How Mike Augugliaro went from being an Electrician to Owning 8 Figure Businesses Ep. 93

You see everybody with this 10x thing, right? 10x, 10 x when no one tells you is that in order to 10x anything you have to 20x yourself. That's the world I'm in now is helping people optimize their relationships, optimize their help, optimize their way of thinking.

Welcome to FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS. How do people end up becoming an entrepreneur? How do they scale and grow their businesses? How do they plan for profit? Are they in it for life? Are they building to exit these and a myriad of other topics? Will be discussed to pull back the veil on the wizardry of successful and FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS. My book, RELENTLESS is now available everywhere books can be bought online, including Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com. Try your local indie bookstore too, and if they don't have it, they can order it. Just ask them. The reviews are streaming in and I'm so thankful for the positive feedback as well as hearing from people that my memoir has impacted them positively. It is not enough to be resilient. You have to be RELENTLESS. You can go to TheRelentlessBook.com for more information. Thank you so much. Mike Agugliaro started his career as a young struggling electrician, but figured out the keys to success and built an eight figure business that he sold in 2017. He went on to build an eight figure coaching business that he sold in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Today, Mike leads the FuDog Group team as they help business owners around the world elevate all areas of personal life. He believes that if you want to 10x anything in life, you have to 20x yourself. Now let's get right into it.

I started out graduating a vocational school, so the way it works when I was in school is like, there's like a conveyor belt. They're like College, College. You probably an electrician, right? So I went to a trade school. And I've been on my own since I'm 15, really young, so I had to figure out something really quick, and I graduated and ended up working for electrical contractors, fixing people's lighting stuff that breaks in their house. But what happened is I always felt like all my bosses were just idiots and I could do it better. Then I found out I started my own company and I was just one of those idiots too. Like I found out that I was just doing it the way they were doing it, and I struggled at that. Natasha probably for about 10 to 12 years doing like a lot of people listening, like working a million hours, seven days a week, just grinding it out. Constant state of fatigue. Until one day I made a decision like, "Hey, I either have to figure this out, and it was like a revelation." It may not sound awakening to many, but it's like, "Wait, other people have figured this. Maybe you need to go pay them money and learn from them." And that's what changed for me. And then from there, I took a company from under a million dollars to 32 million in a 10 year period. So in 2017,

What kinda company was that?

Yeah, we did plumbing, heating, cool and electric. If something broke in your house from your toilet boulder, your air conditioner, we were the best in the world to come and fix it. And we did service in a very unique. We had guys that were all in white button down shirts. So white shirts, black pants, black belt, black boots. They look good, smell good, acted good, spoke good. And I had 200 employees.

Its a dream.

Yeah, right. And they showed up and they were respectful and they cleaned up and they didn't track garbage on your floor. They put things on their feet when they came in. And in 2017, I sold it. We had 200 employees. I had 165 trucks. And I pulled off a really cool magic trick. I signed my name and walked away the next day and it was really great. What region were you working in? Almost the whole state of New Jersey. Yeah, it was very little that we didn't cover in New Jersey.

Now I know you sold it, but will they scale and grow into other markets?

They have scaled and grown and there were a really great company called, Sun Capital, and they had plans and since I sold it, we were tracking to do 40 million. They rolled up a bunch and in New Jersey they're probably doing 350 million now. They did a good job expanding and I was done Natasha. Like I always tell people, like "If you're still doing what you're doing 10 years later, you have to ask yourself, are you stuck and not expanding?" So about four years before I sold roughly, well about three years, 2014, I started to say to myself, "I don't know about you. You get around your friends." and they're like, "How's things going?" And I'm like, "Amazing." They're, I'm like, "How about you?" And they go, "It's horrible. It's not good. I can't find people." And I'm like, "Oh, well my company's not so good too." Right? So I found myself dimming my light to the point I got so frustrated in the industry. I decided to build a coaching company and go out there and change. The whole industry, the way it was functioning.

Well, let's talk about that. So is this the coaching company you sold in 2020?

Yeah.

What was it called?

Yeah, CEO Warrior.

Okay.

The whole tagline was you're either average or warrior, which pretty much told everyone that was not in our world, you're probably average. And we had a very unique way about us because I learned very early on, cause I've been helping people through mindset and stuff for probably over three decades. Cuz I've been doing martial arts since I'm 15 years old and I'm level 52 now. So it's a long time of helping people through,

Wait, how many levels are there? I don't know.

Well, instead of saying 52 years old, I'm level 52, but I'm an eight degree black belt. I don't know. Most people when they say their age, they right away have this invisible shovel in their hand. And then my mom's always trying to tell me about her age, like she's closer to death instead of getting shovel in. You're like level 70. You're smarter than you've ever been. And she's like, "Oh yeah, I'm level 70." And now she doesn't feel like she's dying. She feels like she's living, right?

Yeah. So tell me about that coaching business and why did you exit from that?

Yeah, same thing. We scaled really quick. We had thousands of clients all over the globe. We created the last 24 months alone, I think 23 or 24 people have become Decca millionaires. But the thing that was happening is I was helping people build their businesses, and as I was helping 'em build years later, I would be like, "Oh, how's everything going?" They're like, "Amazing." I'm like, "How's your wife?" He's like, "Divorced." And I'm like, "Oh, okay." And then like another client, I'm like, "Hey, how's everything going?" "Oh, company's doing good profit money cashed or driving better cars, living in bigger houses." I'm like, "Awesome. How's your health?" He's like, "Man, I got diabetes, and I'm like 60 pounds overweight." And I'm like, "Tell my wife." I'm like, Wait a minute here. That was not the purpose. The purpose was to help people grow a company. Live longer, live happier. Now I'm with my beautiful wife since we're 15, so well over three decades together. And that was the goal we wanted. So as I noticed that, and it happened quicker than 10 years, it happened in about five years. I said to myself, "Okay, wait a second. This COVID's coming in. People are dealing with more anxiety, more depression." Relationships are just self-destructing everywhere. And I told my wife, like this part that we're doing here in this company, like it's great. We need someone to take it and keep it moving forward. We have to shift now and change the world. And I always looked at it, Natasha, to be honest with everybody listening, like when I built the service company, there's a point where it's just like it ran itself for five years without me. I didn't even have an office that starts to breed complacency. And complacency will destroy you. And it happened when CEO worried like I was becoming complacent. It's so easy. We did 35, 3 day live events a year. So I would just show up. Teach people would be flipping over chairs. It's like a rock concert, but it was changing the industry. It wasn't changing the world. So that's what made me say it's time to move on from this one, now.

How did you find the buyer for your coaching business?

Same way. I found all buyers. I mean, I had a really great broker. That did the first deal for me.

I was wondering if you had sold it to an employee, but continue with the brokerage.

Yeah. No, we didn't. In the first company that I sold, we had a broker, and because we grew such a really reputable company, they were chasing us for year after year. Yeah. And anybody listening, if anybody ever comes to you and says, "Hey, think you wanna sell?" NEVER say like, people are programs say, "Well, if the price is right." Never say that like anybody listen, always go like, "No, because I'm having so much fun and looks like we might scale like 10x, but I'll let you know if I ever get to that point, because otherwise it's very dangerous on that. So with that broker, when it came time to the coaching business, I said to him like, Hey, do you wanna give this a shot? But I became smarter, Natasha. I became smarter. He said, I never did one before, but I'll do it. But see, when the coaching company, I wanna give everybody a big tip here before I sold the coaching company. If anybody doesn't know what a pitch book is, a pitch book is a book you put together that they're gonna go to the market, show, the world, the world's gonna read it and go, "Do I want this company or not?" I said, I'm gonna build a pitch book three years before I'm even ready. I started building it and I built it through Marketer's eyes. So when you open this pitch book, I always make the joke. I'm like, If people ever watched that movie, like 50 Shades of Gray or whatever, it's like when you read this pitch book, you were pretty excited reading it. And that's what I created. So when it came time, now, I'll tell you also the crazy side of it. When we decided to go and sell this company, we had seven companies that wanted us, it's a pretty exciting time. I mean, seven of them, just like, What's better? You're always wondering what will happen. Seven, just wanting us, and then Covid came in and they all panicked and went away and I was like, "Okay, no big deal." Like cuz I didn't have to. Never sell in a state of depression or upset or fatigue, like sell it because you're ready to move on to bigger things or hold onto it. So I just said to all of them, I said, "Hey, when you come back, it's probably gonna be more." They're like, "Oh yeah, this tattooed guy, right?" Like them and their big super degrees and stuff. They're like, "Yeah, okay." Well they came back. It was more money, right? Because see, everything I created, I created as a movement. The money always comes if you're more concerned about changing an industry, changing the lives, and I know it sounds good, but people say it, but they don't do it. I really was doing it. It meant more for me that somebody was changing the next couple generations, Natasha, than for me to go like, I don't need the. Lamborghini. I don't need that stuff. I just need to know that people's lives are changing and then I know I'm in my soul's purpose.

So regarding, I was just thinking when we were talking about exits from your first company and then the coaching one is service based coaching is also service based, but in a different way. I'm sure there are other things in play, but are the multiples on EBIDA different for those two different types of service business?

Well, slightly different, but I will tell you the multiple today in a serviced, a plumbing, HVAC electrical company is in the realm of anywhere from 15 to 20 now, woo unheard of-

Wow

in the world.

Is that because there's not as many people going into the vocation and trade?

Nope. I'm gonna tell you why.

Okay.

I called it six years ago when they were purchasing me. I said they were in this major acquisition stage of acquiring companies, and I had an HVAC. I did 19 plus million in HVAC. I said, Now between plumbing and HVAC and electrical, those were the core things I did. HVAC system is that mechanical system hasn't really changed since the beginning. So I called it, I said, "They're acquiring companies. Some new technology's gonna come out." This year they started paying 15 to 20 multiples, and I am saying to myself, I always sold two years too early, but right on time. Right? But man, I'm going, This is like a SAS company or this is insane. Then they just came out with a report that said in 2023, the HVAC functions of a heating clean system, the requirements are gonna change. They're gonna change the whole system, which means all those companies, their value just grew massively. So the coaching business at that time was right around the same multiple as the service company, which is unique. That doesn't happen. So everything that I've ever built, I made sure that one, well, the service has to be amazing, right? Retention of clients has to be incredible. Like in both companies. Repeat business was just through the roof, and it has to be something that's scalable beyond you. And I built that in all the companies that I built.

Have you ever thought that you should write a book, that you should write the story of your life to help other people learn from your experience? Please go to MemoirSherpa.com and learn how I can help you write, figure out your publishing path and market your story, your memoir, to a best seller status. So now you have FuDog How is this business different from the one you sold and where did that name come from? What the heck of that name?

It's so interesting because someone said to me, that name is a horrible name. And I said, "Really?" He said, "So nobody knows what it is". So I said, Oh really? So I go in the airport, I walk in the airport with the shirt on. Guy goes, FuDog Group. What the heck's that? And that's when I knew it was the perfect name. So a FuDog This is actually a FuDog believe it or not. This is, they would have these outside big, like imperial castles. They're like lion dogs. And that's called a FuDog And since I've been, It's a big conversation starter, right? Yeah. And I also think people that own dogs are confused. Maybe it's something with dogs, so they really ask. And so we were actually, my wife and another partner of ours were sitting eating pizza at Italian place talking about like, "Hey, we're gonna go change the world. What's a name?" And I started going back to. Like the roots of my martial arts background. And all of a sudden I was like, Wait a minute, this FuDog is such a unique name. It's Lion Dogs, There's a male and a female, which hits both sides. And it's gonna be grouped because we'll always offer more than one thing. And we came out with the name, we built a logo, and yeah, it's one of those things, once you know what it is, you're not gonna forget what it is. And I'll tell you what's different about it. After I sold the coaching company, I spent time revisiting. Okay, if I could rewind time, what was happening and what did I figure out? Here's what I figured out. If you look at a life wheel, right? And let's say on the life wheel you have relationships and you have spiritual belief, and you have financial wealth, and you have relationships, and you have health, you have all these vehicles. There's about 10 different pieces of the pie. And I started looking and one of the pie is like your career, your business. And that's where most business owners spend 80% of their time and they take 20% and try to sprinkle it around their community, their children, their relationship, and everything else. And when I look at my success, because I mean, being with somebody since you're 15, over three decades, you figured out a whole lot of stuff to do and not to do in a relationship. And I started looking back saying, "You know, what's missing here? I never spent 80% of my time in the business. I took the 80 and the whole rest of life, and it powered the business up." So when people would say, "Oh yeah, my wife says I work too much, or my husband says I work too much, and I don't spend enough time with the kids." I'm like, I don't understand. Like my kids came to work with me. They hung out all the time. What I was doing. So my thing now that I figured out is that you see everybody with this 10x thing, right? 10x, 10x when no one tells you is that in order to 10x anything, you have to 20x yourself. That's the world I'm in now, is helping people optimize their relationships, optimize their help, optimize their way of thinking. And help them. So many people are living with shame and guilt and limiting beliefs and they think, like people used to tell me, "Just think positive." I'm like, I positively think like I wanna smack you in the face. Right? I was very positive about it. So like I think the whole world has been told it's just like mindset or he is like my grandmother said, "It's all about your mindset." And then one day I was thinking like, wait a minute. If you poured concrete in your mind and its set. It wouldn't be growing no more. Maybe that's wrong. Maybe it's all about mind growth. So that's what put me in this world. I said, if I could save the people first and, and look, I'm sure you have clients that been in business. How do good clients become bad clients? Their life spirals outta control. How do good employees become bad employees? Their life spirals outta control. I know. Cause I have 200 employees. I could tell you if they're out on Friday too much or out on Monday, I could call drugs, relationship, money problems. Like I could just nail it. I'm like, I would just bring the guys, say, "Okay. Hey man, let me just talk to you a minute. Normally when people miss three Mondays in a row, they're dealing with this. Is that correct? Yes." "Can we help you, now?" So now I'm in the world of optimizing people and now they're scaling businesses faster than ever, so-

Well how does a person 20x themselves?

Yeah, so 20x yourself, you first have to start looking. If you actually draw out a timeline, Natasha, and you like, if we just drew out a timeline like this, and we started to look at. All the upsides of your life and everything you thought was a downside, upside, tooth fairy, right? You're like, "Oh, tooth fairy brings me money." Then there's a downside. You find out the tooth fairy is not real. Sorry. Anybody listening, the tooth fairy may not be real. And then all of a sudden you look, you're like, "Oh, I got an award." And then you look at another age and you're like, "I was bullied". When you look at the timeline, you will see exactly what built your identity. And the first step is to look at your identity and say, "Hang on a second." And you probably heard the phrase, The identity that got you to where you're at will not be the identity to get you to where you want to go. So once we get, evaluate that, now we can start to look at how you think your habits, your patterns, your modeling, and say, Where do we want to go? And everybody should write this down. The future that you desire, your ultimate future. It's already built. It's just waiting for you to catch up. The only thing keeping you from catching up. Is a lot of your beliefs and your patterns and your habits and your models and how you think about yourself. Here's a great example, Natasha. I just spoke in front of a group. It was about 1200 people, and I ask people, tell me if you remember looking at yourself in the mirror this morning, like think and say, I consciously remember myself looking at the mirror. You saw yourself, you brushed your teeth, you talked to yourself. People don't remember looking in the mirror because you've been trained to look away from yourself, and sometimes just by correcting on one thing, now everybody's gonna stare at themselves in the mirror. I'm like, Look at yourself in the mirror. Like really look at yourself and stop looking at it from the imperfections, but from all the greatness that's there, because everybody's trained to look at what they think Natasha is not great because the comparison effect against someone else. They're like, "Oh man, my beard's gray." But that guy on Facebook who's chiseled with his six back, his gray is, is not gray. So you have a comparison instead of looking at it and going. Okay. That's pretty amazing right there in front of me. So we have a whole sequence of processes and systems we go through with people and it just changes the game for them.

Okay. Really good description. I saw that you have written quite a few books. So when you went to write and publish a book, what was your target outcomes and did that happen for you?

Yeah, well first off, I wrote a book, Secrets of Business Master and I self-published it. I didn't try to do it published later I published it and it went Barnes and Noble. My whole intention was to take everything I could outta my brain and put it in a book that anybody that reads it, if all they can do is afford a book, it will make a change in their life. And then once I wrote that book, I got addicted to writing books. Because I started to crave to solve the next problem because people were like, Oh, I read that book, but now I have a problem with this. And I'm like, I will write you a book. Right? So literally I was driving, every time I drove to work, I was recording chapters of this book, and before you know it, I had 17 books I just wrote. This is actually the first book, Mind Power that I wrote is actually the first book that was not a business book, but that's really how it can. But I only have one published and I think if you don't hire someone who's a pro at publishing and knows the game, it's a tough task to do. So I tell anybody, if you want a publish book, you go to a pro, hire a pro, pay the money investment. Because here's where I think people underestimate. Cause I have a lot of friends and stuff and people in the industry like you that have specialty things, I said, "You're not investing in a book, you're investing in a legacy." That's what you're doing. Cause these books, I told my kids like, Yeah, you'll get wealth, but I don't want you to have wealth. I want you to have knowledge, cause knowledge will keep reproducing wealth. If I give you wealth with no knowledge, you're gonna mess it up for every generation after. You're just gonna burn and party with everything.

Absolutely. So even though you are operating at your optimal speed, let's just say that you are, It seems like you are, but we're human. So there's probably things that you need to work on. What is one of those challenges that you're facing today within your business?

A challenge in the business? Well, in FuDog Group, right? We're a year and a half old. So we're in that scrappy side of things, of putting systems and process. I would say we just talked about the next challenge. We have a challenge that we just recognize today. We have some fragmented people doing things, which means we have one part-time person doing a little like ARAP stuff and one person doing some designing stuff. And so the challenge for us is we'll be posting the next couple days. We'll look for someone who can consolidate all these tasks into one person so it fits better. So that's what we're working on. And the other challenge for. This is not a new one. This has been the challenges, and I won't curse here. I always try to control myself, but my Italian self wants to come out, but I'll control it here. Now they make me, when I go speak at things, "I'm like, Can I curse?" They're like, "No, there's no curse." And I'm like, "That's an F in." And then I don't curse. So I would say the challenges. Getting people to understand the importance of improving themselves. They seem to love to grow business and they seem to be okay being messed up while they do it. And I've watched the consequence of this over time. I've watched people build great businesses. One of my clients was with me for eight years from the very beginning of the coaching. Built an amazing business. He grew it from a million something to like 78 million, 52 years old. He died because he wasn't focused on his health, and I kept going at him like, "You gotta focus on it." Then he died of it. I'm still heartbroken over it, because when you have clients for so long, and when people are in my world, they're in my world forever when they die, because you're sitting here going, "Oh, you gotta do this." So that's a challenge is to get the world to know the number one investment you have to do is invest in yourself and it will make everything else you're investing in life move so much faster. For more information, go to the show notes where are listening to this podcast. Wanna know more about me, go to my website OfficialNatashaMiller.com. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you loved the show. If you did, please subscribe. Also, if you haven't done so yet, please leave a review where you're listening to this podcast now. I'm Natasha Miller and you've been listening to FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS.