$147 Million Exit Gone Wrong: Eric Cline Reveals How He Lost Everything and Rebuilt His Life

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The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex 54 min 3 speakers transcribed
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Eric Cline 0:00
we jumped into the timeshare exit space. First company we ever started, built it up to where I had over 150 W2 employees in my office. We were doing 34 million a year. We were netting 12 on that. My wife and I own 67% of the business. That's 8 million a year. Now my dear friend, Don, he goes, have you ever thought about selling this thing? No clue what he was talking about. I didn't know you could sell a business. And then we started getting offers in. We had offers from 147 million to 92 million. I'm like, how the hell did we build something? I want to get closer to God. It's always been something that has been very confusing to me without any shadow of a doubt. A guy like me without something out there looking over me doesn't make it at this table.
Paul Alex 0:49
Hey, guys, and welcome back to Level Up Podcast. This is Paul Alex. And today we have another phenomenal guest. He goes by the name of Eric Klein, guys. Eric Klein is with me. He went from hitting rock bottom to building and selling multimillion dollar businesses, guys. Yes, it's about to be another one. And he's trained thousands in real estate sales, in mindset, and he's the founder of Run It Remote and the Refuse to Lose brand. Guys, we're going to dig deep into his story. He has a phenomenal story, dude. I've been following him for quite a while. He's part of Andy Elliott's Brotherhood. I mean, that's our connect right there. And I can't wait to tell you guys more about Eric. Eric, welcome to the show, brother.
Paul Alex 1:26
Thank you. Appreciate you for having us out here. Thanks for coming out like right in early, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, from Fort Lauderdale to Miami, traffic is insane. It's on another level, dude. Dude, when I first moved here like two years ago, man, I come from California. So I was like, there's no way it can be L.A. traffic. And, dude, it's horrible.
Eric Cline 1:44
It's comparable.
Paul Alex 1:45
Yeah, bro. It is actually way worse. I'm like, Jesus Christ, right? And I ended up buying a home like 30 minutes away in the sticks, bro, because I want to land, right?
Eric Cline 1:54
Of course.
Paul Alex 1:54
I didn't want to be in Brickell. And, dude, hour and a half traffic down. But it is what it is.
Eric Cline 2:00
Yeah, man. It's fun, dude.
Paul Alex 2:02
So Eric, let's dive deep into what you currently do right now. Let the public know. What is it that you do right now?
Eric Cline 2:09
Awesome. So I am in the real estate space, primarily the wholesale industry, real estate acquisitions. I do flip homes. I do have rental properties. I don't talk a lot about that part of it because my partners handle all that. Yeah. And then I have a call center run at remote out of Pakistan, which is, I'd probably say, the biggest company I have right now. We have over 500 employees in that office, 15,000 square feet. We service the real estate industry, home services, and a couple – like hard money lenders and an insurance guy, we offer VA services. And it's that company here over the next 12, 24 months, we're really getting focused on growing and scaling that up.
Paul Alex 3:05
Okay. And is that a business that you've been in for quite a while now?
Eric Cline 3:09
I have had that company for just over two years. Two years. Yeah.
Paul Alex 3:14
Okay. And when did you start your entrepreneurial journey?
Eric Cline 3:19
I was a year and a half out of treatment, went into treatment at 28 years old. So I was 30, I'm 44. So I've been writing my own check for 14 years. I love that, dude.
Paul Alex 3:34
That's admirable, dude. I'm in the game myself for a little bit over five years and I still wake up and I tell my wife, dude, I'm just like, dude, it's such a blessing to be able to work for yourself. And it goes by fast, bro. Super fast. It goes by super fast. And I tell people this all the time. It's just like the next five years, we'll be here next year. So when you're talking about, dude, next 24, 48 months, I'm like, bro, it's going to fly by.
Eric Cline 4:00
And I've been through it, man. In the 14 years, I've had some really high highs, and I've gotten kicked in the nuts hard. With 2019, the very first company I ever started, In 2019, after having it for about seven-ish years, we were getting ready to go through a pretty sizable exit, over $100 million, and ended up...

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