Mychel "Snoop" Dillard - Entrepreneur & Business Owner | Building A Hospitality Empire

Welcome to success story. I'm your host Scott D. Cleary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. The HubSpot podcast network has incredible podcasts like Entrepreneurs on Fire hosted by John Lee Dumas. Entrepreneurs on Fire stokes inspiration and share strategies to fire up your entrepreneurial journey and create the life you've always dreamed of. Listen to Entrepreneurs on Fire or success story wherever you listen to your podcast. Today my guest is Michelle Snoop-Dillard. She is one of the highest profile and most prolific restauranters in all of Atlanta and United States. She was a Detroit born woman who went from teen mother to one of the most high profile black entrepreneurs in the US. She is known as the owner of Crave Restaurant, members only which is an exclusive VIP lounge to celebrities, socialites, business owners, Escobar restaurant and tapas lounge and Escobar south. She started a joint venture with two chains when they opened Escobar's seafood as well as all the Escobar locations which is a multi-level seafood restaurant. They've now franchised out all the Escobar brand. She is also a founder of Remedy Spa and Salon Suites. They have 22 fully licensed spots. They've opened three locations through Metro Atlanta. Also they've opened that up for franchising opportunities. She had a tough time coming up. A kid very early on serial entrepreneur got screwed by a lot of her business partners. She's had to overcome a lot of prejudice to establish her businesses but she's dominating the food beverage and nightlife scene. So we spoke about her origin story. We spoke about her coming from humble beginnings, always being focused on entrepreneurship, graduating university college but never really understanding what she wanted to do in life, starting a business, getting stolen from a business partner, starting a business, getting fraughted and stolen from again from a business partner until she after several failures and a lot of lessons learned which is great for young entrepreneurs. She finally started something that was successful which then she understood the formula for building out vibes. She understood the formula for building out spaces for building out community and she's done that again and again and again with all the different businesses across all the different categories. Not just restaurants and hospitality but she's developed an app. She's gone into credit repair. She helps other entrepreneurs understand how to take their idea and their product to market. She's gone to spa and salon so she is an exceptional empire of a variety of businesses all built out of past failures, understandings, lessons learned. This is going to be an awesome interview for anybody who is just starting out to understand all the things that can go wrong but then showing you the potential outcome of when you navigate those you keep your vision and your focus and you persevere and this is what the end result could be. So let's jump right into it. This is Michelle Snoop Dillard, one of the highest profile restaurants in the United States. So for me the one thing that kind of pushed me into the direction of wanting to be a business owner, I think I'm not sure if it was just one thing I think honestly I just was kind of like born with the hustle because of my parents and their origins and where they come from growing up in Detroit I used to always tell my mom that I was going to own a lot of businesses and take care of her when I got older. I was from a young age you're saying after. What did your parents do? What was the thing that made you want to do that for them? My dad he actually was in a street. He was a hustler, he was a drug dealer but just on a very major scale and my mom she lost her mother and sister at the young age was kind of a not going to really say a orphan but bouncing around from house to house at 15 and she ended up getting her degree in nursing. She's now a nurse practitioner and just has always been a really really hard worker someone I could look up to. Yeah I guess that definitely when you see people working their ass off like that but like you know they're still they're still having a tough time like they're not like not mansion not like really making tons of money you respect that but then you translate that into like any sort of entrepreneurial journey that work ethic and then that's like that's a good basis for you. So talk to me about talk to me about as you grew up like you didn't have a you know dad who was in like hustling like selling dress it's not traditional like you know pathway into entrepreneurship so where did you go what what did you do what's the job what's the thing that you started first like what's the thing that sort of carved out your own careers you didn't go in other directions. Right right right so I went to Vanderbilt University in Nashville Tennessee I actually started there at the age of 16 graduated at 20 I had a degree in economics but just like a lot of people that even when they go to college or major and something I still totally did not know what I wanted to do with that degree when I graduate everyone it was like literally you know week after graduation just kind of like applying for random jobs that required you to have a degree you know it's like okay well yeah I can do this or I can do that a lot of my friends were going into graduate school so Vanderbilt is a top 20 school a lot of them were either going to move on to like law school medical school etc and kind of almost felt like not necessarily a failure but that I was kind of behind the eight ball because that wasn't something that I was either a interested in and then be I already had a daughter so I had a daughter that was four years old that I had to focus on taking care of and so for me it was just like man you know I did good enough to make it through you know before years of college you know trying to get any type of masters or you know JD degree and law or anything like that it's not going to be realistic for me so what can I do and make a decent living and go from there of course always knew that I wanted to be a business owner but it's not something that you can just jump off the porch doing and so what I ended up doing was getting into financial advising so I became a financial advisor for a mere press financial advisors formerly known as American Express financial advisors started working for them there in Nashville really really enjoyed that they decided to close their office and by way of doing it I actually just got to meet a lot of people in different careers and help excuse me help them plan out their finances their retirement plans etc and so it showed me it showed me that it doesn't necessarily matter how much money you make it's what you do with it you know I was sitting down with doctors that you know maybe had 20 grand to their name and then would in turn sit down with the teacher who had 200,000 you know that she had you know hustle to save up and make good decisions and things of that nature so I believe that that was a good foundation for me because number one it taught me that you can't judge a book by its cover just because somebody is in a lucrative career field it doesn't mean that they're wealthy or that they're doing the right things with their money and their finances and then too it just really taught me how to save and put money up for a rainy day it gave me a lot of knowledge about the stock market and how to excuse me how to start investing and I think that that was a good cornerstone to have a good foundation to have as I eventually moved into entrepreneurship shortly after that I you know also was able to meet a lot of different individuals in that career that were very driven investment-wise so I met somebody who encouraged me to get into real estate investing so started that very young I actually bought my first home when I was 21 and continued to buy several homes after that up into the 2008 you know a real estate stock market crash which was pretty significant to a lot of people at that time and during that time is when I actually kind of found my entrepreneur you know way and I started you know one of my first businesses shortly after that which was a newspaper that I'd be at and I ended up doing that all throughout the south eastern part you know of the country and it wasn't something that was just like super super financially lucrative but it taught me how to run a business it taught me how to manage employees and it taught me how to look out for different things because I actually ended up going through you know some betrayal in that business from some of my staff and different things of that nature so so I want to I want to understand some of the first things that you learned like going to entrepreneurship but also like you come from financial advisor background you put money to real estate very very safe like you're thinking about safe insecurity and trying to figure out like you've seen all these people screw screw themselves over by spending their money in stupid places but then you go into entrepreneurship which is like one of the riskiest things you could ever do like I mean if you throw money into a non profitable non cash flow generating business I can totally screw you lose a lot of money there so what what made you want it was just because like the recession you're like you know what like it's now or never like I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna bet on myself I'm gonna risk you know the money that I have saved was that the mindset or why did you why did you not just you know navigate the recession buy more homes do more safe stuff yeah I think it's just how I am you know for one it wasn't a good time to buy more homes because you know the real estate market was crashing and it was hard to get loans at the time the one of the reasons why the real estate market crashed in 2008 which is not due to the recession but also because of the loan industry the the lending industry and how they were just kind of lending money to any and everybody I mean at that time before that happened I was buying like two houses a month you know I was just like okay we'll be one one hits my credit report I'm gonna buy you know a couple more at the same time so kind of an angle in the system but for me the reason why I didn't kind of stay into it I think just I've always kind of had two sides to me so kind of this professional side and then I guess more so like this alter ego of snoop that's kind of drawn to like you know the entertainment industry and nightlife and things of that nature so I felt like that that was a good time and was kind of being pushed into it you know back then a lot of people didn't really understand that when you're in a beer a bear market that it's still a good time to invest into the stock market you're basically buying stocks that are on sale but you know a lot of the clients that I had they were really scared to continue investing it was hard to continue to to try to invest you know to try to convince new people to invest so the financial advising industry had just kind of slowed up a little bit for me it wasn't exciting for me and I think that that's what kind of led me to try my hand at some different things and so I really went from one spectrum to the whole other end of the other spectrum so I was doing you know the the real estate the financial advising and I ended up saying hey I'm actually going to do a calendar with 12 models in Nashville Tennessee and so that was what I did you know that's what I did in 2008 and you know as as as juvenile as it may sound that ended up opening up the doors to the nightlife and hospitality industry that I'm currently in today that is maybe very successful. 100% we're going to go into that for sure I want to go there yet though I want to understand the the stuff that you had to deal with like the the people that betrayed you the things that screwed you over like the the things that you go into entrepreneurship and like shit hits the fan what were those things how can you avoid them like you're going into entrepreneurship for the first time ever I think that's like incredibly valuable so what what happened like you had some stuff that was successful obviously not as successful as you are now when you started to go into entrepreneurship but what are the bad things that happen what are things you should look out for. Yeah sure so when I did my newspaper company so that that was a it was it was a much shot newspaper so back in the day they used to have these much shot newspapers that would come out once a week publications that would have pictures of people that had been arrested the week before and it was kind of like a guilty pleasure for most people you know sitting up laughing at or partaking as someone else is misfortune you know of their mistakes and it obviously wasn't even something that I was proud to be doing it was a something that I viewed as a good business idea there was another paper that I had seen and in Chattanooga Tennessee so back at the time I'm still living and working in Nashville I had seen this paper in Chattanooga Tennessee me and a couple of my co-workers and they convinced me that this will be a good idea for something for us to do in Nashville I was all on board it was me and two other guys one of the guys he ended up moving back home he was kind of having some financial issues and so it just left me and this other guy named Andre to do it together he was from Detroit as well and a little bit after you know we got started and kind of kicked everything off and I actually paid the majority of the expenses to get the business going and shortly after you know we kicked everything off he starts stilling you know from the company so of course we were supposed to be we would place newspapers and various gas stations and convenient stores and they would pay us on consignment so we would go back let's say the paper was being sold for a dollar we may give them like 20 cents per copy you know so we would go and pick up you know the papers from you know all of the stores that were carrying them maybe we would split the route you know so he's picking up from a certain amount of stores I'm picking up from a certain amount of stores well his money was always off it gets to the point you know he he had me locked out of the bank account he had like changed the password to the online banking and was just being very facetious and you know I had one conversation with him bringing this stuff to his attention and of course it was just always some excuse you know some elaborate excuse us to why you know this happened or why that happened and so it eventually got to the point I mean we had only had this company we had only been a business or maybe had did maybe four editions of this weekly publication and so these things just kind of carried on they got them too big magnified and he got to do it just more and more facetious things. He was stealing from day one he just didn't facetely stealing from day one yep and so you know it just kind of got to the point where I was just like man you know what forget this you know like I'm gonna let you have it you know I mean it was a company that I fully started with from my pay most of the money for the company to get started at the time once again you know I was I was raising my daughter so I had a lot to think about I couldn't really afford to take a lot of you know losses and you know I tell them like man you know I'm a single mom and everything and you know you're sitting up here stealing from the business and so anyways I ended up just walking away from the company like I've always been a type of person that like piece of mind to me means more than anything means more than any dollar like I rather not be super stressed or not have peace in my life then to you know be running something as you know profitable or at that time didn't even know how profitable it would be and so at that time it's just like you know I don't have a job I no longer have this company that I've invested most of my savings into and it's like you know what do I do now and so back then I didn't really know about someone people and all those things and what really could you know a lot of times it's nothing you really can sue for you know the company really wasn't valued at much I couldn't get my investment out of it maybe but I probably would have spent more on an attorney and doing so so I just said I would let him have it and that's what I did and I went and I started another a different newspaper in Knoxville Tennessee so instead of working right there locally out of my city now I'm driving to Knoxville every single week to put out a publication there and trying to do the same thing there and I think Knoxville I think maybe was about a two-hour drive you know from Nashville roughly two of some change or something like that so I ended up starting my own paper there in Knoxville Tennessee I hired a guy at the time this guy named Jeff he was like much older than me kind of I kind of looked at him as like a not even necessarily like a father figure but maybe like an uncle or something like that just because he was older you know after we were finished working we would go out to eat and talk and share life stories and things of that nature and so this guy helped me to build my my publication business up and so we ended up having additions in Knoxville Western Kentucky Louisville Bowling Green Kentucky and I eventually ended up expanding to Atlanta and also to St. Petersburg Florida once I moved to Atlanta so I probably had the publication going maybe for about a couple of years before I decided that I wanted to move to Atlanta Georgia and pretty much you know the transition from Nashville to Atlanta was just you know better quality of life better dating pool just you know larger city more right exactly so when I moved to Atlanta I kind of wanted to be a little bit more hands off with the business you know I felt like I had got the company where I wanted to be you know I was excited to be in a new city to meet new people to discover you know some of the things that Atlanta had to offer and so I was pretty much allowing Jeff I had given him a raise and I was kind of allowing him to run the company at that point and one of the biggest mistakes that I made was doing that because when eventually ended up happening it happening is about six months after I moved to Atlanta I was actually speaking with you know some of my staff members in Knoxville and so Knoxville of course is our base it's our hub it's where everything started it's where our the person the graphic designer that's land out the paper where he lived you know the main and a lot of the other officers you know of the company you know right there in Knoxville so anyways about six or seven months after I moved to Atlanta there was one particular week where like starting on Monday everybody just starts quitting on me so the guys who lays out the newspaper he quits on Monday come Tuesday you know the vice president you know of the company or assistant you know manager you know whatever we want to turn him at the whatever he was turned at the time he quits so then we start having a lot of our drivers you know they start quitting and so it's just like okay now this is ridiculous and so I'm talking to Jeff about what's going on and he's just like you know I don't know you know these guys are crazy but don't worry I'm gonna get him replaced with the rules and so then come Friday and then he quits you know and so it's just like what the fuck is going on like you know so that following Monday I go to Knoxville because at this point you know I've got to work the company from every angle so the first thing I need to do is go to the store and collect you know so I can get my money which is with the delivery drivers normally we're doing so the very first store I go to the very first store I go to I go to you know the counter to you know collect my papers that haven't sold and there's another paper exactly like mine sitting there next to next to my stack of papers and but it's just named something different and the name of the paper is something that Jeff had always wanted me to change the name of my paper too so essentially you know he pretty much had just stole you know everything right up under me you know the main and all of my staff was now working for him and you know when you're you know when your hands off and you got somebody that's running a business for you you know essentially they're building a relationship with him you know and they're looking at him as the go tour as their boss you know I'm not you know important the loyalty is not to me some of them had never even met me you know what I mean but anyways at that point you know I kind of and I mean I was devastated I was crying my feelings were so hurt you know I was destroyed and you know I was going around to all of the different stores you know collecting and you know by the end of the day I knew that I had no choice but to just follow the company because number one it also was something that I was no longer passionate about you know I probably was only making maybe about 50 to $60,000 a year with this this business so wasn't a lot of money but I also didn't really have to work much you know I probably one or two days a week you know so I really was just you know comfortable and content and living in Nashville Tennessee that was a decent amount of money living in Atlanta no it's not you know some people may spend that just on entertainment a year yeah but you know for that reason and then secondly I knew that there was no reason no way that I would be able to compete with Jeff because he lived right there in Knoxville Tennessee and I did not so I ended up closing the Knoxville branching kind of shortly closed some of the other ones and decided all right it's time for me to to get into something else you know and I would say probably at probably it's three different points in my life you know I've had to get out of what I was doing and reinvent the wheel you know the man lost it and had to get it all back you know at that point I probably was down to like my last thousand dollars and really did not know what I was going to do you know I was about 25 26 at the time and really didn't know what I was going to do I honestly I started you know I started a little t-shirt company I was I had a girlfriend at the time who owned a boutique of me and my daughters selling smoothies and her boutique my daughters outside selling waters I mean just like really everything right hustling you know what I mean just trying to like put food on the table you know and keep you know the rent paid and things of that nature so started doing that in the end I had also you know at the time I had one house that I was flipping and before I got down to like my last like a hundred bucks this house ended up selling and I really didn't make a lot of money from it at all but I was at least able to get back what I had put into it and if me you know some cash because you know real estate investments are good but they're not liquid unless you actually sell you know the property and so that property so and I was able to get you know a decent amount of money from that and that was when I started my party bus company at that point it's amazing okay so as you as you build out now like now you have like you have an empire you built out but how did how did you get over the fact you've been screwed like multiple times now you know why I still get screwed every day I think it's good to take some of those losses early because it teaches you the signs of what to look for you know your filmers don't get hurt as much when things happen and you know it's it's just a part of it you know I don't think I know anybody that's successful or any business owner that has not been screwed over so nothing is gonna make me so special to be the first one who hasn't I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot now if you want to organize your business you need a CRM if you actually want to grow your business you need HubSpot CRM with HubSpot your sales marketing customer service and ops teams will have access to all the same dynamically updated data so they won't get their wires crossed on where customers in their journey or how to convert them plus HubSpot CRM is easy to buy and easy to use so you don't have to waste valuable time onboarding your teams or managing software and you start seeing value right away learn how HubSpot can help your business grow better in 2023 and get a special offer of 20% off on eligible plans at HubSpot.com slash success pod no I appreciate that okay so now you're moving you're starting to move into nightlife and hospitality so yep you've jumped into like newspaper you jumped into real estate junk newspapers I don't even know where I would start if I had to figure out like how to go into hospitality so what are the steps that you figured out that you could actually be successful I ended up getting into it Scott is member I told you about that news that that calendar that I did yeah you know like I said as juvenile as it may sound you know it's a calendar where I featured 12 different women well after that I started a model management company you know so so for me it was always how to get to the top and how to make the most money all right so it was producing a calendar and selling a calendar then okay well I'm going to manage these models and I'm going to get them other geeks and make other money from that all right then it's like okay with selling this calendar how can I really get this calendar off so I decided to have the models host nights at various different restaurants and lounges and night clubs and they would sell the calendar to different guys you know they would come out you know to these bars and clubs well as I'm in here as I'm in the lounges and clubs and restaurants watching this being done you know I'm seeing how busy you know these venues are and I'm like hey I want to be a bar owner I want to be a club owner I want to be a restaurant owner this is where the money yes I'm just selling these little rinky dink calendars yeah go on with a few hundred dollars man I wonder what this guy is making because it's 50 people in here it's 100 people in here so that is what inspired me to want to open up my own spot and I actually opened up my own spot at the age of 24 and that's so y'all know yeah I didn't know shit it was a few plus I was relying on other people to kind of teach me the game they didn't I didn't get the right permits when the head and opened up anyway grand opening grand closing within two months lost my whole entire investment yep so um so when I moved to Atlanta my thought was man I'm not getting back into that that was such a nightmare um I did so terrible but I always thought but it was fun you know for the little months that were open but um man I was terrible with this I lost all this money didn't know what I was doing um but once I moved here and after I started that party bus company I I got I got into promoting um and just you know throwing parties and you know various lounges and things of that nature and so then right again I'm right back in these these lounges and these restaurants and it's like making me curious as to what would be like to be a owner and so eventually said you know what I'm gonna try this again you know I was young I did it wrong the first time um I learned some lessons from it let me try to try to take what I learned and turn that into something else and so I ended up opening my first spot here in Atlanta it was called the hookahide away and it was wildly successful um I think I asked why though look why was that one why was that one wildly successful like why did why did there's so many damn restaurants and they're all they're all probably tough and the margins are tough like what makes that one successful what was the secret um that one I think number one I mean I gave that that spot my heart and soul I was there every single day for the first two years you know so I think when you have an owner that's dedicated like that nobody is gonna run your business the way that you would run it um so I think that that played a big part of it to the location it was just a really good location um it was a super small spot when I tell you Scott this place was not even bigger than then then 1200 square feet that's small but the big the good thing about it is that it allowed everybody to get to know everybody so it was kind of like a cheers neighborhood bar it would definitely put you in the mind if it like you didn't even have to know anybody to go there you were gonna meet tons of people um we were able to kind of create a patio and I mean literally in the summertime this place was just like a block party every single weekend um we were able to stay open after hours we weren't necessarily supposed to but we did and we got away with it for five to years um but um and we had some great food you know I brought some stuff from some concepts from Nashville as far as you know Nashville has its hot chicken at the time that had not caught nationally like it has now and so we were selling hot chicken there and that was a big hit um and I think also just you know the hands on one that I had with that location I hired every single person myself um and you know you just can't beat that when you have a owner that is running the spot themselves and willing to put in you know that grit in that time and I want to say I think I was part about 28 when I opened that spot up and and that's the first time you ever were successful in uh in hospitality basically so like now you're now you're realizing your dream so so where does it go from there so now you have one uh you you found like this like community place like this like little hole in the wall but it's like it's you did a couple things that were obviously very good you brought in good food you created a vibe like I feel like where a lot of people miss the mark on hospitality as they feel like they can copy and paste that but then the copy and paste version is shit and then it's not the same and it's a different crowd different but you've done it like repeatedly now so what's what's the formula you use to open the next one and the next one after that um you know what it's you know you you said something that's so important a vibe you know creating a good vibe you know good music good decor um you know people love spots with patios you know making sure that the food is good the food has to be good the customer service has to be good and you know first and foremost you've got to have a good location you know because you can have all of those things but if you've got a shitty location that's hard to find or hard to get to or um doesn't have any walk up traffic or it's got terrible parking um you know because I've made those mistakes before even after that you know in open and locations and and picking a bad location or just being so excited um to do something and and just picking the location that you know did not have those things so um that's really a big thing and then you know having those systems in place you know hiring good people um treat those people right pan on whale um and making sure that you stay on top of them and so now for me because of what I did learn uh working with Jeff with that newspaper you know I just never turn over any of my businesses and put them in someone's hands there's always something that has to go through me you know um and I never really just totally take my hands off of everything I'm always looking at every single thing all the numbers all the bank accounts um and the more businesses I have the more time consuming it is um and you know but I've learned now the difference in now of me and that first restaurant and being there every single day at that point I was working in the business now I've learned to heavily work on the business versus working in the business they're just smart but then how do you find those people you can trust to work in the business for you you know what um with trust you know that's something that's built um and earned and you know I don't think anybody has the formula to be able to find people that you trust you know you just hire people um and you know you give them the opportunity to to cut their own next you know I'm saying and when they do that um you get a move on you get to believe people when they show you who they are yeah no I think the one thing that I've seen like that is sort of a common thread like you know you've you've been screwed multiple times which is never fun but I think that the fact that you were screwed earlier on and and you were like stolen from earlier on and that's probably what led to your success because then when you if you had one success and now the the the risk is much bigger right the money you can lose is not just in the the tens of thousands and the hundred thousands and the millions when people can screw you over so you know what I mean like you you're looking at people different it's smart though it's smart so now so what I've always what I actually found very interesting is you do so many different things so like you're in hospitality but you also and tell me if you're still working on these things well so you have like a DHG university credit repair at one point in your life you built an app I think at 2015 you built an app called girl talk you have an impact foundation you have a spa like you do everything but now these things are like quite successful so you like you're like you're like you have like an entrepreneurial line you go into something and it works but I think a lot of it is like divide it's like the it's a unique experience that you create so as you're building up these things um talk to me even like it's interesting you work with two chains on on members only why work with two chains when you're already successful why do you need to star power what's the what's the play there is that something that you think would be useful or is that you see that a lot with brands but I've never seen it with like a restaurant I actually met two chains um about uh maybe about seven years ago now at this point and I met him when I had the hookahide away and so as I was telling you the hookahide away was this super little small spot 12 to 1300 1300 square feet nobody would even have guessed the amount of money that I was making a hookahide away because it was so small and that's a difference too you know when you are not already rich you know when you're like the underdog everybody wants you to be successful you know everybody wants to support you know once you're already on top it's just like people are trying to knock you down you know and take you off of that throne but um anyways long story short after the hookahide away or while doing the hookah hide away I was probably in like the third year and it was like hey okay I've got this formula down this is working well let's duplicate this and I want to do another location and and looking for another location I ended up meeting two chains and we decided to do escobar together um escobar has by far been my most successful business to date and that just ended up being a great partnership because I had the hospitality experience and you know was willing to operate and run these these stressful ass restaurants while he was able to you know go out there and be two chains etc but the notoriety that he had on a national worldwide scale also attracted you know some clientele for us you know and some publicity you know for us that I would not have been able to get on my own so I ended up just being a good partnership in that aspect you know we've gone on to actually open four restaurants together that we currently have so we've got two escobar locations we do have members only that we're actually members only is currently closed and under renovation we're actually renovating that and turning that into Esco pizza and then we have a concept called Esco seafood and so we have you know been able to open up four restaurants you know over the past six years and we recently just franchised we just franchised Esco bar as well so and working with somebody like to change you know it just was a no brainer because he could bring something to the table that I could not at the time and it was that star power um when if you were gonna like if you're talking to somebody who has always had a passion for opening up a restaurant and they don't even know where to start what would be the advice you'd give them don't do it is stressful is hey I'm just playing and I really don't but uh you know I would tell them that uh number one you know I feel like whenever you're trying to do something that you've never done before you should go out and get a mentor um you know everybody has of course these days and as you mentioned you know I've got my DHG university credit repair um I also have you know my salon suite master course you know you mentioned you know remedy um that's the spot salon suite you know a brand that I've established I've got three different locations I've recently franchised that as well um and have already sold you know a franchise location crazy right now um whenever you're looking again into something you know that you've never gotten and never done before um you know you need to do some research otherwise you're going to get into it and you're going to end up wasting a lot of money um and probably getting taken advantage of when it comes to the restaurant and hospitality industry because you know your money goes through so many hands before it actually touches yours and hits your bank account so um I one thing I say is a lot of restaurant doors get closed by the staff you know still in given away stuff um and it's not just the bartenders and servers it's some of your your managers and management staff as well so I would recommend for somebody that's looking to get into this industry to start off with a mentor maybe take a restaurant ownership course do your research before deciding which course to take but those are some of the things that I would advise you know um so that you can know exactly what it is that you're getting into um there's a lot of things to do this do these days I primarily push my salon suites because the restaurant industry I started off working you know 70 80 hours a week you know people don't want to do that shit these days you know and why should you when there's other things that you can get into and make good money as well have peace not have to worry about every single person in the building still on from you um it still make the money you know what I mean but but have you know a business that will allow you to have semi absentee ownership and then the restaurant industry you will never have that that's interesting um no it's good advice for people because I think that it's it's an industry that's always been difficult to to succeed at but I just know you've done it you've killed it but it's interesting to say like even like you know you've killed it like maybe it's not like the best possible industry to go into right now because like the the amount of moving parts that you have to figure out well also right now to you know post COVID pandemic it's different now you know labor shortages food shortages so food costs is through the roof you know it's hard to find good people that want to be in this this industry right now you know we're in the air of the the great resignation air so um it's it's definitely a little bit more difficult than it's been in the past for sure so okay so what so I want to do a couple rapid fire to close this up but before we pivot like what's what's next for you so like when do you want to double down on restaurants you have ask about your franchising but it's difficult so where do you want to take your you know your entrepreneurial spirit that you've used in the past to start all these different brands and franchises and companies what do you want to do in the future you know a few different things man you know you mentioned it the franchising so I still want to be in the restaurant industry but I want to help others open up their own restaurants and kind of consult them and help them be successful and attain some of the success that I've had so definitely want to do that by way of franchising selling franchises you know via Escobar as well as you know my remedy brand I plan on expanding that more because that's a more of a hands-off industry you know where I don't have to it's simple it's easy you know so I want to expand that further and then I'm a venture capitalist I invest a lot so I'm highly invested not only in the stock market but I do a lot of investment and pre IPO funds so like you know touro Airbnb all of these companies prior to going public so stuff like that is fun and interesting to me because you can make a lot of money in doing that and then you know I recently got married so I'm focusing on my marriage and you know having more kids and you know helping helping my wife you know to you know achieve some of her career goals do you like now that you've built at this empire do you find that what makes like what you know like when you make the money it's great but now like when you're married and you want to have like a larger family stuff like that priorities change so how do you manage that as an entrepreneur it does it does it it totally changes you know from me now it's not about as much as it is a dollar in cents you know I'm not necessarily interested in trading as much time for money these days because you know you know I do have something to come home to now you know before it would be like I'm working all day stand out all night you know because you know I didn't have that piece so now that I do things have definitely changed a lot my goals and my priorities have shifted for sure I'll just do a couple of rapid fire but most importantly before I go into the rapid fire just pull some like last insights out of you where do you want people to go where's the social where's the website where do you want to send people they can see me on Instagram and who is Snoop my website with my full story as well as some videos of me telling my story who is Snoop.com and then my salon suite master course an A to Z guide on to how to enter how to get into the salon suite industry and open up your own salon suite businesses at www.salonsuitemastercourt.com beautiful okay you've had a great career super successful but what keeps you up at night right now. You know I'm always looking for the next thing I'm always looking for the next thing to get into what I want to invest in I forgot to mention that me and my mom we're looking to open up a home health care agency so you know research keeps me up at night you know looking for how I'm going to you know make that next dollar in a different industry than when I'm in you know so to continue to bring in multiple streams of revenue and create generation of wealth. Biggest challenge you've had to overcome in your personal life but was it had you overcome it what you learned from it. Biggest challenge in my personal life probably getting pregnant with my daughter so young she actually spent four years and foster care and it's something that you know I'm still working through and trying to get past. Now now now now you have the you have the money now you focus on the family that's where the time going that's smart that's smart that's the goal right that's the dream if you had to pick one person there's been many pick one person who's had a major impact on your life who's that person what they teach you. I would say my mother you know because she just you know through all the ups and downs you know the the many faces many personalities I've had you know throughout my life you've never left my side and always been super supportive. If you had to pick a book or podcast something that's been really impactful for you that you'd recommend somebody go check out. Man aren't you a leisure. I'm actually featured on one of their episodes but I just think those guys who are really good job of interviewing all different types of people and showing and people so many different ways you know to make money and you know different ways to get into entrepreneurship. I actually love their show they're a good show. They're a very good show. If you had to tell your 20 year old self one thing what would it be? Keep pushing you're going to end up being a millionaire do not give up. Then last question what does success mean to you? You know success to me means not having to worry about finances, living a stress of a life that says less stressful as possible and being able to do what I want to do on a daily basis.