Pat “Bulldog” Bendure

Count money, man.

Money back riches.

I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I'm going to be a bug.

What's up gang?

Welcome to another episode of The Grindcast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

And we got a special special guest in the house, my friend,

Pat Bendoor, AKA the Bulldog in the house.

Thanks for joining us, Bull.

My pleasure, my pleasure, my pleasure.

My man.

So you know, it's always a special day.

And we got an opportunity to have people on The Grindcast.

We don't just have anybody on anyway.

But it's really special when I have an opportunity

to be on here with someone that was a part of the come up.

Somebody that watched me in my first year,

somebody that was my right hand building my first ever

satellite office.

Both of us just built with super confidence

and also a sense of nervousness.

Bulldog had his life on the line, started in our business

a little bit older than many people.

You know, a lot of times we have people starting out, you know,

20s, mid, you know, early 20s, no family stuff like that.

Bulldog started mid 30s, married already,

and started out with me working in Cleveland,

which is the first office I worked in.

And within our first year, Bulldog and I, Pat and I went

to Columbus with only two other people

and started an office in scratch, from scratch together.

So both of us are, you know, kind of still learning in our first

year, a lot on the line.

You know, I'm early 20s, 23 years old.

He's mid 30s, married and very talented.

You know, came from being a business owner at one point,

was in the Bar and Night Club industry and transferred over

into our business.

And I remember watching him, you know, when he, when he first

started in the business, when I didn't really know a lot

about him, what stuck out to me about him was two things.

One, he definitely looked like the police for short.

Definitely looked like a cop had had the nice, the high and tight

cop haircut with the cop, cop glasses on, end up rubbing off

on me. I ended up getting myself a pair down the road.

But he got the cop glasses on real mean mug face.

And so I ended up nicknamed him bulldog for a reason,

because he had that scary bulldog look and face.

But the other thing that stuck out to me was he was about his

business.

He had some discipline to him that was different than everybody

else.

Everybody else would be in the office and they'd be BS and

around all the time.

And he was just no BS head down, master in his presentation,

master in his script and completely focused.

Comes out of the gates his first month, blew everybody away.

It was over $20,000 in businesses first month.

Now mind you, this is when, this is 15 years ago, when people

weren't writing that type of business consistently with

inflation, the average deal size, you know, at that point was,

was probably half or a little bit more than half the current

deal size now.

So that would be like doing 40,000, 50,000 nowadays in his first

month.

And so just super special.

And for him to follow me, you know, when I asked him to come to

Columbus, you know, with us, I knew he had family in Columbus.

And ultimately, love the city of Columbus.

I knew I had a fighting chance to get him down there with me.

But there wasn't too many other people I would have wanted

right next to my side.

For some reason, you know, this man's mid 30s, you know, well,

well, well, well, older than me, more experienced than me,

and just just gave me a sense of loyalty, coachability,

have my back at all times, executed, never question stuff.

People see a lot of what he has right now, you know,

wife, two beautiful, beautiful children,

Kylie and Jacob, it's just been amazing to watch.

And I remember hanging out with Bulldog and,

and I got to give the right background to this.

You know, this is a longer intro, you know, for me,

but I got to give you the right background to this.

You know, I remember his vision of wanting to,

to be in a position to provide for his family

and his wife was working, working really hard.

I think she was overseeing.

She was like the HBIC of a, like a halfway house.

And she had a pager, you know, on her at all times,

was on call all the time.

So if I was hanging with Bulldog at his house, you know,

in her first year and that pager went off, she had to go 11 o'clock,

12 o'clock, nine o'clock, you know, didn't matter.

And she at that point was the main income earner.

And Bulldog's vision to me was a little bit bigger

to what her vision, you know, was she wanted him

to just make 20, 30 grand and family was going to be fine.

And he would tell me on the side, my goal is to retire her

and take our family, you know, to the next level.

And so fast forward time, he's done more than take their family

to the next level, man.

He's taking a lot of other people's families to the next level.

He's grace the stage multiple times internationally

for this company as an RGA, as an MGA has absolutely dominated

when before there was weight classes.

This is like going back to when you watch the original UFC,

you know, back in the day where you had skinny dudes,

fighting big fat dudes, you know, 400 pounds, there was no weight classes.

When we came up in this business, there was no weight classes.

Now there's all divisions for MGA's and RGA's

and small guys going against small guys

and 10 people can make it on stage.

And I think that's awesome.

But when we came up, there was no weight classes.

It was either you were number one and you were on stage

or you weren't on stage, you know, at all.

And multiple times, you know, he graced the stage.

And so I think, you know, first thing I want to start out,

you know, asking you, you know, Bulldog is to talk a little bit

about our come up, you know, what you saw,

what it was like, what you think made a special, you know,

we took that office in Columbus from zero to 100,000,

you know, we were popping 100,000 dollar weeks and less than a year.

What stuck out to you?

Talk a little bit about our come up.

You know, it was in the beginning, it was when you came in the door,

it was like small thinking like you had mentioned, you know,

my wife had said, you know, if you can make $2,000 a month,

we'll be good.

You know, in my head, from everything I saw, everything I was told,

it looked like I could do that a week.

You know, and I had gone on an interview circuit coming out

of the nightclub industry as you put it.

Would a college degree, 15 years of business experience,

I'm going on interviews, trying to do something different

and nobody would give me a shot.

Like everybody wanted two to three years of experience,

two to three years of experience.

And in my head, I'm like, well, how do you get experience

and doing something different if nobody gives you a shot?

You know, so I came in to one, two, three, zero, one,

Ridge Road and everything looked different.

Like I saw people high five and I saw people walking around smiling.

Like I was used to the nightclub business where it wasn't like that.

It was like, you know, you got to eat

and that's the bottom line, no matter what it takes.

But I saw people happy.

I saw a different culture.

Everything felt different to me.

It was like a world of positivity.

You know, I was almost like it was too good to be true.

But everything I saw was like, you can make $2,000 a week here.

And all you had to do was find, you know, one person,

that was what my head was like, I got to find one person

having success here.

And then I know it's possible.

But I walked in and saw a lot of people having success.

And then there was one individual that I saw in my first meeting

get a $23,000 bonus for the month back when we had monthly bonuses

not these weekly things.

A $23,000 bonus and a guy had a blue velvet suit on.

I knew the blue velvet suit had to come out.

And you got blue on today too.

I appreciate it.

It feels like we're back.

But either way, I saw this guy do it.

And I was like, that's it.

If he can do it, all I got to do is do what he does.

Say what he says.

The only thing he's got on me right now is he knows a little bit more.

And this was like back into the day when you were straight out of Youngstown

like within your first year.

Yep.

Baggy suits.

Yeah, so baggy suits.

The whole deal, MC Hammer.

Caddy.

The whole deal.

The Caddy's in the head.

With the 48 NTV.

Play around.

You was like, I see.

You pulled up and had the coolest sunglasses I'd ever seen.

At that time, and at drop top, BMW, I know you gave to your mother.

Yep.

So I was like, initially, you know, people judge people from the outside in.

And then as I started to force a relationship on you, like I was like hiding outside doors

listening to anything that you would say, I wasn't even on your team.

I'd pop into your meetings.

I remember you like holding up that $250 gas card that would get us a $200 bonus for

right in 6500 back in the day.

You would hold that up and look at me and be like, what's this guy doing in my room?

What's this guy?

Like you had the number one team.

So it was like, I got to roll with the winners.

I had to force that relationship.

You know, and you said I look like a cop back in the day and you look like somebody back

in the day that some that cops should be looking at.

No, no.

But everything was above board.

Everything was great.

So I had to force myself a relationship with you through my production.

So I knew if I went above and beyond, like the eyeballs would go my way.

And when I first came in, I just wanted to go to work and come home.

I was done being a leadership ownership, worrying about everything, everybody.

Like I wanted to go to work and I wanted to come home.

And then real quick, like within a month, I got promoted.

And then we started moving things.

And it started growing, started winning awards, started leading from the front, set the

bar high.

And then when it came time to the Columbus happened, it was like, it had to happen.

It had to happen.

There was probably nobody in the world I would have followed other than a 23 year old at

that time kid from youngstown, Ohio.

And everybody in the world told me I was crazy.

Within six months, sold my nightclub, sold my bar.

And we started from scratch with just a vision in the dream.

No doubt.

And I know you said all the time it was all a dream.

It was all a dream.

And the dream came true.

And the dream came true through a lot of sacrifice and crazy work.

I think we worked every Sunday while during football season, both of us football lovers.

12 to 8, we're at the office, call the resumes, setting appointments, getting to jump on things

with Tim Clark Country.

Country a college teammate of mine.

Tim Clark was also a father, older had a bunch of experience.

But we wanted to do something special.

And then we had like one.

We started out with one office, one small office.

That is big as this carpet.

So when people go nuts over like office space, sometimes we had like one phone, one or two

phones, then we got two offices and we're running everything out of shared office space.

I mean, six months in the game doing 60, 70,000 all the weeks.

We had two offices in a conference room.

We had to mark down for the whole office that we could share.

And what do you think sticks out to you on what we did different?

Because even to this day, to go from zero to 100 in your first year with three or four

people is unheard of.

What do you think stands out?

I think the bond that we had, the loyalty that was like almost instant that happened.

I feel like God puts the right people in your life for the right reason.

For some reason that they brought us all together and something magical happened.

Something magical happened that I don't know if it ever be duplicated again.

But I mean, the class that we came in with is all over the country leading the whole company

to this day.

To this day.

So I think that the thing that we did, we were so together and we could just tune out

the noise and we knew we had a common goal, a common vision.

And there was absolutely nothing that was going to stand it our way from accomplishing it.

Now you've been in the game for, I mean, I just gear off myself.

I know I'm 16 years in.

So that I'm coming up on 17.

That tells me I know you're over 15.

You might, are you 16 years?

Going on 16.

I'm on lap 15 right now.

Okay.

So 15 going on 16 years.

And what would you tell the bulldog of, you know, 15, 16 years ago?

What would you tell that bulldog sitting here right now?

What would you say to yourself?

I would tell them just like you thought back then that you could trust in your leadership.

You could trust the vision of Mr. Sirace, Marcus Smith, and Simon Areas.

You know, everything they told you is going to come true.

And it did with a lot of hard work and a lot of sacrifice.

Nothing ever came easy.

Nothing ever fell into our lives.

Amen.

We made it happen.

The, you know, the one thing that sticks out to me to this day about you is just another

level of loyalty, you know, not just to me or the organization, but just to your friends,

you know, just people that you are close to.

You know, me and you have talked about losing, you know, friends that were close to us.

We never thought would already be, you know, passed on.

But just the way that you take care of people and the loyalty that you have for people

is the type of people that I like to keep myself around.

And I think that loyalty has earned you a lot of your success.

And, you know, right now, you know, as a partner in the organization with, with Sirace Smith

and, and Officer Hartwig over there, the, the renewals that you were able to build up to

yourself before you even became a partner.

What was your renewal amount you, you were getting before you became a partner?

Before I became a partner, it was on average, right around 25 to 26,000.

25,000 plus a month in renewals.

Now that's what you were supposed to make in a year.

That's what Kelly wanted you to make in a year.

Every time we get a renewal check, I tell her I bought a year.

Paid up for the year.

Come on.

Paid in advance.

Come on.

Crazy, man.

What would you say are the key traits because you've developed a lot of leaders now over the

years?

What would you say are some of the key traits to some of the best leaders you had an opportunity

to coach?

You know, the people that I like to surround myself with the most really care about the

people that they're entrusted with.

Like we're here all the time when you're a leadership, it's a selfless position.

And it truly is.

You have to care more about others than you care about yourself.

You know, when you can take someone from walking into the door, flat, broke, busted inside

and outside and then turned them around, I don't think there's any better feeling in

the world than to have a part of that.

Like I've got several in my organization that came in with nothing.

But now I see.

Cats buying their dream houses. I see them driving nice cars. I see them

Becoming husbands becoming fathers. You know the first hire I ever had is still by my side today

And I take great pride in that because in our industry that there's a lot that happens and most people that start with you

Don't end up finishing with you and I've got quite a few that have been along the whole ride and I take great pride and see in them become

Amazing fathers amazing family men is still excelling in business as well

To me that's what leadership's all about is caring about other people first on the flip side

You know you've also had an opportunity to see people that had the talent that were good and didn't end up making it long-term or they would fail

What what sticks out to you about those people?

I think you know a lot of people that come in and don't have instant success like we're in a now society

Like if you send somebody a text message and they don't send it back in like

Two seconds like three minutes later you like what's wrong with this person five minutes later?

You're like pacing ten minutes later. You're getting angry like people put the phone down every now again

So I think people people give up too soon

People come in and like if they don't have success in the first three months or like I got to find something else

You know you wouldn't want it to be me to first three years in business

You know what I'm saying like you would not have wanted to do that

Today, you know, but later on it's worth it so at the beginning there's like that imbalance towards work in any company

You go to there's gonna be a lot of onboarding there's gonna be a lot of learning process

But it's tilted way towards business and work at first

But but the thing kind of levels out like I'm working harder now than I ever have

Now that I'm a partner because my name's on the wall. I take great pride in that

However, it's a different type of work. Yep different hard. Yeah, it's a different hard choose your hard no doubt

You know, I hear you say all the time you could have an easy life now and a hard life later or you could have a hard now and easy

Later we had a hard at the beginning no doubt we had a hard at the beginning

And I'm not saying it's easy now, but it's a different kind way easy now. Yeah, wait, wait, easier now

But you know, why don't you talk a little bit more about that man?

Like you talk about what were you when you say it was hard, you know, in those first first couple years

What was that like what were you thinking and then give somebody the encouragement to know what it's like now

You know, we're just like me and you I'm still working hard

But it's different, you know, what things can you do with your kids? What things can you do with your wife?

What times can you get home if you choose to now because of how those first few years played out?

Absolutely. I think it said a foundation. At first it was difficult when I came in because I was used to be in the owner

I was used to calling the shots. I was used to leading the direction and I came in and it's like I got to understand that I'm a baby here

Like you put me in the nightclub biz back then I could I could lines around the building

You know, but then when I came here was like I don't know anything. I can't walk. I can't crawl

You know Mike Bassu was just in my house and got baby Troy in there and and like you had to do everything for baby Troy

And it was the same in the business. I didn't know anything

So I had to kind of reset and I had to understand that if if you told me the wall this wall is blue and I'm looking at a gray

Gray wall. I'm like, all right, cool. It's blue

Now I didn't question anything. I always wanted to run the plays that were called

To the tee. I wanted to be the most coachable player

Sometimes in my head, you know, I'm like, I don't know if this is gonna work

But they keep telling me everything they've told me has come true

So I kept kept running the place kept running the plays kept running the place and the place just started stacking up

And stacking up and everything kept growing

So it was a beautiful run

Through that. What would you say you're because we're still growing we're still learning

You know every few years I look back and say man, I wish I knew three years ago what I know now

What would you say you're better at now than you were five years ago that has impacted you definitely patients

Definitely patients. I've you know, I was listening to a podcast on the way over you know to three-hour drive

I listen to podcasts the whole way

And it was like understanding that like one of them was like your your your driver perfection is

is

hurting your relationships

So a lot of times, you know when there's different levels of leadership

If you if you're an eight and you got you know, five's with us along the lead like you can't expect a five to be an eight yet

Like I got I've gotten a lot better at seeing people for where they can be and not necessarily for where they are and

Understanding people are gonna make mistakes

And back in the day, I would just snap you know a little bit of a temper

You know, and I've really worked hard on getting that and not sweating the little things but making sure the little things get done

But not as it's you know just understanding and giving more grace

I feel it's somewhere I've went especially when it comes to patients same for sure same I've definitely been

I've grown your lead on it where I've grown in you know that yeah

I'm every laugh about it all the time a little red red dot Simon would get on his head back in the day

The veins coming something's happening. Yeah, it's on

What what what what what have been some of the obstacles?

You know that you could

Think about that maybe you've had to overcome on your journey over the last 15 years

Man, you name it. We've seen it every time I think something can't happen

Crazier that we've been through somebody finds that another level of

Crazy that the situation arises. I mean, I've been through it all from from deaths

to to suicides, you know to to be trail

To to to you know the greatest of times

Everybody sees the good it's like social media everybody. It's the highlight reel

Nobody put in the struggle out out there, right? You know what I mean?

So people see social media and that's an obstacle

These days in our industry people making one thing look like it's it's a pot of gold

When really you get there and there's a bunch of bunch of rusty pennies in the deal

You know, so you got to be careful of of

What you look at out there on social media. It's a huge obstacle. I feel today

It can be a good tool

And it can be a bad one at the same time. So double that sword

I've did so many things have come up, you know

It's you name it we've been through it. I know you're just what's the mindset when these things do come up that maybe

Somebody could adopt to help them get through adversity really to tune out the noise

You know that like when horses are racing?

You know, just a analogy you taught me back in today. They have these these blinders on so they can't see to the right

And they can't see to the left

You know, you got to have a clear vision and you got to know where you're going

And there's nothing in the world that can stop you. It's like the Steelers last year

All they kept hearing about was Ben's washed up Ben's washed up Ben's washed up

Well Ben was good enough to get that team who had no business getting to the playoffs to the playoffs

But imagine being in that locker room even imagine being Ben

Here in all the noise knowing everything you've done for the city everything you've done for the organization

Turned your life around and all he keeps hearing is this this and this

But the locker room inside. I know we've both got friends inside that locker room

They just tune the noise out

So you got to be able to have tunnel vision and keep going towards your destination and run your race

And not necessarily run

somebody else's race

Speaking about, you know running your race, you know, I think two of my

And I want to ask you, you know, if you could think of you know if it was just somebody had

A poster you picture you and said man these are the two words that that he kind of is most passionate about that

I would describe him with you know like for me, you know

I think my two words that are most passionate about talking about

If somebody says hey all right, go under your head man pick two things you want to preach on you want to talk to people on you want to teach on

That's your passionate about that you wouldn't have to fake and pull from somewhere

My would be discipline

And sacrifice, you know, and how those things really pull together and anything that you want to do to get you to where you want to be

What one or two words would you say stick out to you as something you're passionate about talking about

First one would would be

Discipline because it takes discipline to do anything like there's times. I don't want to get up

There's times. I don't want to go at it. There's times. I just want to sit back a little bit

You know yesterday, you know my son had a football game

And I had to sacrifice that to get over here to be with my teammates and we had a dinner at night

So I had to sacrifice that it took discipline to do

that

And then you know the second word that that I would I would say it is relentless

You have to be absolutely relentless and your pursuit of success however you wanted to find it

Mm-hmm like there's nothing in the world that will stop what do you mean by relentless?

That's it that we just I just had a friend of mine professional MMA fighter Jake Lowry was on he just

One of his words he chose was relentless

Describe what you mean by relentless to me to to be relentless is is like nothing will will will shake

Nothing will rattle. I mean I've been in highs. I've been in lows and I know Roger Smith was on the podcast

You know a few weeks ago and he said the highs are never as high as you think and the lows are never as low as you think

When it comes to business you got to be relentless in your pursuit

You can't get rattled you can't get shook you can't get rolled

There's gonna be obstacles, you know, you're your person that's closest to you right hand

One day might not be there you never know

So you got to be relentless in your

Development of the future. You got to be relentless of your of your pursuit of your vision

Nothing can shake you when when you're at at the top as they would say

Amen

Maybe in in closing if if you could you know, maybe give some advice to somebody listening out there

That's starting in our business, you know, and they want what you have they they want to live the life that you have

You know currently right now

What are some words that you can give somebody in their first couple months or even just somebody that's an entrepreneur in a business in general that they haven't quite made it yet

And they're just kind of getting rolling and whatever it is that they're doing what what words of of closing advice would you give them?

You know, you got to find people that you look up to

No matter where you're at in business or in life

You know, I always have someone that you look up to you always want to see good good mentor

You know, so like I'm still chasing you

You know, I'm not where where I want to be

I'm not where I'm gonna be

But I'm never gonna stop trying like I'm still trying to get to Simon's level

You know, I've been blessed to be a partner for going on four years now

And you've been on your own for almost 14 years. So you got a decade on me still

You know, but I still look up to you every single day

I still want to make you proud

You know, and I appreciate our relationship in that regard you got to find somebody like that

You know, you got to find somebody that models the behavior that you want you got to find somebody that you look up to you

You got to find somebody that you can you can trust and in this world it's hard

Because you never really know but there's a few individuals, you know, that you know, you can trust

You find those people and you just listen to every word they say

And trust everything that they do

It really just follow the plan that they lay out

You know, I heard one of the first things I heard was trusting your leadership

You know, and back in the day, you know, when it was it was I mean mr. Sarathe how could you not trust him?

You know, I never met a millionaire before I came to this company. He was the first one I ever really met

You know, and I had a certain mindset of what a millionaire looked like

Yeah, and acted like and he was totally different

You know, and then that was passed on to Marcus which was passed on to you which was passed on to me

So carrying that torch of your mentors, you know, I don't think there's a higher life changing

You know for us, you know

The model and the picture, you know of that, you know, just like you know

We both were raised blue collar your dad your family was firefighters and you know my family was in the union in youngstown and

And you know my art you know my picture that I got a people that had money was like

snooty snobbs say no good don't care about nobody

And it couldn't have been the opposite

Any more untrue than what that what we found in in Jim Sarathe that would be like a father figure

You know to me and a mentor to so many of us of just the servant

You know leader caring about people teaching us how to give of ourselves teaching us how to give of money of of our resources

Humbling us, you know teaching us that the world ain't all about us, you know

It's it's about not just pleasing the world. It's about pleasing God and and what that's done for us and how we just you know

Even though it'll be tough to ever reach the level of

Of the type of character of Jim, you know that just striving for that, you know, has made us all you know better people

And and Marcus, you know, would have would have just absolute beast and genius in the business, you know

Savage even Marcus is softened up, you know over the years the Marcus we got now as hard as is he is

That's that's about half the Marcus that that uh that we came up with and and how much is that blessed us

You know coming up in in the in that tough

You know the closest to Marcus really understand his heart no doubt

If you really know his heart then you know the tough times

We always know where where it's coming from no doubt no doubt

And we'll out forever grateful for Marcus as well

Amen, amen me too

And you know, I just just you know to wrap wrap this up man

I just want to say bulldog. Thank you for your time and thank you for your friendship friendship years of loyalty

You know, I think the real test, you know for us was what we already knew to be true

You know, I know when when I left Columbus and to come to Pittsburgh

Something I wanted to to give back to the organization that had given so much to me is I would have never ever

Left if I didn't know that my next person in charge was going to take that thing to places that even beyond what we were able to take them to

With me being there. I would have never left

Sarasmith without knowing that somebody was going to be in a better position and that the organization was going to be just fine

You know without me. I owed those people that much and uh you made it easy on me

You know, I knew you had everything down. I knew your heart, you know was right and uh you know

Even though we were only in business together for a short period of time less than two years

You know, we were we were in business together

We knew we had a relationship and a bond that went beyond you know business and

It proved to be true after that

You know when no money was being made off of one another and and uh nobody that you had to impress and nobody

I had to take care of to make money on our relationship got better our relationship grew

When there was no money involved no reason you know for us to be in business

And I really value that man up

value as a person, as a friend.

It's been really awesome to see what you've done,

what your life, what your family,

what your business and for so many other people.

People hit me up all the time, messaging me

and about mentorship and guidance.

And that's what really started the mindset

for me and Marcus to start to cash money mentoring thing.

It was a good thing, but it was just overwhelming

to have to say no, no, I can't.

I don't have time.

I'm already struggled to get the people in my own business,

the amount of time that they deserve,

let alone going out and giving other people

that aren't in the business time.

And so we started cash money mentoring.

And so I just wanted to remind folks that are listening.

If you know people that need help,

that need some guidance and mentorship,

Marcus Smith, the guy that brought me and Bulldog up

and myself partnered in cash money mentoring,

you could check it out cashmoneymentoring.com.

And it's just a place where we come a couple of times

a month to try to give guidance and mentorship

to people that are looking for it.

So thanks for joining us, Bulldog.

Thanks for everything you do for this company.

Thanks for joining us, everybody,

on another episode of the Grindcast.

Get ready, it's a new day.