Your Iconic Image : Disrupt Your Industry

Being an entrepreneur is a tough business and not for the weak at heart, even when it gets the attention of the FBI.

Jeremy Delk is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for disrupting industries. Since 2001, his businesses have earned hundreds of millions in revenue, created 100’s of high paying American jobs, as well as other notable distinctions: 

●  Inc 500 - 21st Fastest Growing Company 

●  Inc 500 - 4th Fastest Growing Company in Health 

He jumped into entrepreneurial ventures with the naivety of a child and the tenacity of a tycoon. He started day trading at the age of sixteen, learning and failing with each trade. It is this process of adapting through failures that is paramount to his success in business. 

His knowledge and skill as a day trader helped him land a job as one of the youngest brokers at Fidelity trading institutional equities in Boston, and later in New York. It didn’t fulfill the entrepreneurial spark within him, so he decided to go out on his own creating Delk Enterprises. More than 20 years later, Delk Enterprises has holdings in biotech & healthcare, consumer brands, technology, building materials, and real estate development. 

Jeremy now focuses on investing in and advising entrepreneurs through speaking. His upcoming book shares his reality of the Good, Bad, and UGLY of entrepreneurship. It serves as a not-so-subtle reminder of fundamental principles he’s learned through his journey: while great times don’t last forever, neither do the truly bad ones.

https://jeremydelk.com/

https://www.instagram.com/jeremysdelk/?hl=en

www.marlanasemenza.com

Audio : Ariza Music Productions

Transcription : Vision In Word

Marlana:

Being an entrepreneur is a tough business and not for the week at heart. Jeremy Delk is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for disrupting industries. Since 2001, his businesses have earned hundreds of millions in revenue created hundreds of high paying American jobs, as well as other notable distinctions. Welcome Jeremy.

Jeremy:

Thanks for having me.

Marlana:

So, talk to me about disrupting our industry. What does that term mean to you?

Jeremy:

Well, I think I don't know that I set out to be a disruptor. I think it just kind of happened by my approach. And I think my approach is one of just really trying to keep it to the basics and what I've learned in my, not so short 20 plus year career now is that overarchingly businesses, businesses, business, and people do business with people. So many times, I see entrepreneurs go through and they're trying to well that, that doesn't work in this industry, or it's not done that way. And what I've typically done is taken from step to step to step, whether it's wall street to building materials, to really whatever industry I've been in healthcare, I've taken a simple approach of, okay, what's our good product or service. Who's our avatar, who's our customer, and how do we make a great experience for that customer? 

If you center those pieces in there oftentimes you do things differently. Now, it always doesn't work. You just mentioned a couple like accolades of mine. There's probably a laundry list that would take up the host show of failures that I've had, but when it works, it's pretty special. But you do it outside looking in as you're this crazy disruptor, which you're really not. You're just doing things in a more simplified approach, serving the customer first, not industry. So, it's very industry agnostic.

Marlana:

Because people always throw out, you know, creating a great customer experience or creating a different customer experience or creating a high-level customer experience. Talk to me about the things that go into your customer experience.

Jeremy:

Well, for me I guess it starts even further back with what the businesses are. I'm a serial entrepreneur, because I probably got some mental issues where I just don't like stability. I want to go through crash the challenge and then once it's actually working and I've built a company to like, wow, it's profitable and making revenue. And then it's just about scaling and improving processes. I'm a pretty good process guy, but once it's just, you know, take it and run with it, I really lose interest. So, for me it's always that, well, what's the next thing? I'm a manufacturer. Well, what's past manufacturer being an OEM private label, whatever it tap, you know, tends to be it's the first piece? What is there really something that's unique or a value proposition that's doing something differently that makes me interested.

It has to be fun for me and it's gotta be an ability for me to learn something. I think that once I triggered in on that, let's say, let's say it's healthcare, I didn't get into finding all these healthcare companies and telemedicine diagnostics as a vision board. I did it by a small step, made an investment in a pharmacy business. And then that opened me up to a world with which I wasn’t familiar. And then it got me really excited and then really frustrated, well, why this is so great. Like I had my own healthcare journal journey personally. And I was like, wow, this is great. And then that shifted to why doesn't everyone know about this. So now it became more of a passion or a mission of like, Hey, what's wrong? Where is the disconnect?

I can take the whole podcast up on going through that. But from the that's the obsession, it's the customer obsession of like, Hey, what I have everyone actually needs. There's not a trick or stick to it. They actually need this. And if they don't get my good service or product, I'm doing them a disservice. So, if you have that passion or obsession, then what you do is really drive into the customer or the end customer. Like what is it, what are the barriers or the components that are keeping them from experiencing or taking that product on. So, it's really just putting yourself in the customer's piece. Of understanding where they are. They watch the news, or they filter about the economy and election, like, where are they understanding their pain points and trying to deliver on, and that's all a guess.

I think you don't know that it's all theory and you just try and start the, the trick in what makes it really impactful in where you get customers really to become raving fans is you actually talk to them just crazy or you then besides talking to them, the next level of that is actually me listening to them and taking it valuable. Like, Hey, that makes sense. Let me try and improve that process for you. People forget that. So many times, people forget, you know, there's a customer giving you a credit card or money across the counter. That's not a transaction, it's a relationship. Right. And you have to treat it like such, otherwise your transactions will be fewer and fewer and less reoccurring. If you treat it as a relationship and understand like, Hey, how was that?

But they bought your product. Good. How so many people don't follow up and say, how was your experience? They do all of this. I know I can go to; I've got a digital media company as well. So, retargeting and pickling, and going through this elaborate success and, you know, attrition and these complete funnels in relationships to go through and get a customer. And then once they get me, they'll put on a nurture campaign that follows up with every three. The hard part's getting someone in your sandbox, and if you really look at that, as that's a challenge, don't get me wrong. Especially with advertising things moving, but getting someone is one piece, keeping them is so much easier, but people forget about it.

Marlana:

And I've heard that along the way from several people that it is cheaper. So to speak, to keep the customers that you have and, and market to those people then to try and go out and get others because those people are already invested with you, whether it be literally invested or mentally invested or whatever.

Jeremy:

That's right. And then also, oftentimes, you know, let's say you're selling Popsicle stick, whatever widget you're selling. Sometimes they don't need another Popsicle stick, but that if you do what I said first, and actually let's have a conversation with our customer, how did it work? Did you like the Popsicle stick? Was it great to taste? Like, what was it? And then that's the utility. Maybe you wanna make Popsicle houses with your kids. Well, now you need more. So, listening to them, getting that feedback can often time lead to new products or products spinoffs, or additional things that you could repackage and service. Then you are now going deeper in the wallet share as opposed to wider. So, then that's an easy way to help grow and scale your businesses,

Marlana:

You know, and that's another interesting point that you bring up because I've always had the thought that, and I learned this along the way from people that I've spoken to as an entrepreneur, especially if you are just starting out, you don't have to go wide in relationships when you can go deep in a few, because as you go deep in those few, that will help you. And those people will become your allies and your advocates.

Jeremy:

Exactly.! I think that's where the learning makes a ton of difference. And, you know, I've got a book coming out end this year called Without A Plan. And it's very much a memoir of how I've went through life, and it's not live pops and gum drops just, I'm gonna be super successful. It's not that obtuse where you have zero plan, but it's not far from it. It's just taking a step. Hey, I want to go. And we're just gonna really belabor Popsicle, say, I wanna be the best Popsicle business guy ever. So, let's not go through and think about all the different ways because it's not gonna work anyway. Let's just go through and start, get going, have a vision of kind of where I want to go, but not get so inundated with this paralysis by analysis. So, you never begin. And then once you start, then that's like your beta users and your early adopters where you can go through like, Hey, how's that going? What's going through, you learn so much that piece where you really refine it before you go wide. 

Marlana:

So, do you see holes in different industries and lean in? Do you start with things that interest you and see how you can adapt it? How do you start in your process when you're going to be investing in something or changing something?

Jeremy:

And just be super open? I think it's my career. So, this is, and then you can tell me if you planned for this. My career started day trading. When I was 19, making a bunch of money, losing a bunch of money wall street to my own venture capital from 20 years ago, building materials, building manufacturing, windows, and doors, animal health, regenerative medicine, human health, pharmaceutical, epigenetic diagnostics, and telemedicine, plus a little digital media and equine in a couple other businesses in there. There's no way you have like, that's the typical roadmap. What's happened is relationships or, Hey, I've had a relationship here with this individual and this opportunity came up. I just say yes to a lot of things, mainly because I've got again, probably back to mental and like a lot of little attention deficit components where I just always wanna see more, but really it comes down to learning like that's interesting.

I don't know. Cause no one knows like how do you know if it's gonna work? So many people live in like, well you wanna go into, you know, Elon Musk wants to go into, you know, make reusable rockets. That's dumb. That will never happen. And maybe someone had the idea before, but he's said, well, let's just run it this stream and just see what actually happens with it. So, so many times, if you can just be open to an opportunity and see them, and then the other part of that is failure. Right. You know, it, I, I think there's a huge component of a mindset around failure. That's probably started even in school when you're young, that that's a bad thing. I'm not trying to keep plugging here, but it’s without a plan and it's a memoir of Unbound action and failing my way to success.

I talk about all of the accolades D 500, all that crap, that everyone has their own CV and resume. Dude. That's not really important. What's important is how I fell on my and how I did all these other things to actually get there. Those are the lessons that I've learned. I'm a better entrepreneur now than was 20 years ago. Not because I read some cool book it's because I got my S kit a ton and I learned from that. So, embracing that failure and just going through is something I'm overly passionate about and I try to fail fast. I try to break it. So, if so, I think that's an important piece because you, you can't no one has enough time to say yes to everything indefinitely. So, if we're going back to popsicles, let's do it.

Hey Joel, let's go through and figure out the Popsicle business, but let's define success or failure right now. It will be, we're gonna sell a billion popsicles in six months or we're not it's binary because after that, when that six-month process, you start to get emotional about it right after you're in it. And now it's your baby and maybe your Popsicle baby's ugly. It's hard to do that when you're in the moment. But if you predetermined, Hey, at this point I'm calling time of death, or we're going to the next level, that's the best way to do it. So, I try to get that. I try never wait, six months, I try to break something and ruin it in two months because get great customer feedback, come up with a prototype, go through, sell it, give it away, whatever you think, get it. And then the market will speak. Could be the best idea ever market may not be ready, or it could be overpriced or underpriced. So, it's the best way to just get information and then store that because down the track, maybe it wasn't right then, but five years it could be. 

Marlana:

So do you tend to say yes to everything, then do the research or do you kind of research it and then say yes?

Jeremy:

In tandem or in parallel? I tend just to say yes, because I wanna learn. There's no way to have an informed opinion unless you know the industry. If I know the business, I know that this is a Bolton. So, I'm in healthcare. I'm wearing my healthcare hat. If I know the space and I know the economics, like that's easier for me to Do because I know like, yeah, if I take that, eliminate something, plug it into my group it'll just make money. So those are easier. But I'm looking at software deal right now in university. I don't know anything about, I know about SAS businesses. I know they're valued really well, but I don't know anything about it. So, I think my pitch to the entrepreneur was like, I think I can make it work.

I think I can get you the money. It's coming from me. So that's, I think as long as I believe it, I can give you the money. I think my other bolt on shared services can actually help and I've got a little bit of experience in business. So, it's a yes with those contingencies, like, Hey, I need to figure out, I need to check your balance sheet. I need to look what's your cash flow statements. Look like, I need to understand the stickiness to their customer. So would a yes, but it's not an immediate yeah, here you go. And then find out. So, it's that component cause otherwise, what are you doing? You're not just, you have to be somewhat interested and there's things that I'm not interested in. There's some businesses that just don't excite me. Or I don't think I can add value. So, I just politely say, Hey, maybe I can, maybe I'm not investor in that business. Maybe I'm a business coach or I'm an advisor or I'm a different role that can help. And if that's beneficial for both parties, I look at that too,

Marlana:

You touched on failure, and I think that's something that so many people shy away from and it's so critical to be able to fail, because people often don't see the journey. They only see the end result, and so, they don't realize how many times that successful person has failed to get to that point. During the whole failure process, at what point do you cut your losses? Let's say somebody is just starting off in a certain industry, at what point is enough?

Jeremy:

Well, I think that's their own risk tolerance and that's your own goal. It, it, to be indifferent. So, when I had my digital media, we were doing, you know, physical products, some in supplements, other goods and services, but it was actual physical product, not a digital product. I would put $25,000 into it. $25,000 was basically $5,000 for initial batch, you know, enough for like a thousand or something samples for units. And then it was $20,000 as fast as I could spend it on ads which typically took with the ramp. Cause you can't just, you can waste lot money, you just trying to overspend. So, we would do that...