Episode 191： How To Disrupt An Industry
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
203.60268
Summary
In this episode of Valuetainment, host Patrick Bedevi talks about how to disrupt an industry and how to get on the cover of a major media outlet. He also shares the story of how he went from a $400 billion company to a $150 million company in less than a decade.
Transcript
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I'm Patrick Bedevi, your host of Valuetainment, and today I'm going to talk to you about the
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Many, many years ago when I got into the financial industry, I didn't really know if I could
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I had no background in the financial industry, nothing.
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So I get in, and then all of a sudden I get my Series 7, 66, 31, 26, Life and Health.
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October of 2009, we decided to start our own insurance company.
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From the moment I started an insurance company, five seconds later, a $400 billion company sued
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I had to get attorneys to represent seven different of us, like we had to go through,
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We're about to go out of business, but we're fighting, we're selling, we're working 100,
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And insurance magazine calls me and says, we'd like to get together with you because
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we know you'd like to get your credibility out because you just went through a lawsuit.
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The marketplace doesn't really see you as a company that's coming up.
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We can really help you by getting your credibility out.
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We sit down at Woodland Hills, Maggiano's, and they present the fact that I can be on
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the cover of their number one insurance, Life Insurance Magazine and Marketplace, over
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I'm not going to pay you $125,000, but very soon you will contact us and you'll ask us
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I said, you have no idea how much conviction I have in the life insurance industry.
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Number two, when you get into an industry, you decide to compete.
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When you compete, I wanted to find out if I had the goodies to compete in the marketplace.
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I figured I could compete with a lot of people in the marketplace.
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Number three, the industry gave me so much, my lifestyle, my freedom, all this other stuff.
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I said, I wanted to contribute to the industry.
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I want to find a way to make the industry better because without this industry,
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this regular guy whose father worked at a 99 cents or who had a 1.8 GPA, who went to the
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military, I've never had a four-year, two-year degree, he would have been a regular guy, right?
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And the fourth C-letter word is challenging conventional thinking, which by the way, if
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you're involved in the industry and you don't challenge everybody's way of thinking where
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people are dying for you to go out of business, you're not really disrupting.
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Listen, we had so many people wanted us to go out of business.
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They started propagandas, rumors, all of this stuff because they were furious with us.
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By the way, a lot of lonely nights, a lot of nights of close of being out of business,
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He says, I'm the CEO and founder of this magazine.
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He says, I'd like to talk to you about telling your story because I'm seeing what you're doing in the marketplace.
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Your name is coming up by people who like you and your name is coming up by people who don't like you.
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But I figure it's a good time for us to share your story with people.
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I said, is this an advertory because I have no interest in spending a single penny?
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We want to do a cover story and we want to tell your story.
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One was called, Can He Make Insurance Cool Again?
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And the other one was a cover story of what they recently did that was called,
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Patrick B. David is Turning Non-Agents into Super Sellers.
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And so after this, they came to the home office.
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Many of you ask me all the time, Pat, what do you do for a living?
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This is when we make videos, believe it or not.
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Late at night because we don't have time to make videos throughout the day.
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But this interview that was done by Matt Walton will tell you exactly what I do on a daily basis.
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Today, we're down in Dallas, Texas to meet the hugely successful author and entrepreneur,
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Patrick Bett David, the founder of the PHP Agency, which stands for People Helping People
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Today, the big agencies have all but given up on new recruits, as more people are leaving
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But Patrick Bett David is on the advance, personally bringing nearly 4,000 new agents into the field
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We started with Patrick and I never looked back.
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We're talking about the things that we're able to have in terms of removing financial
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arguments out of our conversation and our relationship as much more enhanced.
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As a young boy, Patrick Bett David immigrated to the United States from war-torn Iran, served
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in the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Unit, and soon set off on a one-man mission to save
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PHP's model, how they serve the customer, they're really approaching the industry in a
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I thought this was a noble company, selling a noble product, life insurance.
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And I said, man, it would be an honor to help you go nationwide and go big with this
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He's published four books, and with close to 100 million views on social media, he's
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built the preeminent YouTube channel on entrepreneurship, value-tainment.
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And he's done all of this before even turning 40, making Patrick Bett David an undisputed leader
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And I see this massive Optimus Prime, and I say, I got to have it.
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You know, I may be aging, but I'm still a kid inside.
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I go in, the girl says, it's handmade by auto parts.
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We build a place where you come, you eat, you play.
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This, the most famous one of all, Patrick David right there.
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Most people think this is Buffett, but it's Milton Friedman.
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I love this guy's story so much, where I name my daughter Senna.
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So he's close to the left because that's my heart.
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Patrick Bet-David, tell me about growing up in Iran.
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I was born October of 78, which is the peak of the revolution between the Shah and the whole thing that was going on.
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So when my father was taking my mother to the hospital, when her water broke, it was curfew.
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So they held up my dad and had to escort my mom to the hospital.
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And then it's Iran with the turmoil, the war between Iran and Iraq.
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I remember one day we got bombed 167 times in a single day.
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When Khomeini dies, June 3rd, 89, six weeks later, we escape.
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We went and said we're going to Germany on vacation, but we didn't go on vacation.
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We went and stayed at a refugee camp in Germany.
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There were people there from Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland.
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And it just, Afghanistan, Iraq, everybody was leaving to come to America.
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So you learn about a lot of different cultures.
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It was the first time I got stabbed, was at the refugee camp.
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Then we flew in November 28, 1990, came to the States.
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Did your father put the idea of coming to America in your head?
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Did he have eyes on, I mean, at what point did you think America's where I want to be?
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So I asked my dad this question a couple years ago.
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But my dad said, your mother said, we got to leave.
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Because in Iran, if you turn, I think, 12 years old, you have to serve.
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And so they didn't want me to stay in the military.
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And I come to America and I serve in the U.S. Army, which my mother wasn't too happy about.
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You had aspired to be the Iranian Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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Did you think that training in the Army was going to help you meet that goal?
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So if you came to my barracks in the Army, I either had pictures of Arnold or I had pictures of John Travolta.
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And John Travolta, because of Saturday Night Live, staying alive, that whole thing.
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The story was, I'm going to be the Middle Eastern Arnold.
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I was at Venice Beach, no shirt on, khaki, one of these guys walking around.
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She said, I work at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
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She said, it's a financial firm, all this other stuff.
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So I took my resume, which was very impressive.
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And you were trying to be the top sales guy at those places?
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On the cover letter, I took my best joke that I had.
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On the bottom of the joke, I said, if you're laughing, this is exactly how my customers are
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If you want someone like me part of your team, give me a call.
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Out of the 30, 15 were just impressed by the joke.
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Before he dies, he tells his three sons, listen, every one of you, I want you to drop
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$1,000 in my coffin because I want the family to know how much you love your dad.
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Oh my gosh, you know, it's such a special thing.
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Third son comes, he writes a $3,000 check, takes the $2,000 cash.
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And the next thing you know, I get three offers.
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I got three offers with Morgan, and I took to Morgan in Glondale.
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There was a very significant night in your life where you met conservative columnist,
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And my dad's side, they believed in imperialism because they're Dusha.
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A man named Bill Vogel took me one night, and he introduced me to George Will.
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I said, George, you know, I'm really trying to figure myself out.
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Because I'm really trying to get clear about what I want in my life.
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He says, look, most people your age could care less about studying the history of what
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works and what doesn't work as far as economical systems.
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For the next 18 months, I bought every book on capitalism, socialism, communism,
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Communist Manifesto, Milton Friedman, Karl Marx, Rules for Radicals, you know, Adam
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I said, I want to find out the math behind this.
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And so all of a sudden, I started calling families of presidents.
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I called the Clinton family, Bush family, Carter family, Reagan family.
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I put an event together, July 17th of 2009, called Saving America, Doing the Impossible.
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I had another guy named Nick dressed as Lincoln.
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I had another guy speak on Star Spangled Banner.
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How did all your accumulated knowledge of capitalism and how it functions lead you to not only start
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that company, but name it, People Helping People?
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So you will never find a billionaire who became a billionaire by himself.
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So that's how the whole thing came about, why we should name the company PHP.
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What strikes me about the name is it's so untraditional for a financial services company.
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And some guys came and said, why don't you name the company your name?
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I said, I'm not going to name the company my name.
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Not only are your social media numbers staggering, the number of agents you have, it blows my mind.
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You know, compared to a New York life, you got like half their agents and you're one guy.
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I wanted to build a company that I wanted to be a part of.
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I wanted to build a business that I would want, from an outsider, I would love to be part of this company.
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Because in case something happens, I'm also protected.
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Two, I wanted to create an incentive program that doesn't benefit just the people that have been around for 20 years.
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And so I wanted to create an environment where the newest agent coming in had the same amount of opportunity as a guy that had been around for nine years.
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You'll hear a lot of times financial firms say the following lines.
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Our executive team has over 400 years of experience.
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When you say that to me, you know what's the first thing I think about?
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And by the way, it's not a good slogan anymore.
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Because the new generation is no longer the baby boomers.
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So for us, our average agent today is a 34-year-old Hispanic female today in PHP, which is the United States of America versus just one audience that doesn't necessarily connect with everybody.
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Because you're kind of in between Gen X and millennial eyes.
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Make me feel like I can be part of something bigger.
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If we can communicate this language to millennials and Gen Xs, holy moly, the amount of potential that we can tap into is priceless.
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Well, I think you were successful in doing that with your video, The Life of an Entrepreneur in 90 Seconds.
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The number of views it got in just 48 hours is mind-blowing.
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Bridging the career of financial advisor, insurance agent into the title of entrepreneur.
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I was with Vidal Eyes, yes, two days ago at his house.
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But I got together with him and I'm sitting there saying, you know, look at this guy here.
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There's not a big difference because it's creativity, right?
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I mean, you look at yourself, you're in the entertainment business.
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We have so many commonalities with entrepreneurs.
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More than anything else, it was a message to tell entrepreneurs, you're not alone.
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Now, I want to finish with what that video then became.
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Are businesses and people defined by their social media followers and their numbers and their likes now?
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So what Valuetainment became videos, and I chose one word.
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And life of an entrepreneur takes off on YouTube.
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I put it on YouTube, and we called it the best motivational video of 2015.
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And I said, I'm going to change the title on Facebook.
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And I changed the title to The Life of an Entrepreneur in 90 Seconds.
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The next morning, every one of our websites is shut down.
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It's 2 million views, 5 million views, 30 days later, 10 million views.
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That video gave traffic to the DNA of an entrepreneur.
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From there, they went to DNA of an entrepreneur.
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And then they said, this guy kind of knows what he's talking about with business.
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And then Valuetainment became what it is today.
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Every CEO, every entrepreneur, every salesperson has a brand today.
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And then all of a sudden, oh my gosh, this guy's going on a balloon and he's doing it.
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So he built his own brand and a virgin took off.
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Within 10 minutes, I can find out if you're a Republican or Democrat.
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I can find out if you've got kids, if you're a sports guy, who do you like?
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I can get 50 questions answered in five minutes.
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So today, my suggestion to everybody is, here's a company.
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Tell us about your mom, your dad, your upbringing.
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And the more I get to know you, the more I fall in love with the brand here.
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Patrick Bet David, you're a leader of industry.
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And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.
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And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,
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And I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.