Happy Thursday, Hard Knocks community 💰 

Today we have a very special edition of the Hard Knocks newsletter for you. Not only are we doing an exclusive interview with an interviewee that got 20million+ views on social media but we are also officially launching the School of Hard Knocks community on June 4th🔥

The community will feature live calls with millionaire entrepreneurs, exclusive hour-long interviews, a community for networking, and more!

You can sign up for the waitlist for the launch on June 4th here: schoolofmentors.com/waitlist

Today’s Schedule

• $60 Million Tanning Beds: How this Entrepreneur Found the Keys to Scaling and 8-Figure Empire

• From the Hard Knocks Library: The Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer

• In Case You Missed It: We Interviewed The CEO of a computer company that has done over $600 million in sales.

Let's hop right in!🔥

$60 Million Tanning Beds

Here’s the scenario - put yourself in the shoes of body builder who owns a successful vitamin and supplement shop. Your store is becoming more successful by the day and you want to open a second location but the only problem is, the location you want to get is too big for a supplement store.

So what do you do?

Well this is the exact scenario that Onyi Odunukwe was in when he was in his early 20’s. What he decided to do shocked a lot of his friends and family but he decided to start an entirely new venture, something that could fill the extra space of the new location and fill demand in his local market. He decided to open up a tanning salon.

Onyi was living in Fayetteville, Arkansas at the time and realized that there was a huge demand for people wanting to use tanning salons but there were none in his local area. It was at this moment that Onyi knew, he had a great opportunity on his hands.

This was the start of Glo Tanning.

He now has over 90+ locations and this business is going to generate over $60 million in 2024.

We sat down with Onyi this past week for our newsletter and had him share advice that will benefit any up and coming entrepreneur.

Q: What is the #1 piece of advice you would give your younger self when starting in entrepreneurship?

A: Be more focused. A common problem many new entrepreneurs have is shiny object syndrome, where they want to try a bunch of different businesses and then before you know it they are trying to run 4-5 different businesses at one time and their focus is so split that their businesses end up having below-average results and returns. I had the same problem when I got started in entrepreneurship. I was trying to run a supplement store, a limo service and more, when I decided to put all my effort into Glo Tanning that’s when everything changed.

Always remember, the grass isn’t greener on the other side. The grass is green where you water it.

Q: In 2018, you had two stores, now you have 90+, how did you scale so fast and what did you learn along the way?

A: There are two things that allowed me to scale:

1. Systems and Processes - Look at McDonalds, a massive company that has stores all across the world, how are they able to plug in a 16-year-old kid with no work experience into their system and deliver their product to consumers? Systems. If you want to be able to scale then you have to buy your time back as an owner because you only have 24 hours in the day. This means you need to create in-depth training and processes that are so simple and easy to understand that anyone can come in and do the job successfully.

2. Franchising - Opening new locations by yourself can be mentally and financially taxing, but with franchising you can help mitigate both of those things. Our stores currently operate at about a 40% profit margin, so instead of me trying to get 40% from every store, I can have someone else be the operator of a Glo tanning and take 6.5% of the profit without having to worry about the day to day stress of actually running it. We provide the franchisees with a ton of resources and training to help run the business as smoothly as possible which in turn helps everybody win at the end of the day.

Q: What do you think has separated you apart from the competition in this space?

A: We invested a lot of time and energy into our customer experience. What you will learn as you go through entrepreneurship is that it doesn’t matter how good your marketing is if your product / service isn’t good then you won’t stay in business for very long. Marketing will get customers in the door but your product / service is what will get them to come back.

For the first few years that I ran Glo, I really didn’t invest a ton of money into marketing because I was just obsessing over the customer experience. I knew that if someone had a great experience at my store that they would refer friends and family who would come try it as well. I would recommend any entrepreneur to focus on building the best product possible before trying to invest a ton of money into advertising.

Q: What is the hardest lesson you have learned while building a team?

A: It’s essential that you invest a lot of time and energy into training your team to become the best version of themselves but you have to be careful not to invest too much time into a single person. If you invest too much time into a single person then you put yourself at a lot risk if that person decides to leave your organization.

Invest into your people, but don’t let a single person have too much control or you run the risk of losing control of your business.

Q: Any last advice you want to share with our audience?

A: Money can be a goal as part of your business, but it can’t be the guiding principle. There are always going to be ups and downs in business. Even during turbulent times, the decisions you make always have to be what's best for the business and the customers, not for your bottom line. If you become too focused on money all the time, you lose sight of what actually matters, which is the customer experience.

You can connect with Onyi here: www.instagram.com/sweatpant_millionaire

Check out Glo Tanning here: https://www.glotanning.com/

Watch our podcast with Onyi here:

Words of Wisdom

From the Hard Knocks Library

In Case You Missed It

Today, we posted a video where we went all around Salt Lake City, Utah, and interviewed some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the city about their paths to becoming successful. We met with people in a variety of industries, including the owner of Xidax computers, Dan Young, who has done over $600 million in sales. This video is a great watch, click below to check it out

Let Us Hear From You

What were your thoughts on todays newsletter with Onyi Odunukwe? Please reply back with your thoughts or things you would like us to include in future newsletters!