Episode 198： 25 Business Lessons from Mobsters & The Mafia
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
242.55574
Summary
In this episode, Patrick talks about the 25 business lessons you can learn from the mafia and the people that built their empire. 1. Negotiation 2. Unorthodox strategies 3. Surprise 4. Putting together a team 5. Selling a vision 6. Paying commission 7. Keeping your word 8. Loyalty 9. Keeping a good team 10. Being a good manager
Transcript
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30 seconds. One time for the underdog. Ignition sequence start. Let me see you put them up. Reach the sky, turn the stars up above. Cause it's one time for the underdog. One time for the underdog.
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I'm Patrick Bedevi, host of ITM, and today we're going to talk about 25 business lessons to learn from mobsters and the mafia.
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There's a reason why when you ask many CEOs and entrepreneurs what is their favorite movie of all time, you'll hear them say Godfather 1 and Godfather 2.
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You know why? Because every element of what a CEO and an entrepreneur goes through is in those two movies.
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Practically every one of them, minus all the killing and all that other stuff.
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Every one of those things an entrepreneur goes through.
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So let me cover with you some of the points I got here that you can learn from some of these mafia bosses, mobsters, and some of them are even criminals that they build their empire.
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Number one, negotiation. By far, if there's one thing they are very good at, is negotiation.
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Whether it's negotiation when it's at court, negotiation with their enemies, negotiation with their employees, negotiation with their teams, negotiation with their customers.
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They have to be a good negotiator in order for them to make it.
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Sometimes they have to negotiate with an enemy that wants to kill them and put them out of business.
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It's like you having to negotiate with a competitor of yours that's locally putting you out of business.
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How do you figure out a way to make it work with them?
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Number two, they have some of the most unorthodox strategies that they use that's not conventional.
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If these guys were in war, they'd be a Napoleon type of a strategy or a Sun Tzu type of guy because they don't do what everybody else does.
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They're famous for surprising their competition.
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Out of nowhere, all of a sudden, boom, something happens.
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They weren't expecting this thing to take place.
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You see this happen in Silicon Valley all the time.
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You see CEOs, competitors, Ford surprising Chevrolet.
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You'll see this happen with McDonald's surprising Burger King or Pepsi surprising Coke.
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Number four, they're experts at putting a team together.
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If you look at somebody, a criminal that goes out and gets the job done, they know.
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Do you notice how many different personalities that get recruited?
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They have so many things that they know we need a good team to put together to go out
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He was known for only being a business guy and keeping a lot of the money to himself.
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You know what eventually happened in front of Sparks' restaurant in New York?
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Joey Gallo who was working for Sammy the Bull who was working with John Gotti because he wasn't
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I see a lot of stingy CEOs, a lot of stingy sales representatives that don't pay a lot
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of commission to their people and they're wondering why they constantly lose their people.
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You got to pay your people properly for them to stick around knowing you take care of them
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Number seven, there's a lot of value in being liquid.
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There's a reason why Apple is always known for having a lot of cash.
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Like this, they can buy another company because they have the cash to be able to do that.
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If you do not keep your word with the people you work with in that world, you are not going
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You need to build a team around you that you know if they say they're going to do something,
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And in their world, if they have a rat on their team, that person gets killed.
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By the way, in the world of business, if you have a rat in your company and they go and
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rat out numbers of yours to your competitors, you have to fire them immediately before they
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Enemy of the state, number one, is a rat in your company.
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It's an advisory board I can go out there and talk to and say, should we do this?
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You got to make sure you have trusted advisors around you that are giving you the right direction.
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Number eleven, collaboration with other families.
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They find ways to collaborate with other people.
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Hey, this business here we're starting, what about if we do this together?
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And we make money on this and you make money on this, but you bring help on this side, we
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bring help on this side, that becomes a collaboration.
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Hey, on this market over here, I know you're good on this side of the business, I'm good
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at this side of the business, what about we figure out a way to work together and do
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They're very good at collaboration, especially the ones that go higher and higher.
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Collaboration really, all it does is it speeds up you getting to the top faster
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They're constantly selling the dream of what could happen if you're part of the family.
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You're going to get protection, you're going to be part of it for a long term, we're going
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to make a difference, we're going to have power, we're going to have freedom, we're
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Similar things happen in business when some of those conversations are happening.
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You better believe when you work for Google, you have a big backing.
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You better believe when you work for Apple, you've got a big backing.
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You better believe when you're working with Amazon, you've got a big backing.
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These things take place, the same goes with them as well.
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They have people that are out there going and doing footwork.
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Maybe you could call it that, but they're going out there researching.
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Are they thinking about opening this new product?
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There's always that taking place for them to know what's next in the marketplace so they
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A lot of times, has this ever happened to you where you text somebody and you're having a
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serious conversation, but maybe your level of seriousness is five, but your tone
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and your text sounds like a nine, the other person's thinking it's a ten, but you're
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just talking to them as a five because that's just your tone, the way you text.
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They like face-to-face because face-to-face, I don't like it, but this is how I say it.
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Let's sit down and figure out a way to get this thing done, right, instead of text.
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If you call a shot because you have a history of backing me up, guess what?
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But we've got to back each other up because there's a certain thing about you want a lot
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It comes with a group of people backing each other up.
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If you want to be a solo guy, you can be a solo guy, but you're probably not going to
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And it's constantly hustling, grinding, because if you don't, someone's trying to put you
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The same thing that happens in the world of business.
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Number seventeen, you've got to know the world you live in.
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You see, criminals know that there is a thin line between you and your competitors.
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But if they have a way to get a bigger piece of the pie than you, they're going to do it.
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If they've got a way to get one of your best guys to go represent them, they're probably
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You can have a good relationship and a bond with another CEO who's a competitor.
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But if that guy can get your best engineer, he's probably going to get your best engineer.
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Pat Riley can have a relationship with Popovich.
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But if Pat Riley has an opportunity to pick up Kawhi Leonard, of course he's going to do
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That's the same exact thing in the world that they're in, as well as the world in the world
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And one of the things about bullies, if they bully you, you don't stand up, they're going
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But if they bully you, you stand up, they're going to say, we can't mess with this company.
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There's a lot of petty criminals that go for small things, like stealing stuff out of your
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And one of the things Michael Francisi, right now if you go on YouTube, you type in the word
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It'll say, highest paid mafia boss tells the truth about the life.
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Based on the numbers, he's saying he was making anywhere between $4 to $8 million per week
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In the world of business, if you go for the smaller payoffs, you may make a 50 grand, you
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may make $100,000, you may make a quarter million dollars.
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You got to go for the bigger payoffs is what you got to do.
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Because that's what they're thinking about as well, right?
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Number 20, you got to respect and value other people's assets.
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Here's a guy that's got a reputation in New York.
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I was there when he went down the day everybody talked about it.
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That last name, the Madoff last name is so bad, his son ended up committing suicide just
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because of father's decision being made because there was no respect for other people's money.
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You don't respect your investor's money when they give you money for your business.
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Go try searching for some other money later on in business.
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It's not going to happen because you don't respect somebody who gave you money to go out
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There's creative financing like back in the days in the mortgage business, they used to
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Let's just say we can get you approved for this million dollar loan.
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But tell me what you mean by this creative financing.
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Look, listen, instead of saying you make $180,000, we can put $620,000.
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Instead of saying you have $50,000 in the bank, we can tell them you have $500,000 in the bank.
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That's not what I'm talking about with creative finances.
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Get your business positioned in a way that has an edge over your competitors.
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They found creative ways to position themselves to move up their empire, whatever industry
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they were in, so they compete with the marketplace.
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They think about mafia families, they have rituals.
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There are certain rituals you follow, and the same goes with business.
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Every company I know has certain rituals that cannot be broken.
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When you work over here at the home office, we have certain rituals.
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Anytime I bring new executives, one of the first things we talk about is, these are the
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I know it's weird, but I want to tell you up front, because we're not compromising this.
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Yeah, I'm okay with that, but it is a little bit weird.
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Same goes with that as well in the world of business.
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Do you know what's going to happen when you're no longer there?
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Do you know if you give it to your 28-year-old son, who has no clue what it is to work 80
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He's just daddy's son, but he wants to come and run the company.
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Do you know that 60% of your employees are going to leave if you give it to him?
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Have you had an advisor tell you how to properly do a succession plan?
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Have you spoken to three people that did it the right way, three people that did it the
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If you're not, this is what happens when a succession plan has gone wrong.
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Company collapses because the power was given to the wrong person following the original
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See, if you do it right, you'll have your nephew, your niece, your kids, your daughters,
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People will say, I want to grow up and have the kind of influence that my auntie has.
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I want to grow up and I want to be an entrepreneur like my uncle.
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I want to grow up and be like my brother because you've done it right where you've set the example
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for somebody else who want to follow your footsteps.
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What I mean by out of control greed, everybody is greedy.
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I don't know a single person that's not greedy.
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And by the way, every time you talk about the topic of greed, someone's always going to
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And by the way, this next level of greed is what typically follows a massive fall and
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You've got to know if you're getting close to that out of control greed.
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Because sometimes you may not even know about it that you're getting to this place here.
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Because typically when you get to this place here, these things shut off.
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You don't hear anybody else right when you get to that level.
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When you get to out of control greed, you have to be so careful.
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Because like this, the 22 years that you put into this business to build it can be gone.
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The seven years of 80 hour weeks you put into that business can be gone because of out of
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You've got to make sure you have those things in place as well.
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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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