Damon Yudichak describes himself as the “world’s first Profit First Professional for Real Estate Agents.” He is the entrepreneur behind Ideal Money Life, an approach Yudichak created that is designed to produce “wealth in every area of your life.”
That business comes after a lifetime of entrepreneurship that includes successes and failures, starting when he bought a cleaning business while still in college. Here is what Yudichak had to say in this exclusive interview with Rising Innovator:
Q. You say on your website, “I’ve learned from personal experience that owning a successful, growing and profitable business is the best way to create an amazing life.” Why is starting a business better than working for an established business? Isn’t joining a company that already is successful a more reliable way to achieve personal success?
A. “As long as you’re working for someone else you’re always going to be a passenger. You’re always going to be somewhat limited in what you can do when you’re working for someone else. Going into business ownership is still one of the best ways to lift the ceiling off what you can do in your career. If you want to go the corporate route, I think the MBA is a good option. But I think the MBA is more geared to being successful in the corporate arena.”
Q. How did you get into focusing on helping realtors?
A. “A year and a half ago I did an analysis on my business to determine who I like to work with and made a list. I listed the name of the person, the annual revenue I got from them, and the likability factor. Turns out, 20% of my customers were generating 80 % of my revenue and all of them happened to be Realtors who I enjoyed working with. I do is a very good complement to what they do and I’m able to help them out quite a bit.”
Q. So you found your niche?
A. Definitely.
Q. Looking at your website, making money is clearly an important goal but, in some ways, it doesn’t seem to be the number 1 goal. For instance, the principles of your Ideal Money Life approach include being “connected with work that fills your heart” and having “cherished relationships.” Could you elaborate on that?
A. “The thing that is nice about money is that it’s an automatic measuring system. The other thing I like about money is that there is so much information in the numbers which pinpoint areas where we can make improvements. Life has got so much to offer and I just get a kick out of seeing what can I do and what can I experience with my life.
“I have yet to find anything that provides that experience more than business. It’s really about what can I do to become a better person, what can I do to make a bigger impact. Money is an important aspect of life, but once you get a handle on that, there’s a lot more that life has to offer.”
Q. You say on your website that the first two years of business you were unsuccessful. What lessons have you learned from not being successful?
A. “The biggest one is that I had to pay myself first. Once I started doing that I stopped being unprofitable. I had an MBA so it wasn’t a lack of knowledge, it was a lack of taking the right actions. The other thing was persistence. There is a quote, I think it’s from Calvin Coolidge, ‘Persistence reigns supreme above everything else.’ If you know what you’re doing, sometimes it’s just a matter of slogging through it.”
Q. What area would you recommend that a young entrepreneur go into? If you were a young entrepreneur going into business today and you had to choose one or two areas, what would you choose?
A. “I started out mowing lawns. There’s a lot of money in babysitting. Do something that you can do, something that you enjoy doing, and find a way to charge something. I met a young man in London who told his uncle he would build a website for $50. If you’re a kid and you’re doing something and people pay for it, it will be a steal of a deal for them. Think of that kid in London who built the website — he wrote a book about it. The cool thing about business is you get paid for providing a solution…Service-based businesses are a good way to get started.”
