Grant Mitterlehner On Beating Depression, Struggles of Dating as Entrepreneur & College | DSH #183

Sports was my life.

I'm sure you guys were probably similar.

You played everything.

Yeah.

And I was kind of scrappy, dual threat quarterback, Texas 5A football, different abilities.

And I walked into every single appointment when it was just me.

I'm starting from scratch.

Like my life depended on it.

And in a year and a half, I had a 74.4% closing percentage.

Yo.

All right, welcome to the Digital Social Hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

I'm here with my co-host, Wayne Lewis.

So, what's up?

And our guest today, Grant Mitt.

Good to be here.

Nice to see you guys.

Absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

What's going on, man?

How's it going?

How you feeling?

Feeling amazing, man.

It feels good to be in Vegas.

When did you play in?

Last night.

Last night?

Last night.

I'm at Aria.

Ooh.

Yeah.

Yeah, Aria.

For food.

They got some nice restaurants in there.

It's nice.

It's classy in there.

They got the best restaurants in Vegas.

Do you gamble at all?

So I wish I was better than I was.

What do you play?

Roulette or

Craps.

Those are a gambling game.

Anytime I feel like donating to money,

those are like the worst odds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Literally.

I heard baccarats about it.

I'm a baccarat guy.

You're a baccarat guy?

I need to, they say you need to gamble baccarat with people who know what they're doing.

You have to know occasions.

Yeah.

That means that's their game.

That's, I learned from a guy who's like fire at it.

Yeah, taught me how to read the board and everything.

I haven't lost in six sessions in Baccarat.

Really?

Yeah.

Is it just because you're good or because you're good?

I'll keep it light.

But there's a, but there's a guy that you will, what's the guy name?

Who's like the baccarat?

Mickey.

Yeah, Mickey.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he knows.

Just go with the right people.

Because that's what I heard.

Is if you could not know what you're doing and you just follow the right person, you're good.

Yeah.

Good.

Is it a strategy game?

Yes.

Yeah.

It's strategic, but you got to play the odds.

But it's, if you play the odds, right, it's 50-50.

Not all the sucker bets, like just bank or a player.

Your odds are 50-50.

Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah, anyways, give people the rundown on your story.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'd love to hear from beginning to end.

So, so I'm from Houston, Texas originally.

Sports, sports was my life.

I'm sure you guys were probably similar.

You played everything.

Yeah.

And I was kind of scrappy dual threat quarterback.

Texas 5.8 football.

Oh, pro you?

Oh, you were a quarterback?

Yeah.

Nice.

Yeah.

so I was, I played, I was started quarterback at a school called Dickinson High School.

And, I mean, they take it seriously.

And, and you got 20,000 fans out there, right?

Not that much, 10,000.

10,000.

That's still crazy.

Or a high school game.

I mean, when you look over and you just, I mean, you're 17 years old and it is jam-packed.

Yeah, people, people are talking about you.

You have a good day.

You're a good week.

You're the white Michael Vic.

The next week,

you need a new quarterback.

Yeah.

I mean, you're getting interviewed after the game.

I mean, I remember my second start.

We were on ABC 13, getting interviewed.

I mean, it's just, it's a crazy experience.

And I went to play junior college football in Long Beach, California.

Oh, so you went all the way to Long Beach?

No, colleges wanted you or what?

Well, so there was a lot of small D2 offers and different things like that.

And I wanted to try the junior college route.

And I also feel like Texas is the mecca of sports, though.

It's like y'all get recruited faster than anything.

It depends on the sports.

That's where the...

They're the stable of the world.

It depends on the school.

So

when I was starter for my high school, we were kind of part of the rebuild.

And so we got to the playoffs, I part of the group, they got us back in the playoffs.

And the following groups after ended up competing two, three, four rounds deep in the text playoffs, which is impossible.

And that's when now all these guys are going.

Like Jalen, my friend Jalen Watermire, he's, I think he's at the Bills now, but he was all-American tied in for AM.

And that's when it really started picking up.

I loved California and I wanted to try something different.

I didn't want to go to a basic school.

I kind of wanted to be out of my comfort zone.

And red shirted my first year and immediately got into sales and was very entrepreneurial, starting online businesses, doing anything to make money.

And

when I was out there, it was like everywhere I went, this is back in 2014, that's when Solar City started really blowing up.

And I had never seen, everyone had talked about solar being a future thing.

Yeah, Solar City's out here too, right?

I haven't heard it.

So Solar City is the company that Tesla purchased.

So Elon was original investor in it.

His cousin ran it.

And it was the first massive, massive, just dominant solar company.

And Tesla ended up purchasing it basically to save it because it grew too fast and whole nother story, right?

So everywhere I went, they just kept talking about solar, solar.

And we had always heard it's going to be the next big thing since we were kids.

But

as far as Texas, you know, Texas,

no one got solar.

You know, it wasn't even a thing.

We're an oil and gas state.

Everyone worked for Exxon and different things like that.

And I was like, man, I need to get into solar.

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But at the time, I was super broke.

I was living in an apartment with six, seven guys.

And I was like, I want to get back to houston because i have a network and this is in long beach it's in long beach yeah and i wanted to get back to texas because i quote unquote had a network i had no network i just told myself that because i knew people from back home

and what ended up happening is my mom had a place and my parents had just gotten divorced and my brother had one of the rooms he was going to one of the local schools so i was like i'll just crash on the couch right i was happy

laundry there i could do it was not it was cool place good area i know houston and i get back and i'm like i'm gonna transfer to University of Houston and go to business school, finish the last couple of years, do some stuff online, get into sales and figure out maybe solar, want to start something.

But I get back January, and you know, you have orientation for college, you have all the balloons, and you meet the counselors.

It's supposed to be an exciting thing.

I'm walking in and the counselor's going through name by name.

So they're saying middle-aged or whatever.

Yeah, I'm here.

And she goes, I know you.

It's like, wow.

I was like, what do you mean?

She goes, I need to talk to you.

And I was like, okay, but I'm going to talk to you after this.

So, of course, I got to listen to the hour-long speech before I find out what she's going to tell me.

And so I'm sitting there thinking about every ex-girlfriend I've had, any person I've pissed off.

Right, right.

Because I'm choosing, you know, someone's going to know someone.

So I'm like, I did something.

She's like, you threw an interception.

I threw an interception, something, right?

And she comes up to me and she goes, okay, so you're basically about to be a senior.

And I'm like, correct.

And I gotta a lot of credits done.

And she said, the problem is here, you're a freshman.

I was like, what?

She says, none of your credits transferred to University of Houston except for six classes.

From

Long Beach?

Yes.

From June College.

Yes.

Because it was out of state.

Complete scam.

So think about it.

I wasted all those years.

All those years, all that stuff.

I'm transferring.

Of course, they don't tell me before.

Yeah.

I get there.

I'm on my mom's couch.

I'm 20, 21, 22 years old.

I'm Ubering as there to be

200 bucks in my name, right?

And because I've been focusing on school and I didn't know anything.

I don't come from money.

And I'm like,

and she's like, well, we can combine classes.

We just need syllables for all these million classes that you took.

And we can appeal.

And maybe we can add it and get you to that sophomore level.

And I'm like, man, come on.

So I go pick all my classes and I purposely get as many online classes as possible.

I get a sales job and I start making money.

And I'm like, okay, I'm going to save up as much money as possible.

I'm going to try to make six figures.

I'm going to move to downtown.

I'm going to figure out how to start a solar company.

What were your first, what was your first sales job?

So I started selling DirecTV in Walmarts first.

In Walmart.

Oh, you were that guy?

I was that guy.

Oh, okay.

And I was pretty good.

And that was real.

Yes.

I'm serious.

And what was your close rate?

I can tell you my close rate for solar.

So, solar, I started off closing like 35, 40%.

Whoa.

And but then three out of 10.

Right.

But then six months in, it clicked clicked and I went into survival mode because I needed to fund my company.

And

I almost kind of tricked my mind into thinking, it's like the human brain.

And this is in Houston, right?

You're in Houston doing all this.

Yes, I'm in Houston.

So I kind of started studying why people succeed and

how the brain works and how everything happens.

And I noticed that, you know what, the reason why we worry about...

humans just in general is does this person like me am i going to make rent what if i lose my job it's because we don't have to fight off a saber-toothed tiger anymore right us three don't have to leave this podcast and go hunt to make sure we eat tonight right we can just we can go eat at catch we can go eat anywhere and live like teens right for sure and so the reason is is because the brain is built to survive so i came up with this hack where if i just like a crazy person talk to myself in the sense that if i don't make excellent dollars or if i don't build this company i don't know how i'm going to survive I don't know what's going to happen.

Because if you've never made six figures before and you make six figures, a lot of times, I'm sure you guys know people, they get super comfortable.

Yeah.

And they think it's a lot of money.

Yeah, they think it's a lot of money.

And if you've never had money, it's going to feel like it at first.

Yeah.

And I just started psyching myself out and going,

if I don't make millions of dollars, I don't, I don't know what the f happen.

I don't know how I'm going to take care of my family.

I don't know what's...

And I would, like a crazy person, psych myself out.

And it pulled out different

maybe like different genes in me that I didn't know I had and different abilities.

And I walked into every single appointment when it was just me, I'm starting from scratch, like my life depended on it.

And sold it.

And in a year and a half, I had a 74.4% closing percentage.

Yo, that's crazy.

How much did you make in that year and a half?

Quite a lot.

Quite a lot.

What's quite a lot?

Over seven figures, yeah.

Wow, in your first year of solar?

Yeah.

And we touched it.

Congrats.

And so,

and I wish I could tell you guys I was just a salesmaster and I'm not.

It just, I understood human behavior every single appointment.

And at this time, it was just you, no team.

Started off, yeah.

No, nothing.

Where were you getting your leads from?

We're buying them, buying leads.

So online?

Yeah, so this works.

Not really.

Well, it did for him.

It depends.

Again, he knew how to sell.

Right.

He knew how to sell.

Leads have been caught, bro.

At least they're dead leads when you buy them because they've been caught six or seven times.

It depends.

You got to know what you're doing.

And I've lost hundreds and hundreds, if not millions of dollars on bad leads.

Or I still converted, but they were just, they were just yeah, you got to work them.

But I built processes front to back and I learned what worked and I learned the psychology of a cell and what makes people do what they do.

And the best thing I learned with influencing people is the reason why many times it's so difficult to influence people is because they know that you're trying to influence them.

Think about when you're walking in the mall and you're walking and you're with your girl, you're with your friends, or you're just in your lawn, you're just picking up a shirt or something like that.

And you got those little kios people and they're they're walking out with the little flyers.

What do you, what is your first thing?

Instantly move.

Deny.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Same thing when you walk in the store.

Hey, can I help you with anything?

Hey, how's it going?

No, I'm fine.

I'm just looking.

Yeah.

Even if you need something.

Even waiters sometimes can be overbearing.

I don't like when they check on me when I'm eating.

I'm like, let me finish.

Yeah, they read the room.

And so what I realized is if

I

could figure out how to walk into an appointment that they requested, they wanted to talk to me.

They need help on this.

And not sell them.

And just literally go, this is not a sell.

This is me figuring out, can your home actually get it?

Right.

And if it does, we're going to see if it makes sense financially.

And if it does, we're going to obviously set you up.

Right.

But if we look at it and it doesn't, then who cares?

Yeah, but most people coming in with that mentality, since it's like, we're going to see if you can get it.

Most of them are going to be like, no, no, no, I want it.

I want it.

I want it.

But when you actually kind of make it a privilege yes they tend to want it because it's a gift in the sense of like now i'm privileged to have this but when you try to force feed it down their throats they're kind of like reluctant a little bit because it's like why do you want me to have this yeah interesting yeah it's just it's just all about being indifferent but not faking it actually going okay

there's more people that want For example, this is solar, but this is a lot of different products for you, NFTs and crypto.

There is more people that want this product and service than the actual actual industry can support.

Yeah, but it's not faking it, but it's strategic.

Right.

Which is not technically faking it, but it's a strategy.

Yeah, I mean, if you just have a kind of abundance mindset where it's like, look,

once you've,

I call salespeople or mainly entrepreneurs, I call entrepreneurs magicians.

Yeah.

Because they make magic out of thin air.

Absolutely.

You know what I mean?

It was figured out.

Because I was crazy enough to think I could do it.

I have people all across the United States that families now they make over six figures.

They're happy.

They're successful.

They're kids just because I had one thought.

Now, those people made it happen because they're incredible people.

But how do you coach them up or do you coach them up?

That's crazy.

Yeah.

You don't just pick and choose.

You kind of know the pick of the litter.

Well, at the beginning, yes.

Okay.

But

what I've learned in scaling a company is growing a company is

not taught anywhere.

And you have to learn systems.

You have to learn processes.

Yes, and if you operate off of motivation, you're

literally.

And so, the trick is, is we have

every single system, every single week, there's pre-schedules, there's pre-processors, there's systems.

Everyone knows where they're supposed to be, what they're supposed to do, what the standard is, what the metric, how many calls you're supposed to make.

We've got to the point now where I remember at first we were just on a little Google sheet and like, what if we just mark the ones we set green?

It's that dumb at the beginning.

That's how I started.

Right.

And you all started like that, right?

And then to now, I know how many calls you made outbound.

I know how many inbound.

I know what you said.

And now we can even get to the point where, let's say, you set an appointment.

You're like, hey, Grant, I don't know if I set that right.

They call the RSM, right?

The regional sales manager.

Like, hey, hold in, I don't know if I set this right.

Can you listen to that recording?

They listen back to it.

Hey, you got to answer it like this, this, this, this.

Wow, so you're critiquing their cause and fixing it.

It used to take me six weeks of someone burning $10,000 worth of marketing and leads that we can figure out in five minutes.

So what happened after the first year?

So when did you realize, okay, obviously you made seven figures after your first year, but then that next January, let's just start from there.

What was the process then?

Like what happened?

So it was all about scaling and realizing that.

It felt like something like, oh, we're all just going to go try and make money.

We're doing this thing.

I had to become an actual CEO.

I was a glorified regional manager director of sales that handled accounting and how did you become a ceo what was the mindset what what shifted what did you did you read anything or you kind of just woke up on january 1st i'm like okay ceo yeah

that's a good question right so what i would say is i had the qualities of a great ceo a great leader i knew what i was doing but a ceo has to create systems and processes and different things.

And what I would say is I just studied the best CEOs.

And what what I learned is the best CEOs could literally disappear to a desert or to some island for two months straight and the machine is still working.

Wow.

Absolutely.

And

I had my hand in everything because one, early on, I had to start up.

I bootstrapped it.

I had no investors.

I'm the only owner.

But then also at the same time,

I was the best at it, right?

Because when it's yours, you're the best at it.

You know how to do it.

I've been through it.

I figured it out, right?

But you have to invest and hire very intelligent people and let them do their jobs.

And you don't realize how much energy you're wasting on mindless tasks that don't matter.

And how was the hiring process?

Like,

what was that like?

Like, we're finding your...

Were you the one hiring?

At first.

At first.

But by the time this happened,

we had two round interview process.

First with a team lead, tech level person, and then the regional manager.

Occasionally, I would do ones if it was if it was an important hire when it came to operations, finance, project management, I was definitely on the final say of it because I was working early on I was working with them a lot more.

But sales, I trained my sales team.

I had an admin that would filter through resumes.

She learned exactly how I think.

So she knew how to get

100 resumes and break it down to 20 and then direct it to the right managers.

They go through the entire process.

So I just check my phone.

I go, okay, cool.

We got 10 interviews lined up today.

It's done.

It's a process.

And how long is each interview?

About 20, 25 minutes.

Yeah, we do it via Zoom.

And we're just looking for certain trades.

So that first month, how many people did you hire your first month?

Well, I guess you when I started scaling.

So the second month when you started to put people in position.

Early on, we skilled organically.

Right.

So, and that's when I knew I was like, okay, good.

I might be kind of good at this.

We kind of know what we're doing is if you're a good salesperson or it's just like you guys know each other, right?

Y'all are studs.

Y'all are great at what you do.

When you're an A-type performer, you're really good at what you do, you're going to tell your friends.

You'll likely have other people who are also talented.

So I started having really good reps going, man, I love it here.

Do you mind if I refer one of our sales guys that I've worked with at X-Place or wherever?

I told him about it.

He's super interested.

And we started kind of growing organically.

So employees hired for you too?

Early on, yeah.

Early on.

And then we incorporated systems to where we're on D and we have all these job boards all over the place.

And we're getting 500 to 800 applicants a week so how big are you now

as far as employees so we're around 45 ish people um total right um we're trying to scale and grow to a hundred plus and in in the last six months

you're still in houston right well i moved to i moved to austin oh you moved to austin now yeah i'm in downtown austin's a good place right now i like austin yeah

food's good he said it's great young people there yeah yeah yeah so it's um so is that community they're building out there real um as far as elon Well, he's building.

Elon moved out there, right?

Yeah, but he's not there much because he's...

So what is he building out there?

What is the name of the community?

The Super Factor for Tesla?

No, no.

They're actually building a community.

No, I didn't hear about that.

Are you sure that's in Austin?

Because I heard that they're doing that in the Starbase.

That's by South Podior Island.

Oh, it is.

I can't remember what the city is that they have down there, but I think it's for where SpaceX is, if I'm not mistaken.

Because it's hard to find land in Austin, man.

It's more expensive than LA.

Did you get in at the right price when you move there?

So

I've focused all my money

towards my business.

So

I just rent around.

I don't think about it.

I can break my lease anytime I want.

It's just me.

Smart.

And see long-term or loss.

You said 86% of businesses lose money or break even.

Why do you think that number is so high?

It's hard.

Yeah.

It is.

It's hard.

86%, man.

It's tough.

That's crazy.

Yeah, it's tough.

You got to have a certain mindset.

You got to be, like you said, you got to be crazy.

You have to be obsessed.

And the fact that you got to give up so much social life, obviously, love life, no kids.

You don't have any kids.

I mean, he's sacrificed

a lot.

Yeah, to have what he has.

Yeah.

And you have to put yourself in a position to be able to do that.

Right.

And

what's so difficult about entrepreneurship, you guys understand this more than anybody, is that if you're perfect, if you do everything right, you still can fail.

Yeah, it still may not work.

And there's no I made it situation unless you sell a company for a good jillion dollars.

But besides the point,

I'm different than I was last night.

I ate something different.

I saw something different.

You guys, the same thing.

The market's different.

What's happening in the world with all this tech and AI and all these crazy things.

Is it hard for you to date though?

Are you, are you dating?

Do you even date?

Are you kind of just.

Yeah.

I mean, so I've had a girlfriend a little bit last year.

He's had a little bit last year.

Yeah.

Girlfriend a little bit.

That was not a priority, was it?

Well, it's just

what's hard about it is, I would say, is is because i've met really really great girls that are amazing and i should want to be in a relationship

it's just hard man

and and when you're an entrepreneur especially early on when you're trying to build your kingdom per se

nothing else matters at all and when you learn in life that it's unfortunate and tell me what you guys think about this is

You know, a lot of times the people that are around you, the girls that are around you, is oftentimes because of who you are.

And that doesn't mean they want to steal things from you.

Not at all.

But it's because you're ambitious.

It's because you're successful.

It's because you know what you're doing.

But those aren't bad things to be attracted to.

No, not at all.

I would, I'm more, I like that women are attracted to those attributes than being attracted to someone who plays Xbox and smokes.

So, I mean, it's not, I'm not saying it's, I think they should be.

Yeah.

But at the same time,

People unless you're an entrepreneur, you don't understand what it truly takes to be and Instagram makes it look like it's just out of oh my god Instagram sells entrepreneurship entrepreneurship on Instagram is an island with two people kissing yeah yeah they make it look nice

it's not nice

waiting on my island

I'm waiting to go yeah I can't go I'm busy you know what I mean so you were saying on Instagram too now that we're talking about Instagram that you unfollow all the celebrities yeah

so in so January so Make the company's grown and done really well.

My social media has done well.

My podcast has done well.

But I wanted to this year completely recreate my business, my social media, the way I'm presenting myself to the world.

And kind of, I have this rule that every time I'm trying to get to another level,

I got to scrap the bad parts and I got to completely change.

And what I did is I unfollowed all the, all the, any celebrities, any person that you just don't realize how much energy you waste on pointless things.

And but everybody has a blue check now.

So it's like,

everybody's a celebrity now.

Everybody is a celebrity.

$14.99.

Right.

Become a celebrity today.

Just for $14.99.

Right, right.

So yeah, I mean,

I just focus and I'm like, you know what, I don't even need to waste my energy on this.

And I started kind of changing the way.

We do short form content and I'd always put out a lot of stuff on social media, but I started filming the podcast, doing high-quality shooting in studios.

I hired a full media team that edits everything where now they know exactly how i want my brand to look how i want to be presented what i want to be viewed as and there's so much interesting things you learn about short form content and one thing i had one conversation i was like these guys are amazing is they said grant your videos right now you've already built up 100 200 000 people and it's literally just you talking with a white banner that says the title and that's it it's because you have great messaging and you have credibility right but he said, what's interesting is short form content, people's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and shorter.

And they said their brain needs to be stimulated every about four to six seconds to trigger dopamine, help them want to keep watching that next clip and the next clip.

So if it's a clip of Sean, you're talking about NFTs and you're like, what's the most important thing about NFTs is this and this.

And the second it's five seconds in, boom, it's showing your NFT project.

And then boom, it's showing you a B-roll clip of us sitting here.

And then, boom, it's showing a different angle of you.

Just that increases the watch time,

which makes it go viral.

And it could have been an original clip, could have just been just you saying this most incredible thing ever, and it gets no views.

Right.

But because it's changing and different things are popping up on the screen, it's stimulating the viewers brain.

Agreed.

Because some current event video

talk actually put clips in there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's just interesting, you know?

And so, yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to grow the grow the brand and help as many people as I can, and nice, and yeah, I love that.

Any closing comments and where people can find you?

Yeah, I mean, you guys can check me out on uh Instagram and TikTok and YouTube at Grant Mitt.

And then I have the Grant Mitt podcast, which is on Spotify and Apple podcasts.

Sick, Wayne, follow me on Instagram at the Creator.

Sean Kelly here, Digital Social Hour.

Thanks for tuning in.

See you guys next week.

Thanks, guys.