Charles Bender 12:36
Um, I Well, I mean, the what seems to go hand in hand with poor is a lot of abuse as a very angry young man. And as I hit 16, the constraints of all of the things that people are telling me and trying to hold me back, just made me very angry. And I acted out in a lot of ways, not really in an education, but I actually moved out, you know, so at at 16, I sat down with my dad, and I literally said to him, like, this is on the, the I can remember it on the front of the trailer, you know, the hitch, on the on a mobile bill on our hitch. And I remember sitting on it, and I looked at him and I said, Dad, I just you’ve told me my entire life, how hard it is. And I just can’t imagine it being more difficult than this. So I’m going to move out, and I’m gonna see if I can do something and make it a little bit better. And I tell people today, I mean, honestly, nearly every day of my adult life has been easier, more purpose driven than most of the days of my childhood, you know, and I would say childhood really from 12 on like that part where you hit puberty and you’re trying to figure it out. And, and all that that was, it was up for me. I was the oldest in my family. So that was that was a burden of responsibility of raising my little brother and sister. In fact, my little brother and a sister often my parents were working two jobs and we’re gone. And, you know, they would send me Mother’s Day cards, you know, every couple of years. I get these Mother’s Day cards from my brother. You know, I was the I was the the, a lot of ways the protector and breadwinner, but I took on all that responsibility. And at 16 I was just ready to go do it for myself for a change.
John Corcoran 14:20
Yeah. And what was that like moving out at 16? Did you go live at a friend’s house? Did you go get an apartment?
Charles Bender 14:27
So I had a studio apartment and a roommate. So there? Wow. Not all beds in one room. And
John Corcoran 14:33
That’s called prison.
Charles Bender 14:36
It’s the key to the lock. Right? But I’ll tell you it was exhilarating. But what was what was interesting to me is what you can do so nearly every day of my senior year of high school, I had a ride to school, which was about 15 miles away. I get a ride in the morning my car had broken down. And I would get a ride to school with Steve Borg great guy. We get to school and then I would go go through school for half day, because that’s all I needed to finish graduating. And then I went and worked at godfathers at night. So I worked from like, you know, one o’clock until eight or 910, whatever I got off, and then I would hitchhike back home most, like most nights, I didn’t have a ride. So I would literally walk the three miles to get back up to the main road to get from Prescott to Prescott Valley, and then hitch a ride and then get back into my apartment, crash and rinse and repeat. So what I learned there is lots of things are possible. And it’s really cold in Prescott in the winter. But, but I finished I enlisted in the Navy, that was my way out. That was my my How do I get out of how do I get out and actually get someplace where I can start learning how to trade? And, you know, it’s it’s been an iterative process ever since? Yeah,
John Corcoran 15:51
yeah. I mean, a lot of people, you know, enlist in the military, to give them some structure and give them some purpose in life. And is that what it gave you?
Charles Bender 16:02
Yeah, I would say, you know, I was asked to speak at my rotary club a couple of years ago on Veterans Day, and one of the things I tried to make a point of, as I was, I was in from 84. Until 92, it was Cold War period. And for most veterans, they don’t see combat, most most veterans are doing going about the work of supporting the service in one way or another. Right. And, but what what it meant for me was, I remember the day I graduated from boot camp, and could wear my uniform in public and how people looked at me different. Right? I was not the kid with high waters that couldn’t afford his own clothes. And, you know, I was like somebody who was their own agent, I had agency in a way. And people looked at me differently. And I remember that sense of accomplishment and pride that that generated and just the way I helped myself, but having my shoulders back and my head up and just being proud of accomplishing something that was not easy. And I think for the most part, I took for granted all the other stuff I’d ever accomplished. That was one that there was a lot of public recognition around. It wasn’t just internal work. Right. Yeah. So that was that’s where I think I got a lot of I think I got a lot of structure I got out of it. From a business perspective, what I think I got the most out of the military was how do you how do you take a carrier or a ship with 300 people on it, most of them are under 25. Make war anywhere in the world. And and the systems and processes that are generated we had every system and process in the Navy back then was on a on a plan to maintenance system, it was a PMS card you had and you would wake up that day. And that would be the card and this is the card you had to go do to make sure the equipment was going to always work when you needed it to work, right. And, and it really I learned a lot about just watching how you could take people who had some knowledge or limited knowledge or limited experience and still do amazing process driven work, right? Yeah. And McDonald’s is like a is in the corporate side of the world. Everybody talks about McDonald’s. But the military has been doing that for 200 years. That’s how they do it. Which was really fascinating for me, and it enabled me when I got into my business to figure out ways to scale and bring in people that I could help grow instead of trying to I could never afford the highest level person available. I had to take what I could afford, and then build them up to be what I needed. Right?
John Corcoran 18:31
Yeah, yeah. And I’ve seen that so many times with veterans turned entrepreneurs is that they really have that discipline that focus that systematization that sort of thing. Alright, so So you made them then the next most logical job. I mean, this makes clear, clear path clear trajectory, from shining shoes as a poor kid to the Navy to naturally you go into the dating services industry, and matchmaking, logically right?
Charles Bender 18:58
It was it was, you know, if you read my resume, it made perfect sense, right? Well, it
John Corcoran 19:02
makes sense. In retrospect, I
Charles Bender 19:04
guess. Yeah. I mean, perfect sense. How do you get there? Well, so there’s a principle that that was shared with me at one point that I didn’t realize I was living when they shared it, but it was actually true. I was, I’ve always been far more interested in how I want to live than what I want to do. Right. In fact, I tell kids today all the time, you know, really reverse engineer the life you want to have. And then figure out what’s inside of that to do as opposed to trying to figure out what you want to do work because if it doesn’t drive you where you want to go, you’re gonna be unhappy, you’re just gonna not have a really great life. So for me, what happened was is I had actually right out of the service went to work as a broker in a financial services business. I didn’t know anything about it, but it was 100% Commission, I had to write a check to get the job, which was to go get my series six my 60 Three. And I remember sitting in this room with about 30 other people. This is in 1987. Right. So just see what’s coming here. Milken just junk bonds just crashed. Milken was indicted. This was all happening. And Tober 87. October of 87. Yeah, literally, I got my license in January of ADA. Right. So kind of give me a sense of what’s the timing. And I remember sitting in this room and the guy at the front of the room was saying, Listen, the average registered representative here makes about $25,000 their first year, and and then their second year 70. And, you know, you kind of goes up from there as you build a client base. I’m like, Oh, that’s interesting. So I went home, and I was married at the time to my first wife, and I sat down, I’m like, Listen, this is 100%. Commission and scared to death of it. But what they said is, the average person makes $25,000. Well, you know, in the Navy, I’m making $16,000 a year now. So that’s a huge pay raise. And I think I’m at least average. Least average, right? And what I learned in that was, was how to copy. So I basically would find the guy who was the best guy in the room and just do everything he did. Like, literally, there was a guy called the cold called cowboy that worked for Merrill Lynch. At the time, I think it was Merrill, or it may have been a different firm. And he used to joke about taping the phone to his hand, and then just, you know, he had to make 100 contacts a day, and so on and so forth. And I was like, Listen, if that guy can do it, you know, I’m a I’m a dumb Poor kid. I can work hard. So give me a phone and a list and I’ll go to work, right?
John Corcoran 21:37
Yeah, I’m picturing like the beginning of Wolf of Wall Street.
Charles Bender 21:40
So funny how much that red designate resonated with me when I watched the movie. Yeah, same thing with what’s the other one? The guy with the balls like you know.
John Corcoran 21:52
Gary, Glen Ross. Yeah. Coffee’s for closers.
Charles Bender 21:55
Yeah. Coffee is for closers. But what was what was interesting is I turned it into a system because for me, I needed to have a positive reason for someone to tell me no, right. So I created these sheets, and they had like, 25, a box at $25 signs on them. And then my goal was to cross off for those boxes every day. So if I made 100 contacts, or I talked to 100 individuals, I didn’t talk to the day before or didn’t know, I knew what my numbers work. If I talked to 15, I’d get an appointment, every three appointments, I’d get a get a or every, every appointment, I would keep, uh, about half of them would actually make an appointment where I would be sitting down with them. And I would close about a third of those, right? So I headed down to a science where every no made me about $1.20. Right, I needed to make $180, I needed to make 125 or 130 contacts. And over time, that averaged out to be somewhat true. So it literally at the end of the day, I would tally up my totals, multiply it tight by my number, regardless of the outcome, and just say today, I made this much money. And then I would bet against that dollar amount every week. Can I exceed it? Or would I come in a little under could I exceeded or, as a result of that I was Rookie of the Year my very first year out of 7000 reps. I was the top sales brand new sales guy. But it was literally just copying what other people have taught me I’m, you know, not particularly creative. Work harder than anybody.
John Corcoran 23:25
It’s interesting, though. I mean, I can see you know, from you being a kid with the shoe shine going through the bars. You know, can I shine your shoes? No. Can I shine your shoes? No. Can I shine your shoes? Yes. You know, just kind of the same thing.
Charles Bender 23:37
Exactly. It wasn’t that different ironically, except for you were selling financial services, right. And but I remember my first suit, that was the time I bought my first suit. And it was like the late it was the lamest suit you could buy it was like one of those mall suit places, the cotton ones, oh my gosh, it was so cheap. I don’t have any pictures from them. You know, funny story, a year later, I was making way more than that $50,000 or whatever it was, and I was buying much more expensive suits and, and playing the part. And then I had I had a client who died, who was one of my favorite clients who was a mentor of mine actually. And his kids decided that the investment that he chosen to go into was an improper investment. And then they tried to sue the company. And then the company who had taught me all this stuff, tried to throw me under the bus for it and wanted me to sign this document saying that I was going to accept this thing or that thing and I just told them no, I’m not going to my integrity is at stake here. I’m not going to do that. And I left that industry. So I was leaving that industry and going back to school. This kind of gets to your dating service thing. And and I was looking for a job that I could do at night while I could go during going to school during the day and and this company called Great Expectations was looking for marketing manager to come in and run telemarketing rooms and build this up and I’m like well, I’ve done that for the last three and a half years. I know how to do that. And that’s how I got into the dating business. And then once I was there, I started, I started seeing how successful some of these owners were. And they’ve lives they were having. And I was like, I think I could do that. Right. Let me learn this thing. And, and that’s how I ended up in that business. So so as long answer to your your question, but there was more context.
John Corcoran 25:19
Yeah. No, it makes total sense. So, so then your your business after that was Renaissance for singles. And that was something that you started from scratch.
Charles Bender 25:28
Yeah. So we had I bought a franchise of a different company called together dating. And I bought it with a partner at the time was named Steve Walken, and he was literally the first man who gave me a shot at business ownership, right? He just saw a young kid who was hungry and would work hard and and say, Hey, listen, I’ve got this problem in Seattle, I’ll give you half of this one, if you fix my problem, and then we’ll go, we’ll build these others together. So I’ve moved back up here, my wife, my, my, my wife now of almost 30 years, is we moved back from California and came up and started getting into that business. Well, it wasn’t very long later, down the road, when together ended up on I think it was Dateline or 2020. Because the franchisor was lying to people. They were lying to clients, right in their in their head, I’m on camera. And I was like, what, because there was just something I would never do. So we ended up suing them and breaking our franchises away the ones that we owned. And we had a bunch of other franchisees that came with us, because we were some of the top performers in that industry, and in that Franchise Group. And then we went on to build a management training program and started expanding and opening our own stores. And that’s when I joined the EO was back in December of 2000.
John Corcoran 26:46
Yeah, talk about that. So I came up through the iOS accelerator program, which I don’t think I would have gotten to, you know, qualified, which is seven figures and above if I hadn’t been through that program. So I’m constantly fascinated by individuals that are able to get to that. But what what attracted you to EO you joined it in around 2000 has been 22 years now, what attracted you to it? Where were you?
Charles Bender 27:08
So there were a lot of people who, honestly, I will tell you is FOMO. Like, I had some friends that were in it was ye Oh, at the time, because we were young?
John Corcoran 27:18
Yeah.
Charles Bender 27:20
And I had friends that were doing really cool things. And I wasn’t invited. Hmm. Honestly, it was, it was really, for me, it was like, total FOMO my business at the time was going really well. We had, I want to say, you know, 15 or 20 offices around the country at the time, and we were making more money that I knew I could even possibly make. And it was like, everything was easy. And I was like, well, let’s go do this thing. Right? They joined EO and, and to for mostly for a social aspect, right? And then I got in, and it’s been so much so much more. Like, you know, I didn’t know what forum was, I didn’t know, you know, I wanted to learn, I wanted to be around people who were smarter than I was I always innately knew that if I was the smartest person in the room, I was in the wrong room. So yeah, I think my life has been a steady advancement of being figured out how to be the dumbest guy in the next room.
John Corcoran 28:18
So that makes sense why I joined it. And then I’m curious, you’ve been at it for 22 years, and you’ve rose, risen up the ranks and and now oversee the whole western region. How has it stayed fresh for you over these years, over 22 years and remained a integral part of your life? Or has it kind of come and gone? Was there a period of time where you weren’t as engaged?
Charles Bender 28:41
That’s a great question. So I’ll say not being the dumbest person in the room is a low bar. So it’s easier for me to find rooms that always have smarter people in it. And EO tends to have unlimited rooms of smart people. So for me that that is really, you know, when I think of it, eo is really a community of communities, right? And it’s a community of people who recognize that they’re both the product and the consumer, for the other members of the community. So when you think about that, now unpack that a little bit. You know, me meeting you, enhances my life. So you’re my product, right? I’m getting the chance to meet you. I’m getting the chance to appear on your show, I’m getting the chance to meet 1000s of people who have interesting lives and great stories and windows into a world that I just don’t have any experience with. So it’s fascinating for me. So, you know, as as you go up in leadership, and it’s really just curating a larger community and drawing a bigger circle around all of these other communities. So one of the things about the new logo, I kind of like, right, I think it was a bunch of circles of hugs. You just draw a bigger circle and more people fit in, you know, right, right. Yeah. To me, that’s the way I tend to think of Yo I did have a period of time were my first 10 years in the I didn’t do anything but moderator. I was like a moderator. And I was a forum guy. I had young kids. I, I didn’t feel I had the time to get engaged. And I was actually one foot out the door. And I would say 2009 Maybe 2000. Yeah, 2008 2009. And my, my forum moderator, whose dear friend to this day, drove out an hour where I live a little bit further away from say, Seattle, and took me to lunch and said, Listen, you know, I know you’re, you’re on the edge. And I said, Listen to your, here’s the problem, you’re not doing anything but going to forum, you’re not going to events, you’re not, you’re not doing anything. And he said, listen to it, I will challenge you, if you get involved. If you do a do a global event, go to a university or sign up for something, you know, just go give your time a little bit. It’ll change everything. And if it doesn’t, I will pay your dues. That was his commitment to me. And Eric Huber was his name. And Erica, I took them up on the challenge, and I haven’t looked back. So I’ve been in leadership, I’ve been to multiple universities, I’ve been to nearly every alchemy, I’ve done EMP GLA chaired hourlies, I’ve done everything you can imagine almost in this organization. And and I love it. I just
John Corcoran 31:16
I often say You know, it’s much better to go deep within an organization rather than to go to an inch deep and belong to 10 different organizations and sounds like that’s what you’ve done. Chuck, I’m I’m the clock. I know, we have a hard stop and five minutes. And I rarely ever do this. I think it maybe only done this once one other time. But I’d love to make this a two parter, because I feel like we’re just scratching the surface here. And maybe we can continue the conversation about a yo and then get into Skynet Broadband and attentiveness and some of your more recent stuff, and in a later conversation, if you’re up for it, I’m really enjoying this conversation. But talk to me a little bit about being Chair of the West region, which is overseeing I’m not sure how many chapters 10 or 12 chapters or something. Magazines are 18 chapters, you know, in overseeing a group of people that are all used to being LFA used to being the boss used to being the one who’s in charge is no easy task. So talk a little bit about what attracts you to that role and what it’s been like serving in that role.
Charles Bender 32:19
It’s truly been an honor. You know, I think I think every role I’ve been in as I have advanced and advanced, I like to think of you as an inverted pyramid, right? I think of the member is the top piece of that. And the higher you go in the organization is just you’re deeper into the support network of the member. Does that make sense? So, but every one of them, I’ve always felt the shoes were way too big when I first put my feet on them. And, and and then you kind of grow into him and he get it. And that growth has helped me in leadership in so many ways. But I would say the thing, that’s the biggest difference in EO leadership than in my business is this idea of influence over power. Right? All you have is influence and when you have a lot of great leaders around you, you know, I think half of my board has bigger businesses than I do. I think that’s been true all the way through the time I’ve been in the organization. But what you get are you get people who are It’s the passion, right? It’s the opp, right, other people’s passion. And a lot of the work is just trying to figure out how to utilize that passion where they’re getting as much out of the opportunity that you’re providing, as the people that are serving, you know, so there’s an alignment that has to created be created. And I think really the the thing with business owners is we all want agency. So how do you lead by providing agency, so people have their own decision making spheres and develop the pathway. So it’s super clear, identify the target that they’re trying to actually what’s the problem that they want to solve? EO to me, we’re business owners are problem solving machines. That’s what we do, right? We’re many of us aren’t great managers, but we’re really good at solving problems. So if we can just define the problem well enough, and define the scope of the problem and the tools that you have to bear on the problem, and just get out of the way, then you’re going to have great results and people are going to feel like they accomplished stuff. It’s not about me, it’s about how do I help someone else accomplish it? How do I give them the opportunity to grow? How do I build them up? And I have to say one of the best honors I’ve had my first regional leadership role was forum director. And I got to work with 18 chapters at the time, and therefore 16 chapters at the time and their forum chairs. Almost every one of those forum chairs from a mentoring perspective went on to be their chapter president. Many of them went on to serve in the regional or global committee structure. And most of what most of my Regional Council today is made up of folks who I’ve been working with for the last seven years, watching them grow and develop and them helping me grow and develop and, and me being able to take advantage of great leaders ahead of me like Michel Kripalani. And Dave Anderson and Steve Conine. And you know, there’s some just some wonderful people I’ve gotten to watch, who are very different than me that I’ve learned something from every every single person.
John Corcoran 35:21
Yeah. All right, Chuck, we’re gonna I’m gonna cut you off there because I know you have a hard stop. Next time, I want to talk more about this idea of ending generational poverty, which you’re really passionate about. And also some interesting things you did when you were raising your kids and how you help them with managing money. I think that’s really interesting. And also go into the next logical journey, or step in your journey, which is from the dating space into it surfaces naturally. Right. So
Charles Bender 35:45
It’s a perfect transition. Yeah, exactly.
John Corcoran 35:47
So we’ll get to that. And thank you so much. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Be sure to check out the second episode.
Charles Bender 35:52
Thank you for the opportunity.
Outro 35:54
Thank you for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast with John Corcoran. Find out more at smartbusinessrevolution.com. And while you’re there, sign up for our email list and join the revolution. And be listening for the next episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast.