The Quiet Millionaire: Joey Battista’s Rules for Money and Life

Today, the best way to do in business is you should always be clipping the bottom 20%, right? Whatever it is, it's just healthy, good business. And I didn't know that when I was younger. It can't be emotional, right? You know, it's just got to be really matter of fact. Sharp, established, dominant. Our guest today is a titan of the automotive industry. You are the change you wish to see. Joey Batista is CEO of AutoGiants Mitsubishi and president of AutoGiants Nissan. How's that for a good morning, right? Two powerhouse dealerships based in Virginia that have generated over $1 billion in total sales. With nearly three decades of industry experience, Joey has built and scaled multiple brands across regions. Welcome to MindCon. You guys are my people, my tribe. He's built company culture defined by innovation, excellence, and high performance. Going into a deal, creativity always wins. As a speaker mentor and coach, Joey is now sharing the wealth of experience that took him from the trenches to the top. Roll up your sleeves and go put it in the work. Get ready. This conversation will redefine what you believe is possible in leadership, business, and financial success. All right, guys, welcome back to the Mellow Millionaire. Today, I got Joey Batista in town. Very great to have you on. I got a whole big intro for you. Uh-oh. At the age of 21, Joey became an entrepreneur. By 24, he was a self-made millionaire in the automotive and commercial real estate sector. But when 2008 hit, he lost everything and found himself at rock bottom. He let people down, including his family, and was forced to confront the hard truth. Success isn't about just making money. It's about mastering business. I can't wait to hear your story, brother, and I'm glad you made it. No, man, super excited to be here. I mean, that's pretty much you nailed it. That was the story. I guess opening up with that. I started out in business when I was 21 and the commercial real estate thing kind of happened by accident. I bought my first dealership. I went in and I bought it on the back of an Apkin. I remember, and this is really where you get into creative deals, is the guy came in. He's like, hey, I want $300,000 or $3,000 a month for it. And I said, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you $3,500 a month and I'm going to pay you with an option to buy for $350 for $39 months. And you give me the first three months for free. And then, boom, that property was ended up scoring and that ended up being it. And that was that. And so I was a young kid that made money and didn't know what the hell I was doing in business. What are your philosophies when it comes to business when you get started? So one of my core philosophies would first, you got to know what the market pays, right? You know what I mean? A lot of people come in and they want to get into business and they have these dreams. And even if you really succeed in that business, you don't really win what you want. The money's not there. Some of these businesses just don't make a lot of money. I start out in automotive and I hear you all the time talk about net. I know you put a lot of money to the bottom line. But the car business isn't like that. It's razor thin profit margins. So you have to be an extremely good operator. If you're not, you're dead. So that being said, as I look for new businesses, when I started in business, the business was more profitable. The margins were fat. There wasn't, you know, the internet. There wasn't all the other tools out there, right? So what happened was is the business was more forgiving. So I made more profit and then I could go in and I could learn the skills that I needed to learn. A lot of these businesses, you can't even go in. If you don't already possess the skills, if you get into a business with thin profit margins in it, the business isn't fat enough in order to give you the money that you need to develop the skills that you need. So I would look for a business with good profit margins or a business where I had transferable skills in. Talk about how you came up and just what was the family like and what made you so eager at the age of 21 to jump into a deal? So my dad was like, you know, the classic Italian, you know, he was in the restaurant business, the nightclub business. That's where I got the entrepreneur drive. When my dad, he told me, he said, look, he said, there's only, there's only basically one of three things you can do. He's like, I'm going to leave you a little bit of money when I die. And it wasn't a lot of money, but at the time it was a lot of money, like we don't have anything, right? But he's like, you can either go to college, you can buy a paid for house, or you can go into business for yourself. If you go to college, you can only go if you're going to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, anything else. I'm not interested. So you go to college, you become a doctor, lawyer, an engineer, or you buy house cash, or you go to business. And that was the thing. I wanted to be an entrepreneur from the time I was in high school and, you know, like early, late, middle school, high school, and them going around the room and saying, everybody's what was talking about what they want to do. And I was like, I didn't even want to be in school because I was like, I know what I want to do. I want to make money. I want to be in business schools for people that don't know what they want to do. I know what I want to do. I want to go make money. I want to go into business. And that was kind of that came from my father and really instilled that when we were kids, we would cook dinner, you know, Italian dinner, stuff like that, regular normal family dinner, and we would go for go get ice cream and we would go for a ride. And my dad would take me around town and he would go in and he'd tell me everybody's story. And he'd say, Hey, this business here, this is a good business. Let me tell you why this business here. This is a bad business. Let me tell you why. Right. So it was those trips to go get ice cream that really, I mean, and even thinking about it just wants to make me get choked up because it was so magical in the aspect. I'm so grateful for me. It was like the best time of my life. Like when I go in there, there's nothing in my life that really was better than those times. So for me, my father wanted me to do this, right? And that mattered to me, you know, so that's really what it was. I mean, there are people that work to live. There are people that live to work. I just enjoy what I do. I built the job I love, but I don't ever feel like I'm going to work. What was it like for you in the early stages of grinding? You know, so my dad died. Might would have been my senior year in high school, right? He died. Everything he didn't have a state plan or anything like that. Everything went into, you know, right? You know what I mean? Just the classic everything. So, you know, everybody fighting over money. Everything was like being thrown to the wolves, right? And for me, it was like being thrown in the mud. So for me, when I first started out, like it was like, I knew I had to make money, but it was about becoming somebody. Even in the car business or business entrepreneur, it gave me an identity to be somebody. I didn't want to be counted out as insignificant. I didn't because that's how I felt when that happened and I was at that point in my life. I felt insignificant. I felt like I didn't matter. I felt powerless, right? And this was my, I was never an athlete. I wasn't good in sports, but in this, I could do it in this, I could win. There was no other way. Like it wasn't up for negotiation. It wasn't like if this fails. I think that's the biggest thing. Like, and you probably know this. I think anybody that goes in that's ever going to be a successful entrepreneur, like you can't tell them they're going to fail because they're not like, they're just going to keep going. And so it happens. Yeah. You know, right? You work through it. You work through it. Accidents that happen. I had to close four markets in one day, hardest day of my life. Like you got to pick up the pieces as they come break glass along the way. It's like, look, you're going to go bankrupt unless you do something. So you do it. 100%. Right. And I think that's a really good point because this is where, um, and obviously, you know, I had a bunch of used car stores. I exited them because we were talking about a plan. I had another plan. I was going to do something different. I got into the, you know, coaching and doing events. So it changed my path. And so that plan didn't go. But, um, that was the big thing is the superpower was, I think the old way of doing business was like you buy something, you hold it forever. You never let it go. You associate it with failure. But today, the best way to do in business is you should always be clipping the bottom 20%. Yep. Right. Whatever it is, it's just healthy, good business. And I didn't know that when I was younger, but like to your point where you said it's like, it can't be emotional, right? You know, it's just got to be really matter of fact. I had to work really hard to not be emotional with that. Right. Yeah. Like it came really late in the game for me and it cost me a lot of time, energy, money and everything. So like, I'm proud of the fact that now I have the, you know, like you said, it's hard to do. It's not easy to go, you know, people's lives, pride, ego, time, commitment, everything is not easy to cut it. I was talking to a guy recently and his name just escapes me. But he goes into dealerships that are failing in terms of around overnight. Like he's, he's the guy that goes in, he rehires, he trains the sales guys one time, one guy at a time, not Andy Alley, by the way. And he walks in and I said, how do you figure out who to hire? And he goes, you got to have a track record. History is the same thing as the future. So you got to bring in a stub. You got to say that you are a state champion. You got to have something to say, you know how to get to number one because past equals future. 100%. You know, I take guys, they were pretty good athletes, maybe, but they've got a competitive spirit. Like we're really good at identifying competition. Like if they're not first, they're angry. There's other people that just like, at least that wasn't last. And those aren't the people we hire. Like I'm the most competitive SOB you'll ever meet. I saw that I read your book and I saw everything like how you do it. It's like, I was like, man, this guy's really killing it. Like you're really everything spot on. Like you're doing, you're, you're living it. You're doing it. Well, what, you know, there's a lot of smoking mirrors out there. You, you meet these people. You go on their podcast. They drive a Range Rover. They got a big house that they're renting that, you know, they're, they're in debt up to their ears, but they live this persona. I'm just who I am. I don't really care. And one of the things are that this guy said that fixes dealers, he goes very, very, very, very few real leaders out there. Cause leaders are focused on the mission. Leaders don't care if they hurt feelings along the way. Lead, you know, the, I'm reading this book. This is the second time I'm reading it. Courage to be disliked. And this whole idea of like, look, the mission is what drives us is like winning drives us and no one's going to get out in our way. And a very few people have that ability to focus on the mission so much, but people get behind you in a big way when there's a strong mission. My legacy is not going to be how much money I made or how many grozers I fixed is how many lives I affected in the positive way. When I shook your hand, you were more successful. Maybe you moved on. And it's like, by the way, making money and keeping money is a different skill. What are your thoughts on that? It's funny, you know, you go abundant scarcity, all these things. So after going through what I went through at that time, I was low eight figures net worth at that time going into 30 years old, right? And I lost it all and going through that. And it was the most pain I ever felt in my life losing the money, like just the whole process of it. It happens quick too. Yeah. It happens quick. So then I went the other avenue, then I went the other way. All I did for, you know, 15 years was hoard, not I didn't hoard cash. I bought assets and I, and I lived very and I still live modestly, right? Like my life is modest. Like I don't live, you know, because until I can do what I want to do without pressure, then and I always fast, as soon as I get there, I want to do something bigger. And then it's like, so now my thing is, I didn't necessarily know how to invest the money when I was younger and how to get the bigger returns. Now I figured out the compounding, right? Like I know how to make the investments. I know how to do it. And that has been a lot of fun for me. The name of the game is just to be rich. When you talk about money, like, no, money's not going to be it. I'm right there with you on the impact. I'm an impact junkie. I want people to be better as their result of their association with me 100%. But the goal is to, you know, is to be rich and not to look rich. And I think a lot of people go in and they have it, you know, the opposite. Well, it's one of them things like, you know, you don't have a Ferrari, so you're not rich. Right. And one of the things that I told bankers for years when they would come in and see me, you know, because in the car business and commercial real estate, you're borrowing big amounts of money. Right. Like you're a 20 million, 30 million, you know, 8 million, like you're not asking for 600 grand. Right. You're asking for a lot of money. And I would always tell the bankers when they came in, they would walk into my office and I'd say, did you see my Ferrari out there? And they'd say, no. And I'd say, that's why you're going to give me the money. Right. Because I don't have one. There was a guy, there's a guy in California who's a billionaire told my brothers. He said, listen, he said, I went in, I was looking to, you know, put together a few hundred million dollars. And the one thing on my financial statement that they came in and asked me about was my boat. I was spending a million dollars a year on a boat and it pissed me off so bad that I got rid of the boat. I got rid of the boat and I only run them whenever I go somewhere. And it was the same thing. I remember when I ran into that problem in 0708 and I needed money, you know, I had two big mortgage payments and I went to a bank. Yeah, I was leveraged, you know what I mean? So the thing is, I guess to give clarity to the question is, yeah, you have to do the whole, like what people say, you have to make the money, then you have to turn around and invest that money. And then when that money comes back, then you can do what you want to do. That's my thought process on it now. I'm going to show you something that I do every day. And it's the thought about money, but I live in Chatchi B.T. And if I talk to her, she'll talk back. Watch this. Hey, if I put $20 million into an investment with a 22% internal rate of return in 10 years, how much money will I have? Hey, if you invest $20 million with a 22% annual return over 10 years, you'll end up with quite a bit. Using compound interest, the formula is future value equals principal times one plus rate times years. Plugging in the numbers, you'd get around $146.1 million. And I build these scales all the time of thinking about different internal rates of return. Like the mega wealthy, you know, I don't want to put myself in that bucket, but I think like this. I think, how do I get more principal and live off the interest? And by the way, you don't get access to the, if when you spend the money, you don't get access to the interest. I'm building a really, really bad-ass boat, but it's handcrafted wood. And every single year for the last 25 years, these boats have gained 7 to 12%. Boats lose money. Anything that floats flies or... Yeah, yeah. This boat goes up in value. I bought a DeLorean, but I got it done like back to the future. Goes up in value. I got kit from Knight Rider. Stupid stuff. So certain assets, I look like, what is my mom's 70th birthday worth to me? To be able to spend and have all my family spend the night that all of her best friends come into town. Like, time is important because my buddy John Rulan, he wrote giftology. 47 years old. Three daughters on a hike died. Three daughters under the age of 15. Got to live along the way a little bit. Absolutely. You know, and I will say, I'm always saving for tomorrow, but I've learned to say, man, maybe I just got to do, like, you got to do both. And it's hard to do both, but living below your means is super smart because money does not really create happiness, but it gives us options. What is your take on money? Well, so here's the thing. You know, I'm in my twenties. My expenses were a million dollars a year, right? And I used to joke and say, Hey, a million dollars a year, I don't have gas money. And what happened was that I had, you know, I had the cars, I had a driver, I had a maid, I had the house, had everything. But what I realized was when I had that, it didn't mean as much to me. I'll give you an example. If I go, you know, if I don't, I don't have a Ferrari, but I go buy a Ferrari, I pull my Ferrari outside. Nothing in far as possessions, nothing owns me. Oh, I'm not going to be the guy wiping it off. I'm not going to be the guy that's like, this means this is meaningless to me. My parents got a divorce when I was seven. That's one of the reasons I said I was going to work hard. I said, I'm not going to let money split up my family like it did when I was a kid. Because I listened on the toilet through the drywall and listening to their, you know, master bedroom. And I just hear them argue about bills and that's what tore them apart. And it was money. It was always money. And it doesn't always have to be that way, but my dad wanted to give us everything. My mom was more of a realist and my dad worked hard, but didn't understand how to save money. My mom did. And I learned from that. Now I like to do is build enterprise value. Like, dude, I started a business. If I don't have a, if I don't have a path in every business that I'm involved into a billion dollars, then that's a failure. I've got a whole family office full CFOs and like the deal structures and lawyers and tax advisors. And the higher the right way, build the C suite. No longer will I ever, you have your own family. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. This is the last time I'm ever, ever, ever the CEO of a company. Never again. You know what you think Warren Buffett wants to be the CEO of a company? Or do you think he wants to own the course? Not. No, yeah, you got me. Richard Branson, you think it's top down now you build the right guys, they build the team and you put it a little direction in there. One of my favorite quotes. Everybody wants the views. One wants to take the hike. It's painful, man. 100%. You talk a little bit about integrity and business. And in my first book, the home service millionaire, I talk about creative justification. Certain people could justify just about anything. I had guys stealing from me and they like in the box with the lift master, you know, the opener. At a certain time of season, there used to be two remotes in a keypad that came. So I'd buy a ton of them because I'd get an extra remote keypad. Well, a lot of the guys said, well, he gets them for free. I can give those out and make some money. They knew darn right they were stealing, but they condoned it in their brains. I think a lot of times integrity is a really weird word because it like love. What is your definition? Some people say I love you to everybody they meet. Some people on the first time they meet you, they go, I love you, man. But what's your definition of integrity? What does that mean to you in business? Do what you say you're going to do. Contract is stated. Everybody's all four pushing the limits. But, you know, like you said, with sales, I don't if I have to, if I have to alter your belief in what you're getting from me in order to get your money, that's not integrity. I do believe there's this thing called ethical influence. And that's what Robert Chedini, one of my buddies, the doctor, the best psychologist on influence in the world. He's got seven forms of influence, wrote the book influence, getting the yes. And he talks about if I teach you this, you cannot use this for the evil. And the number one way my favorite thing about influence is this idea of commitment. Now, if I commit to you, I need to commit in front of a lot of people that hear me commit to you. I need to sign off on it. It needs to be my commitment, not you telling me what to commit, but I came up whether it's KPIs or whatever the commitment is, then I need to see this commitment that I've had to do every day with the people that I showed, the people that I care about, whether that's mom, my sister, my fiance. So all of a sudden, when people say on social media for everybody to see what they're going to do, that's a way deeper form of commitment. So I love the idea of commitment in public and constant reminders. I think when you see, right? So one of the things like I looked at some of your stuff right now, I always tell, there's certain words that people say and you just know they're the real deal, right? And you know, because they liars can't even lie it. Even if you gave them the script and had them say it, they can't say it, right? So the thing is, it's like when I saw, I saw you and I was like, oh, yeah, this guy's this guy's the real deal. You can see it in how you think, right? And how you're doing everything. Well, I'll tell you what wasn't always that way. I never faked it, but you know, it was my life has been a bunch of failures compiled to create success. I keep falling forward. But the deal is Jeff Bezos wrote this quote. He goes in baseball. The most you could hit if you hit a home run is getting four runs, but in business, you get a thousand runs on one hit. Although the chances in business are 1%, I'll take those odds every day. He says and great business minds take chances and they do a B testing and they're always trying new things and every once in a while, because I failed 20 times more than people even are afraid to go up to bat. I had a lot of home runs and they start to compound and that's why like some people say ready, ready aim, aim fire. I'm like, fire, fire, fire, fire. I've already missed the target and started hitting the bull's eyes before the guy loaded the gun. So I think that's a big deal. So you grew up in sales. This is one of my favorite questions that I don't even ask it as much as I should, but you know, I've got my thoughts on this, but how do you identify someone that's going to be very, very good? And I hate the word sales because it's got a bad connotation to it, but what do you do when you want to recognize somebody that you know, it's just when you meet somebody, you're like, wow, this is an all star. I need to get this person on my team. One of the traits are being thick-skinned, right? You know what I mean? You have to be able to handle some adversity and people have to be driven. Right? I think the energy I have met salespeople that are good, that don't have a lot of energy, but the energy with the people, they have to have the drive, right? Like when I, when you see people, you know, because a lot of times, you know, it's follow up, it's going above and beyond. It's retention. It's all these other things. And if you want good professional salespeople and salespeople normally are horrible at process, they're horrible at all that, you know, good salespeople are the best salespeople are, but they find a way to the things that matter. Right? They let the other things go. And I think even from a leadership aspect, you learn to let them go, but I think the biggest things, they have to be driven, right? Some people are just driven for it and have thick skin. People have to be hungry. And also, I also, I do like the aspect of where people are running from something. Like I want to see somebody that has something in them that no matter what, they can't live with it. They want it. And the people that have that ingredient in them, the chip on their shoulder. Yeah. The chip on their shoulder. Those are the people that are on stop, you know, I'm with my team in Cabo and I had this speech and most of it was like, look, it takes a team, you know, all the wives that are here, like you push these guys, cause it's all guys that my technicians and I'm like, you push them so hard to be a better person and they push you behind every great man behind every great woman. And I'm like, you guys mean the world because I know without you supporting and asking how their days and push them and they don't hit their goal. San. It's okay to work Saturday. Like it's and I came from where the humility and just gratitude standpoint and all my guys go, dude, are you getting soft? I go, maybe, but I just feel very, very fortunate to have you guys in my life. And I got big plans. I'm like, listen, I'm going to show you guys how money works because you guys are all going to be millionaires and I got such big plans. All I need you to do is stay focused. Don't and I told everybody, don't buy the canam. Don't buy the new truck. Like it's okay to finance things for your house because that's an investment. But I'm like, look, all of you guys want to keep up with the Joneses and I'm like, man, let that money work for you. So that's my plan as a teacher. Everybody that works here at this company and I got a whole plan on how to do it. I got three questions that I ask everybody on the show that we'll finish up. Go ahead. What's a piece of game changing advice you wish you knew in your 20s? Piece of game changing advice. This is going to sound crazy to you. The most important decision that you can ever make in your entire life is who you decide to be with your significant other. There's nothing more important than that, right? Back to that support thing you were talking about. I don't think that's something that is actionable for everybody and it sounds simple, but I didn't get that piece right in my 20s and I have a right today and my life is totally different as a result of it. So that's a game changing piece of advice. What are your millionaire habits? The routine that sets apart from the rest. What is something you do, something you read or a daily atomic habit, if you will? I have to declutter the noise in my head is loud. My routine is simple. I'm up every day, four o'clock in the morning. I go to train every day and I read. So I wake up at four, I drink, you know, two cups of coffee. I read from four to four to five, fifteen, go train. Last question here. If you had to start over with $10 million tomorrow, what would you do with it? This is going to sound crazy to you, but one of the things that I would get involved in some blue collar business because I know that I speak the language with the people and I also know that disruption isn't coming. Yeah. Right. So the thing is, is I would get involved in something, some sort of business like that. I would not reenter automotive. Automotive is a very, it's a very tough business. If you're not, you know, consolidating it really, really, and, you know, the barrier for entry is very high, but I wouldn't redo automotive. I would probably get into something, you know, home services, something like that. That's what I would do. I love that. You know, it's funny to me that my buddies are in real estate. My buddies that do software that had a hundred million dollar plus exits, they're calling me all the time, like I'm thinking about getting into a track and roofing and gutters. And I'm like, it's crazy to me. I'm like, listen, I'll help you as long as you want, but just know it's different than software. It's different than real estate. Like it's just a different. I speak blue collar and it's nice because it used to be shameful. I'm a garbage. Yeah. I'm a garage. Sure. And now it's like, dude, you want what I have? Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, you got to think I'm in a sales and service model. I've been dealing with technicians for 30 years. So it's like, and technicians are different just like you said, right? Texts are different than the other side of the business, right? No. But once you speak that language and it's built into you, just who I am. This is so cool. I want to keep in touch and I really enjoyed myself today. Thank you for being here, Brad. Absolutely. All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to this episode. Like always, we're going to close it out with the Tommy truth, which is a little slice of wisdom for me to you that can help guide you in whatever you're striving towards right now. A quick story for me about failing is I got overzealous. I tried to go into too many markets at once in my garage door business. I didn't have the leadership. I didn't have the training. I didn't have the marketing figured out. I just tried to grow so fast. And one day a buddy came into town, looked at my financials and told me I got to close four markets. It was humiliating. It felt defeating. It was embarrassing. It was so miserable for me. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to face, but I closed those four markets, gave everybody a relocation package and learned a grave lesson about expanding too quickly while not focusing on profit. I was too focused on revenue. I never repeated that mistake, but I feel like if I didn't make that mistake, I wouldn't be where I am today. Failure isn't always defeat. It's great to fail. You just learn a better way to not fail the next time. And that's it, guys. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you.