Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ross Dixon. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ross, appreciate you joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
HGTV was one of the most popular channels in my household for years, watching people master the art of flipping homes, and finding vacation houses was inspirational. I would watch these shows with my wife, and ask myself at least once every episode: Why can’t we own international real estate? The concept of living abroad for most people poses more questions than answers. Many people hate their job, and some even hate the cities where they reside, yet they struggle to come up with a plan of action to develop additional income streams and become a digital nomad. I use the term digital nomad with the perspective of being able to make a living from the comfort of your home wherever. I recall in business when my back was against the wall, and how it became a great motivator. Like most individuals, when Covid hit the states back in 2020, I felt that it was the right time to transition from postponing my goals to taking action. As the pandemic grew, I observed how more people wore more accepting to Zoom meetings versus meetings in person, this had been contrary in the finance industry prior to Covid. During this period, I juggled the task of supervising my two young children participating in school online while trying to keep my practice afloat. I realized being couped up in my home isolated was taking a toll on my family, and I desired to provide a more balanced environment having more access to outdoor activities to balance it. I began brainstorming cities to move to where we could enjoy the beach, warmer temperatures, and outdoors activities like fishing and hiking. I always considered my relaxation a serious component of my life balance, as I grind daily in my pursuit of building my businesses. When I became aware of the pandemic shutdown in March of 2020, I had just passed my series 65 exam, after an intense six months of studying and was seriously in need of a vacation.
In the beginning of the pandemic, I struggled managing the stress of growing my insurance brokerage while simultaneously launching my new investment advisory practice. Prior to the pandemic, attending Hawks games was my way to recharge my internal battery as I loved watching my home team play at State Farm’s Arena. I accept that the higher the level of your rejuvenation, the higher the capacity of your business and career. Whether you may believe it or not, it is often said that our relaxation habits have a powerful impact on our brains, larger amounts of rest and relaxation increases our brains’ ability to be more creative. In addition to our relaxation habits, your daily sunlight exposure influences your overall mood and behavior as well. I would think that if it was up to most people, they would like to spend time in an environment where they could enjoy absolute peace of mind monthly. That place could be the beach, a cabin up in the mountains, or a nice spot on the lake. Wherever this happy place exists for you, why not strategize how to get there more often. When Covid was about 3 months in, I realized that it was a great opportunity for my business to go completely remote. My wife was working full-time as a day trader and already had the ability to work from her laptop. I was managing my insurance business from my downtown office, I knew that if I wanted to convert to fully remote, I was going to need to put some additional systems in place for marketing and customer management plus identify a supervisor for my other sales agents.
The stresses when Covid first struck were agitating, making sure that my family had enough essentials and N95 masks to survive was tiresome. My environment living in the southside of Atlanta was sketchy at times, as crime began to spike, it was not an ideal place for me to bunker down, although we had just moved into a new home the year prior. My wife and I decided to search for a new residence in Florida, if we had to live in a bubble for months, what better place than in “The Sunshine State”. Full disclosure, I am a health nut and believe that the Sun helped me to evade Covid as I never caught it while never being vaccinated. I took my family down to visit our relatives in Florida and stayed for a few months while we searched for new residences. Simultaneously, I started searching for candidates that were interested in taking a management position for my insurance brokerage. It was a challenge, as the insurance industry is a very competitive world, and it is hard to find licensed agents that can manage both people and clients. The industry is full of captive insurance companies, (meaning that the company agents can only sell products from that carrier). These sorts of agencies provide their new staff with bonuses and subsidies to incentivize agents to work for them versus independent agencies such as mine. I was competing with agents getting offers from carriers offering salaries like State Farm, so it was important to think outside of the box to recruit top talent.
Investing in people is something that I do not take lightly, as a small business owner it is a very important component to master as wasting precious time can destroy momentum. The art of trying to duplicate yourself and teach team members how to work within a business system was a learning process for me. With most larger companies the task of identifying and training talent is operated by the HR department. I knew while traveling back and forth to Florida that I would have to seek out an individual that had that entrepreneurial spirit, exuded confidence, displayed integrity, and showed the desire to run their own insurance branch. The person also had to be someone that I liked to spend time with as I knew that this individual would become like an extended part of my family. Running a business is a lot like managing a family, dinner conversations, budget discussions, goals for the year, and keeping accountable to one another are parts of it. I had hired numerous staff agents over the years, this time I was looking for a leader that I could build with to expand my brokerage to more cities and countries. It also had to be someone that I could trust to help keep our subagents motivated, and our expansion continual in the region. My blueprint for attracting exceptional people is to first optimize my abilities within myself, as iron sharpens iron. I started the journey of disciplining myself in prayer and meditation and increased my gym workout schedule. I was trying to become my peak self so that I could attract the optimal individual that desired to become part of a superb organization.
I spent the Summer of 2020 practically in Florida focused on reforming myself, during this period my wife and I were able to get our home rented out via the Atlanta housing authority. We transformed our mortgage into passive monthly income, and even though we did not have a new permanent residence, we had faith that God was leading us in a new direction. I am so thankful for my wife, as often she believes in my unconventional ways. Although, my track record is good, I know for women it can be difficult for them to trust their man’s vision, when things are not totally laid out. It was coming up on the end of the summer and our children’s school district had opted for virtual learning again for the upcoming school year. As time passed, I was still diligently looking for a new home in Florida, it was destined though as I got a chance to watch my grandfather who means so much to me have an opportunity to spend time with his great grandchildren. As I was examining different communities in Florida, I was seeking a residence close to the beach that also had diversity. I came across some foreclosed homes that were gems, but wasn’t sold on anything quite yet. On the flipside, I was referred to a young man that had management experience in the insurance industry, as he used to manage a State Farm agency in Texas while attending college. He reminded me a lot of myself, I mean how many college age kids do you meet that have experience in management while in college, I knew I had to go back to Atlanta and INVEST in building a relationship.
As the Summer was coming to an end, we had successfully converted our home into a monthly asset and now had a young man that could possibly manage my insurance brokerage in Atlanta. Interestingly enough, I used to volunteer to speak at the networking events hosted by the mother of this prospective manager. I had spoken at multiple events of hers in prior years discussing financial literacy; planting seeds on the strategies of building intergenerational wealth through business ownership, real estate, and life insurance. To say the least, there was great synergy between the prospect and I from my acquaintance with his mother, and I was able to onboard him to take over the Atlanta insurance branch. Finally, it was official, it was time to level up and expand my brand internationally, my dream was not going to get any closer by itself. I made a call to a distant relative of mine who was living in Mexico and told him that I was considering bringing my family down for a month to scope out the environment. I asked if they could find a rental property for us as we wanted to visit for a month to see what Mexico had to offer.
He agreed and over delivered on a spacious condo that was for rent, my wife and I were happy about how we had previously disciplined ourselves enough to create a solid financial base as we were now living abroad. It has granted us our ability to explore our options during the pandemic. Breaking the news to our immediate family members that we were considering moving to Mexico was amusing, their reactions were mostly based on the biases they had learned from the media in the States. I explained that Mexico was no more of a violent country than the U.S., and the media campaign portrayed by the U.S. Media was bullshit, the divide and conquer strategies meant to demonize beautiful cultures like Africa and Mexico is racist. During the months leading up, my wife really mastered her day trading strategies and was making good money trading stocks, a lot of people who knew how to trade options during the Covid dip made a substantial amount. I remember it felt like my friends in Atlanta that had experienced the recession during 2008 were all prepared for Covid, I watched many of them take advantage off multiple investment opportunities. I spent most of my time investing in the development of my new manager that I had hired to make sure that he had all the necessary resources to thrive amidst my departure. We joined our local BNI chapter, as well as the premiere African American Network club in Atlanta called The Gathering Spot, desiring to keep my company brand awareness strong. I started brainstorming on starting a new insurance branch in Mexico, once I got settled that would allow me to expand my brand. As a family we were laying the base to make sure that we were fully equipped to level up as we took our talents international.
Our plane landed at the international airport in Cancun on January 2nd, 2021, there I was with my family, my young kids holding their passports ready to get their first stamps into Mexico. Our first week abroad was a fantastic time, between visiting Cenotes, traveling to Tulum, going on fishing exhibitions, and snorkeling with turtles, it was beyond anything that I could imagine. Our condominium was settled in a centrally located neighborhood that was walkable to multiple grocery stores as well as the beach, and it was perfect. We later learned that we were walking distance to hundreds of restaurants, the city’s soccer stadium, as well as friends that had previously relocated. What I was totally unaware of was the vast number of Black expat families that had already relocated to that specific region, I meant it was literally hundreds.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
I currently operate two insurance brokerages, one located in Atlanta, Ga and the other located in the Riviera Maya, Mexico. I grew my business as an independent broker, in my beginning years, focusing on home and auto insurance and then growing more into commercial insurance. I also offer my service of investment advising, as I am a FINRA registered Investment Advisor, and have been in the finance industry since 2019. During my career, I have helped a tremendous number of business owners manage their risk while simultaneously building a solid financial base to build upon. I differ from other insurance brokers, as I was an owner of a marketing boutique for six years prior to getting into the finance industry. This experience allowed me to gain a skillset in business development and continues to allow me to provide my clients with an excellent client experience from start to finish. I think that life insurance is one of the biggest misunderstood paths to wealth created, I feel like it is my job to make sure that I get as many of my friends and families educated about it and insured as possible.
I teach on creating intergenerational wealth and building residual income, as well becoming financially solvent as when money is not the number one priority, you have more time to spend on becoming a better you. My priority in life is to truly pursue what makes me happy, whether that means spending time with my family, traveling out of the country with friends, or enjoying a fishing expedition with colleagues. Life starts to create better opportunities when you open yourself to valuing your time, spending time with my children is my greatest joy. One of the books that I recently read painted an interesting picture of how one can choose to view their time alive. It stated to sit back and envision yourself watching a movie in a packed movie theatre, realizing that the main character of the movie was you, the film was your life. If you were watching this film, would you enjoy what you were seeing or lean back in your seat and start to cringe. I know as many of us have whom experienced losing loved ones over the past years during the COVID pandemic, we have grasped that life is a gift and truly precious. I know that my greatest contribution that I can give to people is not material, but the ability to give knowledge to others on how to create a life full of abundant moments. My desire is just to share my journey with others that have similar hopes of creating a world where they can enjoy life a little more while creating a solid financial foundation for their children to build on.
Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses.
You want to go fast build alone; you want to go far then build a team, you want to skip the marathon buy a business. Starting a business is a lot like raising a child. The amount of time and nurturing it takes to get a business off the ground, to cash flowing consistently can take years. In most instances it usually takes at least three years before a business becomes a profitable business. Finding your niche in business can be a difficult task as many companies have unconventional paths of success. Once a business communicates their services to the market, it can still be difficult to figure out how to acquire new clients. A lot of times individuals only consider starting up their dream businesses from scratch, but sometimes it is easier to start your empire by acquiring an existing business that already has proven systems in place. The systems to create a profit and the personnel to operate the system can create an opportunity where you can scale up quicker, making the dream of success more attainable.
What I have grown to love about creating business systems is that they are always adapting, it is never a boring process learning how to adapt to the demands of the market. Being a creative person, I always loved to start new trends, I treated creating new brands like putting together puzzles. As a youth, I would always pride myself as being a leader and would usually go against the grain of what the latest gimmicks were. It paid dividends as an adult, because in business standing out is electric and it is to your advantage to differentiate your brand. As you only know what you know, I INVESTED a lot of my time reading books of successful entrepreneurs who mastered the art of business and acquiring businesses. Being able to learn blueprints on what to look for in possible acquisitions, from authors who mastered their technique is invigorating. I studied these processes and implemented them into step-by-step guidelines to teach others how to successfully find businesses to buy as an advisor.
The first step is to compile a list of businesses in your area, now a days with online gig platforms like Fiverr, this process is a lot easier. Your list needs to be cross referenced; I suggest checking websites online to see what companies are still in business. Once filtered, I advise creating a mail out package to solicit interest from potential businesses selling. Once the mail outs are out, create a timeline for sequenced phone calls to do an introduction call, create rapport with the prospects, and schedule face-to-face appointments. Getting people to entertain selling their business is an extensive process, you have to keep your cool and not be overzealous when approaching companies you want to buy. Remember, every business will not be open to being solicited over the phone, and gatekeepers will often refrain from sharing additional contact information about the owner. In acquisitions you must be intentional though, be bold and visit the business owner’s offices, tighten up communication skills and plan your strategy to prospect as many potential opportunities as possible. Remember when you get a denial, it is just part of the process, success can be a numbers game.
Ross Dixon has successfully advised on the acquisition of multiple multi-million-dollar companies for clients over the last decade and offers his service of advising those looking to grow their business through acquisitions.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Being able to pass along my insight to aspiring business owners is what makes all of my past trials and tribulations worthwhile. My mother would often tell me that we were meant to be a blessing to others and that was the path to our own individual success . In my pursuit of happiness, I have always been a person who would volunteer with organizations in helping to improve the livelihoods of others in the community. Experiencing the disparities in my community allowed me the ability to relate, and produced my humbleness of trying to be of service to others first before asking for something. Being authentic is a major key when asking clients to trust you as their fiduciarily and guide them as their advisor and broker. It is important to let your actions lead and earn your right to be a leader in your respective career. In America as a black man, it is very easy for customers to sometimes get dissuaded by stereotypes that society puts in the media. You can overcome this stigma of distrust if you are genuinely a leader and can create environments where the people around you feel like you have their back. I have learned how to create win-win scenarios in business through developing ideas, systems, and values for my tribe yearning for positive impact in our country and I will continue to be a humble soldier in that capacity.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.providentialinsure.com
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