Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Rushion Interviews Maceo Brown, Get business & life development insights from the President and CEO of System5 Electronics!

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Rushion Interviews Maceo Brown, Get business & life development insights from the President and CEO of System5 Electronics! · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: My next guest. He's on the phone. MA CEO A. Brown.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: He's the President and CEO of System five Electronics, the largest,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I repeat, the largest African American owned and operated security
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: alarm and monitoring company in the state of Georgia. In
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: his role, he directs daily operations, implements strategies for success,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: creates product distinctions, and positions his company as an industry leader,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: something I am always striving for. My wife said, why
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: do you doing three meetings all the time? You always
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: do these meetings, You're always meeting. You always meeting. I said,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: because I have something in my head I want to share,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and if you don't tell people, then sometimes they might
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: not understand how passionate you are about that. Aside for
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: being a successful entrepreneur, Mr Brown is the founder of
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Maco m A CEO Mentoring Aspiring CEOs Kids, a nonprofit
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: organization created to pair African American youth with mentors and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: effort to foster and entrepreneur spirit. The nonprofit provides opportunity
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: for young men and women to learn the importance of
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: economic empowerment, community development, and enrichment. Please work on the
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Money Making Conversation Masterclass. MACIO A Brown, Welcome sir. Good
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: to be here, Good to be here. Did I get
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: it all out? May see? Did I get it all out? Yes?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: You did? Yes you did. You appreciate that I did,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: really do. Thank you so much. Well, first of all,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you because you are a groundbreaker, trail blazer.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: You're doing something that that that that that this is
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: traditional and the thought process of what we do. So
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I want to go all the way back when you
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: were when you were thinking about this, what what how
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: did this initial idea of getting into the security business
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: where you're an employee somewhere, How did you learn this
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: craft and how did you go to the next level
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: with that craft? Well? I first came through the I
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: B e W International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local UN
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: six thirteen. I was the second set of African Americans
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  Speaker 1: to go through that program. My dad always said, you know,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: if you learn a trade Sunday, there is no glass ceiling.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: And then uh, five years later, reagular administration economy tanked
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and so I diversified and met a gentleman who was
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: in the security business and he told me about it
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and there was a residual income. So I said, okay,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: this is a recession proof business. So I said, I
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: need to go ahead and get into that. So I
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: sold all my assets from Masiell Brown Let's go contractors,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: and switched over the system back with Atronics. I went
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: back to the same customers houses that I wired throughout
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: all the southwest Atlanta and switched their services over. Then
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Rawlins had the market, a d T had the market.
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  Speaker 1: They welcomed me as a black entrepreneur to say, hey,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: we're so proud to see you in this business. You know,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: we want to spend our money with our own kind.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: So you had an audience that that that was welcoming.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: But how did you win them over? Because you know
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: that there are stereotypes that black have about blacks when
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: it comes through entrepreneurship, the same service or the same
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: and sometimes the expectation a lot higher. Did you have
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to deal with that in early years or even today. Well,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: you know, I took seven kids out of high school
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: that was not college bound. I started teaching them the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: same books I learned through ib W, dress code, the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: way you speak yes sir, yesterdam you know, and that
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: was so important when my customers saw my young men
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  Speaker 1: approaching them, you know, and the way they came up
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: to him, and I taught them all about how to
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: be polite to these people. You know, they kept calling
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: me back and saying, I'm really proud of what you're
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: doing with these young people. You know, I have not
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  Speaker 1: experienced them because you know a lot of those, like
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you said, stereotyped. We don't like our young men coming
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  Speaker 1: up to us a certain way. You know, they have
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to be groom you know, we we make sure that
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: you have a neat appearance. And you know that kind
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  Speaker 1: of win them over at that point in time, because
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  Speaker 1: you know they learned that. You know, when they see
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: me Macio Brown, the people that work for me represent me.
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  Speaker 1: They look like me, they are part of me. They're
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: gonna act like me. So you know, now that really
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: worked out very very well. You know, strong values is everything.
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  Speaker 1: And once you teach a here that in the classroom setting,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: you know, you you impact their life going forward. You know,
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  Speaker 1: it helps them to become a father figure, you know,
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  Speaker 1: in their own homes and and go back and say,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I can raise a child because you know
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  Speaker 1: some of them they didn't have that father with them
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: at that time. So you know, I really talk a
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: lot of that, especially economic empowerment. How you save your money,
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  Speaker 1: how you supposed to spend it on, you know, wasteful things.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: You know, you want to make sure you invest your
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: money so you can grow. So a lot of these
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: things that they don't teach in the high school system today,
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  Speaker 1: which should be taught. You know, we can help elevate
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  Speaker 1: our kids much faster. Making a Brown. He's the president
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  Speaker 1: and CEO of System five Electronics, the largest African American
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  Speaker 1: owned and operated security law and monitoring company in the
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: state of Georgia. Massie, you can talk your articulate. When
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: did you realize you can communicate and people responded to
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the way you communicated? Well, I was always honest. Church going.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Mother went to church on Saturday. She's the seventh Adventage.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: My father was a Baptist with with the church Jose
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Sunday and then we had Bible study on Wednesday. So, uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know that kind of helped me along. And meeting people.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Always network with people, shake a lot of hands and
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  Speaker 1: makes you, i mean, in front of a lot of people.
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  Speaker 1: And then you know, I had three other brothers that
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: was role models in front of me. My oldest brother
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: was Milton. He worked for the ib W, I mean
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the ibm uh he came to Georgia Tech. And then
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  Speaker 1: my other brother Thomas Brown, he ended up being the
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  Speaker 1: sheriff of the Calf County and now he's nominated for
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: us Marshall. And then my other brother wouldn't the Brown.
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  Speaker 1: You know, both of us went through to ib W.
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  Speaker 1: So you know, the trade was really helped us along
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the way and making that really happen because you know
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of these kids they don't know about the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: trade of electrical plumbing, carpenter heating in there. You know,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: these are jobs that you can make end this amount
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: of money. You know, learning the trade and developing yourself
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: in the right direction going forward, we always up. Like
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: my daughter, she recently graduated from college and I was
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: fortunate to graduate from college a degree in mathematics and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the mining and sociology. And I always tell people they
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: can't repull your degree. You know, once once you learn
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: that like the same thing that you're saying with the trade,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: once you learn that trade, you know you you you
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: know your your your recession proof as long as you're
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: willing to put the work in. Now. Of course, all
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: trades on glamour, glamorous like all degrees on glamorous. Everybody
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: wants to wants the glamour. They want wants to shine,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: they want them to be sparkled. They want to pick
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: up gold. When they started me ly mining for gold.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: But that isn't the opportunities that are available out there.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: And then the younger generation, whether it's gen Z or
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the millennials, gets such a bad rap about their dreams.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: You're out there in the workplace, the hiring place. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you got one of the largest companies in this in
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  Speaker 1: the state of Georgia. Tell us your perception and I'm
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: saying this it's something that's lockdown or the truth. But
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: we all have perceptions, like I have perceptions when people
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  Speaker 1: are wanting to say things about what this is what
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: millennials want, They want to they want to take the
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: short color gym zs gen zs. They don't want to
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  Speaker 1: they don't want to work hard. What is your perspective
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: of the of the of the viable work environment out there, sir, Well,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: you know you gotta find a unique child, you know,
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  Speaker 1: somebody who's driven. You know, when you do your interview process,
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  Speaker 1: you always asking what's your five year planning. You know,
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  Speaker 1: if if they can't give you a good answer the
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  Speaker 1: five year planning and nine times I attending you you
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: got the wrong candidate. You know, you want to make
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: sure somebody wants to inspire to be something, and if
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: they want inspire to be something, then you can bring
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: them into your business and say, hey, you can grow
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  Speaker 1: with this company. I can put you a part of
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: or either whether you're in the counting department, whether you're
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: in the marketing department, or whether you want my leave
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: text out in the field, or whether you're working in
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the service department where you only do a service work,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and then let them see what the future life for them,
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  Speaker 1: you know, saying one year you're gonna be making this
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  Speaker 1: amount of money, three years you make this amount of money,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: and you're creat incentives for them. You know. I tell
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: my employees, you know, once they get over five years,
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  Speaker 1: they own a certain percentage of my company. When they
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: when they get ten years, they own another percentage of
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: my company. So I learned that, you know, giving back,
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  Speaker 1: because you know, this is God's house. I don't own
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  Speaker 1: this company completely. You know, God help me build This
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  Speaker 1: company is not mine. I can't take it with me.
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  Speaker 1: But if I give back a portion of it to
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  Speaker 1: my employees, I'm gonna I'm gonna create a loan ungevity
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  Speaker 1: here for them people that's gonna be here, and I'm
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  Speaker 1: creating generational wealth at the same time, so I know
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  Speaker 1: my legacy is going to continue to go forward. So
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: those are the things I try to inspire kids and
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: just just let them know what the future. But you know,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: if they want to open up their business at some
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: point in time, because I'm gonna always wish them well.
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  Speaker 1: That mean, it's not an easy task to do. It
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: takes a lot to get to get a company off
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the ground. But you gotta be motivated. I mean, you
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: gotta eat, sleep, or drink your company. You gotta know
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: every day you wake up, you're creating a new idea.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: You're having meetings, you know, at least every week or
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: every two weeks with your your team, so you could
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: create uh new ideas and things that we're working on.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: It may not be a good direction for us that
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: we want to change. You know, job costs is so important,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: so you know you really want to make sure you
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: stir on job costs. How much money we make when
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: we do this type of job, how much money we're
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: making here. And you know, policies are everything. You know,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: we use tracking devices and all our vehicles, we already
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: know what time you're gonna get there, what time you're
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: gonna leave, so we can always tell the customer. You know,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: my driver showed up at eight thirty, he left at
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: nine o'clock. You know they door tacked the door. So
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: we let the customers know that we're gonna make all
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: the efforts possible to be able to give you quality service.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be the first one there. We're gonna be
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: on time. We're not gonna be running late. If we're
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: five minutes late, we're gonna pick up the phone and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: make that call. Let the customers no, we're running five
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: minutes late. People want to see that out of an
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: African American company. They don't just want to see you
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: just show up and then give an excuse. You want
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: to make sure you plan ahead, so you're letting the
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: end user know that, Hey, we appreciate your business. We
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: appreciate everything you're doing. Because at the end of the day,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I tell my employees, you don't really work for me,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: you work for the customer. Un Once you buy into
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: that that you work for the customer. The customer is
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: gonna always give you the business. You know, if he
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: costs us fifty dollars to acquire a new customer, because
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: we have a gearback program, fifty dollars to refer us
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: to someone. When you're referred by a customer, it's easy
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: for your sales team to go out there and close
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: that deal because they're referred by someone who's very satisfied
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: with what you have done, whereas opposed to someone googles
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: your company and then you go out there. You got
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: to really make an impression in order to win that
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: business over. So we work with a lot of black churches.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: I go out and do get speaking and talk about something.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Let me hold that thought because you're on a roll.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: You are dropping jewels, my friend. Keep that energy up.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: We're gonna come back after this break and we're gonna
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: continue because you're saying what I see every day on
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: this show, but you're saying it from a standpoint of way.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: More power, you employ people, your brand, your institution in
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: this state. We'll be right back with more money Making
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Conversations Masterclass with Rushan McDonald. Now let's return to money
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Making Conversations Masterclass with Rashan McDonald. What you're saying is
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: inspiring stuff, but it's also consistent stuff about putting that
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: client first. You hear that a lot. You always say,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: you know, the customer is always right. You hear that,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: but you really that's part of your mantra correct, right.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: You got to sell yourself first, and then you sell
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the company. Then you sell the product. Because if I
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: don't like you from the beginning, I'm not going to
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: buy your product. So you have to let the customer
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: know I'm an honest person. I'm gonna be fair with you.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you my price book. I'm gonna show
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: you how I compare with other companies to show you
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: that I'm saving you money. And these are some of
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the things I teach my sales team when they go out,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: because a lot of companies can tell you different things
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, we can put a system in free,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: and then they charge you fifty sixty dollars a month. Well,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of us don't do the math. So if
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: you get a system from us and you're paying twenty
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: six or twenty four dollars per month, and you subtracted
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: from that fifties sixty times that your contract. You just
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: bought my system three times. So when you show that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: to the end user, they realized, Wow, I'm saving money
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: by investing up front to buy the system. On the system,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: then I got to earn your business from that point on.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: So that makes you a very service driven you know,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: we have to be service driven. We want to make
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: sure we turn the service call around in less than
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: two days if you're having the problem. If we can't
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: get it that day, we're gonna try to get it
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the next day. And that's so important to me. You know,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I'm fortunate that I have I own a building and
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: when I get a service call, you know, they send
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: your you know, they text you photos. Now because of
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: security issues of COVID, there's so many rules, so you
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: had to change your game a little bit with COVID.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Happened here because your service had to be because you
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: are an installation company, correct your monitoring company, but you
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: do installations, so you're going people home, you're going to business.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: How did that impact you as a business. Well, I've
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: gone through three recessions, uh and we've got out both
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: All three were not a problem. I mean this lasting
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: with covert. We did very well without numbers because most
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: people were at home, and because they were working from home,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: they wanted to get their system service. They wanted to
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: make all their devices was working. So when my technicians
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: show up, you know, they got to have the booties on.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: They gotta make sure they don't walk in there with
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: shoes on. They got something to cover up their shoes.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: They got to make sure they're wearing a mask properly,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: and they're always cleaning up. They're not the customer can't
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: say I don't worry about that. I'll pick that up. No,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: ma'am giving you a vacuum, I'm going to pick that up.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: So we make sure that we strive off of that,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: because you know, good news never go around. Bad news
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: always travel. It's called Louis speed. On that mad news,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: it's called Louis speed. I know that for a fact.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: We have a call a right quick. I want to
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: take them right quick. Maybel from an Athens, Georgia. How
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: are you doing at this Rashan McDonald, I'm doing well.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: How are you? Maybe? What's your question? Um? So my
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: question to Mr Brown is as a mother of a fourteen,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: sixteen and eighteen year old African American bells. How do
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I encourage them to do better and be gentlemen without
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: belittleing them. What you should do is you should sit
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: down with them with my nonprofit. I had my kids,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I took them out to Mirror Lakes, uh and a
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: lot of them have never seen some of these larger
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: homes before. A lot of us is a lack of exposure.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: We don't get within a ten mile radius of where
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: we live. So when you show them a larger home
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: at a younger age, they said, Wow, I would like
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: to live like that. And then you take them back
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and say, let's do a budget at home. How much
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: is my life beal? How much just the gas bill?
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: How much is the water bill? How much we have
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: to pay for insurance. You lay out all of those
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: areas that you have to pay bills inside the house,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: your car, your car, and ears, and then you add
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: them all up for a month. And then you say, Okay,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: if I go to work for McDonald's and I make
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: it ten dollars an hour, can I live in a
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: home like this? No? You can't. Okay, if if I
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: get a's or bees in school, then I'm gonna make
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: it far more money, and I can live in a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: home like that. So I think a lot of it
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: is we don't paint the picture from a finance situation
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: to where a kid has something that's gonna drive him
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to want to be there. All kids have a passion
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: to be something. Once you tap into that passion, you
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: want to help them with that passion as much as possible.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: But you gotta let them know that the smarter kids
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: are gonna live a better life. If you make average
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: seeds and deeds, you're not gonna live a good life.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: If you make bees and a's or a's plus, you're
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: gonna live a great life because you're getting your work
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: that needs to be done. Because once you come out,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: then nine times of tea, and especially if you're making
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: straight a's, you don't have to pay for that cause
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: education you already got to pay for. So you need
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: to just paint that picture with them early and say, listen,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: these are the bills that mama has to pay. So
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: then they know how to cut the water faucet off
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: at a certain time and cut the light switch off.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I taught my kids how to read the electrical meter,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: how to read a water meter, so when they turned
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: that water meter owned. They see that dial spending, that's
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: how much money you wasting. Come into that. You turn
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: that light switch on and you see that thing spending,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: then you already know you're wasting that amount of money
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: inside the house. So parents would call me back, said
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Mr Brod, I don't know what you told by stuff.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: But every time he walks out of his room, he
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: turns off the lights there. He never cuts the porto two.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: He's ready to brush his teeth. You know, mentally, you
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: gotta feed that into their mind. My father was a
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: military guy, So the moment you wake up out of
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the bed, the first thing you gotta do. You gotta
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: wake up, make up the bed. Once you make up
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the bed, you gotta go in there and brush his teeth.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: You know, it was just a program, so you you haven't.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I gotta tell people, young people, it's like you're the programmer.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: You have to program that child to do certain habits,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: good habits that's gonna propel them to the top. And
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: let them know that you're not a follower, You're a leader.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I want you to be a leader, not a follower.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So I walk around with your pants hanging down because
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: impression is everything. You don't want to be like someone,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: You want to be the person they want to admire.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: That's who I want to look like that person right there?
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe was that e? Was he ever answering your question? Yes, sir,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that that was wonderful. Thank you so much, and I
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: will take key to to everything you're saying. Thank you
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: so much, ever shot. I love your show. I lived
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: in weekly. Keep doing what you're doing. I appreciate the compliment.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: And but more importantly is my guests. They come on
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the show, and I want to share an example about
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I remember in high school may see all Mr Brown, Um,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I had two friends, Regina Rodney, who eventually graduates from
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Rice University, and then it was the schell Robberts, who
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: eventually graduates from University of Port du But do you first?
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: And we used to get in my love beat up
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: seventy one Pinto's Chocolate Brown and we used to drive
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: two the neighborhoods that we didn't live in and just
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: look at houses and look at yards and just see
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: things that would like and we were Wow. I go
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and I would and and and I would see cars
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that weren't in my neighborhood because I grew up in
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: a black neighborhood. And I tell people this today. You know,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: when you grew up in a black neighborhood, you get
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: on the bus with black people, when the bus will
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: take you downtown and drop you off where black people at,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: and you get back on that bus and then take
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you back to black people. And so you have to
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: take people to see more than black people, because you
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: can get trapped and believe in that's all you can be,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: that's all you can see. And when I went to
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and I would tell you, I I would every car
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: that I saw as a kid, whether the sports car
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: was a Porsche, and say these bends or whatever. I
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: have been fortunate to buy those type of cars. The
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: homes that I live in, whether it was a big
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: yard or hedge is or you know, gutters were black
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and white brick that came from those driving through the
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: neighborhoods and looking at houses. And and so when I
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: went to buy my houses, or when I went to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: do my lng, it was already in my head. My
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: wife would ask me, she said, how do you just
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: how do you just see this though, because it's burned
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: in my brain. I've seen this as a kid when
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: I was sixteen, seventeen eighteen of saying that's what I want,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: that's what I want. And when you keep saying that's
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: what you want, you position yourself to get it. And
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: when you get it, then guess what it changes everybody
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: around you. And that's all you're saying, correct, Mr Brown,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: that's right, That's right. Because when I was in the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: seventh grade, I used to care a briefcase to school.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: People used to get on me about that briefcase, said,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: be episode of one day, you know, like the case
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I put my book to the briefcase. You know, I
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: kind of mentally after my godfather, Mashiel Newberry had stolen
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: buying City. You know, he taught me how to stop
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: the room and how to SI and the kids and
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: all that stuff and just stay organized and need. So
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: with this younger generation, you gotta find that hotspot that
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: that that passion of what they want to be. But
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: like you said, exposure is everything, and then teaching them
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: what does it really cost to live so when they
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: see a job, they know, Okay, I want to live
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: nice like this. So I gotta get good grades in
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: school if I want to live like this. But like you, said,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you know, going around and seeing other properties and going
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: in other communities and seeing these things, then you can
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: inspire to be something. You know, when I came up,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: it was lived to be the American dream. Everybody wanted
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: to live in American dream. You don't hear that anymore
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: gets those things. I wouldn't live the American dream, just
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: don't hear you know. I think that what happens is
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: because of the fact that you know, everything is so immediate.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: You know, you know the apps, you have cell phones,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: you can actually see people across the world. You know,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you can be on the plane and see somebody on
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the ground and talk to them visually and uh and
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: through audio. And then you can watch your favorite movie
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: while you're while you're not even at the house anymore.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And so you're so connected that your dreams can sometimes
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: be muddy because they can be on top of you.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: That's when you hear so much about, you know, mental health.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more Money Making Conversations Masterclass
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: with Rashan McDonald. Now, let's return to Money Making Conversations
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Masterclass with Rashan McDonald. How did you get come for
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the name of your company? System five electronics. Why that name. Uh,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: my wife helped me with that. She did the logo.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Back then the five services was you know, we did phone,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: we did in it comes, we did central back, we
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: did security, and then we did cameras and so now
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: off you asked me that same questions system huh, System
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: twenty electronic. Right, there's so much else we do because
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: I knew a paddles there fac your recognition. So we've
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: gone from a button to a two way voice system
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that's a liquor crystal keypad. Two. Now we we can
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: walk up to the keypad that sees your faith and
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: you can dis on the alarm system. So technology just changes.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Every two to three years we see something that's being
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: invented and brought out and so it's amazing the technology.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: And people love gadgets. Like you said, you know, with
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: my business, you want to get a booked on the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: smartphone because everybody carries their smartphone around. Every time you
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: click around, you see somebody with a smartphone. So if
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: your system don't connect them with that smartphone, then you're
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: gonna lose that consumer. So we make sure that everybody
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: sits is when they sign up with us, that they
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: have an app on the phone. They can armor this
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: on their system. They can receive full notifications where there's
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: low batteries, AC power phase, or just letting them know
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: when someone comes in and out of the house. You know,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: these are critical things that people want to know all
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the time. Uh So it's really really important, especially a
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: wellness program now you know it does a behavior study
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: in the thirty it so if you have someone at
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: all timers or something like that, you can put out
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: a system and say, hey, I want the wellness. We
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: turn on a little button and then we introduce the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: wellness and it tracks what time you get out of
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the bed, what time you get in the bed, what
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: time you open up your medicine cabinet, and if you
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: leave out to do it two o'clock in the morning,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: it knows that that's not your behavior. It's gonna tax
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: your loved ones and say, hey, you might want to
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: check on mom and dad because they're doing something that's
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: not normal. Wow. You know, it's really interested just hearing
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: your your energy, hearing your approach to this. When I
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: look at technology, you know, and you're absolutely correct that
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: app because I can open my ear and my business,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I can open them by gate. I can close the
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: gate and can keep it open. I just love that
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: feat you. I can look at all the tin cameras
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: in my building. I love that feat you too. And
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: then I can I can turn my alarm off, turn
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: it off. My employees arrival that I can turn off
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: the alarm they leave, stay late, I can keep it on.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: But that's those those gadgets, man, you know, look at me.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I'm happy. I'm happy. So you you're absolutely right. Gadgets
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: a drive Americans, okay, right, control your garage door opener,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and all kinds of other things, you know. But when
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: you get back to the young ladies question, I started
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: thinking of some stuff, you know, because I'm six or
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: six years old, and when I came up, you know,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I my mother. I followed my mother around, you know,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I was able to see, you know, colored men, colored women,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: and I used to ask my mother, why can't we
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: go upstairs? So that's white only, you know, And then
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: that kind of gave me impression why why why? You know?
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Then I really wanted to do better because I wanted
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: to show them I can be just as good as
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: any of the process. So says don't teach critical race
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: theory in schools. You know, if they don't want to
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: do it, you should teach it at home. You should
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: let them see what the past looked like, so they
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: all know what the future is in front of them.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: There's so many people went ahead of them to open
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: up these doors. The opportunity is there for you. Now
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you have all the opportunity just in front of you.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: You need to take advantage of what Dr King matholm
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: X all these people struggle to make sure you have
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a better opportunity. You need to see that. So a
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: lot of these movies, they need to take them back
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: and let them see these movies and take that phone
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: away from them. Don't let them be hooked on the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: phone twenty four hours a day, seven days a week,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: you know, because if they don't have a good conversation
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: or they can't communicate very well, they're gonna have problems
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: in life. Absolutely absolutely communication skills. So you gotta take
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: that phone out of the kid's hand when they're coming
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: up as a younger person to make sure they don't
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: lose out on the communication skills. We know. I want
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I wanted to fall call about self education. Educating your
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: kid and self education like My degree is in mathematics
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and my minors in sociology. If I had to do
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: it all over again, I probably would. I might degree
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: of being sociology, probably gonna get a PhD. Because of
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the fact that what I learned from a from a
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: from a black history, black cultural I learned so much
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: when I realized that how much information isn't taught in
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: public school. You know, basically, they talk about slavery, they
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: talk about I always mentioned the cotton Gin, they mentioned
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: a couple of things. They don't mention that blacks participated
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: in World War One, World War two. And then it
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: goes up to the Brown versus Board of Education. Then
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: it talks a little bit about Dr Martin Luther King
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and then then he could then John F. Jeff King
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: gets assassinated, Then he gets assassinated, Robert Kenny gets assassinated,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: and basically kind of like stops and that education, what
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: you're talking about is important because of the fact that
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: you cannot let people dictate your knowledge. And that's what
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I learned in sociology. I would tell you, Mr Brown,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I was so moved by about my ignorance of what
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I had contributed as a race of people and not
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: being denied that information is scary. And that's all you're saying.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Knowledge can change a child and an adult's approach to
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: life if you take it in and accepted and also
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: seek it out. And that's what you're saying right now, correct, right,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Because knowledge is power, Someone's gonna always say that knowledge
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: is power. The Bible said too much is given, much
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: is required, So that means you gotta do something to
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: have something. The spirit is inside of all of us,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: and all we have to do is and act it,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and then God opens up the windows and make it happen.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: So if you, you know, as a man thinking, so
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: is he. So if you're thinking of something all the time,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the spirit is gonna bring people around you to make
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: that happen. You just gotta be open minded to see
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: it happening. You know, you gotta be open minded and
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: know that you're blessed you and you you're a child
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: of God on this earth. So when I started my
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: business and people say you were crazy be queening your
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: job if you making sixty dollars a year, and back
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: in those days that was a lot of money, I said, no,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna start my own business because I've had enough
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: of white America. I Am not going to continue to
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: get these big bonus checks at Chrystmas time. I know
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: how much money's got to be making. So I'm gonna
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: start my own business. And I started out of my house,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: just like most people do. You gotta start at the basic,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: you know. I turned my living room into a conference room.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I died in room into a meeting room. I turned
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: one of my bedrooms into an office. I turned my
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: garage into a comfort into a warehouse, and I turned
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the back porch into a training facility for my kids.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: And I took off from there, and within three years
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: later I started meeting people like Mr. NH. Brother who
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: became a mentor to me, Mr H. J. Russell back.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: You know, you know those people really wanted to help
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: as many African Americans as possible. You know there are
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: people out there to want to do that. But if
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: you if you bring the clock back to right now
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and you say, okay, what's going on at the trade
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: jobs because a lot of us they won't teaching in school,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: and that that's a that's a big failure for all
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: our politicians right now. Because if you go to the
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: ib W, where I came out. You're not gonna see
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: that many black electricians. You're gonna see spannings. They're not
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: teaching the blacks the electrical, the plumber, and the op
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: entry because they don't have to do that anymore. They
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: was mandated to teach us that when we came up,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: so a lot of us. When we learned the trade,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: you learn how to do job costs, you learn how
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: to do takeoffs. So you you were talked how to
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: run a business in a certain way, you would talk
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: these things. So when you say, okay, I'm gonna talk
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: my business, you already know because you already talked how
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: to read blueprints, you know, things that you really needed
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to know in life to be able to propel in
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: this world. So you know, it's unfortunate there that when
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: you look at Georgia Power and some of these companies
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: out there, if you pay attention to the people who
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: working on these trucks, they're not that many African Americans anymore.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Where generation, for three generations, there was a lot of
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: African Americans doing these trade jobs. So you always say
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: kids are going to college, eight percent of our kids
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: are not going to college. We are not focusing on
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the eight percent of the kids that just don't want
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: to go to college. I was not college material, so
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: me learning the trade, that was the perfect thing for
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: me because I was good with my hands. Because when
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: I came up, we worked on our own cars. We
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: changed our own transmissions, we were putting our own we
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: change our own tires. You as a kid that they
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: to change the time. Pretty funny about called triple A.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Look at the app. They're gonna look for that phone. No,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: that app? You know, you know, you know. The beauty
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: of talking to you, Mr Brown is that um, you know,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and I consider myself a knowledgeable person, a person that
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: has a lot of excellent life experiences. For wow, you
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: are a wow guy. You are a pie piper of
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: information and and and it's really and I say that
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: with with genuine uh happiness because of the fact that
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm sixty four and you're sixty six. And
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you know, people always say people get stung when I
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: tell them that age, because you know, I'm gonna be
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I would tell people, don't use ages an excuse. You know,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: live your life. Fifteen I was I was a diagnosed
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: with cancer and it's fortunately I'm living my life I'm
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: living life, not because I was diagnosed with cancer, Because
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I'm living my life because life is allowed is God
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: to give me the opportunity to live. And when I
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: look at you, I want to let you know, Please know,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I don't want this to be our last conversation you
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: uh you know it once a quarter if I can
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: get you on the show, just just motivation. Please come on,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Money make a conversation. When I call you, Mr Brown,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: please don't shot me out. Okay, that's not a problem.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: I've gone through what you've gone through. I've gone through
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: cancer three times. I know it's in the food that
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: we eat. Our neighborhoods of food desert. We've got to
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: eat a raw vision vegan type diet. You know what
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: our grandparents grew up on that never even knew what
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: the doctor looked like. Absolutely, you know I fought those
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: battles and I know exactly what it takes to now
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: continue to keep my body here because uh, you know,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: uh on the show so we can tell le story.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I gotta run, Sir, You've been amazing. Thank you for
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: coming on Money Making Conversations and masterclass. Macy your A Brown.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having you're awesome. Thank you,