Mike Agugliaro is the CEO and Founder of FuDog Group LLC, a company dedicated to personal and professional growth through peak performance training. He began his career as an electrician before building and successfully exiting two multimillion-dollar home service businesses: Gold Medal Service and CEO Warrior. At FuDog Group, Mike focuses on helping individuals and entrepreneurs enhance their lives through personal growth, which he believes is critical to professional success. A sought-after speaker and author, he integrates his expertise in martial arts and leadership to inspire others. Mike is on a mission to impact one million people across 100 countries.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [02:26] Mike Agugliaro’s journey from digging ditches to scaling a $30 million business
- [11:34] How to create unforgettable experiences for true transformation
- [16:10] The impact of tailoring events that deeply resonate with your audience
- [17:02] What are the unintended consequences of scaling a business?
- [21:59] Why addressing past traumas leads to achieving success
- [25:26] How investing in personal growth boosts business growth
- [22:24] Leveraging a resilient identity for personal development
In this episode…
What does it take to transform not just your business but your entire life? Can one build wealth without sacrificing relationships, health, or happiness in the relentless pursuit of success? What is the formula for achieving business success without compromising personal well-being and happiness?
Mike Agugliaro delves into how he redefined success in his journey from an HVAC business owner to a celebrated business coach. Mike shares his experiences of crafting high-impact experiences for entrepreneurs, elevating not just their businesses but also their personal lives. He emphasizes the importance of aligning business growth with personal development, ensuring that the pursuit of wealth doesn’t sacrifice well-being. By highlighting the significant role that overcoming shame, guilt, and trauma plays in achieving success, Mike provides a fresh perspective on what it truly means to scale a business while staying true to oneself.
In this episode of the Timeless Marketing Podcast, Brian Kurtz welcomes Mike Agugliaro, Founder and CEO of FuDog Group, to talk about reinventing the approach to entrepreneurial growth through a transformative lens. Mike shares his strategies for helping others scale their businesses, emphasizing the critical role personal transformation and branding play in that journey. He delves into the creation of impactful events and the importance of addressing inner challenges to unlock unprecedented success.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Special mentions:
- SwagUp
- Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Quotable moments:
- “Personal growth is not a thing; it’s the thing. It’s not the sexy thing, but everyone is unconsciously trying to solve some kind of shame, guilt, or trauma.”
- “Reading personal growth does not make personal change. It just doesn’t. You need some kind of experience, some kind of shifting.”
- “I always map out every meeting, training, and thing we do with what I call the transformation timeline.”
- “The amount of investment you need to make in your people for personal growth will come through in the next three to five years depending on the company’s results.”
- “It’s not the wisdom you have; it’s how you’re applying the wisdom.”
Action Steps:
- Develop emotional intelligence: Prioritize understanding and managing your emotions and those of your team members. This ensures you can navigate complex interpersonal dynamics effectively.
- Invest in personal growth: Engage in activities and training that promote personal development, such as reading, attending workshops, and practicing mindfulness. True transformation in leadership often stems from continuous personal growth and addressing past emotional traumas.
- Create transformative experiences: Design events and interactions that move beyond superficial activities to create deep, meaningful transformations. Orchestrating impactful events that shift participants’ mindsets leads to experiential learning in leadership development.
- Focus on work-life balance: Implement strategies to ensure a healthy balance between professional responsibilities and personal life, both for yourself and your team.
- Embrace the concept of a “Purple Cow” for your business: To stand out in a saturated market, being unique and memorable is key.
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Titans Xcelerator.
Titans Xcelerator is a private mentorship program for direct response marketers.
It is one of the most giving communities and serves as the de facto board of advisors and marketing insurance policy for over 250 of the best and brightest direct response marketers, copywriters, media buyers, marketing agencies, senior executives, anyone in direct response marketing, who is committed to growing and scaling their business.
And you don’t need to spend 10s of 1000s of dollars either.
Titans Xcelerator is 1/10 of the price of most groups of its kind.
And with a private membership, you’ll receive access to the full presentation from today’s episode, along with the Q&A and discussion that followed.
As an added bonus, you’ll receive access to a vault filled with many more private calls just like this one.
The bottom line: you don’t have to grow your business alone.
If you want to see how Titans Xcelerator can help you grow and scale your specific business, go to BrianKurtz.net/help
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Timeless Marketing Podcast with Brian Kurtz, your connection to insights from some of the top direct response marketing minds on the planet.
Brian Kurtz 0:16
Hey, it’s Brian Kurtz here, host of the Timeless Marketing Podcast. Today’s episode is a clip from one of the two-hour calls inside Titans Xcelerator, my private mentorship program for direct response marketers. Before we get to that, I have one question for you. Do you have a marketing insurance policy? If you don’t, you need one. And that’s why I created Titans Xcelerator, which is one of the most giving communities and serves as the de facto board of advisors and marketing insurance policy for over 250 of the best and brightest direct response marketers, copywriters, media buyers, marketing agencies, senior executives, anyone in direct response marketing, who is committed to growing and scaling their business. The bottom line, you don’t have to grow your business alone. And you don’t need to spend 10s of 1000s of dollars either. Titans Xcelerator is 1/10 of the price of most groups of its kind. I know because I hosted a group that was over $20,000 a year. If you want to see how Titans Xcelerator can help you grow and scale your specific business, go to briankurtz.net/help. That’s B-R-I-A-N-K-U-R-T-Z [dot] net [slash] help. And with a private membership, you’ll receive access to the full presentation from today’s episode, along with the Q&A and discussion that followed. As an added bonus, you’ll receive access to a vault filled with many more private calls just like this one. Again, if you want to see if Titans Xcelerators are fit for you with no obligation, go to Briankurtz.net/help. That’s B-R-I-A-N-K-U-R-T-Z [dot] net [slash] help. And feel free to email me directly. I respond to every email with questions about this episode or just to say hi at brian@briankurtz.net. Now, onto today’s episode. Okay, so Mike Agugliaro is one of my heroes. He is someone who, if there’s such a thing as a relentless marketer, who is not just a marketer, it’s Mike. His work ethic is as intense and as high as anybody, as indicated by his early days digging ditches in New Jersey in the winter. I love that picture, if you’re gonna show that today, Mike. But the picture of you and Rob digging ditches in New Jersey in the ice, which led to a $30 million in business and an exit that was heralded by Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank, unsolicited. We went to a Robin Robins mastermind and we brought Kevin O’Leary in, and Mike was the star of that. Then we had eight entrepreneurs around the table and when Mike got up to take his picture with Kevin, Kevin whispered in his ear and I was the next one up so I can hear what he said. He said, You’re the real deal. That’s Kevin O’Leary talking to Mike Agugliaro. And so I’m not saying Kevin O’Leary is the be all end all here, but when it comes to creating value, and it wasn’t for stockholders, that was value in a company to get the kind of multiple he got on an HVAC business with 30 trucks in New Jersey, that’s why he was the star of the show. And you don’t just get there by accident, believe me. And he knew that. And then he developed the masterminds for HVAC businesses because they all want to be like Mike. Not Michael Jordan, Mike Agugliaro. And so, you know, I went to his events, they were amazing. They weren’t just hero worship, they got them to worship each other because he got the teamwork and the way that he got these HVAC guys. And you know, you wouldn’t think it, but these are some amazing entrepreneurs who needed a little training to take them up 50%, 100%. And he did, time and again. And then he sold that company, and hopefully he’ll talk about that. That was fraught with some landmines but he got through that. And now, he’s got a new business called FuDog which he’ll talk about. So that’s the basic timeline, but there’s so much more to this guy. I love him, he’s amazing. We’re always like connecting here and there, we send each other text here and there, but the last connection I saw that he rejoined Genius Network. When I told them that Joe has a new lover in the service space and I said, Mike you got to get in here because the guy that Joe’s in love with is good and he’s got a bigger business than Mike, but bigger isn’t necessarily better and I know Mike is the best at this. So anyway, I hope that was a good enough introduction. I hope I did you justice, Mike. And just bestow wisdom on us.
Mike Agugliaro 6:00
Yeah, I’m excited to be here now. You talk so good about me, my beautiful wife’s gonna have to knock me down later. So –
Brian Kurtz 6:10
That was the point, that was the point.
Mike Agugliaro 6:12
Yeah, I figured that. I seen her looking at me there, and I’m excited to be here with you guys. Brian, you did a good job. I did have 165 trucks on the road for this.
Brian Kurtz 6:26
Oh no, because it was a $30 million business, 165 trucks. Man, I will not make that mistake again.
Mike Agugliaro 6:34
Okay, thanks. I want to keep myself high and get my wife extra work later. I’m excited to be here with you guys to cover whatever you want. I think some important things we might want to navigate through is not just the success, because really, ever all of you are successful in one way or another. It might be that you’re just curious of like, you know, how do you break some boundaries, you know? How do you go from a couple team members to, I had 200 employees in 2017. And then how do you go from a company you think that’s your only future to exiting it? Which I exited in 2017 and Brian knows, because we’re friends, so I share all the real details, but I mean, I signed my name and walked away the next day. I didn’t stay on. I didn’t, you know it was it. I just walked away. And then, how do you build this thing that’s very unique, and Brian, what’s really cool is, who was I talking to the other day? Someone, oh, I was talking to this young kid. Get this, Brian, he’s in his 20s. He built this company called SwagUp. Have you guys never heard of this company called SwagUp? SwagUp.
Brian Kurtz 7:41
S W A G A?
Mike Agugliaro 7:43
Swag-up, yep, S W A G U P. This young kid, and he builds this thing that takes care of swag boxes. So when we sign up people into our programs, and all could share about our programs and stuff, they ship out the boxes for you, and they’re real professionals. I mean, the kid in five years took it to 100 million. So you sit here and say to yourself, you know, what is the land of possibility? And he mentioned on there, Brian, Seth Godin’s book, Purple Cow. And then it clicked for me. I read that book whenever it came out. I get it’s probably over a decade ago, and I was like, Holy crap. What I build is I build Purple Cow type companies like CEO Warrior was a coaching company where, you know, I coached 1000 business owners. We had over 20,000 people–plumbers, electricians, HVAC guys, their employees. We did 35 three-day events a year. But nobody knew, nobody knew what the heck this is, CEO Warrior, like it was a Purple Cow brand. It was unique, it was different, and we built on it. And even what we have today, FuDog, right? Like Susan, what if they like? If you’re lucky enough, you know that it’s these Imperial lion, mistable Lion dogs outside of maybe a temple or something, but most people don’t even know that. So again, it’s another unique brand that, once it takes traction, everybody knows it, but it does take a little bit of heavy lifting. The coaching company did sell in 2020 and those of you that are in coaching, we did over 40 million in coaching sales in 2020 so I would say, as for why Brian says I’m back in Genius for Tommy Mello, no he can’t compete, and I’ll just remind him of that.
Brian Kurtz 9:51
Yeah, please do, please. Yeah, because I can, because he doesn’t know me, and I’m not going to do that.
Mike Agugliaro 9:55
Yeah, no, I’ll remind them about that. But then, how do you take, and I’ll go, Brian, wherever you want to go is like, how do you scale? How do you business? How do you exit? Now FuDog group, what we do today is, we’re an organization that helps people create life, business and wealth by design, and that’s our core of what myself, my wife’s business partner in that we have Aaron, who you probably remember Brian, he’s a business partner in that. And we have multiple level groups, and then we also have a portfolio company that we’ve been building where we take equity in companies with $0 and we’ll take up to 40% with the main focus to help them scale and exit in three to five years. And this formula –
Brian Kurtz 10:41
Are those service companies, mainly?
Mike Agugliaro 10:44
No, because I still have some restrictions against service companies. So, you know, we have a PR company, we have a moving company. So we have all random companies. I had to stay away from the service industry like the plague just to make sure I don’t get in trouble. But Brian, this is for a lot of you to know, when you do follow a formula. Now, 64 companies in the last 36 months have sold their businesses that I have helped you know over the last couple years, I mean, 64 of them, and 90% of those people became decamillionaires, and everybody became a multi, multimillionaire. So, you know, I think if you step back and say, and all you guys have wisdom, it’s not the wisdom you have, it’s how you’re applying the wisdom. So let me pause there. And Brian, let’s go wherever.