Terry Hedden (00:00)
I’m excited to introduce today’s podcast guest, Robert Benton One of the best human beings I’ve met in the channel, someone I enjoy spending time with and someone that you’re going to enjoy learning from. You see his story is going to resonate for a lot of MSPs that started out as a MSP business owner, almost by accident, stumbled into the opportunity, ended up growing a business slowly and then faster and faster as he started to figure out sales and marketing and ended up selling and retiring a very comfortable life. It’s something that I know you’re interested in, just like most people are. Enjoy.
Robert, I am so excited to welcome you to the Grow Limitless podcast. You’re one of those people that I just love spending time with. You’ve got a great energy about you. You’ve got a great story to tell. And frankly, you’re just kind of like a guy that deserved to win that did. So I’m excited to hear a little bit more about your story. Thank you for joining us, man. I appreciate you coming aboard. ⁓
Robert Benton (01:03)
Thank you, Terry. I appreciate that.
Terry Hedden (01:05)
Awesome. Awesome. Robert. So, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re calling in from your RV, you’re living the life that so many MSPs dream of living comfortably retired, living the lifestyle that you want to live, traveling the world and, and, and doing that on the proceeds of successfully selling your MSP. Robert, before we get started with the past, man, what’s it like to be Robert Benton right now, man? How, does it feel?
Robert Benton (01:33)
It feels wonderful. I’ll be honest with you. You know, I can say I’ve been blessed numerous times along the way with people and, you know, opportunities and, you know, customers. mean, Morgatopia, you know, a lot of different people along the way. But the biggest thing is I just really listened. And that’s what I’m doing now is I’m listening to the people who are retired and I’m, you know, and I’m taking their guidance.
Terry Hedden (02:01)
Awesome. Awesome. Robert, it’s it’s a awesome story to tell. And one day I hope to join you there. I failed at retiring one time. I’m hoping I nail it the next time. Start, you know, I guess kid has kicked off, Robert. Obviously you had an MSP. That’s why you’re on here, but walk us through your journey before that. What’d you do before you owned an MSP and what led you to take that entrepreneurial jump to starting your own?
Robert Benton (02:26)
Well, so I was one of those employees that you really didn’t want because I always strived for something different. always, nothing was ever processed well enough for me, right? So I was a bagger at Kroger’s and I had to figure out that process and I had to improve it. And then I was a checker and that’s where I learned 10 key because I had to improve that. And then, you know, factory work and it was just, none of it ever set well because I had this drive in me to make the process better. And so honestly, I got fired from my last job. And I was like, know what? IT, I’ve ⁓ been doing PCs ever since I was 12, probably 1920 at this point. And I’m just like, I’m just going to quit or I’m sorry, I got fired and I’m just not going to do anything until I find my first IT job.
So I searched the papers for three months. I found one in Nashville, Tennessee, drove up, waited on the small business owner for five hours while he was on a job. And I sat in his waiting room that long. The guy walked in and said, you’re still here? And I’m like, yeah, I need a job. And when I interviewed, got hired on the spot, for him for five years, learned how to do it right, you know, and really care about the customer, build that trust.
And then I started my own and it was all break fix. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew that people trusted me to help fix their systems. And there was a value to that. I didn’t know what that value was. ⁓ I just kind of made enough to pay rent.
Terry Hedden (04:09)
And that job was that you were with the company do, were they a technology service company? Or are they? Oh, really?
Robert Benton (04:17)
Yeah, yeah. So he built servers for the small to medium business. We did networking. We actually hand soldered printer cables. If you go back as far as the old AB switches, going from serial ports and HP and all that. So I used to hand solder all those cables. But again, because I was his only tech, I worked hand-in-hand learning the processes and purchase orders. And again, just good trust and good quality customer service.
Terry Hedden (04:54)
Wow. That’s a really valuable lesson at such an early age. Now, what’s the age you were at when this happened?
Robert Benton (05:00)
I was probably 20, 21 at this point. I started my company, that would have been around 2002, 2003. So yeah.
Terry Hedden (05:12)
Okay, that’s really interesting. And then so you learn the valuable, the importance of taking care of the customer, hard work, discipline. What led you to leave? It sounds like you had a comfortable thing going. You were learning a lot. What made you take the leap of faith to go out on your own or was there a step in between?
Robert Benton (05:27)
Well, yeah, there actually was. So I got to know my biological father at that point and ⁓ I knew that I wanted to do something different. So he actually afforded me the opportunity to go work for him while I started the company. And I worked for him, I would say maybe a year while I started the company and I just kept acquiring customers. And then I sat down with him one day and I said, dad, said, I’m ⁓really thinking about doing this on my own and he goes, well, that’s really what I did. So thank you for helping us out go about your way and I started it and yeah.
Terry Hedden (06:07)
And so when you started your MSP, I was in Nashville, I’m assuming, kind in the greater Nashville area.
Robert Benton (06:12)
Really, it was more focused on Rutherford County because that’s where I was actually living at the time. I had one customer and I just started door knocking in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, introducing myself. You hey, I’m Robert Benton. I’m starting this IT company. Would love to work with you. And ⁓ I met a business owner, Dewayne Carvinen from Murfreesboro Insurance Company, who has long since died, unfortunately. ⁓He introduced me to an organization called BNI. I joined it and I was a member of that for 12 years and that’s how I grew my reputation. I just grew my customer base.
Terry Hedden (06:54)
Wow. You know, I’ve heard BNI, some people have great success stories and some people say that it kind of starts off good and then quickly dies down. Was that able to sustain your growth over time? Walk me through your growth journey. When was this relative to now? And tell me about kind of your growth rate in those early years.
Robert Benton (07:14)
Well, really I was, I was 100 % break fixed. So I knew that if I didn’t bill, I didn’t make any money. So that was my encouragement to actually get out there. And, and because my particular BNI group was heavily invested in the local chamber, I became a chamber diplomat. And so I had multiple mentors through that journey that was like, Hey, you know, you need to know this person. You didn’t know that person. So. Again, extremely blessed with all the people who saw me and actually took me under their wing. And then I just started realizing, hey, if I can sell it for a dollar and I can buy it for 60 cents, I make 40%. Right? So I didn’t go to college. I didn’t learn all this. This is just, to me, was just common sense. And so I just did more of selling it for a dollar and buying it for 60. And of course your time is just your time. So once I started increasing my rate and I started finding more and more clients, then I started realizing that I was leaving money on the table because as with a lot of service industries, they keep bringing on more and more clients, but then they keep pushing the good ones off. So then it made sense to me if I’m leaving hours on the table, I should hire someone, train them, and then I’d build twice as much.
Terry Hedden (08:44)
Interesting. That’s some valuable lessons there. You sounds to me like you start off like a lot of MSPs do, kind of an accidental entrepreneur, if you will. You kind of didn’t go in with that grand scheme plan, but you got yourself in a situation with your dad where you had learned a lot and got your first customer. And it sounds to me like you had a little word of encouragement to get you out there. And then once you’re out there, you had to learn some valuable lessons. You got to charge what your time’s worth if you wanted to make money and it’s interesting. How long did it take before you hired your first employee?
Robert Benton (09:22)
It probably was a year and a half maybe. wow. Okay. Maybe even two. You know, I grew quite a bit because there was only two IT companies in Rutherford, well, Murfreesboro at that particular time. And so there was a lot of demand, but not a lot of businesses. so again, just extremely blessed. Right. I mean, I just started acquiring customers and then⁓ one of the customers that I acquired, ⁓ was a company called crawls and supply company. And the, the man who ran that he went by Coon, you know, which of course we’re in, you know, Rutherford County, Tennessee, right? So we’re Southern. ⁓ but, ⁓ Coon was extremely intelligent in how he ran his business. And so he invited me to sit at the manager’s table meeting, sit at the manager’s meeting once a month to actually let his team know what was happening as far as, as far as the IT goes. Well, on that first meeting, on that first, on that first day of that first meeting that I sat in there and I sat at the table with the business owners, the sons of the business owners and all the managers, I quickly realized this is where you want to be.
You know, you don’t want to be the guy who comes in and fixes a monitor. You know, you don’t want to be the vendor. You want to be the guy sitting at the table. So from that day on, I focused on being the guy sitting at the table. And from that, I dealt with the owners. dealt with them from a mindset of helping them manage the IT and not being a vendor. And I really think that set me apart because ⁓And I can tell you lesson after lesson after lesson, but you know, one of the things that I tried to do inside my MSP is when I met with the owner, I presented them with a budget on day one because I didn’t want to have to come to that business owner and go, Hey, I need approval for a $300 memory chip. need approval for a thousand dollar computer. I should tell you that on the front end because I can forecast your budgeting and go, I need $20,000 this year because we need a new server and we need three new PCs. If you’ll approve this, I’ll make it happen. That’s not a vendor, that is a trusted employee. And that’s where I focused my strategy on.
Terry Hedden (12:02)
Wow. That sounds like a very sound way of sort of elevating your importance to that business, the relationship depth, and probably gives you a lot more job security and influence when you’re operating at that level as that trusted advisor on day one. What gave you the idea to do that? That’s not normal. Most IT people kind of stay in their lane and take what they’re given and they don’t sort of push themselves into the boardroom. That’s a ⁓ pretty big, big time thought there.
Robert Benton (12:28)
Well, the biggest thing is, ⁓ again, being very social, being very personable, I would just introduce myself. And I knew that I needed to be at that table because as business owners, we don’t hire employees. I didn’t hire my COO so I could babysit him. I hired him to update me once a week, once every three weeks, once a month on how the business ran. Right? So if I’ve got to manage that, then I might as well do it myself. So that mindset was with the majority of my clients, hey, I don’t need you to manage me, right? I run a successful IT business. You need me to manage your environment. So here’s how I structure my business. And the majority of the customers were thankful for that because they did have to manage the IT had to you know, you’re a $40 million a year company and you’re having to approve as CEO of the company, you’re having to approve $150 memory chip upgrade. Well, you spent $500 in your time, you know, approving that to make sure that it was bought and manage it. I mean, I didn’t want to put you in that situation. Let me do my job and I’ll charge you a fair price for it.
Terry Hedden (13:49)
That’s awesome. Is that, tell me about your client retention. That strategy is probably seems to me something that would create clients for long term versus more transactional level superficial relationships. Did you find that it translated into tight client retention?
Robert Benton (14:04)
Yeah, absolutely. We all know we’ve got our Class A to, you’ve got your Class A, B, C, and D clients. so my Class A and B clients fell under that model and those would never leave. One of the reasons why I sold, this is going down part of the podcast, but one of the reasons I sold is because those high value customers were merging and selling off because they had the money. They had already done their time. And so I saw that and I’m like, okay, so now everyone’s left with C &D clients and I didn’t want to be in that business model.
Terry Hedden (14:46)
Interesting. Okay. So you have this unique approach to going deeper in the relationship, establishing a budget upfront, building a deep relation with the business owner. How did your business grow over time? Walk us through the journey from your approach to growth and your approach to retention and just success in business over the course of your MSP’s life. ⁓
Robert Benton (15:09)
Well, so one, I had extremely good people. ⁓ I had people who I really empowered. ⁓ Are you able to hear me okay? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Sorry. I’m actually running off Starlink so I may get a blip here and there. That’s awesome. But when my COO and I sat down.
Terry Hedden (15:27)
That’s awesome.
Robert Benton (15:35)
We both agree that we needed to empower our people, right? So I didn’t sit behind a desk and actually develop brand new policies. We took those policies to the people who it directly affected. And then we’re like, okay, what is it that you think about this, about this policy? How is it going to interrupt your day? Is it good? Is it bad? And through that empowerment, we then also taught them that you’re the people who manage this company’s IT. So don’t look at it as you need to fix a PC or you need to fix a printer. Is that printer so old that it needs to be replaced? Make that judgment call. Is that PC so old it needs to be replaced? Is that server so old it needs to be replaced? So look at it from a, you’re the IT administrator of this company. What is it that we need to make sure that this company functions because downtime equals money. So if you’re a $50 million a year company and you’ve got 200 employees and you’re constantly up and down, right, something’s broken in that model. Well, your job is to figure that out before that company goes down. So with that mindset, we would get a lot more projects because we didn’t leave PCs for 10 years. We didn’t leave servers for eight years. You know, we were on constant rotation of that so it was through constant projects and then just making sure that we took care of the customer. So growth was really through that model.
Terry Hedden (17:14)
Very interesting. All right. So how did you get customers? Were you focused on word of mouth and the BMI solution or kind of walk me through that as you kind of grew and develop and grew and develop? How did your approach to getting big enough to sell and retire walk me through that journey?
Robert Benton (17:33)
Yeah, so at first it was definitely word of mouth. then ⁓ as so I was break fix and I went to one of my one of my mentor friends and I said, how is it? How do I do this managed services model? Because when I bill an hour, I trust that that hour created value. And I don’t understand how you can create value in the managed services model because they’re paying me and I may not do anything that month. And so I learned that lesson about being proactive versus being reactive to everything. So that really grew my model as I sat down and I talked with customers and now I had reoccurring revenue that I could forecast budgets, you know, I could actually hire, I can hire people on and then I just started focusing on that. once I had enough money that made sense, I started hiring key people. So I hired my COO. I promoted my CTO. I promoted my CFO. And putting the right people in place allowed me to quit working in the business and started working on the business. And so then I started looking at, what are the models that I can sell? What makes the most sense? We had a few different plans and of course, you know, we could argue about plans all day. I have sitting in all these conferences, but I did it. So that’s all I can say is my particular model worked for my region.
Terry Hedden (19:14)
Something you said just kind of jumped out at me. You were able to work on your business. think so many people kind of get stuck in the day to day grinding of the machine that they never just step back, step up, look at it overall and just actually spend conscious time to work on your business. What are some things that you, maybe some of the lessons learned, some of the wise moves maybe on accident or on purpose that you made during those times that you’re able to kind of reflect on now.
Robert Benton (19:47)
Now, I think the biggest thing is working hard to get to the point where you can afford that luxury. We, we fired a client that was, I fired a client that was 15 % of my business because they were probably 50 % of my tickets. Right. And so I lost $320,000 that year in actual revenue, but every one of my employees thanked me. Right. They were, they were just extremely noisy. And so with that, I realized how much time I wasn’t spending on the clients who were waiting for me. And those are the clients that had the money. And so as I started focusing on them and I, and then I was able to hire people to do the mundane tasks that I was doing that I shouldn’t have been doing. Now I start finding myself where I can focus on growing the business with my CLO and we can start having meetings talking about, we making money? Are we not making money? What is it that we’re spending on X and am I, know, and so at that point. I joined ⁓ Arlen’s group, which I saw his podcast, you know, his podcast that he did with the HTG. And ⁓ I learned about numbers and I learned about accountability. Right. And so if I’m sitting here fixing a PC, I’m not out meeting with clients, growing my business. Does that help that answers your question?
Terry Hedden (21:26)
Yeah, it does. does. I didn’t realize there was as much of an Arlen link as it sounds like there is. he, he kind of, you know, HTG slash, you know, evolve really kind of forces you to pull you out of the office, to work on your business for a few days. It almost, is that where you got that discipline or is that something that came naturally to you to physically disconnect and, and work?
Robert Benton (21:52)
No, I fought it. I fought it tooth and nail because I, I love IT. I love fixing server issues. love being the guy who can sit with a problem and fix it. Right. So, ⁓ my COO was the one that threw me out of service. He’s like, you either get in service and you manage it or you get out of service and you run this company. ⁓ and if you know William, you know, he’s that old. ⁓ but I remember sitting at my desk one day and I did stop doing the service. I did stop managing the projects. I had the people for that. And I remember sitting at my desk going, have nothing to do. I literally had nothing to do. So I need to go call my customers and I need to see how they are and just start touching base with them and start growing this company. And that’s when I created Momentum. That’s when I created growth.
Terry Hedden (22:49)
Interesting. You know, I love that because I feel like the natural temptation for so many people is to do what they enjoy doing. And in your case, you love the technical side, but you quickly realized through the, your COOs, ⁓ know, counsel wise counsel there is to say, listen, you know, let’s, know, go take care of customers, go, go, go do what you do best. You, you you help us retain customers, help us get new customers.
You focus on the front end and let the service team do their job. And I think one of the challenges a lot of CEOs face is that they, they can’t delegate. can’t truly delegate. They feel like they have to have control and, they become kind of a bottleneck, right? I mean, kind of like they become the problem because they’re trying to add value in too many different places and they’re not kind of empowering their team. That sounds like something that you did pretty darn effectively where you put people in roles that I honestly gave them the power to tell you what you needed to hear, which is, Robert, go over here, man. Go take care of relationships. Go re-Robert Benton, one of the most loved people probably in your market. My guess is you had deep, great relationships with your clients that you were able to leverage to get opportunities, leverage to weather storms, just kind of build and develop relationships over time versus just turn on wrenches and hit and control off the lead every day.
Robert Benton (24:16)
Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ we also read a book called Traction and I’m sure, know, EOS taught me a lot about how to structure the company. And in reading that, it made me realize that I needed to put the right people in the right seat on the bus. And if you weren’t the right person, then you didn’t make the seat. And one of the hardest decisions and fights that I had to do in my career was not promote my wife to my, to my COO, you know, which of course created some late nights with her. But once I, once I talked with her about why, and she saw the growth of the company, she realized that it was a really smart decision, but it was really difficult, you know, but that’s one of those business owner, business owner decisions, which you’re faced with that you’ve got to deal with. Obviously it worked out.
Terry Hedden (25:16)
Wow. I can only imagine. I’ve not had to have a similar conversation. I work with my work as well, as you know, and ⁓ it sounds like you’re able to navigate a pretty tough situation. So that’s impressive. It’s really impressive. All right. So keep going with this story in terms of your business. sounds like that was a key inflection point where you started working on your business. You got into evolve slash HTG. You started to kind of be the CEO and start to evolve and grow and develop and mature the company, get more operationally mature and let the services team do what they do best. ⁓ How far was that before you ended up selling and walk me through, I guess, that journey? When did you get into HTG? ⁓
Robert Benton (26:05)
I really wish I knew the years, it was, um, it had to be, I would say before 2021, maybe 2015, 2018 ish. Um, but again, it taught me, uh, several things about how to run the business. And, and once I was not working in the business, I was looking for opportunities on how to grow. And of course I was a chamber member, chamber ambassador. ⁓ I met with all my clients. asked them to actually refer me. ⁓ then I realized that I needed appointments. And so I met this company called Marketopia at one of these events.
Terry Hedden (26:59)
Great name.
Robert Benton (27:00)
Yeah, exactly. may know them, ⁓ but I was not the ideal customer because I was new, I was tight with my money. I wanted to know everything about how everything worked because that’s the way my mind was. But once I sat down at the end of the day, it was, need lead, I need appointments. And I cannot create the appointments for the growth model that I want to do. And so I signed up with, with Marketopia. met you and, and, ⁓ again, going back to how I manage the customers on the day of, on the day of working with Marketopia, I sought you out at that conference. You know, I went to the, I went to the, to the GROWCON conference and I made a beeline for you because I wanted to know how is it that I can best utilize your company to help me grow? And I met my caller and I don’t know if I should share numbers, but I got a really good caller with really good set down appointments. And then I started growing from there. And at that point, the money made sense. ⁓So my wife at ⁓ the Marta had been diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2004. And so she decided that she was ready to retire. And I said, well, once you’re ready, I’m ready. So we ran the numbers. They all worked out. I found an amazing buyer, again, great opportunity and sold. And here I am. Yeah.
Terry Hedden (28:47)
That’s amazing. ⁓ so that happened quicker than I thought, I guess. First, I’m, know, I, it’s, commend you for, you went to GROWCON, so you were probably kind of in that, you know, mental mindset. You took the time to get out of your business to come there. I am sure, you know, Marketopia, it does a lot of different things and therefore there’s a lot of people working and therefore it’s not cheap.
How was that? You know, as someone who it sounds like you hadn’t spent a lot of money in marketing and sales before, but you did spend money on outside advice, right? If all of it is not cheap, especially when you include all the expenses that come along to travel and that type of thing. Tell me about that emotional journey. What gave you the courage to do it? ⁓ You know, what, I guess, walk me through that decision. What gave you the courage to do it? What made you do it? And why did you pick Marketopia versus so many other solutions out there inside of that evolving community and outside?
Robert Benton (29:47)
Wow. ⁓ Because I’m a guy who once I make a decision, it’s done. And I generally make a decision on the spot. So it’s good or bad, right? and so ⁓ I got the call, know, Jeff. So Jeff called me, we talked. I actually stood him up on the first appointment. My COO met with him, William, and we went to IT Nation. And, ⁓ and, ⁓ you guys were there and Jeff was talking to me and he, you know, he and I were hanging out and I was asking him questions. And then, I was actually talking with Mark today. I’m like, here’s, here’s that contract. Here’s how much it is. I’ve never spent this much money in my life. if this doesn’t work out, I don’t know what we’re going to do, but worst case I just, you know, I just pay it off. I realized that it was a binding contract. didn’t sign this thinking that I would be able to get out of it. I could argue or I could fight my way out of it. And ⁓ so I just signed there. I worked the deal and I signed it there. But then from day one, I get back. I’m like, all right, how do we do this? How do we do that? How do we do this? And that was really a journey for both of us. think, you and I talked, we had some hiccups in the beginning, but that’s because we didn’t know the questions to ask. We didn’t understand the process. But once I hit the process and I hit the collar, I mean, it just, you know, it just worked at that point.
Terry Hedden (31:23)
Yeah. You know, one thing that I always admired about you during your journey was sort of that, that eager learner. Like you have confidence about you, you know, you’ve had a lot of success in your life. You, know, it’s, it’s not that, it’s nothing short of, of, of, of, a conscious decision to be a learner, like to have a learner mentality, eager to learn, eager to develop.
Robert Benton (31:31)
Ha ha ha.
Terry Hedden (31:53)
And you seem to kind of learn from everybody. You learn from the people, your peers, you learn from me, you learn from the training. You just seem to have that open mind. And I guess I’m curious how so many MSPs, feel like there’s so much head trash that they’ve been burned by this toolkit and that subscription and this talking head. And they’ve kind of got this kind of a negative like attitude, like they’re looking for a failure. They’re looking for a problem. They’re you know, they come in initially humble, but quickly get arrogant and they’re not willing to listen and learn. What, what, what gave you that open mind? What led to that sponge mentality? Because as I remember when you came in, you didn’t exactly strike off on your first day and get to a hundred percent year over year growth. You had a journey there too. How did you keep that open mind and that’s in that learner’s mentality so that you were able to make the transition from the successful person that gave you the courage and the budget to do it to, you know, the person who was, who was truly succeeding in what you were doing. Walk me through that.
Robert Benton (33:01)
Well, first and foremost, money gives you the opportunity to make decisions that most people don’t make, right? Because they don’t have the money. And when I look at businesses who have money, they have made logical decisions that allowed them to make money. Whether it was my clients that were doing a hundred million a year, or you, or Arlen, or you just name a hundred different companies that we work with. ⁓ If they have successfully put a business model together, it’s either I’m doing it wrong or it’s not that you’re doing it wrong. I don’t understand your process. So help me understand your process. And if we can marry that together, then we should have ⁓a successful relationship at that point. But you’ve got to jump off the cliff. You’ve got to make that commitment, whether it’s Marketopia, whether it’s HGT, whether it’s a chamber, whether it’s BNI. Going back to BNI, so many people I’ve heard that were not successful in that. But then I said, how many times a week did you actually rehearse your 60-second speech?
Well, I just thought of it that morning. Okay. So you’ve got 25 sales guys sitting in your room that you’re trying to get them to sell for you. And 60 seconds before you’re supposed to talk with them, you’re thinking about what to say to them. Right. And so that didn’t make sense to me, right?
Terry Hedden (34:44)
Yeah.
Robert Benton (34:59)
Prep, make sure that when you’re talking to people that you understand what’s happening. so when I go into these different situations, it’s like, when I bought this RV. I didn’t just decide one day I’m gonna buy an RV ⁓ or this particular model. I researched and I watched a hundred YouTube videos and I called dealers and I met with dealers and I got pricing and I understood how the model worked before I bought it. Now I’m experiencing everything that I didn’t research. ⁓ But I think so many people go into business and go into these relationships with vendors that are like, ⁓ this should just where you should make it happen that I should be able to sit back and stuff just happened. No, it doesn’t work that way. Just like our customers don’t hire us and we go in and go, okay, snap, all your servers work fine and all your PCs work fine and all your networking is fixed. No, it’s a process. That’s why we do discoveries. That’s why we upgrade equipment, right? That’s our focus is to create a whole solution and we have to do that together.
Terry Hedden (35:59)
Yeah, I love that. you, you, I feel like you kind of capitalize on every opportunity. Like I remember many one-on-one conversations with you. ⁓ I remember overcoming objections that you had that you were encountering. And I remember you really working with, with your peers. You were one of those that didn’t come in kind of a pompous kind of, know it all. I’m not going to listen to you. I’m better than you. I’m, I’m Robert Benton for goodness sakes, even though you were very successful in your own right.
You came in and you gravitated toward the people who were, who were kicking butt and, and, and learn from them just as you would, you know, training and that type of thing. ⁓ interesting in your experience, ⁓ the HTG group, obviously Arlen, I think is one of the most fantastic people to in the industry by a long shot, frankly, probably in the world, ⁓ what, what, what, what did you find the Marketopia community and the peer groups, how did that compliment the HTG instruction and that type of thing? Because you succeeded at a level that a lot of HTG companies don’t. I guess, what did you see in the two groups? How did you balance any conflicts of advice and systems between them? Why invest your time in two different communities?
Robert Benton (37:23)
Gosh, that’s a good question. Never really thought about that. For my model, I just took advice from a lot of different people. So, HTG taught me to put what I thought about numbers on paper. So again, if I sell it for a dollar and I buy it for 60 cents, I’m making 40% or the cents on the dollar. That’s called EBITDA. If there’s no other expenses, that’s called EBITDA, right? What HCG taught me is to put a marketing budget into place, to put salary budgets into place, to put all these different things into place, to then get a percentage of value to get, to actually get W-2 multiples and all these different numbers that I didn’t even know existed. then, ⁓ but one of those numbers was marketing and I had zero dollars and my group was like, you can’t have zero dollars. So you need to spend money on marketing. And ⁓ so I started looking at marketing companies, right? Because I wanted to grow. I knew I need to spend money on marketing and it wasn’t a number that I ever invested in. And so once I started talking with you guys, you helped me understand that number and that, so if I’m going to take a number and I’m going to put it in marketing,
Where do I focus those numbers? And I think I actually asked you this, right? How is it that I’m taking X dollar and it’s breaking up because I have to break it up inside this budget. And you helped me understand those numbers and they just made sense. And so when I went back to my group and all of a sudden I had a marketing number and I could break down those numbers and I could explain how that happened. Half the group went, wow, how did you do that? You know, and I just asked questions. you know, I wanted to learn how to do it.
Terry Hedden (39:27)
Interesting. All right. So it sounds to me like obviously we played a role in your journey, which I’m honored to ⁓ know that. And it also sounds like your wife’s health journey led to some life decisions that led you to sell. Walk me through that sales process. After you came to the decision, how did you go about it? How did it work and frankly, what kind of lessons did you learn in that process that maybe someone who’s about to go through or wants to go through that same phase, ⁓ what would you like them to know?
Robert Benton (40:08)
Yeah. So, ⁓ well, my wife’s health started getting worse. You know, the, basically the treatments weren’t working. And so she came to me and she says that, you know, that I’m basically done. I’m like, okay, then I’m done. But that was in the back of my mind. I went to, so I went to a HTG meeting, a good friend of mine, Bill Ohms is part of my group. And we were sitting there with another business owner who was actually talking about selling. so Bill and I were talking to him. You know, we were friendly chatting about whether he’d buy it or I’d buy it. was it, what was it valued? know, we knew his numbers, right? Because he was part of our group. And then he left and Bill and I were talking and Bill was like, well, what about you selling? I’m like, I’m never going to sell. There’s a number. I’m like, uh there’s always a number. And I went back and I talked with Marta and I figured out a number. Now, this was August of 21. Well, I’m sorry, this was before August. This was maybe June-ish when we had our June quarterly meeting. Obviously, you know, obviously we were in the middle of COVID. I made a tremendous amount of money during COVID.
And that was because our customers had to go remote. So all the customers that I called in February, then I’m like, Hey, I think this is going down. You need to go remote. They’re like, no, we’re not going remote unless they force us. Well, they force them. And all of a sudden we’re like, okay, here’s 200 projects and we’ve got to charge a premium because you want to be at the top of the list. And I got to hire people. so I made a really good amount of cash during COVID. And then I made the money off of selling the company. But if you’re looking for advice, ⁓ one of my challenges was, and again, maybe I’m just blessed and this is the ⁓ unicorn, but I sold for a cash amount that was ⁓ beneficial to both parties, I think, or I’d like to think so. But because he already knew my numbers and I wasn’t fudging numbers, I wasn’t hiding money, I mean, he had been part of my group for two years and had two years of actual numbers sitting in front of him. He knew what the company was worth and he knew my growth potential. ⁓ So one of the challenges that we had was because Bill is in his 60s, if we finance ⁓ this, and something happened to him, God forbid, you know, something quick happened to him. I felt that the family would come in and gut the company. Now, I don’t know anything about his family. I’m just saying when you’re the owner and no one else in your family has anything to do with the business, they’re not going to step in and run this business. They’re going to gut it and they’re actually going to cash it out. And I had the fear that if that happened, I wouldn’t get paid and now I’m in the middle of lawsuit. I’ve sold all my customers. There’s been a transition and now I’m in the middle of this big lawsuit fighting for my life and I’m back working again. So I came to Bill with that. I’m like, hey, here’s the fear that I have. What are the options? Whether it’s guaranteed life insurance or guaranteed bank loans. And we talked about it and he contacted his bank and he wrote a check.
Terry Hedden (44:10)
Wow, that’s awesome. You we’re getting toward the end of our time together, but I do not want to ignore the fact that you’ve used the word blessed a lot of times. Robert, what role does religion play in your decision-making, in business, and in life? And what kind of role did God have in helping you get where you are today?
Robert Benton (44:32)
So the bank financed the entire thing. So I walked away with the full amount sitting in the bank, which allowed me to then take that money and invest it. And now I’m living off those investment returns versus living off my, my, uh, my tremendous role. I thank God ⁓ every day for where I’m at today. ⁓ I believe that he had his hand in letting Martha live for 18 years with breast cancer. He’s got his hand on my current wife through her journey, through our journey in this. ⁓Whether you believe in God or not, you have to realize that if you’re successful, that you’ve got blessings from somewhere. So be thankful, if not for my God, be thankful for the blessings that other people have given you. And so ⁓ that’s when I say blessings, I mean my God, but I also mean I’m blessed by the people who I’ve come across who have helped me along the journey as well.
Terry Hedden (45:31)
I think, you know, it’s a challenging thing in business to bring in religion, but I feel like a lot of people successfully do it, you know, for all those that are scared to do it, to bring, to invite God in and have him be a part of the operation of your company and the decisions of your company. To me, it’s like, ⁓ it’s kind of a no-brainer, but it’s refreshing to hear you say it so openly. Robert, if there was a Robert Benton that was trying to, you live the lifestyle that I think a lot of people live. You’re free. you have, like you say, investments yielding what they need to to pay your expenses. You’re traveling the world in an insane RV. We’re not talking about like a pop-up camper here. We’re talking about, I don’t know, like what, a 10, 12,000 square foot? A tent that you have on wheels there. I don’t know the biggest tent I’ve ever seen.
It’s, it’s, it’s cool to see that. ⁓ and I think it’s, it’s, it’s a, ⁓ it’s something that a lot of people are looking for right now. You know, freedom, travel, comfort, stress free, or at least relatively speaking, you have the money coming in. you’re, you’re kind of where a lot of people want to go. If you were giving advice to Robert Benton 10 years ago, what would it be? How would you help them get where you are today? Or, you know, even better, I guess, if you could have the benefit of hindsight.
Robert Benton (47:10)
Gosh, you’re supposed to send me these questions.
Terry Hedden (47:15)
I want the real deal.
Robert Benton (47:19)
Yeah, man, that’s, that’s a good one. ⁓
Terry Hedden (47:26)
You’ve shared a lot so far, so I don’t want to beat you up too much on it, I feel like you’ve got a lot here. Not only do you have a lot of wisdom, Robert, you’re very good at bringing it out because you’re so non, I don’t know, scripted, non-formal. You’re just kind of like a great dude that just loves to help people. I just, I, know, if you have any other words of wisdom, I please do share.
Robert Benton (47:47)
Yeah. If I was to go back on myself, I would say do everything you did again, but be more mindful of the interaction you have with people, right? Look for others to mentor as you’re going through this journey. Right? Don’t be so scared to talk with other people going down this to top of other people going down the same path. Because I think to me as I was going down this journey and learning and I had people come to me looking for that and I was happy to help them, but I didn’t spend the time that maybe I have now to spend. Right? So be more mindful of the people around you seeking help.
Terry Hedden (48:38)
Yeah. Kind of go-giver mentality to pull in a little more, Yeah, I love that. Robert, I can tell you as someone who’s seen you on the receiving end of advice and seeing you give it, you’re a pleasure to work with, you’re pleasure to help, you’re a pleasure to be held by. You’ve just got one of those personalities about you. And I don’t know if that’s God’s spirit in you, you can feel it. You’re just a genuine human being that frankly, you epitomize my why. And I want you to know that because, you know, there are days where it’s harder than others, you know, running Marketopia has certainly not been an easy, ⁓ a chapter in my life. But when I look back and say, know, Terry, what’s your why? It’s people like Robert Benton, the people who deserve to win, the people who are good people, the people who are honest, the people who are doing it the right way. And no one’s perfect, Robert, but you’ve done a lot of things right.
And I am not at all surprised that God’s blessed you with the life that you’re enjoying right now, my friend. ⁓ I love it. I love the smile that you have. even love the partner in life that you’ve chosen to enjoy this chapter with. ⁓ She’s cut from the same cloth you are, my friend. So I appreciate you coming in and sharing your story. And I appreciate you and every opportunity you take to give back to the community, both within inside the Marketopia ecosystem and outside, dude. You’re one of those people that I love to work with. I think everyone would benefit from a conversation with Robert Benton. So I’d encourage anyone who’s listening to look him up on LinkedIn, reach out. He’s the kind of person that is where you’re trying to go and has gone through a lot of things and learned a lot of lessons that he loves to share. So Robert, I appreciate you, man. Thank you for coming on board. All right, no problem. Have a good one.
Robert Benton (50:31)
Absolutely. Thank you, Terry. You too. Bye.
