an offer," which by the way, it's done before it's begun- 

Simon Bowen: Yeah. It's the- ... if 

Jeffrey Feldberg: you get an offer already ... 

Simon Bowen: it's the worst time to be doing the due diligence, right?

the offer is already different because you haven't done the... you don't have ongoing due diligence around the business. There's an offer on the table, but you're not sure what they're gonna find because you haven't done the due diligence yourself, right? And you know there are skeletons in the closet, and you've stopped seeing the Rembrandts.

You're walking past them every day, it's interesting. 

AI Opportunity and Caveats

Simon Bowen: we have to talk about AI. You do have some views on AI, and I think everybody does these days. Business Leaders, they- obviously there's a common view that AI is gonna change everything, and it's going to transform everything.

But you do have some perspectives about it, and I think it's worth layering them in against the wealth creation that business can bring to the table for somebody. I'd love to, just to, you know- Yeah ... drag you into the AI perspectives for a few minutes. [00:43:00]

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely.

And before we go to AI, one quick thing, due diligence, how we look at due diligence at Deep Wealth, just to circle back and open that up for what it really could mean. Simon, you'd be part of due diligence as an example. I'm bringing you into the company, whether it's your Pre-Framed Model all the way to the Futures Model or the Genius Model or the Value Model, you're helping me as a founder do due diligence on the company- when I have the time, the luxury of my own schedule, doesn't have to be on someone else's schedule, and to take the company into the next level. So the due diligence doesn't just have to be financials and charts and numbers and everything else. So just to put that out there. When it comes to AI, it's- in- an incredible opportunity, and anyone who isn't experimenting with AI right now, please think twice.

Again, it's a game changer in terms of what's there. But here's the caveat. I am very bullish on AI. I am of the view that, yes, there's gonna be some disruption out there. Ultimately, though, it'll create [00:44:00] more jobs, not less jobs, and it can help take not just business, but society to a whole other level.

I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm not saying it's a bed of roses. It's a great potential if we want to leverage that. And my goodness, look around today. So many of the jobs or the titles that we have today didn't exist five years ago or 10 years ago, yet we were resistant to that change and AI's only accelerated that.

So there's this whole negative spin from other parties that have their own vested interests. Follow the money on that one. And you can see why that's happening. AI can be terrific. There's a caveat though. AI by itself, it's okay. To me though, it's an ego whisperer. "Oh, Jeffrey, you're so great. Oh, Jeffrey, what a wonderful idea you have.

Oh, Jeffrey, you're so smart." But to your point earlier, Simon, it's dead wrong. Why'd you tell me that, AI? Oh, you're right, that was an oversight. Oh my goodness, I just lost a [00:45:00] gazillion dollars in all this time. AI combined uniquely with the human condition- 

... 

Jeffrey Feldberg: That is where the magic happens. So it's not, for us at Deep Wealth, a situation where just, yeah, have AI do everything, have it go and just outsource everything to AI, and you can get rid of your team and...

no. Have AI do perhaps the tasks that someone shouldn't be doing anyways because we can now automate that properly, delegate that, not abdicate it, but delegate that. It can do the heavy lifting, but then work with AI to get the best out of it because we're uniquely human And at least AI as we know today, maybe it'll change down the road, it doesn't bring that to the table, and it's an opportunity missed.

On the one extreme, going back to my grandparents, my grandfather said, "Jeffrey, success in life and business is all about moderation." So saying AI is crazy, it's a [00:46:00] fad, it's not around, I'm just going to ignore it, or AI is everything, we're all in, but we're gonna just cut everyone, the two extremes for me aren't where it's at.

It's how can we be smart about this and have the right people on the right bus in the right seat working with AI to take their role or the company or a product or a service to the next level? 

Simon Bowen: Yeah. You spoke about culture is an X-Factor. If I draw a line and I call it the AI line, and then as the line lifts, it starts to consume everything below it, right?

And so, below the line are things like construct, concept, content, et cetera, et cetera. The last things that technology can consume are things like compassion, conscience care the human qualities, if you like. And when push comes to shove, a person in difficulty wants another person to come and give them a hug and hold their hand.

And AI has no accountability. The large [00:47:00] language models are not gonna get sued, the people running them are, and vice versa, or the people using the tools. And so at least currently, humans still want other humans in their corner in some form or another. So that interface about how good people, smart people use the tools available to bring greater value is...

I agree with you. I think that's actually where the benefit lay. 'Cause we've been creating tools from, the stone ax all the way through. The difference is that this is a tool that can also create itself to some extent, but, it's a long time before it consumes care, and compassion, and conscience, and those qualities that really define a culture, if you like, inside a company.

Three Wrap Up Questions

Simon Bowen: So, I'd love to ask three quick questions to wrap us up. I really appreciate the time you've spent with us. And then I would love to ask you how people can, connect with you and find out more about the nine steps, and the Deep Wealth Mastery roadmap, and everything else. So three [00:48:00] quick questions.

If you could time travel any moment in your own business journey, and then give yourself advice in that moment based on what you know today, what period of time would you go to, and what advice would you give yourself? 

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's a great question. And Simon, full disclosure, I get to ask that question a lot as well, and I hear the different perspectives.

And I've had time to think about that to the younger Jeffrey. And the younger Jeffrey, by the way, could be last week because sometimes I still doubt myself, I still have imposter syndrome from time to time. But particularly when I was younger and I didn't have things figured out, I would just say, "Hey, Jeffrey, everything you need is within you right now.

The journey-" Yeah ... it's not the destination, it's all about the journey. And what you dread, what may be your darkest hour right now, you're gonna look back on it and it may be the biggest blessing that you've received. So know that you can get through it. Have faith in the big guy upstairs, in yourself.

You'll get through it. Nothing's been put in front of you that you can't handle, and you'll [00:49:00] figure it out. You're not gonna be perfect, you'll figure it out. You can do it," would be the three- Yeah ... words that I would walk away with. "Jeffrey, you can do it. Everything you need is within you right now. You'll figure it out."

Simon Bowen: The reality is there are seldom things that happen that are completely irrecoverable in business, i- including the business going under, but you can build again. time, but time is the great leveler, right? Time always wins. Time is not recoverable. There are actually relatively few things that are irrecoverable.

They seem so enormous in the moment. If you have time on your side, you can generally, take another path, do another thing, take another step, add another piece of value or whatever. Best, not the best business advice you've received, but the best business advice you ignored. It might be, "Jeffrey, you're crazy.

Sell that business for seven figures." But what's the best bit of business advice you've ignored? 

Jeffrey Feldberg: The best business a- advice that I ignored and going out there to everyone, [00:50:00] I've ignored most of it. in part because again, I never had a full-time job. I was never in the corporate world. I- tend to be stubborn, have that belief in myself to a fault at times, and wanting to figure it out my own way.

And so most of the journey I've just ignored all of it and said, "Well, what's my style? I don't have to invent it. I need to take it." I, I'll borrow from Sam Walton, "Hey, all I have to do is be 5% better. I can look what everyone else is doing, make it my own, be 5% better." And so Simon, the truth is, even to this day, sometimes to my own peril, I will ignore most things and just try it on my own.

And but I learn from that immensely in terms of trying, "Okay, this didn't work. Well, now I know one thing not to do." Yeah. And that's really the takeaway for me is knowing what not to do oftentimes is as important, perhaps even more important, than knowing what to [00:51:00] do. 

Kindness as Core Lesson

Simon Bowen: Is there discovery or lesson that you learnt from a nine-figure exit and then all the work that you've done around that, even before and since?

You gain by just the experience of it, but in your experience now of business owners, most people are completely unaware of it. A, a big neon light learning that people just aren't even thinking about. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's not gonna sound like business advice, it really is through and through, because it comes from life in general.

And for me, the definition of an entrepreneur, which is at the heart of business, the heart of my life, as entrepreneurs, we, for me anyways, make the world go round. And it's being kind to those around us, even though we may be in a position that is of power or so-called above them, we're really not above anybody.

We're on this crazy journey, this game called life. We're in different stations of life at different parts of the journey. Be kind to people. And as a [00:52:00] founder, it's our mission to do two things. Number one, to go within, and I'm choosing these words very deliberately, what are the God-given gifts that I have, my superpowers that I may not know about, that I will find and then take that to the world to find such a painful problem that I help enough people get what they want, that over time, and in this order, I can eventually get what I want.

And if you go back to the Embanet story, yeah, nine-figure exit, all this and that, and it sounds fancy, it sounds good. This is a very simple story. Jeffrey and team found an incredibly painful problem that others couldn't solve at the time. They had the tenacity and the timing to keep at it, figured it out, made it easy for others, and even though faculty were throwing us out of the room, and you've been a faculty so you know what it l- it was like.

One of our Rembrandts, by the way, was knowing how to work with faculty who were absolutely- Yeah ... not [00:53:00] doing this. "Online is trash, would never go there." And they came out, "Hey, this is the best thing since sliced bread." That's a whole other podcast, Simon. Being kind to people, showing them how we can make their life easier.

And if we can do that, and when we do that, the world is our oyster. And I'm not saying it's easy and it doesn't happen right away. When we can figure that out, and sometimes we don't, and that's okay, when we do, that's where the magic happens. 

Simon Bowen: I love that. I was fortunate to have a father who I think was probably the kindest person I knew in my entire life, and kindness is one of the four values of the Models Method.

It's a small word, kindness, but with big ramifications. And it's not a sophisticated word. It's not a, it's not a psychology word or anything. However, it is a dimension-changing principle if you really understand it to its nth degree. To solve a really painful problem that somebody has, a deep ache [00:54:00] that they can't even name but they feel it that is an inherently kind thing to do to put the energy into, "I'm gonna solve that for you."

You can't even name it at the moment, but you're feeling it, and I gotta figure it out, but I'm gonna go and figure it out. That's an inherently kind thing to do. And so kindness is a great place for us to end, Jeffrey, the podcast. I could chat all day about this, and I'm sure for anybody in business, there's gold all the way through this.

And including learn to love due diligence, people. Don't avoid it. So Jeffrey, thank you so much for your time today. Evening time for you, so we're cutting into your evening. I really appreciate it. 

How to Reach Jeffrey

Simon Bowen: How do people find you? 

Jeffrey Feldberg: And by the way, Simon, thank you. And for the listeners, so you know, this is taking place, we started at 5:00 AM Simon's time.

And so I imagine you got up much earlier than that, so thank you, Simon. Talk about being kind and going above and beyond. And Jeffrey, we have these crazy time zones. You're East Coast, I'm over here. But [00:55:00] tell you what, I'll wake up at 5:00 AM so you're walking the talk. So grateful for that, Simon. For anyone who has questions, we keep it very simple, send an email.

Success, S-U-C-C-E-S-S, @deepwealth, D-E-E-P-W-E-A-L-T-H, .com. Success@deepwealth.com. And tell you what, put Simon in the subject and that will come directly to me. It's not gonna be AI. I will answer that directly, and I'll even put out there a free strategy call where we'll go through what's your painful problem and how we might maybe we never work together, but how can we help you with that even if we don't work together.

Put Simon in the subject and it would be my pleasure, my honor to help anyone and have that free strategy call. So success [at] deepwealth [dot] com.

Simon Bowen: Jeffrey, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. Learned in practice, not in theory. I really appreciate you.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Thank you, Simon, and God bless you.

Take care. 

Subscribe and Final Thanks

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. 

What did you [00:56:00] think? 

So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. 

Did you find this episode helpful? 

Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? 

And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

Are you ready for it? 

The dramatic pause. I'll just wait a moment. Drumroll, please. Subscribe. Please subscribe to the Deep Wealth podcast on your favorite podcast channel. When you subscribe to the Deep Wealth Podcast, you're saving yourself time. Every episode automatically comes to you, and I want you to know that we meticulously craft Every one of our episodes to have impactful strategies, stories, expert insights that are designed to help you grow your profits, increase the value of your business, and yes, even optimize your post exit life and your life right now, whatever you want that to look like.

And every time you subscribe and a fellow entrepreneur subscribe, it's a testament to how together, Yes, we are. We are [00:57:00] changing the social fabric of society. One business owner at a time, one liquidity event at a time. So don't let the momentum stop here. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast channel.

You'll never miss an episode. You'll be the first to hear from the top industry leaders, the innovators, the disruptors that are really changing and shaping the business world, and maybe you're commuting, maybe you're at the gym, maybe you're taking a well deserved break that we spoke all about on this episode.

The Deep Wealth Podcast, it's your reliable source for the next big idea that could literally revolutionize your business. So once again, please hit that subscribe button, stay connected, inspired, and ahead of the curve. And again, your next big breakthrough moment, it might just be one episode away. Maybe it was even this episode.

So all that said. Thank you so much for listening. And remember your wealth isn't just about the money in the bank. It's about the depth of your journey and the impact that you're creating. So let's continue this journey together. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening to this episode.

And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive [00:58:00] and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. 

Thank you so much. 

God bless.