Terry Brizz had two great ideas come to him – one from standing in line to check into a hotel room, and the other from standing in line at the grocery store. Both opportunities massively changed his life and were influential in creating his financial and business success. Listen as the President of Galaxy Balloons shares how you need to keep your eyes open to the opportunities that surround you. Tune in to Part 2 of this interview with Terry Brizz.
If you missed Part 1 “Blueprint for Your Business” – you can watch here
Chapter Summaries
Key Takeaways
Resource Links
Part 1 “Blueprint for Your Business” can be watched here
If you enjoyed this episode, click here to watch/listen to more from Million Dollar Monday.
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Terry Brizz had two great ideas come to him – one from standing in line to check into a hotel room, and the other from standing in line at the grocery store. Both opportunities massively changed his life and were influential in creating his financial and business success. Listen as the President of Galaxy Balloons shares how you need to keep your eyes open to the opportunities that surround you. Tune in to Part 2 of this interview with Terry Brizz.
If you missed Part 1 “Blueprint for Your Business” – you can watch here
Chapter Summaries
Key Takeaways
Resource Links
Part 1 “Blueprint for Your Business” can be watched here
If you enjoyed this episode, click here to watch/listen to more from Million Dollar Monday.
Subscribe and receive updates when new episodes are available.
>>>>> Follow us on YouTube <<<<<
Hello, and welcome to Million Dollar Monday. I'm your host, Greg Muzzillo bringing you real successful people with real useful advice for people with big dreams. I understand big dreams. I turned an investment of$200 and a lot of great advice from some really successful people into my big dream proforma. That today is a half billion dollar company. All right, welcome back everybody. Million Dollar Monday part two last week, we had Terry Brizz join us and talk to us about how he got into the balloon business and even teach us a lesson in how balloons get printed. And now we're going to learn from Terry Brizz, the professor of entrepreneurship, the Doctor, Business management about some great lessons and great advice. He has not only from his business experience, but his years of learning about entrepreneurship and teaching entrepreneurship. Terry, thanks for joining me.
Terry Brizz:Thank you, Greg. Looking forward to it.
Greg Muzzillo:Proud to know you and call you a friend. Now talk to us about being a professor, a professor of entrepreneurship. I know that I know that you've got some points about entrepreneurship in general. That would be very enlightening for our audience sharing some of those points with us.
Terry Brizz:Right? Like, you'll see the first slide here. It's called the, you know, the age of the entrepreneur and when Greg and I went to college, there was no such thing as a, entrepreneur class. We were talking about that before. You know, it just wasn't there now. It's really becoming very, very popular. And you look at a show like shark tank. You know what I mean? How popular that is. They have their ideas, which is great. You know what I mean? People are now, but you know, I carry the age entrepreneur every year, entrepreneurs in the us launch nearly 775,000 new businesses. So roughly 88 new businesses start up every hour. You think about every minute there was a business start, and the global enterprise monitor, sorry, folks. I'm a professor, so I've got to have some PowerPoints. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense. So I had to. So, you know, it's that they did a study 300 million. Yeah. Good to say about 300 million or roughly 12.5% of adults in 40 countries surveyed are involved in forming new businesses. So entrepreneurship you've talked about that 13% of the US population age 18 to 74 are engaged in entrepreneurial activity. They talked about 11% of the us households, you know, will, own their own businesses. So again, you can see how popular it is and why people are studying each year in the U S more people start a business and get married or have children. As much as 40% of the us population will be self-employed for part of their life and as, in 2020, which you think about it was a pandemic. So US had a total of 30, 32.5 million businesses of that 31.7% are considered small businesses, less than 500 employees, a 99.7% of businesses, small businesses. So they're entrepreneurs starting up, 18.3% are more minority owned, 19.9% are women on. And that's a great thing about entrepreneurship. Doesn't matter, you know, the skin color doesn't matter, your sex. You got a good idea. You got a good run. You can make it, you know, you can, you can do it. And, and that's what I love about entrepreneurship. You know, coming up. Well, you got a great idea, go for it. And then this last one, you know, just that last slide here is just how entrepreneurship is growing each year. Even in the pandemic year, last year, it goes 3.25% of new business it's. So again, that kind of shows the impact of, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship.
Greg Muzzillo:I find it interesting that, you know, cause I've had the opportunity to join your class. A couple of times I find it interesting that many people who study entrepreneurship, when I asked him the question, how many of them think they want to own their own business, someday, a significant number of them don't raise their hand. And so, um, they're studying and they're learning about entrepreneurship, but not necessarily with the thought of owning their own business or starting their own business.
Terry Brizz:Well, you know, Greg, if you would've told me back when I was in college or whatever, you're going to own a balloon company someday, I would have thought you were out of your mind,, but I just, you know, so in some sense, I think if you plant the seed there and when the opportunity, I'd say, it's interesting, you know, you never know an opportunity is going to come you really need to be open. B ut l ike I told you, just that story, me standing i n line in Pittsburgh and how that opened up a whole world, to me, talking to a guy who, Hey, w ant t o sell balloons? You know, and how that just opened up, everything to me, I had a situation t oo. One time you t alk about, you know, you never know when opportunity knocks. I remember I was at a grocery store. I had, my son was a little baby and I'm buying some baby food or something. And the lady comes up and a Genie was her name, and she was wanting to sell their company. I'm trying to check out, you want to buy my company? Do you want to buy my company? And I knew her from our promotional product here in Cleveland and kind of has, you know, a little bit just the knowledge. And she was following me to my car. I tried to put the baby, in the baby, seat okay, I think I'll call you on Monday. Well, turns out I give her a call and she ran into some issues, right. But I turned out buying this company, from her and she made like desk accessories and things like that had some molds. And what was I was looking for, it was really only the second year I was in business. And what I was looking to do was what balloons were good, but they slowed down in the fourth quarter of the year. And this was stuff I could sell at Christmas time or holiday gifts. So I ended up buying it and I checked with a friend of mine who is a molder and needs looked at her molds. So these are good molds, you know, they're worth, you know, like 50,$60,000. I ended up buying a company for like$18,000. So I bring it in and it's funny. So we got to the first season I brought in a consulting firm and this is what's up. I would suggest to, for, entrepreneurs get other viewpoints of your business. Sometimes you get like this and look at about this consulting for a manner in our industry, promotional products. And a guy came in and he looked at it. I was trying to figure out, okay, how do I mix a balloon company with this, you know, desk accessories and how to best do that. You know, he comes back a couple of weeks later, he says, would you want to sell with this desk accessory company? I said, well, not really. I just kind of got it. He said, well, what would you give me for? He says, oh, like 150,000. And I said, well, how about 200 he goes, well, why don't we split the difference? 175. Okay. That sounds good. So, I mean, there was an opportunity. That's funny. You might know my accountant at that time. Jack Corey, Jack Told me Hey, quit selling balloons. Why don't you buy and sell business. But what happened was so I ended up selling it, but that also gave me the opportunity to buy out my two investors that I had. So now I own the company a hundred percent and then I bought some molds and I got into sport balls and other things that I had. So there was two opportunities there. Like I said, somebody's not gonna, you know, follow me out of the grocery store and say that you gotta find my company. And so you never know in life when opportunity will knock and you really need to be open to them. Right?
Greg Muzzillo:I agree. Terry, I'm a big believer in, in the law of attraction. And I tell people, you just have to have your antennas up. You have to number one. And I'm sure that through your experiences, you always knew you'd be successful. You just didn't necessarily know where or how or where it would come from. But I find that great ideas come to people. Now you've told us two stories about how great ideas have come to you, standing in line, checking into a hotel room and then standing in line, trying to check out at a grocery store. Both of these have massively changed your life and really been influential in creating your financial success and your business success. And I think some people just don't have their antennas up to listen to receive those valuable things that come to them. I know, I mean, briefly my story is, is that I studied accounting and I loved studying accounting, but I hated doing it. I didn't know it was fun studying it, but I didn't like doing it. So I talked to my roommate that I, shared an apartment with after I graduated from college and he didn't like his boss, that was a distributor. And I didn't like accounting and it didn't take us very long hanging out to think, well, wait a minute, you know, sales as a distributor ship, I know accounting. Let's just start our own business. But I think a lot of people might've looked at that conversation as just two guys. And usually these were on Friday nights looking for dates for Saturday night. A lot of people might've looked at those conversations just as an interesting conversation or babble among two people. But your point it's a huge one. Terry is you gotta pay attention because sometimes opportunities come from the law of attraction, if you will. And they come from places that are very unexpected.
Terry Brizz:Yeah. That's for sure.
Greg Muzzillo:Yeah. Yeah. All right. So as a professor of entrepreneurship, what advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs and people with big dreams?
Terry Brizz:One of the things that, again, you know, I think it's important if you've got inspiring dreams, is to research it, you know, look at it, see how viable is do that too. You know, we've talked about that. I think, you know, especially as entrepreneurs starting up, I think it's really important to network with people and network with other, you know, there's there, there are other business owners you can do it like chamber of commerce or YPO, things like that, that you can do. I was, YPO, Young Presidents Organization
Greg Muzzillo:Were you in YPO?
Terry Brizz:No, I was not, but I, I know people that have been and I kind of wish I had and
Greg Muzzillo:I was in YPO and during my years in Cleveland, it changed my life. Unbelievable. Yeah. But go ahead. No,
Terry Brizz:No, I had a group, you know, that, that I called that I worked with called the principal connection. And these were guys that were in the promotional products, industry, suppliers, owners of companies, suppliers like myself. And, we were like a fraternity and we had so much fun, but we were, it was so great because we traveled around the country and we did trade shows. We were like the first group that did travel trade shows, but we were owners and we gave a little presentation. So we attracted people and, but we really bounced off ideas. And one of the things we did, so if they were up here in Cleveland, we'd spend a half a day, they go through my company, we talked about what I'm doing, but they also come back with advice Terry, Why are you doing it this way? Why don't you do it this way? Why don't you look at this or, wow, you're doing that. Or we need to look at that, but we really, played off of each other or really helped each other grow. And it was really, it was really important. Another thing that, I did, and it was funny, it was after I was entrepreneur of the year, a friend of mine and actually a mentor of mine came up to me and I really didn't know him that well at the time and said, Hey, would you want to be on the board of my company? And I go, what? Nice. I said, I don't have a lot of experience. No, he said, my son's taking over. And I'd like to have somebody in his age group like yourself. And I said, wow. Yeah, it'd be, I'm honored that you'd asked me to do that. But there's one stipulation. I said, well, what's that? He said, you've got to start your own board. I said, oh, okay. That's what I think. And I said, okay, will you be on my board? So sure. I'll be on your board. So he helped me then help me put together my board. And it was really great. I used to, it's funny, you know, But at the end of the day, as an entrepreneur, a lot of times, all you have is yourself. You need to come home, find your wife or family. I got this problem, y ou k now? So, so you sit there at the end of the day, you're banging your head against the wall. I got these problems. And then it just really opened up to have these minds. I was really able to put together a really nice board and I was able to share ideas and they're very good. A nd, yo u k n ow, we do a quarterly board meeting and some of the guys wo uld c ome in from Chicago and others, and it really was very beneficial. So one of the things I would look at too, if you're starting a b u siness i s l ook at the idea of, you know, putting together a board of a d visors a nd do that.
Greg Muzzillo:To your point to your point. And you talked about YPO. I think most people in YPO would say young presidents organization, that the number one value they got from YPO was being a member of a forum group. And a forum group inside of YPO is really a committed and confidential board of advisors in your business and in your life. And, it is lonely at the top. And sometimes you can't go home and even explain to your wife or significant other what the problems are because you don't want to scare that other person or, or make them be worried. And so sometimes there really is nobody to talk to. And so there are many opportunities. I know, you know, this Terry for people to be involved in, in different mentorship type of groups, you don't have to be a part of YPO to be a part of a forum or, other kinds of groups that, that offer mastermind groups or whatever, to have either a formal board of advisors as you're talking about. But also these more informal, like YPO forum kind of, or mastermind group kind of a committed and confidential board of advisors.
Terry Brizz:Yeah. I knew it was a lot of groups now that, and I do a little work with some of them that weren't available. Like jumpstart is one. We have a social venture partners here that that's a good one here. See change business advisors of Cleveland. I mean, these are things that are open that you can go to as an entrepreneur, you can actually compete like you were talking about before.
Greg Muzzillo:Absolutely. And I'll bet you, Terry, you would agree with me for a man that's is very successful as you are and award-winning, and even in the news, right? So people in our industry know that you've won awards people in the Cleveland, Ohio, and Northern Northeastern Ohio area know that you won awards. I'll bet you very few people approach you now, you're a professor. So maybe you get a little bit more, but I'll bet you very few people approach you to just say, Hey Terry, could I get five minutes of your time? Or 10 minutes of your time to get some advice. I find an unbelievably small number of people actually are brave enough to reach out and just ask for advice.
Terry Brizz:Yeah. Yeah. Good point.
Greg Muzzillo:Advice from a very successful award-winning entrepreneur, great advice from a professor of entrepreneurship, and a doctor of business management. Terry, now that you've reached a great level of success in your life and in your business, what big dreams do you have left for the rest of your life?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, I still have a passion for entrepreneurship, so I want to stay involved. I'm still doing some teaching. I do some work with these organizations, you know, like jump start, like I said earlier, before such a bunch of partners, business advisors. So I want to continue doing that type of stuff. Get more involved. I've also looking at some opportunities to become an angel investor and into startups, I'm working with a company right now, looking at a couple of things. I think that might be fun just to be able to be there, not running it, but just being able to do that I also enjoyed sitting on boards of nonprofit organizations. So I've sat on a lot of nonprofits. Maybe that goes back to, you know, being a man for others, which was, you know, from our high school days or, you know, doing a good deed daily, I always feel it's important to give back.
Terry Brizz:And that's one thing I tell my students too. I mean, my kids, you know, is, you know, look at something that you have a passion about. It could be scuba diving. I did, it could be whatever it is, feeding the homeless, whatever it might be and, and go volunteer at a nonprofit, you'll meet some great people. You'll feel like, you know, you're really giving back doing part of something. And I think, yeah, especially, and, and I've, I've met some wonderful people being part of these nonprofits that could help continue to do that. And also to, you know, I'm a grandfather now. So, I will, uh, take this opportunity to spend more time with them play with them, There's nothing better than being, if you know, if you're a grandpa, you know, it's absolutely, there is nothing, nothing better than that. So, yeah. So I feel very fortunate where I am in life. I mean, nobody gave me anything. I've worked hard, but I'm very happy where I'm at.
Greg Muzzillo:It's been my privilege and my honor to have you, and you're the first guest that we've actually done two separate Sessions with because you had so much great information to share with us. So I want to thank you very much for joining us. I want to really let you know how proud I am of you and how inspiring you are is not just a successful business owner, not just even a successful teacher of entrepreneurship, but a good man that cares about diversity, cares about his employees and cares about making his world a better place. Terry, thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Greg. Always enjoying take care.