248. The Mission to Build People, Interview With Mike “C-Roc” Ciorrocco

Mike Ciorrocco 00:00
Yeah, and I can also ask, I have three questions I could ask anyone and I can know their core values, what's important to them, and whether or not they have a future planned out and what they have their sights on, or if they don't have one at all. And if they do have one, what it is? Welcome

Susan Sly 00:14
to Raw and real entrepreneurship, the show that dares to bring no nonsense insight to those who have the courage to start, grow and scale a business. I'm your host, Susan Sly. All right, what's up everyone around the world, I hope you're having an amazing day and your 2022 is off to an incredible start. And I have a question for you. When you are thinking about starting a business and growing a business, are you one of the people in the 92% who think about it, but never do it? Or are you an eight percenter and you actually launch? Well, my guest today is someone I would say, who is definitely going to inspire you to take action, he is going to be someone who is going to maybe kick you in the butt a little bit. And I know some of you like that, hey, I'm not judging. But let's get ready for this episode of Raw and Real Entrepreneurship. And check it out. My guest today is a performance coach. He is an author. He is a dynamic public speaker. He's a visionary, a thought leader. He's been featured in Yahoo Finance as one of the top business leaders to follow in 2020. He's on a mission to build people. He is driven to inspire others, and he measures his success on how he's able to help others achieve greatness. And who doesn't want to do that? And on top of everything, he's a dad. And he's awesome. So my guest today is Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco. So C-Roc, Welcome to Raw and Real Entrepreneurship. I'm so excited to have you.

Mike Ciorrocco 01:52
Thanks for having me, Susan. It's great to be here. And I always want to give gratitude anytime I go on an interview just because I'm very thankful to be in a position to do this. And for you to allow me to come on and for your audience to, you know, for showing up and spending investing time with us. They're very, very much appreciated.

Susan Sly 02:09
Yeah, you, you got it. And I'm, I'm so excited to interview you. And you're precisely a person that I can jump out and get raw and real with very fast. We're not going to slow down first, we're just going to get right into it. So here's my question for you, Mike, a lot of people, 2020 was not a great year for them. 2021 was maybe not also a great year for them. If you had to start from the very beginning in 2022, and build something that would support your family within 90 days, what would you do?

Mike Ciorrocco 02:43
Wow, great question. To support my family right away, I would go to what I know best, which is sales. And I would go figure out something to sell— a service, a product, something that I would you know, that, that's what I would do initially, because that's what I know. I would reach out to people for coaching, maybe. Yeah, I mean, I, see I know how to sell so I could really go to any company and make money right away. I know I can make six figures at a company if I needed to just to get by until I got the business up and running. So I think that's what I would do. And I thank God I don't know how to sell. I've been selling since, since I was eight probably but really professionally since I was, 19, 1998. So whenever I was about 21 years old.

Susan Sly 03:27
So what do you say to people who say sales is a dirty word? Like what do you say to that person? Because you and I are cut from the same cloth. If you can sell one thing, you can sell anything as long as you believe it. But what about those people who resist sales?

Mike Ciorrocco 03:42
Well, the ones that resist sales are really, it's a picture that they have of themselves, reflection that they have themselves and experience they've had in the past. Something that somebody said something to them before. It's basically what I would call a facsimile. Like you know what a fax machine was, right? And a copy of something that's a thing in their head, a memory that they have, that they're going off of. And it's based on a failure that they've had in the past with it regarding them trying to sell something or somebody trying to sell them in a bad experience they've had. So that's all it is. And I don't, I don't take things personally from people because I've really done, I've done a really good job of studying a lot of hours in studying the mind and how the mind works, and behaviorisms. And it's to me, it's just, it's all science, and I don't work like, I don't really take things personally from people anymore. So I understand why people say things, I understand why people think things. And so yeah, to that person, I would just say they need, they need to, you know, really revisit the experience they had and the effort that they put into sales in the past and see where they got stuck on that thought because nothing gets done in an economy without sales.

Susan Sly 04:48
Yeah, and sales is the highest paid profession, right? Everyone is selling. And you know, it's interesting. Mike, you mentioned about not taking it personally. Oh, I definitely know what the fax machine is this is my big year, I'm turning 50. So I'm going to ask you an important question later that has nothing to do with entrepreneurship. But anyway, the you know, if, if someone's listening in one of the 130 countries, if they could paint a picture, so Mike, he's, he looks like he can benchpress about 450 pounds. Like, seriously, you don't want to meet him in a back alley. He has a beautiful face, an amazing smile, but he's jacked, okay? If you could see him, you're probably like, Well, Mike, it's easy for you. Because you're all of that. What about me, this person who's been knocked down, and you know, time and time again, and I, you know, I want to be in business. I'm thinking of starting business, I have a business. But I'm terrified to sell. If you could give that person, in your wisdom, with all your experience, Mike, because I know you've mentored so many people. If you could give them one piece of advice, just to take that first step. Maybe it's a book or something they should do? What piece of advice would you give them?

Mike Ciorrocco 06:04
Well, you just said it, take the first step. Just take the first step. Just do it. Just do it. See, here's the thing. First of all, you said something about 2020, 2021. Some people had good years, some real bad years, it's all the story that the person tells themselves. First of all, it's the story that you tell yourself going into the year. And when COVID happened, like what story did you tell yourself when this was happening? Did you curl up in a ball and quit and say, Oh, I got, I got a reason now. See, most people, most people will use things that come their way to explain their failure that they didn't even have yet. They'll look for things to explain a failure so that they can take it easy and relax and say, Okay, well, I'm good, because I have the explanation that'll serve me. It'll explain why I'm not elevating. It'll explain why I'm not having success. And so really, it's all about the story you tell yourself, and whatever story you're telling yourself is what you're going to believe. And that's the future that you're going to have. And so see, I came from a broken home. I don't remember my parents ever together, I came, grown up around a lot of brokenness, a lot of broken people, alcohol, drug addicts, anxiety, depression, suicide, conflict. I mean, just ridiculous, right? And as I was going through it, I thought it was normal. I didn't, ordin ary, I didn't know anything different. But what I did notice is all these folks, family members of mine, would have a story that they would tell themselves and others of why they were doing the things they were doing and why they were being the way they were. I never bought their BS, though. I saw right through it. And I would call them out on it. And it would piss some people off. And I learned that it didn't matter if they got pissed off about it. Because if I don't say something to them when I know it's not true, and I don't say something about it, I'm complicit in it. And I don't want to be, I don't want to be, I don't want that on my conscious. So I figured this out at a young age that the story I tell myself, create my future. And so I started telling myself why I'm going to be successful. And why I'm going to be elevated upon the people that don't tell themselves the right story. And so all my life, I've always was able to accomplish something and elevate beyond that, because I kept telling myself the story of why I was going to be more successful, play a bigger game. And I've had my moments where I had setbacks, and got stuck and all that stuff. But still, as long as I didn't quit, and as long as I always knew that the answer was out there for the bigger game somewhere, I always find it eventually. So to answer the question, what I would tell somebody, first of all, is watch the story you're telling yourself, because you can tell the story. Remember, before you even fail, you will look for reasons that you're going to be able to tell people in yourself why you failed so that you can live with yourself.

Susan Sly 08:36
That's beautiful. Yeah, there's that story, right. And so many people, myself included, come from a very broken background. And the statistic in the United States is three out of five American women have been physically, sexually, verbally abused. Two out of five American men, same thing. You know, and I've, I was raised by a single dad, I have many male friends who were in abusive relationship. This isn't a gender issue. Yet it's that story, to your point, that we tell ourselves in that program we carry from our past into our future, right? Let me ask you this. You, you mentioned you grew up in a very broken home. What is a lesson you learned at an early age, that really you would say help to define who you are today as a family man? Because I know for myself growing up in a broken home, my mom kidnapped me when I was three. There was a lot of abuse and different things that have happened. It really helped to shape me as a mom and I'm just curious, as new friends, I want to ask you because I always you know, anyone I know who came from a very broken background often they make family a priority. So I want to ask you that, you know, not even related to entrepreneurship, but how has it made you a better father?

Mike Ciorrocco 09:55
Yeah, I mean, I saw what not to do, right and I sold that you know, I don't really, I guess that my mom did a great job. When I was about three or four, I remember her talking to me and saying, you're a leader, you're, you inspire me so much. And that stuck with me. And it made me understand that I'm a role model to everybody, because and I think we all need to understand we're role models to everybody that has eyes, and ears, and can can hear and see you. And realizing that if, you know, I wake up in the morning, people are watching, and I needed to make the right decisions, because I'm affecting other people, not just myself. And so I think I realized that. I didn't want to continue the cycle. And I wanted to tell myself a story of why I was going to be successful. Period. And that's, there's no other alternative to me. I don't have any options as far as I'm concerned. I have to be a success, I have to be a role model to provide an example for my kids, and my wife, and my employees, and my friends, and everybody that possibly comes in contact with me. So I have a, you know, I have this mission now that I filter everything through. And it makes things simple for me, because I like binary decisions. Either towards our way, building or destroying, all people are unstoppable to live in the life of their dreams. So if I, that's my mission. And so anybody that I come in contact with needs to know that, that they're unstoppable to live in life of their dreams. When I get done with them, they need to be fired up and ready to go. And they need to start asking themselves questions. That's my goal was I want people to when I'm done with them, ask themselves the question, Am I really reaching for my potential? And am I playing a big enough game? And am I holding myself back in any areas and like faking that I'm stoppable. And that's all I want to— once you start asking those questions, then that leads to elevation. And that's, that's really my intention when I come in contact with people, is to touch them in that way. That's such a beautiful

Susan Sly 11:49
life's mission. And so many people, I'm sure you find don't even bother to think about what their life's mission is, you know, is it going to get you up in the morning? Is it that thing that is going to be your legacy, which is, which is huge. So what was the first business you started?

Mike Ciorrocco 12:07
Well, when I was eight, I was selling golf balls that I found in the pond on the golf course in my house. Snakes, and probably some golf clubs of pissed off golfers, but I remember being chased by the golf course owner on his golf cart, and he would chase us off the golf cart, or off the course. But um, and then he would tell us, it's because of your safety, we didn't want you to get hit with balls, it wasn't because we didn't want you to be an entrepreneur. Um, but anyway, I think the first business that had to be the mortgage thing. Now, when I was a real estate, I was a real estate agent, and you're kind of self employed in that capacity. So I have my own little real estate thing. And then I got into mortgages and developed and started having our own branches in the mortgage space. So yeah, I think that's pretty much the first. The first business.

Susan Sly 13:00
Well, going back to the the golf ball piece. In every, you know, in the hundreds of entrepreneurs that I've interviewed, you know, billionaires, multimillionaires, highly successful people like yourself, the vast majority, if not 100%, of everyone started their, their first initial business, whatever it was, somewhere before the age of 12. That's just a common theme. And I think at some point, my next book, Mike, I'm going to do a big study on that, because I'm very curious about that childhood entrepreneurship bent. So yeah, let's talk about real estate and mortgage. There's a lot of very interesting things happening right now in that space. And so, you know, and we could talk truth or myth or whatever. So they're different people saying, well, you know, the right now the supply and demand, there's, you know, the housing market is, is really priced out. There's no point in getting into that market. And then there are other people say, there's every point and getting into the market, because the markets priced out. And it comes down to perspective. But because you're an industry expert, I'd like to hear from you.

Mike Ciorrocco 14:12
Yeah, I mean, there's a shortage, of course, and there's also the big institutions are coming in and buying a bunch of the single family residences, because they have so much money that they have to invest in something or they, they, their contract says they have to invest the money somewhere. So they're coming in buying a bunch of the single family homes, then renting them out, right. And so what I'm seeing, and I've heard this before from my mentor, my business partner, Grant Cardone has said this all the time, we're going to become a renter nation. And I didn't believe him at first and I'm like, I didn't really see it or understand it, but he was in behind the scenes talking to these institutions that take their money now and there's not enough multifamily investment properties, apartments to invest in. So they're now going and putting it into the single family homes. So that's increasing the prices. The printing of money, I believe the number is 40% of all money in circulation was printed over the last 18 months. So when you print more money, that means the money is worth less, that means that the prices of things go up. And so you're right in the situation where the housing market because of the shortage, and because of inflation, you're seeing a big increase in pricing. So what are the options? You could go rent somewhere, and rent is higher. And, or you go buy something, and you take the chance, but the difference between a lot of people are concerned with now in 2008, the crash. And I think that could happen again. And it won't happen again like that, unless they start doing the same things they did before which when we were in the mortgage business, we were allowed to talk to the appraiser ahead of time, about the value of the property before the appraiser did the job. And there was no regulation on that at all. Now you can't even, you don't, as a loan officer, you don't even know who the appraiser is ahead of time until the report comes back. It's randomly selected and it comes back and you're not allowed to talk to the appraiser about that kind of stuff until the, till the report comes. So that helps with that. We also don't do stated loans where people just state their income and then we base the base the approval based on the value position or the LTV, loan to value position of the property, which was a problem in the past because some, some people would give loans out on low equity positions, and they would even look at the ability to repay the, the borrower, the buyer. Now that's, that's gone. So you, we really run people through the wringer as borrowers now. So that 2008 thing can't happen like it happened unless we release those regulations and release those requirements, which isn't going to happen. So, so there will be a cycle, there will be a dip. But I think that we're in a supercycle right now. And I think we're fine buying properties, if you can find a good deal. Like if you could find a house.

Susan Sly 16:54
Yeah, I, what are you know, firstly, so many great parts of that answer, Mike. Um, you know, I love Grant Cardone too, 10x. We'll talk about that in just a minute, but the, the audience who listens to the show are very bright, some of my colleagues at MIT and my fans know, I'm a student at MIT, in my spare time as a woman turning 50, which I will ask you that question, because every guest this year is going to get to take part and input in my birthday. But you know, we have a lot of my colleagues at MIT listen to show— you said 40, right? Oh, honey, no, 50. But thank you. Love you more.

Mike Ciorrocco 17:31
No, really, I wouldn't have, seriously. I wouldn't have, I mean, I'm not trying to be just nice. I mean, it's Yeah. 50s.

Susan Sly 17:38
That's crazy. 1972 baby. It's crazy, man. Yeah. So anyway, the, you know, I think that the big thing, really bright people listen the show, and I love that you gave such an intelligent answer, because there's this ridiculous fear and fears of paralysis, right? And one of the things I was being interviewed by MIT the other day, and I said, skepticism never gets us paid. And the most skeptical, critical people rarely ever do anything with their lives. I want to ask you this question. So you mentioned Grant. You are a high achiever. And there's a lot of talk right now about imposter syndrome. And it's not just a women's issue, it is an issue for everyone. So my question for you is, have you ever had imposter syndrome? And I'll define it this way. So you said yes to something and then you had that, oh, I have a like really good rating on iTunes. So I'm not going to say the word in Oh, beep moment. And you're like, What did I just say yes to but, you know, forgetting the story, and the drama, you just did it anyway, Has that ever happened to you?

Mike Ciorrocco 18:46
Oh, of course. I mean, it's happened to me, if you put yourself out there enough, it's gonna happen to you. But imposter syndrome comes from you not being prepared, and not living to the standards of whatever you're trying to preach or do. Like for example, if you're coaching and or mentoring someone, and you're going over some, you know, things that you can help them with and asking them questions and getting them to spark questions in their life, but you're not living to the standards that you're talking about, then you should have a problem. You know, I think that when you get an imposter syndrome feeling you should really do an assessment, a self assessment of yourself. And that is what I've done in my past, you know, okay, something's not right here, something's not aligned, what is it? And then just go through those things and go through the areas of your life like, you know, you know, am I getting plenty of sleep? Am I writing my goals down? You know, am I, where's my word? Like, am I, am I honoring my word? Am I doing things like saying that if I do, I'm going to do something, I do it. When I'm going to do it, how I'm set I'm going to do it. My mess up, am I taking ownership of that or am I pointing fingers and blaming people? You know, am I following my routine and my structure? Am I taking care of my body? My studying, Am I learning about the mind? Am I, what am I doing? What like, Do I know where I'm spending my time? Where I'm spending my money, like I look at all this stuff, and I assess. And by the way, I do this daily. I do this daily, because I believe that the quicker you can do it, the quicker you can correct. And if you wait too long, you're wasting all kinds of time to correct. So that's the problem. People, and this happened, has to do with leadership as well, not just coaching and mentorship, but leadership. If you can't hold yourself accountable, you can't hold someone else accountable. Because you'll get the imposter syndrome. And also some people, they'll see through it. Because when I call somebody out, Susan, if I were to say to you, like if you said something to me, and I do this a lot, I don't really care if people get pissed. If they, if they say something that I can't, or they say something like, I don't know, they tell themselves a story. That's just all bull crap. I'll call him out on it. And I can't do that if, if I'm not focused on myself as well, making sure that I'm saying the right things and telling myself the right story. And most people won't do that. And they don't have the courage to call someone out and hold them accountable because they're not doing it themselves.

Susan Sly 21:03
So who calls you out in your life? Do you have anyone that will tell you, what are you doing?

Mike Ciorrocco 21:10
Yeah, I mean, here's the thing, though, truthfully, I have my wife and my kids, they're probably the best at it. Um, but I have partners in my businesses, and I encourage them to, because I cannot do that to them if I'm not welcoming it myself, I want it. But I will tell you that I take, I take the position in my businesses, that I will not let anyone outwork me, put more effort into me and or get more educated than me on any topic that I'm involved with, I will not let that happen. I refuse to let that happen. And so that puts me in a position where people are coming to me looking for answers rather than me going to someone else. Now, I don't stay in that, that environment. Like that's it, I go to other environments where people know more than me, have had more success or been in the game a little longer so that I can grow. But at the end of the day, I welcome that from anyone. And because I want to get better. I'm coachable as they come.

Susan Sly 22:09
And one of the things is that as leaders, so you know, in my life in many roles, you know, I'm a co founder and CO CEO of an AI company, and we're growing rapidly. I think today alone, we're hiring two more data scientists. We have teams in three countries, seven states now, it's, it's crazy. And, you know, one of the things I've always said to the staff is, you know, if you think I've said something, or done something, call me out on it, and that transparency as leaders is huge. It is not our parents' generation of leadership anymore. By the same token, you know, there are a lot of haters on social media, Mike, there are a lot of people who will have opinions. So how, what advice would you give to someone who says, Okay, I can take it, I can take constructive feedback, but what's the differentiator between someone who's just being outright critical, and someone who's giving you something that is actually tangible? Because a lot of people don't know how to differentiate between that.

Mike Ciorrocco 23:14
Well, I wouldn't take advice or anything like that, from anyone just on social media that doesn't know me, that's not around me. So that would even, I wouldn't even put a grain of salt into that, because they're talking to more about themselves than they are about you. So I hope that part answers the question there. As far as someone in my life doing it, you would see a pattern, if that person is a hypercritical person, you'll, you'll see a pattern from that, from that person. And you'll be able to know like I can tell, if I'm interacting with someone, and I'm communicating with someone, I'm going around someone, I can tell where they are emotionally, and know exactly what to expect from that person. I know exactly where their mind is, I know exactly what they're, where they're really coming from and what their, their agenda is based on some things that I can look at. Based on their emotion, emotional state, or the emotional condition. I love that.

Susan Sly 24:09
So what I'm hearing from you, and it's such sage wisdom, is taking a step back for a moment, looking at the source, looking at their intent, right? Does this person really want the best for you? And then deciding what kind of weight to give their opinion?

Mike Ciorrocco 24:29
Yeah, and I can also ask, I have three questions I could ask anyone and I can know their core values, what's important to them, and whether or not they have a future planned out and what they have their sights on, or if they don't have one at all. And if they do have one, what it is. I mean, that, that's a, that's a process that we go through all the time when we're talking to people. And I'm sharing that with you right now. And then I can have a conversation with you like 30 minutes from now and you wouldn't even know that it's happening. But it's not manipulation. It's, it's let me find out where this person is because I care. Because I want to be able to communicate properly with them. And I want to take them and elevate them. Whether they want to or not, I want to try to get to the position to cause and create their future. Yeah. And that's, that's a very attractive thing in business and all parts of life. People that, like if I can help people cause and create their future, and they can see me doing it and cause them creating my future the way I want my ideal life, and I'm unstoppable towards it, it causes an attraction model where people want to be around you, they want to do business with you, they want to learn from you. And they don't even know why they feel that way. But it's because you're being able to lead them in a direction instead of drifting through life. So I forget what your question was, but I think I answered, I hope.

Susan Sly 25:49
I think you did. I really do. I mean, you've provided just beautiful wisdom for people because the, the show is really around what's raw and real. And if you can't navigate on your worst day, the critics, you're not going to stay in business. 90% of startups fail— 90%. That's higher than small businesses. Mike, what was something that you, like getting really raw and real, What's something in your entrepreneurial life you have said yes to that initially scared you or perhaps exhilarated you, however you want to label it, but you did it any way.

Mike Ciorrocco 26:32
Man, a lot of things, especially over the last two years. You know, starting a podcast, as you know, I didn't even know what a podcast was right before I started my podcast. I didn't know what went into it. Then I decided to do it. And then I figured it out. I had no idea what I was doing. And then I went on, like a crazy run, where I went and did 300 interviews, and I, and I'm not talking about just my show, but I went on other people's, I probably did three to 400 interviews between my show and other people's in a year once I got started, like I just leaned into it. And that's, the only way I know how to get good because I don't like that feeling when I first started it, being uncomfortable and like stuttering and saying, uh, over and over again, and I'm like, I can't do that. I'm not gonna do that anymore. What do I need to do to solve it? I need to do repetitively and just go lean into it. So that was one thing. When I decided to write my book, that was a pain in the ass like, Oh, my God, man, sometimes I didn't have any words to say. And then when I did, I said, everybody knows this stuff. But it's not true. Not, not everybody knows this stuff that you know. And then when I decided and committed before I even started writing the book that Grant Cardone was gonna write the foreword for the book, I didn't know if he writes forewords for books, I didn't know if he ever did it before. I didn't know if he charges. But I committed to that ahead of time. And then when I went to ask, I had to go to a friend of mine, who's the president of Cardone and asked him if he would, if he thinks Grant would write the foreword for the book, risking my relationship, because it could have gotten awkward if he couldn't pull it, pull it off, or had to say no to me. And then ended up spending $75,000 for foreword. Um, you know, not knowing that that was going to be the case but I committed before. When I commit to something, that's happening. So and you know, like, the crazy thing about this, I wish I could bottle, I can bottle this. But if I could teach people this one thing, that when you get something in your head and you commit to it, you don't quit, you do whatever it takes to get it. As long as you you know, you're like your missions ethical and your moral and you want to elevate people and help people. If you get something in your head, it's happening. There's no, there's no negotiating, it's happening. And I go back and think about this over the last two years to answer your question. Like if Grant's never written a foreword for a book before and he doesn't really want to, but I got him to. And then to come from there, to think about the journey that I'm on now partnered with him, and a tech company, and helped start an incubator that's gonna launch, build, scale and sell 10,000 tech companies in 10 years. That all stemmed from, from being committed and having a mission in front of you, and then bringing people in that could do some of the things that you can't do yourself or aren't prepared to do yourself. So lots of s*** scares— Oh, lots of stuff scares me. Sorry, I don't want to mess up your iTunes rating. But I said, I said that's it, that's it, is what I said. Um, that's what I do with my kids. No, I didn't. I didn't say I said that. Uh, so anyway. Yeah, a lot of stuff scares me, man. I don't, I don't know, I just know that when I'm scared that means I need to lean into it. That's just what I know.

Susan Sly 29:34
That was the raw and real answer. And I mean, I am going to, so years ago, the list, if you're new to the show, you don't know the story. If you've been listening forever, you do. Forever meaning like 14 months and 300 episodes, but I used to radio you know, in the 90s. I was on radio. I was on television every freaking day. So this is not my first rodeo and people are like, well, how can you do a podcast? How can you be one of the Top Women? It's not my first rodeo, but Mike said, You lean in, you figure it out, and you're consistent. You're consistent. That's the bottom line. And I love, like going back to Grant, this whole piece around, and you paid $75,000. Because people look at rocket fuel. They're like foreword by Grant Cardone. Oh, he must be lucky. There is, you know, people will say there's luck in business. As a tech founder of a company with a valuation of over nine figures, I'm going to tell you something. There's a lot of sweat equity behind what you call luck, honey. That's just my little sidebar. Let's talk about your vision with Grant to launch 10,000 tech companies. I'm very curious about that.

Mike Ciorrocco 30:45
Well, first of all, it's not my vision. To clarify, I met a guy throughout my outreach. And while I was on my mission, his name's Jared Yellin, he had a successful tech company. And he basically made himself obsolete, like every entrepreneurs would love to in our business. And he had a clean slate. And he's in his mid 30s. And he's like, I had a successful tech company, what, what now? And what came to his mind, he doesn't understand why or you know, where it came from. But he didn't want to negotiate with his moonshot with the build, scale, and sell 10,000 tech companies. And this is when he didn't have a whole lot of people with him. He had his team for, from his, his OneTech, tech platform company. I ran into him, I heard the story. And I'm like, Well, I don't know what tech is, I don't even know, like, I know, apps and things like that. But I don't. And he goes, Look, I'm not a tech person, either. I don't have a tech, engineering bone in my body. He said, he always says I know how to sell and do copyright. And he can visualize and vision and follow through and execute. And I said, Man, look, I'm on board. I don't, I don't even know all the details here. But I'm rolling with you, man. I'm in alignment with you. Let's roll. And we hit it off, we became like brothers, great friends. And as that started, I started a company with him called Blueprinted, which is getting ready to launch. And I'll share more details about that in a second. But as we're going through this, I'm like, Dude, we got to get some, like 10,000 is a lot. And that's 84 companies a month, every single month launched over a 10 year period, every single month. So we got to move faster. And what if we got Grant involved and got the big promotional arm of that part? Like, that would be powerful. And he's like, Yeah, I agree. And I'm like, alright, well, I got connections there. We've got friends there. Let's, and by the way, this would set this up is like, would they even open the door and have had a meeting and sit down if I didn't pay 75 grand for that foreword? No. You see, that's that was a tool, right? That was an investment. So they sat down, they hit it off. And then Grant put his hand out because he realized that he wanted to do this too, but he couldn't do it without Jared Yellen. And the, for the, I was gonna say foundation, but the, there's another word I was looking for. But anyway, the infrastructure, the infrastructure that he had, Grant couldn't do it by himself. Most, most people can't do what we're doing if they wanted to without us. And so that's puts us in a very powerful situation, Grant put his hand out said, Hey, I would love to help you do this. And so they partnered up. And, you know, I was excited about that. Because, you know, obviously, that's cause and creating futures for people, not just those two, but for every single co founder that's in this, this incubator now, every customer that we're going to touch, every partner and investor that we're going to touch was caused and created by all these different things that I did, that Jared Yellen did that everybody that's involved with this doing that. So and I don't just do one thing, like I have Blooprinted and there's another company right behind that called tip Aerocity that we're starting as well in the incubator. So there's a lot of things going on, you know, tech, because like you said, I've heard you say this over and over again, already, like you're involved with it, man, and it's not luck. Like you're deep into it, you know, and I

Mike Ciorrocco 33:59
don't know, man, I'm excited. I don't know what's, what's to come except for the vision that we have, you know.

Susan Sly 34:05
I, it's a huge vision and going back to the failure rate, 90%. Right? So here's a fun stat for, you probably know this Mike, but for the listening audience. So for six, I'm, you know, I co founded Radius in 2018. So part of that, I built three award winning sales channels, totaling 2 billion in sales. But here's a fun stat for people to know, unicorns, were only talking the 475 Global Unicorns. Of the unicorn CEOs, if you take out celebrity unicorns like Rihanna and Kylie Jenner, so a company that has a billion dollar plus valuation, those founders on average have been successful in more than one vertical. And the average startup success unicorn, outside of celebrity unicorns, they have lived in more than one country and they speak more than one language. So the reason I share those stats is because it goes back to how we started this discussion, because I'd read about Mike's background, he said, if you lost everything today, he can sell. And at the end of the day, regardless of the stats, regardless of anything, if you can sell and you have grit and you're open, and you're coachable, you're going to go a long way. So let me ask you this, Mike, why, tell in front of the world, why will you be one of those unicorns?

Mike Ciorrocco 35:31
Well, first of all, this is something, you just got me thinking about this. I don't know many tech startups that have cashflow before the product was even launched or finished being developed. And I know how to sell. And my team is very good at coming up with human ingenuity ways to develop cash, and we generated 80, just under 100 thousand. 80, $4,000, prior, and this is in one month, prior to the product even being ready. So if you're able to do that kind of stuff, that's how powerful sales is. That's how powerful being, you know, visualizing and executing on something is. So why, what, why am I gonna, like have a unicorn, because I've already sent it out, the vision's out there, and all we got to do is keep making consistent actions towards that mission. And, and absolutely eliminate non negotiable, anything that falls below our standards and below, something not going towards that mission. So one of the things that's powerful is when I decided to do this, and I sold Jared Yelland's mission, we positioned ourselves to not fail. Like we have surrounded ourselves with the most, the best people in the world marketing wise, promotion wise, we have a company in India with a company that Jared owns, which allows us to produce and develop at cost in India instead of having to pay what most people pay. And we also understand that failure is just a either a fuel or training session, like we understand if we have a setback, or, you know, something slows us down, it's just to tell us that we need to maybe move up a few ticks to the left or right or maybe move a little faster. Or you know what, maybe our attitude's not right, and we need to pick our attitudes up a little bit. You know, so, so we understand the formula. And that's the most people don't. They get a tech idea, they get involved with a development company. And then they don't know how to sell, they don't know how to build relationships, they have no relationship capital. We have every reason to be successful. And if we find something that comes in our way, a person, anything in our environment, we will remove it and eliminate it very quickly.

Susan Sly 37:45
I feel like saying amen right now, Mike. Say it. I'm excited. The, you, I love what you said, because there are a lot of great tech ideas out there. However, they don't bring in people who can sell, who can market, and the company never goes and they don't pay attention to cash flow. That's the number one reason businesses fail. So because you understand all of that, I'm excited to see your unicorn business. I really, really am. So—

Mike Ciorrocco 38:13
Did you say, with all due respect,Susan, did you say business?

Susan Sly 38:17
Well, your first unicorn? Yeah,

Mike Ciorrocco 38:19
because we don't do anything once. And so we, you know, I'm just, I'm just very dead set on. This is the thing that we're going to start doing and it's going to be like a assembly line, you know, an assembly line. And not everybody's going to have a unicorn, not every single one's going to be a unicorn, but we had 13,000 people submit ideas in a year. And, and then proximately 600-ish got through the process to actually pitch. And then from there, we have 120 companies. So this isn't a thing of playing a law of averages type thing as far as the companies that get launched, like, yeah launched. But they're, you know, so I think there's going to be multiple unicorns. I think that every company is going to, I wouldn't say every. I think it's going to be 90% of the companies will cashflow and have some kind of success. Because of the way we're doing the process, you know.

Susan Sly 39:13
So you're gonna reverse the paradigm. So how does someone find out more about what it is you're doing, if they want to be part of it?

Mike Ciorrocco 39:19
Yes. So as far as well, I didn't talk much about Blooprint. But real quick, Blooprint is a marketplace for creating with step by step guides to achieve different goals. So we'll have experts that know how to do things from any, any vertical that you can think of, any industry, relationships or what have you, instead of a course it's a step by step guide that people buy from the creator in our marketplace. And so if you want to check that out, it's Blooprinted.com/VIP. Blooprinted, and it's spelled B-L-O-O, printed.com. Forward slash VIP.

Susan Sly 39:50
Outstanding name. I love that name.

Mike Ciorrocco 39:52
So that's where I would go to check it out. If you want to go to tech 10xincubator.com. You can check out the Incubator, what we're doing with the incubator and to get involved in the community, man. We want everyone involved in the ecosystem in some form or fashion, even if it's to hate on us, we need haters. We need cheerleaders. We need investors, we need co founders. We want people just involved. We want to impact a billion people on this planet. And at the worst case, they're a hater.

Susan Sly 40:17
Well, yeah, that's right. In the face of challenge, you can give up or get better. Right? Right, exactly. That's a huge mission. And I'm very excited to see what you do. I really, and, and thank you for that. Because that is a, it's, it's a big mountain to climb. But I can tell you're excited about it. And the other thing, you know, I want to do a personal shout out, you know, right now, of all the unicorns out there, there are only 39 of them that are women funded, or sorry, women founded and women co founded. It's a very small percentage. And so I want to say, Hey, ladies, you need to check out this community, because in addition to haters, there gonna be a lot of like, epic estrogen in there, too.

Mike Ciorrocco 41:02
Well, well, Susan, we're very keen on this, this the underserved is, and the lack of diversity in tech is a problem. And we are aware of that. And we're bringing that. We already have things on the roadmap. We have people involved to get women, people of color, the underserved, into tech. And we're going to be the catalyst for that. So yeah, that's a great, you know, great point. And I'm glad you brought that up.

Susan Sly 41:25
Well, it's a you know, it's so interesting, because as a, like, as a visible minority woman in tech on my CrunchBase profile, which I found hilarious, like, I'm one of the Top Women in Machine Learning. I haven't written a line of freaking code since 1992. Everyone knows. But anyway, that's as a side. So my final question for you. So turning 50 this year, and I'm going to have 50 new experiences. So one thing I'm asking my guests on every show is what's an experience you've had, that you think I might also enjoy having In this 50th year? Because I'm curating my list.

Mike Ciorrocco 42:03
I would say get involved with us. I would say, you know, I'm gonna set up connection, call up with Jerry Yellin, and you and myself, and we're gonna see what synergies there are, because I know there are from talking to you, without a doubt, we have a future together in some form or fashion. So that's what I would say.

Susan Sly 42:18
All right. I love it. I'm down. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a complete Yes. And you know, the thing I want to you know, just say Mike is for those people who can't see him, please, to me, boys and girls, go to YouTube. He has smiled this entire 45 minutes and he has this angelic Halo about him. You need to go to YouTube. If you're just listening, you have to see this man. He embodies, and my guests will know, like my my audience knows, I don't say this ever. Thank you so much. The, it's from the heart. It's that you're, there's this, there's this energy behind your words. And the you know, on the show, we've had Dave Asprey, Glenn Stearns is one of my dear friends, Undercover Billionaire, Jay Samit, who's a billionaire. I've had a lot of people on the show. You're one of only a handful of people in that rare air, where as you're sharing, and your mission and your vision, you literally light up. You all need to see this.

Mike Ciorrocco 43:27
Thank you for recognizing that, Susan, it means a lot.

Susan Sly 43:29
My pleasure. Well, okay, in addition to going to blooprinted.com/VIP with two O's, where else can people follow you?

Mike Ciorrocco 43:40
I made it really easy. So being mentored by some of the great people that I've been mentored by, they said to be omnipresent. So I took that to heart. But Instagram, LinkedIn, Clubhouse, I'm all over the place. And I've done tons of interviews, like I said, So made it really easy for you. So you have come find me. I love interacting with people in the clubhouse. And then Instagram is probably one of my favorite platforms. Oh, by the way, Twitter, too, I just started leaning into Twitter and went from like 300 to 3000 followers. I'm not even sure exactly how to do this Twitter thing as much but working on it. High five me,

Susan Sly 44:15
I was on Twitter and then I kind of stopped, Twitter is my new, I love Twitter more than any of the other ones. Partially because I'm in the Shib Army. I'm all, I was doing the you know, I was doing this talk recently about stop discounting the massive. The people driving the meme stocks, driving Dogecoin, driving Shib. Yeah, so Yeah, Go, I'm gonna go follow you on Twitter right now.

Susan Sly 44:26
Awesome. I'll get you back. Yeah, absolutely. I like to get into spaces more too. Twitter spaces. Yeah,

Susan Sly 44:52
places and spaces. Well, anyway, thank you so much, Mike for being here. I want to just wish everyone listening and watching the best 2022. God bless. go rock your day. And I will see you in a future episode of Raw and Real Entrepreneurship.