Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
How I Lost My Company and Built a $500M Business Instead | Brandon Dawson
Thu, 13 Feb 2025
At 29 years old, Brandon Dawson was on top of the world. He had taken his company public, stood on the American Stock Exchange floor, and rang the bell. He felt unstoppable until his private equity investors sold his company against his will. Most people would have quit, but Brandon learned from this setback, cracked the code to scaling, and went on to build and sell his next company for $151 million. Today, he helps business owners do the same through Cardone Ventures, a $500 million business he co-founded. In this episode, Brandon joins Ilana to share insights on scaling a business against all odds, why 97% of businesses fail, and how to be in the top 3%. Brandon Dawson is an entrepreneur, scaling expert, and co-founder of Cardone Ventures. With over 30 years of experience, he helps businesses scale using data-driven strategies, navigate breakpoints, and avoid common pitfalls. In this episode, Ilana and Brandon will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (01:47) From College Dropout to Top Sales Performer (03:45) Selling Everything to Start a Business (05:48) Getting Kicked Out of His Own Company (09:08) Surviving the Early Years of Entrepreneurship (12:31) Turning Leadership Failures into Billion-Dollar Lessons (16:08) The $151 Million Exit That Made Employees Millions (21:57) Scaling a Family Business Without the Chaos (25:22) Staying Unstoppable in the Face of Hate (32:12) Why Most Entrepreneurs Fail and How to Avoid It (39:41) Making Data-Driven Decisions in Business Brandon Dawson is an entrepreneur, scaling expert, and co-founder of Cardone Ventures. As CEO of Sonus Corporation, he grew it to over 1,400 locations and raised $58 million before investors took control and sold the company against his wishes. He later founded Audigy Group, scaling it from $500,000 to $35 million before selling it for $151 million. With over 30 years of experience, Brandon helps businesses scale using data-driven strategies, navigate breakpoints, and avoid common pitfalls. Connect with Brandon: Brandon’s Website: https://bdawson.com Brandon’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brandonmdawson Resources Mentioned: Brandon’s Book, Nine-Figure Mindset: How to Go from Zero to Over $100 Million in Net Worth: https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Figure-Mindset-Zero-Million-Worth/dp/B0C8G8CTQC The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential by John C. Maxwell: https://www.amazon.com/Levels-Leadership-Proven-Maximize-Potential/dp/1599953633 The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell: https://www.amazon.com/21-Irrefutable-Laws-Leadership-Anniversary/dp/0785288376 Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't by Jim Collins: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Some-Companies-Others/dp/0066620996 Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins, Morten T. Hansen: http://amazon.com/Great-Choice-Uncertainty-Luck-Why-Despite/dp/0062120999 Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training
Chapter 1: What are Brandon Dawson's early career experiences?
I'm going to take you back in time because it's going to be all about how you got to this level of success and then what you can do for others. But you grew up on Walnut Farm, right? And so relatively humble beginning, if I remember correctly. How did that shape you, Brandon?
Yeah, well, I grew up in Corvallis, Oregon with some brothers and my mom and dad and my stepmother and my father. And he was a pastor that had gone on to computer sciences and she was an insurance adjuster. And I went to school with 35 kids in my class. It was a small Christian school. And in order to pay for my cleats and the gas in my car, I had to work besides school.
So I did school, sports, work. And then I always worked on the weekends and everything. And I'd buck hay and I'd work in a restaurant, a tanning salon, and I used to harvest our walnuts on the orchard. I just wanted, when I got 18 years old and I could leave Corvallis, I was like, I got to get out of here. But I wasn't a very good student.
And so college really, I tried college for a couple months and I wasn't going to do well in it. But I'd got a part-time job selling and I was killing it selling. So I decided I wasn't going to go to college and I moved from Portland, Oregon, Corvallis to Portland, went to college, then started selling.
And then about six months later, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, become an outside sales rep for a device company. And I realized I just loved going out and figuring it out. And that I did so well at 19 years old, I was making more money than anybody I knew. I had done so well. And then they asked me to take over sales, inside sales in Minneapolis when I was 21, moved to Minneapolis.
And then I did so well there, they fired my boss. And then I took over the department. And by the age of 23, 24, 25, I was making 150 grand a year running sales teams. My confidence was just super high about what I was capable of doing. And then I was sitting in a room with a bunch of older people being told I can't make any more money because I make as much as them.
And I decided December 15th, 1995 to go and become my own business owner.
And I want to take you there because that's such a brave move, Brendan. Like at that point, you basically sell everything. You have a newborn, if I know correctly, and you are not afraid to cut and do it. I mean, which I think is just really, it's kind of burning the boats, right? It's just really, really scary. So what did it take from you and how were you not afraid?
Well, see my confidence when I moved to Atlanta. Well, first when I moved Corvallis up to Portland and I started selling and making my own money and I wasn't depending on my parents, I was like, I can take care of myself. Then when I moved to Atlanta and I became an outside sales rep, I had 11 states and a company car and I had to drive everywhere and meet doctors and meet people.
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Chapter 2: How did Brandon Dawson overcome losing his company?
And once I started doing that, I have literally, since I was 26 years old, I have literally lived my life the way I wanted to live my life.
It doesn't mean it's been perfect and it hasn't had hiccups and I haven't had problems and haven't made mistakes, but I have been an independent person doing what I want to do, eating where I want to eat, hanging out with who I want to hang out with since I was 26 years old. That's 30 years now because I'm 56.
Which is incredible. And I do want to go there into the awesome points, but also the hard moments because entrepreneurship can also, sorry, suck. So we're going to talk a little bit about that too. And when you were 29, you already became one of the youngest people to ever ring the opening bell in the American Stock Exchange.
What drove you, I think, to pursue entrepreneurship so boldly and so successfully, if you will, like at that point? Because you're still very young.
I mean, tenacity. I just didn't have anything to lose. You know, I made a hundred presentation to raise my first million. I was told no, you know, I was like 105 present. I was told no 104 times. Some people were ruthless. I wanted to give up a few times. Then trying to buy my first five businesses, I was told no. And I just kept going until I found somebody said yes.
I just, it was water over rocks. I just realized that if I just hung in there long enough, eventually something was going to break. And I also recognize the responsibility that if I'm not getting yeses, it's because I'm technically not communicating in a way that's inspiring people to work with me. So I own modifying my communication pathways
as I kept getting more no's until I could start testing into when people were more interested or more engaged. And I just kept making that a better presentation, a better presentation, switching things up, seeing what kind of engagement I can get. And I figured if I just kept modifying until I could get a yes, then I will have learned how to do it. And I just kept doing that.
I did it with individuals and I did it with a financial institution. And then I did it with one of the most prestigious private equity groups on the planet, Warburg Pincus. They had $18 billion in private equity, or $22 billion, and they gave me $18 million as a young entrepreneur, like crazy stuff. And then they helped me go public.
And so being that successful that young just kept saying, if I just keep pushing, keep figuring out, I will continue to win. What I didn't know is actually at the pinnacle of my career after all that, May of 2001, I had finally built the company that was going to be profitable.
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Chapter 3: What lessons did Brandon Dawson learn from his leadership failures?
But Hector gave me 21 Irrefutable Laws by John Maxwell. And I read it and I was like, I identified every mistake I made. And so then I broke down all 53 of his laws. He had three different books at the time. I broke them all down to really understand where I went wrong. What would I do differently? And I decided that I was going to put my attention on being a better person, being a better example.
And then I started combining the work on leadership with, because John wrote a book, level five leadership might've been Collins, five levels of leadership, maybe John, or they're the same. So they were friends. So John, I had met John. He said, read, Jim Collins' book too. So I read that and then I read Good to Great, Great by Choice, How the Mighty Fall. Then I read all Sharon Lecter's books.
I started putting this little algorithm together of things that I had identified, all the things I had done wrong in my first business. And I created an operating system off of leadership, off of belief system, off of operational effectiveness. And I realized those things all kind of tie together. And if you could actually paint a picture, elevating people's belief,
showing them how to become more operational effectiveness in their day-to-day routine so they can hit targets bigger, better, faster. And then learn me leadership so I can be an example. Then we leadership, I can develop examples. And then us leadership when your culture takes over.
And that set me on this path for 10 years where we were researching businesses, interviewing entrepreneurs, trying to understand what was working, what was not working. And then applying that, I was doubling every year, Inc. 500, Inc. 5,000. entrepreneur of the year, three times in a row nomination, all these things because we were killing it.
And then I started teaching it to the author's businesses. I was working with John Maxwell. We go in and help him. He grows his business huge. And then we become friends. It just really, Michael Gerber worked with him for a while. So what happened is I was able to absorb all this knowledge. And because I had tried it first and screwed up, I had this perspective of
I wasn't learning something new and going, how do I do it? I was like, I'm learning things that I screwed up. I could immediately go, that's where I messed up. So then I was like, if I don't mess up and I do the things I did that was good, and I learned to not do the things I did that were broken, and I combined that with what was good, and then I built that prototype.
And then after I launched it and sold to a billion-dollar company, and we helped them grow to $4.5 billion in 36 months deploying this, then my confidence was super high about creating a whole new business centered around this.
And that's incredible. And we'll talk about it because I think that was almost engineered approach and very clear data driven approach is what sold me. I'm a geeky engineer. So this is what sells me. And I want to talk about it. But right before that, so you sell your company in 2016.
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Chapter 4: How did Brandon Dawson achieve a $151 million exit?
Yeah, shit, let's go get a Michelin dinner and drink some wine and celebrate. It was a magical time for me, but without all my clients celebrating with me, it felt a little bit like a vacuum. But recognizing you did something, you finally did something so big. Nobody I knew in my family, I was voted least likely to succeed.
There isn't one human being I grew up with I knew I was ever around that did what I did, especially after I lost it all. So to me, I lost it and I got it. That was the point. And then I was uncertain. I had to go to the company that bought me and I immediately had to integrate for three years, everything they bought into their company. So I was busy. Like I didn't have time to celebrate.
I just was boom. That next day I was on the stage in Spain talking to the global group. Here's what we're going to do. Here's, and I just went operate, operate, operate, operate. It wasn't to 2018 basically. So that was two. So 16 July. So it was like July 18th. where all of a sudden I had integrated and we blew the business up to $4 billion from one, basically. So it's like we overachieved.
Everyone was happy. I had my team in there and all of a sudden I wasn't needed other than for special projects. And that's where it really got weird for me because I'm like, okay, What am I going to do now? What am I going to do? Do I really want to work? I've never got to go play golf. I got to go hang out with my billionaire friends. I was traveling. I got fat. I was eating whatever I wanted.
I was drinking with people. My wife was like, I did not sign up for this. After a year and a half, she goes, I want to go build something. That's why I fell in love with you. This is not building something. And I was miserable. And that's where we got our heads together and said, let's go build the next thing.
And she had suggested we look at some of these social media guys because I had all the IP. I had built the systems. I had the technologies. I had all the research. I had all the everything done. It just, I wasn't sure how I was going to go to market. And she found Grant Cardone and we went to his event in 2019 and saw what we needed to see and approached him about partnership.
And here we are, six years later, we've got a business that's worth probably half a billion dollars. We've changed the lives of thousands of entrepreneurs, people like you. And we've had a half a dozen or a dozen of these exits with our clients. that went from being broke or only having a $2 million business and now have $35 million in cash or $75 million or $200 million in cash.
It's just we get to celebrate all the time. Even if they're little wins, we're always celebrating, which is what I love about what I do today.
Wow, that was incredible, Brandon. We had an episode with the previous president of Starbucks, and he said a quote that I think sits in my head. It basically says, there's no amount of success that you can live on forever. And that one of his hardest moments was actually when he retired. And I thought that was really powerful.
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Chapter 5: Why do most businesses fail and how can you avoid it?
That's why I use the word resilience because you have to be tough. Think of it this way. If you're a battery and your battery has a full charge or it's entirely depleted, so you're a battery, and these are your goals, and you're going to take your battery and you're going to stick it into your goals. I don't want a depleted battery in my goals. I want a fully charged battery.
So I'm in charge of charging that battery. And if I'm letting you get into my head, if I'm listening to things you're saying about me, if I'm getting pulled off target and you're draining my battery and I'm allowing it to happen, I'm choosing that. And then I don't have the energy to go after my dreams and goals because I'm beat up. I'm tired. I'm disappointed. What you think is what you say.
What you say is what you do. What you do is what you're known for. So when I go and sit down and have a cup of coffee with someone that might just very well be the person that can introduce me to the greatest business relationship I could ever meet in my life. Instead, I spend my time talking about the problems I have in my life because I'm upset about what somebody said about me.
And that person listens to me. And then they're nice. Oh, that's too bad. You're great. Don't. But they never got to the conversation of the person they were going to introduce you to because you consumed it all, draining the opportunity because you're feeling bad.
So when you're off target, when you're coming off target, you're not talking about where you're going, how you're going to get there, who you want to get there with, what's important to you. This is my mission. This is my vision. This is my value. This is my purpose. This is why I exist. This is where I'm going. But instead, you're talking about, oh, my, that person. Oh, my goodness.
This is so hard. Now you're consuming energy. that somebody else is now winning because that was their whole point, pulling you off target. So why would I give them like, give me all you got, throw it all at me, get it all out there. And once it's all out there, let the world see it.
And once I see it, I'll just drive right through it and get to the next destination because I don't actually, I'm not going to let somebody else dictate my future. And that's how you get through it. You got to have resilience. You got to have trust in yourself, trust in the people around you.
And when someone violates that trust, you stop moving at the speed of trust or you go find somebody else to trust and you keep moving at the speed of trust. What you don't do is let them pull you off target and start putting a bunch of weight around you, depleting you, because when that happens, they're actually winning, which is what they want to do.
That was so strong. Thank you, Brandon. I think our listeners need to hear this. And speaking of trust, one of the things that when I engaged with you guys, I think I just got to know you last year. Actually, I think it's our one year birthday three days ago, Brandon. There you go. Congratulations to me. I just met you guys. I didn't know much. But first of all, I was very impressed.
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