Key lessons on how Glenn Stearns went from zero to hero in Undercover Billionaire

He got basic food for as cheap as he could. Second, he asked for a small favor in the convenience store: "Do you have hot water?" and "Do you have a plastic fork?". This was a key moment to go out of the comfort zone, and ask for kindness from others. You don't ask, you won't get any help. Of course Glenn has a leg up on many of us in this area. He is comfortable negotiating and being in that brief moment of unknown.

Asking the landlord of a hotel he stays in for one night if he needs any help. No luck, but he asked. The next day he found a job selling dog toys on commission basis. He had no success at all doing this as far as we know.

His cover story is that he quit a corporate job and start a business, as revealed when he is volunteering in the soup kitchen. Even if he didn't get paid here, he got a meal, and some motivation to win on his mission.

He applied for jobs the first couple of days. And he got one that paid for work and not commission. Laminating t-shirts. He got paid on the day. He got a chance to talk with RJ, and talk a little bit about himself. This was also a great first contact that follows him through the whole series.

Second job he got, was cleaning someone's house.

St. Patrick's day was coming up. He got the idea to sell merchandise on the street during this day. He went all in on this and bought discounted things that the retailer wanted to get rid of, and he could sell for high margin on the festival. He pitched the idea to RJ, who thought it was a great idea and wanted to sell some things as well, so he joined together with some of his friends/staff.

It was a success because he could finally use his sales skills and negotiating with a lot of people. He was now playing the numbers game, at least for a day. Reading people and convincing them that they needed what he was selling. Another lesson he says is to sell to a group of people, get one or two people to buy and the whole group might follow. In the end, he almost 4x his money.

Sort of a parallel story to the jobs and St. Patrick's day have been to find some tires for machineries to sell. He found some buyer for this already, online. It seems he spent a lot of time to find these tires, but the payoff is great. He has some experience on at least identifying and evaluating tires, but he is no expert. When the buyer arrives some tires are not good enough or worn out actually. $1500 in cash.

With the money he earned, he can now get an apartment for the three months. He tried to negotiate a deal with the deposit to keep some money for himself, but this was not successful. He ended up keeping half of the money, one month rent paid and deposit for one month.

This is a cornerstone in the whole story of the success to come. Here he get support and is able to network with people, all for free. He even gets his own small office after some time. They help him prepare to build and own a business. Research, marketing etc.

"I don't know what I don't know". He has approached local business owners and setup meetings to get to know the city and what is hot right now in the area. Using some of his business knowledge, he is able to ask good questions to the owners. "Why coffee, was that just a passion?", he ask a local owner, she can speak free with an open question. That is showing interest in them. "How is your business doing?"

He reflects that he need some business that is cheap to start, so not a metal fabrication company. After meeting some owners he goes back to SBDC to have them research about coffee and beer industries.

Once it's decided to go after the beer industry, because it is growing and people welcome competition, he posts an ad to start doing interviews. This is the networking aspect, and finding people who are hungry and willing to help out. Of course, looking for passionate people who can add something to the table, that are better than himself in different skillsets.

He seeks out some owners of craft beer and asks to go to a study visit and meet local brewers. Understand pitfalls, getting an attorney etc. Unfortunately getting a license to brew beer takes 90 days, so the whole plan falls apart. But with the team he has built, he gets a new spin on it to start a restaurant that can be a franchise.

"What do you think is missing from these brew houses?", a question he asks his future team. With open ended questions he can get a lot of insight and knowledge from everyone. Also they will feel heard.

With this knowledge, he has the SBDC research again, this time about the BBQ and beer restaurant. But with more revenue streams. Their own sauces, branding and local beer.

To cover his startup costs, his best knowledge to make big bucks is in real estate. But he don't have any money to do this yet. Instead he sets aim to flip a car.

The luck he has with this one is almost beyond belief. A car dealership going under trying to get rid of all their cars. A gold mine! Search and you will find. He negotiates the hell out of this deal and gets a car for half the asking price, that's almost all the money he has left. Since the seller needs to get rid off the cars, he asks for more. This is another key play, leave the door open. In a way he is asking to be a salesman working for free to sell another car later.

Cleaning up the car and making it look nice, putting it in a well trafficked spot are some obvious things to do when flipping a car. I guess he also put it up online on craigslist.

This works, because he acts as a market maker or arbitrage in both time and space. He seeks out a car where no one else is looking, and then puts the car where there are more people looking. More potential buyers. Again, he about 4x his investment. And he does this again with another car.

This leads into flipping the house. With the money he earned from the cars, he can now afford a down payment of $10'000 for the house. Since he needs an expert for this, he has sought out an interior designer that will do the main work designing and renovating the house. There are many struggles here but it comes through in the end, with the promise to pay the interior designer later.

With the money from the house, the money will cover the lease for the restaurant and expenses for the festival that will launch the restaurant later.

He uses a key play here once he got a few people interested. The owners he already met and had good connection with, he follows through. They get to act sort of like a board of directors in the idea phase. They have no stakes, so they all will feel empowered and trusted by Glenn.

Once he has interviewed a few people, he invites all to a gathering in a brewery and talks about himself, but the most important part why he is doing this! The story is important here, people want to help someone if they know the story. He is able to use his confidence and convey the dream, inspire, and they want to be a part of it.

Finally, this might be the third meeting with team members, he pitches the new idea with the restaurant instead. Once he heard them and got them onboard, he asks for the ultimate commitment strategy. "Are you with me? Are you with me?". Then he starts delegating director roles.

After a few days he start to follow up on these roles. Everything from finding a pit master, brewers and marketing.

It's a lot of fun and games up to the launch of the restaurant. With the money from the flipped house, he pays the interior designer, restaurant lease and the marketing play with the BBQ at Rib fest. With the money, and the acknowledgement he gets by winning the festival in two categories he can launch the restaurant and pay the interior designer for her work renovating the restaurant. It leaves him with $8'000 out of $21'000 from the festival achievements.

There are going to be setbacks in life. That is how it is, unfortunately. For Glenn there was a few times where it could have gone haywire.

My goal with watching this TV-series and writing it down has been to try and distill something that is shorter and more digestible than the show itself. A piece which we can come back to when we need some guidance. To be something like a blueprint that we can follow to build our own businesses. I hope it helps us both, and a big thank you to Glenn Stearns, what a hero you are for showing us dreamers the way!