Jeff Cohen On How To Be Count-On-Able To Create Massive Business Success (#132)

[00:00:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Welcome to the Sell My Business Podcast. I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg.

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Freedom is the dream of every entrepreneur. However, developing leaders and teams with an ownership mindset is the ticket to this fabled haven. Jeff Cohen founder of six businesses now presents Count-On-Able as the new and rapid success framework that guides CEOs to make this happen.

Jeff is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of CEO and has worked with over 300 CEOs, business owners, and executives. He is a sought-after coach, speaker, and mentor. He is unashamed of as many failures as they have provided the rich proving ground to accelerated success.

Welcome to the Deep Wealth, Sell My Business Podcast. And as usual, I have an over-the-top episode lined up for you. We have a guest who likes us is a business owner, not just of one business has founded six businesses, is in the trenches, has helped over 300 CEOs as you heard in the intro, but he's doing some incredible things. Is a thought leader, an author, and a whole lot more. So I'm getting ahead of myself. Jeff, Welcome to the Deep Wealth, Sell My Business Podcast. It's a pleasure to have you with us.

And there's always a story behind the story. Jeff, what's your story? What got you to where you are today?

[00:02:50] Jeff Cohen: Jeffrey, there is always a story behind the story. The thing is that most people start answering that question like from, okay my first business was. But the reality is the story behind the story starts out when you were a very young child. And there were things that get ingrained in you.

And there are personality traits that develop and some of them really suck. And I know that everyone probably knows at this point I'm going to be publishing my book in the middle of June. And the very first chapter is called Grand Theft Auto. And I'm not going to tell anybody what that's about.

[00:03:30] Jeffrey Feldberg: No spoiler alerts.

[00:03:30] Jeff Cohen: Well, I'll just say this about that chapter. It's the very earliest point in my life where a trigger was formed. Now, what's a trigger. A trigger is something that just grabs you emotionally and keeps you from being rational. Now everybody has them and that's when I got mine. And that's when my story begins, but when I was eight years old, I decided I wanted stickers from all of the major sports teams. And so, I wrote them all. My mom helped me address the letters and stamps on it and get them out. These envelopes would come back and they'd be like a quarter-inch thick, a half-inch thick.

Like I had a stack of stickers. It would've choked a horse. So I said to my mom, I said, mom, I know exactly what I'm going to do with these stickers. She goes, what? I'm going to put them up all over that wall in my room and looked at me as lovingly as she could. And she said, No, you're not.

[00:04:36] Jeffrey Feldberg: Surprise. Surprise.

[00:04:39] Jeff Cohen: I didn't bother to ask her if I could put them on the car. Instead, I put them in my notebook and I went to school and suddenly I had my friends saying, do you have any more of those? Can I buy them and I made 50 bucks and my dad said, Jeff, you're an entrepreneur. And I said, wow, that's amazing. What is that? And he explained it to me. And I've been living that dream ever since.

In my adult life, as you mentioned, I've started six businesses. I've had tremendous success. My failures have been much bigger and more frequent. And a lot longer and way more painful. So my aim in this conversation with you today that we have tons of people eavesdropping on is to tell you all the things I failed at and a few of the successes I've had. Because you know, people will definitely learn something from the things I give. But I promise the things I did wrong. And the things I learned from that will add so much more value.

[00:05:44] Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, absolutely. And I know even for myself, as I look back failure, as painful as it is usually is the best teacher. Hey, success is great, but we'll learn more from failure, and Jeff kudos to you because to put yourself out there to be vulnerable and to share, hey, you know what? I really messed this up.

And here's why, and here's the takeaways. Easier said than done that you can probably requiring back in the day. People can't see you, you and I are smiling. We're laughing, but easier said than done, but thank you for putting yourself out there and insuring with us.

[00:06:13] Jeff Cohen: Yeah, you're welcome. There's as I tell people, look, there's no question that's off-limits. It's just, you may make me cry and I'm okay with that. Just like everything else, we have these emotions they show up and it's okay. No problem.

[00:06:28] Jeffrey Feldberg: We've been warned. We've been warned. And so there you go. Why don't we start with that? I mean, when you look back at your career and you've had a successful career, but as you said, you've made some mistakes, painful mistakes along the way. What comes to mind that from your heavy lifting that you did in the trenches that you can share with us, that we can be the benefactors of?

Oh yeah. I remember Jeff said this happened and not to do this, so I'm going to be mindful of that. And I'm going to change my trajectory. What would be some of those lessons learned?

[00:06:55] Jeff Cohen: So I was on Shark Tank in the very first season 2009, we filmed it. And Kevin O'Leary called me radioactive because I had declared bankruptcy. I had a very fast-growing software company. We grew to 50 people. We were an eight-figure business. We did all of it really quick. And then 2007 came and the market dropped and all of our clients were fortune 500 and global 2000 accounts.

And listen, all those companies are risk-averse. People's jobs were on the line. So the first thing they would do is let go of all of their contracting staff. And we were big, like with big banks, like Wells Fargo and B of A and State of California and others that you know we had a major role with. But suddenly there was no budget for us and it just killed me. Now, the mistake that I made was not that we did business with businesses like that. The mistake that I made was as we grew, we had a cash-eating monster on our hands. I don't think a lot of people really get like rapid growth requires money. And I talked to a VC early on in that business that was really interested in us. And he started the conversation out with, listen, Jeff, I just want you to know I'm a shark and I just shut down from that point forward. Like I did not want to hear I'm a shark. I wanted to hear, hey, we can collaborate. So I decided no we're going to sell fund. And one of my partners and I both mortgaged our homes and then mortgage. And again, like values kept rising every year.

I was able to take another a hundred thousand dollars or something out. And you know, it's a lot easier to take the money out than it is to put it back in. And when the market crashed, I was in a vulnerable position and it really killed me. If you think about what happens to someone when they're going through that, so imagine like you've got 50 people. And you're wondering is the money going to get here from my customer and time to pay my people? What if it doesn't? And what that does is it creates such a high level of stress that it interrupts things like sleep, and then your normal patterns of life get disrupted. And I became very depressed. In fact, I wound up pushing my ex-wife. Both of my sons, I love them dearly, but who wants to hang out with dad?

He's depressed watching Star Trek eight hours a day. They didn't get it. And depression is looked at a lot differently today than it was even just 10, 12, 15 years ago. And I didn't take the cues when people said, Jeff, maybe you should talk to somebody. Like, I was just rolled up in a ball.

I couldn't hear any of that. And I believe a lot of it stemmed from I was so invested in the company I was trapped and it just killed me.

[00:09:45] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. So, you know, a lot going on there and really you have two things going on at opposite ends. So on the one hand, we always view growth is good, but really what you're saying is, hey, in the right context, growth is good. And depending on how much you take on, you need the money to fund that growth. And on the flip side, I really concur with you.

I mean, I'm a bootstrapping kind of guy myself. I call it a cockroach startup kind of mindset where we are not going to the sharks. And at least that guy was upfront with you. Jeff said, hey, I'm a shark. A lot of these people aren't they talk the sweet talk and they lure people in. And before, you know, it's too late at that point.

But all that said, it sounds good on paper, what I'm saying, but in reality, Looking back. What would be some of your takeaways from that painful situation?

[00:10:30] Jeff Cohen: Well, you know, it's funny because I've worked with a lot of business owners since, and one of the things you find is that there's an emotional attachment to a company, especially when it's the first. And so it's very hard to let go. What I would say that had I been in a position where I scaled back and pared-back quickly, there's a chance the company could've kept going and I didn't.

I hesitated. Why did I hesitate? No, I felt connected to all my employees and what I didn't do is I didn't look and say, look, we can keep this thing together with 10 people. I didn't do that. And by the time I started looking at it, it was really too late. In hindsight, I would just say, look, fail as fast as you can. Like had I just recognized no, we're failing right now. It's time to stop. It would have hurt everybody and everyone got hurt anyway, and it sucked. I wound up doing things I'm ashamed of today. I don't think there's anybody in that company that I didn't do something that was a negative impact on them.

And so I'm just sorry.

[00:11:39] Jeffrey Feldberg: You know, Jeff it's interesting because really, as you're sharing your story, what's coming to mind. And let's face it as business owners, we may come from different walks of life, but the one thing we usually have in common, typically we're type A personalities. We look to ourselves as winners and as you're sharing your story it's that old saying that, hey, winners never quit and quitters never win.

And I'm sure that's going through mine. I'm not going to quit. I'm going to make this happen. We're just going to take this to the nth degree. We'll figure it out. But I'm hearing you say hey, maybe that wasn't the best decision. There was an inflection point that perhaps was missed that I should have recognized now would be the time to quit because it's the right thing.

And the smart thing to do versus just trying to take it to the nth degree. Am I on point with that? Or is there something else to it?

[00:12:24] Jeff Cohen: No, it's actually really great where you're saying because Robert Herjavec stood up for me when Kevin O'Leary called me radioactive on Shark Tank and they didn't get all of this on film and it's not in the episode, but they did get a snippet of it. And the thing that stands out about Robert, what Robert said to Kevin was the measure of a man is not how many times they fall. It's how many times they get back up and failing is not failure unless you stop. Yes, you can fail. Yes. A lot of us are type A personalities that just are positive people, and we know we can do it?

And for whatever reason, we just haven't figured out the secret sauce yet. So want to keep on trying nothing wrong with that, by the way, I went from that software company to my granola bar business and was on Shark Tank with the granola bar business. I mean, come on. I had an eight-figure business and I went to a zero-figure business and then grew, a mid-six-figure business before I decided that wasn't for me.

But the trick you gotta do is you just gotta be able to be open and say, look, it's okay to stop because when you stop the number one thing that happens. You can redirect your energy on the thing that you see really is what you want, or really will get you to the outcome you're aiming for.

[00:13:53] Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, a lot of wisdom in there Jeff and for our listeners, I really hope you're paying close attention because, hey, this is from the trenches. Listen to this, Jeff was having this eight-figure business on paper. It looked terrific behind the scenes, perhaps not so much, but from there through some painful experiences, went onto the granola business to six figures and growing.

But Jeff, let me ask you this, hindsight's always 2020. It's always so much easier after the fact, and we're not emotionally triggered and it's not the first business like you're saying where you have that attachment, but looking back now. I don't know if it was growth for growth's sake that you were chasing after, or it just was happening organically.

Had you had a slower pace for the growth. So if you deliberately kept it smaller, would that have made a difference, or what was going on there with the growth.

[00:14:40] Jeff Cohen: Yes, it would have made a difference. We paid people really fairly and we have too much overhead and did not reduce that quickly enough when it existed. Those are some of the things that had, I had that investor, he probably would have pointed out and we probably would have acted on. And without that we made some mistakes, I made mistakes. I said, no, we can't get these resources that easily. We need to keep them. So we kept paying people, even though we didn't have the necessarily the revenue to be able to do that at the time. So it's not that it was a problem and it was a big problem.

[00:15:20] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. Again thanks for just being vulnerable and putting yourself out there. So really for our listeners, that there's a couple of things that I'm hearing loud and clear Jeff, and just for you to validate, and then I'd love to go on to the next one. And in terms of some wonderful lessons learned or painful lessons learned, but that growth for growth sake never a good thing to do. And there's something to be said of, hey, it's okay. We're not going to be necessarily the biggest, but we're going to grow it in a way that we can support and profits will come along with that. We'll live another day. The cockroach startup mindset, do whatever you can to live another day.

And maybe it's a bit of slower organic growth but I'm also hearing you say that in an effort to live another day, nothing. That you have to look at everything from people to systems, to whatever's going on and say, okay, can we afford this? Do we really need this? If it's between us and our survival.

[00:16:10] Jeff Cohen: You know my coach at the time gave me some really wise advice. And I was in survival mode. So nothing going through my head was straight. I wasn't thinking clearly, like when you're in survival mode, you don't sleep, you don't eat right. You don't connect with people. You're not thinking clearly. And he caught that and he said to me, Jeff build yourself a war chest because when you shut this down, you're going to have nothing. So sequester whatever cash you can, so you can survive and take care of your people the best way you can. And I did. And I got through it. We built a little granola bar business. I call it the granola bar that saved my life because I got back to where people were saying, hey, Jeff, this is really great. I love these, or they're good for you too.

I have diabetes, wow. They don't spike my blood sugar. Like I'm telling you the respite that I got from doing that business was enormous, I'm not really proud of the way it all went. And I've learned and I've helped a lot of people based on the experience, the history that I've had. And one of the big things I've learned is you've got to live for tomorrow and not yesterday.

[00:17:18] Jeffrey Feldberg: I hear you loud and clear. And what you're talking about with the granola company and for our listeners, you can't see Jeff. I can. And just your whole demeanor changed Jeff when you're talking about it. And it sounds like when you went from that very stressful. Kind of, oh my goodness. We're not going to make payroll.

What are we going to do? We're going out of business. You took your failure and it's never a failure. Like you said, it's only a failure if you never learned from it. But you learned from that and you went into the granola business. It's something that made you feel good. And although you didn't go into the details, it sounds as though you grew this at a pace that worked for you, and it was more according to lifestyle for you and vision that you had for that. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.

[00:18:01] Jeff Cohen: It was really simple. I was making these energy bars. It was the one thing I did with my family that brought me some joy during that really stressful period. And a friend of mine called me up one day. And he came over and he says, hey, can I take some of these to work? And before I knew it, I was selling energy bars to 20 TV shows and movies on the Warner brothers slot. And then my sister decided she was in real estate at the time when real estate was just totally crashing. She said, hey Jeff, let me get you into a Whole Foods with this. So she did. And one thing led to another. She found out about the Shark Tank auditions. She opened up Safeway for us. Like we had a business that was growing.

We had, I think three or 4,000 distribution points for the product. And I learned to hate the food business.

[00:18:54] Jeffrey Feldberg: Congratulations, I guess.

[00:18:55] Jeff Cohen: It's really hard work. It was a lot of hours and there was very little money in it, but what it did was it gave me the ability to get back into technology. It also gave me the freedom to take a real serious look at myself. And on that journey, I started a program called The Team Management and Leadership Program.

And in that program was a two-year program. And the very first quarter I was in it. I took a serious look at me. And that's where I started noticing things like I was a crappy boss. People wanted to work for me because we just had something going that was killing it. And when it wasn't like the way I was with them sucked and I would never do that again.

But that's what happened. I also saw in that the opportunity to help other business owners and in that program got about 50 CEOs and business owners and entrepreneurs together in small groups. And we started looking at what worked and what didn't work in our business. And we found the common area of problem. Like the one thing that happens in a business that affects everything. So people think that they communicate effectively and Jeffrey it's a myth. It doesn't happen. People think they're communicating effectively. What's really happening is they're communicating. Like they're telling you something. And then all the time they're telling you, there's this little Tasmanian devil running around in your head, just waiting.

Waiting for them to take a breath. So you can say what's in there to say, and it takes something to get ahold of that guy and calm him down. For me, give me the opportunity to really look at what the breakdown in communication was. What had communication be ineffective and a lot of what had it be ineffective was primarily the lack of absorption and the lack of acknowledgment that the person communicating will receive. So in my book, I actually give you the steps, communicate. I tell you, look if you're going to have a meeting with your people in order to align your management team, make sure their teams are aligned with them, ensure that there's trust in the organization. And know what you're trusting each other for. There's a whole lot there, but it's really not that complicated. The reality is that most people communicate ineffectively. And it's just simply because what they're not doing is hearing back from you, what they shared or what they asked. I have a great story from this weekend.

I was in San Diego with some friends, my wife and I have a one-year-old foster daughter. She's amazing. She is like the most beautiful, loving, precious thing in the whole world. Our friends have a seven-year-old daughter and my friend and I, we took our daughters to dinner and on the way to frozen yogurt.

I'm walking with my friend. He's pulling a wagon with the two kids in it, I turn my head. And I see my one-year-old standing up. She can't walk yet. And I said, stop. And we stopped. And I sat her down. I turned to this seven-year-old and I said, hey, I'm just curious. Did you see her standing? Yeah. I told you. I said oh, you know, I didn't hear you. Okay. Right back to her game. I said, hey, can I ask you a favor? She said, why? I said if something like that happens again and you tell me, could you make sure that I answer you? And she said, okay, right back to her video game. And I looked at her and I said, hey, can I ask you a question? What did I just say to you? She said you said she had to think about it for a second. And that second turned into five seconds, 10 seconds. After about 15 seconds she said you want me to make sure that you answer me? I said, yes. Thank you. We live in a very soundbite world. We have distractions all around us. We're all playing video games or checking email or whatever's on our Slack channel next.

And people today have learned the phrase, got it. And that does not actually mean you got it. So it's ineffective to ask someone something and for them not to get it.

[00:23:17] Jeffrey Feldberg: And what's amazing Jeff, in that one not to confuse simple with simplicity, that one simple story that illustration with a seven-year-old, my goodness, but now let's fast forward to the corporate world or to the business world. And comes across in spades. We assume that other people are getting it.

But to your point, people tune in to what I like to call the world's favorite radio station. And in our 9-step roadmap of preparation, we talk about step number three. How do you master the art of thinking like a buyer while your future buyers radio station happens to be the same radio station of the number one station of what the entire world loves and its WII.FM, the what's in it for me, radio station. So people aren't thinking about you, they're not thinking about me, they're thinking about themselves. That's all they really care about. And I just love that how you circled back, stopped everything.

Hey, stop the presses. Can you just repeat back for me what you think you heard me say? And that really hit it home, such a it's a powerful strategy, but it's not a complicated one ends a quick one. Can I just hear you repeat back what I said?

[00:24:20] Jeff Cohen: Not only that it's really, it can be done very respectfully. So people don't feel like you're putting them on the spot and questioning them. So there's three frameworks that I have in the book. There's the Trust Framework, the Alignment Framework, and the combination of the two, which is the Trust Alignment Framework. And when you get to the panacea and you're actually working from where your executive team is aligned and people have trust in each other. It's great, but what's often missing and I find it missing in most communication is people communicate from an emotional state, typically not from an outcome that they're aiming for. And when I work with clients and I do it every single day, I'm always asking them what outcome they want, because there's two opposite ends of that spectrum. There's what you want as an outcome. And there's you being right. Which never gets you, what you want as an outcome.

[00:25:22] Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, I love that. You know what you want. And you being right. And oftentimes, Jeff, I'll throw this into the mix. If we're able to, how you don't just help enough people get what they want that in turn will be able to get what we want, but usually not the other way around.

[00:25:39] Jeff Cohen: Well, That's exactly what I say on my LinkedIn profile, help enough other people get what they want. And we'll achieve as a function of their success.

The trick to it is that and you said it earlier, we all have these really short attention spans. And I'd never written a book before this book and my book writing coach was amazing.

And what he taught me was how to make everything a consumable story in three to four pages. Because I've got ADD, and I can not read a 30-page chapter without stopping in the middle. And every time I do, I feel like I need to back up a few pages or a few paragraphs at least to catch up to where I was.

And remember, so I wrote the book. So it's very consumable and every chapter is a story. There's a story about me and why I'm writing a book and every chapter or about clients and how they implement the program. Its Count-On-Able it practical guide to lift shift and empower you and your team. And what it does is it actually gives you the step-by-step, how do you do it? There are a lot of great programs out there. There's the Entrepreneur Operating System, EOS, Gino Wickman does a great job with that. There's Scaling Up with Verne Harnish and he's got an amazing program. There are plenty of them. And what I find is they do really amazing things.

For example, they all say you want to have the right person doing the right thing at the right time. I don't think there's anybody that would disagree. You helping companies get set up so that they can sell me, helping companies get set up so they can run without, or with an owner or with a CEO.

So the teams are leaders that lead and create more leaders. But what all of these systems tend to miss is the step-by-step. How do you know you've got someone doing the right thing? At the right time or how do you know they're the right one?

[00:27:40] Jeffrey Feldberg: I love that. It's the power of the how do you know? And as we like to say at Deep Wealth, particularly for a liquidity event, but it applies the business as well. Jeff, it goes right back to what you're saying. You can't believe you've got to know, because if you believe, and you don't know, that's where mistakes happen, that's where, to your communication point, misunderstandings are going to happen.

But when you have certainty and when you know, that's where the magic happens. And so with Count-On-Able book, really between your 20 years as a CEO and you're working with over 300 CEOs, and I know you've done these round tables, I call the mastermind groups. It sounds like you've just taken all of that wisdom from yourself, from what you've learned over the years.

And you've put it together in a book of stories and we all love stories. That's where wired for stories. Tell me numbers and data. I'm not going to remember it. Tell me a story with numbers and datas. And now I'll probably remember the story with numbers and data. So I love your approach to that. So for the listeners, getting the Count-On-Able book.

What's that gonna do for the most tuned into their WII.FM? Jeff was saying, okay, Jeff. Yeah, that's all fine. And good, but what's in it for me. Why would I want to go out and get this book? What's in it for me?

[00:28:56] Jeff Cohen: It's really simple. The word accountable has bad press. The last time most people heard about being accountable was probably at six o'clock last night when someone was going to jail or there was a politician that they didn't like, something, someone was being held accountable and listen, I'm telling you what I'm being held accountable.

It feels to me like a gun is being held in my head. I resist being accountable, but when you can create an environment in your. Where people can stand up and say, you can count on me for this and for this. And you cannot count on me for that. Now you've got something because we hire people all day long.

And in the very last interview we said to them, oh, by the way, can you also do the dishes? Now, maybe I can, maybe I can't, but you don't know if it caters to my strengths. You don't know if I'm good at it and you don't know if I even liked doing the dishes, but you're going to ask me anyway. And the minute you do that, you've just set me up to disappoint you and other people.

Because it's now in my job description and I've gone from being the A player you hired to the B player that disappoints to the C player you want to get rid of. So what makes this system work is every week we're tracking who's countable or not countable for things. And we do it in a very subtle way. All of the templates are on the site. You go to countonable.com. You'll be able to download all of them when the book is out all of the access to the communities and the systems is all going to be there so that you can get support and you can reach out and put time on my calendar and I can help you with it.

The trick is what's in it for you is having an organization where people are empowered and you're able to start knowing that the things you want a CEO are being accomplished by the people that are most appropriate to do them and the people that are not most appropriate to do them or that are starting to move on from the job they currently have, because let's face it.

People don't stay in one job. They have aspirations. They grow, they learn things and we do a really lousy job of preparing people for their future. Instead, what happens is they start noticing, oh, I can't trust my boss to have my back anymore. I have to start looking out for me. And then they start looking for the ideal job again, what they've had the ideal job.

It's the one they started with you where it catered to their strengths. They were really good at it. And they loved doing it. That was their dream job. And as long as it was their dream job, they never ever thought of leaving and you didn't have to spend money on hiring a new person to replace them. And you didn't have to waste time bringing that person up to speed.

So that person now can hopefully take the culture in and do everything that needs to be done. So what being Count-On-Able will do for you and your company is it will set you up so that when you want a vacation, you're not working two to four hours a day. And when you want to sell your company, you do not have a five-year earn-out, we're able to turn it over to the leaders that are left in the company that are rising.

[00:32:30] Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific terrific advice. And after all, you know, as we were speaking offline, Jeff, that whole "E" word which we banish at Deep Wealth, the earn-out you're preaching to the choir here. Now, Jeff, why don't you share with us with the book how can our listeners get the book? And I know that there's something special that you wanted to put out there.

So I'd love to hear that for our listeners.

[00:32:49] Jeff Cohen: Yeah, we always save special to the end. Isn't that how it goes?

[00:32:52] Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely.

[00:32:54] Jeff Cohen: So first off. The website is countonable.com, and I invite you to come there. Now we're releasing the book, the middle of June. So you can help me with the book launch and get a copy of the book, well In advance. If you want come to countonable.com and just send me a note or apply to get that very first chapter for free. And I'll reach out to you and ask if you'd like to be a reviewer. And if you do what I'll do is I'll send you the entire ebook with one request that when we launch it on Amazon, For the pennies that it's going to cost you by copy and post a one or two-sentence opinion of your true thoughts about where you think it's valuable or not for people and companies. And like I said earlier, if you're interested in having your company be Count-On-Able and shipping from the accountability culture, that's not effective. I'm more than happy to have a conversation with you. There'll be a link there that will help you get to my calendar and we can schedule a conversation to learn about what you would like.

[00:34:02] Jeffrey Feldberg: That doesn't get any better. And for our listeners out there again, we'll have this all in the show notes. It'll be a point and click. It will be incredibly easy for you. And Jeff you're making just such a gracious offer. Why don't take Jeff up on his offer, go to the website, sign up, get that chapter, get the book, put something on Jeff's calendar?

 Here's what he's got to say and take that wisdom and that information of both what worked, what didn't work. And you can apply that to your business. You know, Jeff, I could just go on such a deep rabbit hole, dive here of all of your stories but we're starting to bump up against some time here.

So let's do this. As we begin to wrap up, the episode is my favorite question is a little bit of a thought experiment. I can't wait to hear your answer. Here's the question for you. I want you to think about the movie Back to the Future. And in the movie, you have that magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time.

Jeff, now imagine it's tomorrow morning. You look outside your window. Not only is a DeLorean car there, but the door is open and it's waiting for you to hop on it. And you can now go to any point in your life. Maybe it's Jeff as a child or a teenager, whatever the case would be. What are you telling your younger self in terms of life, wisdom, or lessons learned or hey, Jeff, do this but don't do that.

What would that sound like?

[00:35:19] Jeff Cohen: Well, This is a podcast about business. So I'm not going to tell you anything about business because every single time I've ever looked for something, for me in any kind of program I've been in the most valuable and richest thing I got was for me and my family. So I would go back three years and I would take away the agreement that I made with my ex-wife, that I work and make money, and she takes care of the kids in the house. And I would be changing poopy diapers because I'm doing that now with our one-year-old foster-to-adopt daughter and the fulfillment that I'm getting out of developing that relationship way outweighs any success I've ever had in my life. And while my sons today are full-grown men and have no delusion about being treated well and have a great relationship with me today, or me, the greatest thing I could have ever gotten with them would have been that bonding at that early age.

[00:36:23] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. That's really spoken from the heart and it's from such a successful business person like yourself, really says a lot of taking a step back and really valuing what's important. You know, Jeff, I will throw this out there in the show notes as well. We spoke about this, but I'll ask just again, just to make sure.

In addition to the website that we'll have there in the show notes, if someone wants to find you online is a website, the best place for you, is there somewhere else that they should be looking?

[00:36:51] Jeff Cohen: So in the show notes, you'll be able to see my Instagram account and my LinkedIn account. And I think our Facebook account and a Twitter account up there. And at some point I'll do something with YouTube, all of those sites I'm on. I'm regularly engaging with people on those platforms. So I invite you to reach out to me by the way, Jeffrey and I both share the same first name.

There's the good news and the bad news about that. There are about 8 million Jeff Cohens so you really will need to put the word Count-On-Able or Shark Tank or something like that with me to find me. It's my way of having a little anonymity and I did not choose it. And I'm totally good with people contacting me on any of those platforms.

Half my time is spent just communicating with people.

[00:37:42] Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. I know Jeff, your parents gave you a gift that keeps on giving with your name. Why not? But listen, it's been absolutely wonderful. Thank you for sharing your wisdom both on the business side, the personal side that you just shared for lessons learned with your successes and not-so successes, that's been absolutely terrific.

And thank you for taking part of your day and spending it with us on the Deep Wealth, Sell My Business Podcast. And as we wrap this up as always, please stay healthy and safe.

[00:38:10] Jeff Cohen: Thank you so much, Jeffrey, such a pleasure meeting you and great being part of your team today.

[00:38:14] Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me.

[00:38:18] Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions.

[00:38:28] Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity

[00:38:32] Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

[00:38:39] Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, maybe less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix.

[00:38:54] Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately.

[00:39:17] Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended.

[00:39:27] Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

[00:39:40] Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even.

[00:39:59] Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

[00:40:25] Kam H.: I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.

Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever.

[00:40:44] Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table?

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

If you're not on my email list, you'll want to be. Sign up at www.deepwealth.com/podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode of the Sell My Business podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews help me reach new listeners, grow the show and continue to create content that you'll enjoy.

As we close out this episode, a heartfelt thank you for your time. And as always, please stay healthy and safe.

This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth. 

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Enjoy the interview!