S2E6: From Government Contracts to Philanthropy: Michael LeJeune's Story of Purpose and Success

Seth Waters (Co-Host): Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Purposeful Prosperity Podcast. I'm Seth Waters and I'm here with Jack Smith. And you know, Jack, Jack is an entrepreneur, founder, investor, and world-changer. Jack, excited to be with you today.

Jack Smith (Host): I'm excited to be here, too. Thanks, Seth.

Seth Waters (Co-Host): Yeah, we have a good conversation, a really great conversation with Michael LeJeune. And it was really good having him on the podcast.

Jack Smith (Host): Absolutely, absolutely. What a big heart and a vulnerable share.

Seth Waters (Co-Host): Yeah. You know, during the conversation, Michael talked about his efforts in Maui and the idea of intentionally finding ways to connect with difference-makers rather than just throwing money at an issue. For purposeful leaders, Jack, how important is it to find specific ways to make a difference rather than just throwing money at a problem?

Jack Smith (Host): Well, I think for all of us, it's important to understand the difference we want to make in the world. And you can do it a couple of different ways, right? You can throw money at the big guys and the Red Cross and the Salvation Army and all the big names, but they're big entities. And I think for entrepreneurs, we always ask the how-can-I-make the biggest impact with the minimal amount of effort, right? So, that every ounce of effort we give gives that much more amplified impact. And I think for us as entrepreneurs, we have to ask, how does that make that dollar work the hardest? And can I do that there or with those local organizations? So be curious about where your dollars go and make sure how quickly they find the people who need it most. Especially in Maui, there's going to be a very big risk of big businesses coming in and buying up the family properties and things like that that have been paid off for years that now need to be rebuilt. It's very important if we want to keep Maui as Maui, to help support the locals there and his share and the organizations are working with are handing dollars directly to impacted Hawaiian families.

Seth Waters (Co-Host): That's really good. Staying curious. And you talk a lot about that, Jack. You talk about how as entrepreneurs, purpose-driven leaders, we have to stay curious. I'd love to hear just a little more about that.

Jack Smith (Host): Well, I mean, curiosity is all about outcomes, right? So you're not- why did they think that that was going to be the right answer? Why was this happening? And the more you understand the “what's” and the “why's” and the “where's” and you're curious about the impacts and not just the window dressing, look behind the marketing and look to the humans that are leading it and ask those deeper questions. That's what curiosity is really all about. It’s, you know, I can throw a check at anybody, but if I ask a couple of detailed questions and I understand what they're doing and how they're motivated, that's really kind of what we started the podcast for - was to shine that light on them.

Seth Waters (Co-Host): That's beautiful. One of the things about Michael that really stood out was his vulnerability. He talked about his personal experience, about domestic violence, and some other things. How important is vulnerability with purposeful leaders?

Jack Smith (Host): Well, I mean, that's actually the whole point, right? We're always trying to create the change that we want to see in the world. And if you have a change you want to see, the only way to inspire passion is by sharing the pain that caused the motivation, right? You'll hear in one of our other podcasts that we say first through fear, right? And you have to face it before you can get through it. And the only way to do that is by being vulnerable. And as leaders, the more we share our vulnerability with our people in our message, with our customers, and why we want to make a difference, and you know, that we're members of the community as well. I think that says a lot about us as humans. And I think that vulnerability is the key to heart-centered leadership.

Seth Waters (Co-Host): Yeah. Well, that's really good. I'm excited to hear more. Let's jump right into our conversation with Michael.

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Jack Smith (Host): Welcome everybody to Purposeful Prosperity. I'm excited today. I've got Michael LeJeune from RSM Federal, and he's here to tell us a little bit about how they create prosperity for others and what they do with that purpose. So welcome to the show, Michael.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah, thanks for having me, Jack. I really appreciate it.

Jack Smith (Host): Absolutely. If you could just tell our audience a little bit about who you are, what RSM Federal is. I see you've helped your clients win over $14 billion with upbeat. I'm going to say that again because I had to read that twice before. $14 billion with the government contracts you've helped your customers acquire. Tell us a little bit about that, please.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah. So, you know, Josh and I, my business partner, we found each other about 20-something years ago. I was looking for a sales guy. I was in my first sales role. I hired him to do some sales. And it was at a time where you didn't have Google and all these other great tools and websites to go and learn this stuff. YouTube wasn't really a thing back then. And so we had to learn it the hard way. So he and I learned it the hard way. He did a really good job of packaging everything we learned. And then we kind of went our separate ways for about a decade. Then about 10 years ago, we hooked up and said, “Hey, let's take everything we applied and start teaching other people how to do it,” because government contracting is a great space. Most people don't know how to do it. So we did that. We packaged it up into an online tool so people can go in and at a very reasonable price, learn the whole thing by themselves. They can get coaching from us or one of our coaches. And as you said, over the last decade, we've helped our clients win a little over $14.5 billion in government contracts. Those are direct awards. There's another $30 billion on top of that in IDIQs. We've trained almost 24,000 people in government contracting over the last decade. We have about 2,500 clients right now. We've written four Amazon number one best sellers in the market. So when people ask, who are the people to trust in this market? We're like, well, I think the numbers speak for themselves. We have a really good track record of helping people do this. And for us, part of the passion for us is just helping people not go through those same mistakes. Because I just told a story the other day of how when we were learning a lot of this very early on, you know, you're not making a whole lot of money while you're trying to figure out the market, while you're trying to build a brand, because, you know, your overnight success takes about a decade plus, right? And there's some tough times, you know, through that. And I remember during those dark, tough times where there was nobody to talk to. I mean, I went to talk to, we were going to this little church. I went to talk to the pastor and he just looked at me, deer in the headlights, man. He's like, I have no idea how to talk to you about your problems. I can't understand your problems, right? So I'm like, well, if he can't understand it, well, man, I'm really in trouble here, you know?

And so- but I found that conversation to be something that was coming up all the time where people were struggling and couldn't figure this out. And it's like, let's stop people from going through all of that pain, because there's a lot of pain when you're a startup and, you know, you're not sure where your next check is going to come from. And if you're going to have the money for groceries and, you know, I've had, you know, my kids overhear, those conversations with my wife and I am- I don't want that for anybody else. So that's one of the main things that drives us. We're also veterans. So we have a huge veteran support side of what we do. We support all the veteran events and the VA and things that they do. So, Josh is a service-disabled veteran. I'm going through the process to get my service-disabled status as well. And so, huge support for veterans.

Outside of that, you know, I went through some really wild stuff in my youth and I was actually a victim of domestic violence. So, my first wife was very abusive to me. And so, I wound up running a nonprofit that helps domestic violence victims. I ran that for, gosh, almost seven, eight years before I finally passed it on to another president. So that's a passion of mine where some of the money goes. We've been helping the homeless in New York for probably a decade. My wife goes out there all the time and does kind of the street mission stuff there, which has led to- we have a team in Dallas that we support. We have a team in Maui that we support. So my wife's probably going to be in Maui because that's really shaking things up with everything going on in Maui right now. So there's a lot of little things that we get to support because of the money we make. And some of it is purposeful, like you say, where it's like, hey, we wanted to do this. And some of it we kind of stumbled into. And now it's become more purposeful in our life of, hey, now that we're in a position to help, you know, let's give back financially. Let's give back with our time. Let's give back with our platform so that people know about it. And yeah, that's a little bit about us.

Jack Smith (Host): So I'd like to touch base with you a little bit more about what you guys are doing in Maui. So it's near and dear to our hearts, so I'm kind of curious about it. Obviously, they had a tragedy that happened there recently. In fact, I'm getting married in September. And my wife and I, or will be my wife, our honeymoon has been planned to be at Maui forever. We got engaged in Maui. It's one of the places in the world that really touches our heart and the community that we really feel connected to. And so we're going to be going over there in like a month or so. So we're looking to get connected. Is there anything that maybe you can tell us about what you guys are doing in Maui or things that they could do to help? I know that they're really suffering right now.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah, and I say we're helping. I mean, it's we've financially supported some folks over there that that it's a Maui rescue mission. And, you know, their focus was- the people that started it came from the relief bus in New York. And they were just basically providing like food and assistance and things like that to people on the street. And then they went to Maui. several years ago and started the Maui Rescue Mission with the focus of trying to replicate exactly what was going on in New York. Had some difficulties doing that. It's a little bit different environment, you know, and so today they do provide a little bit of food, but it's mostly resources and showers. So there's like mobile showers and things like that because those are resources that are very, very difficult. And so given everybody who just became homeless, right,  there was a lot of people with homes who are now homeless, you know, the need for that has accelerated a lot. However, like you can't even necessarily get the services to people because of just, you know, burned-down cars in the streets, right. So there's, there's still a big cleanup effort going on there. You know, we, like everybody else, we've been asked not to come yet, you know, cause it's just so difficult to move people around and resources. So it's probably still early in the game as we're recording this today to get in there and help them. But, you know, the Maui relief effort is probably the one we support the most, but I think most people don't realize, Hey, this is a tropical paradise and, you know, everything's perfect. And no, there's a lot of homeless people there. And when you're homeless in, or on an island, there's not a lot you can do about it, right? Like you're not just going to move to another state, right?

Jack Smith (Host): You can't go find a job somewhere and hop on a plane and go to work.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah. Yeah, you've got to hop on a plane. You got to hop on a ship. There's no just walking. ‘Cause like in the U.S. you'll see people literally walking from state to state and doing their thing sometimes, but that's just not the case or hopping a bus, right? You can get a $50 bus ticket and go halfway across the country.

Jack Smith (Host): Right.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): You can't do that in Maui, you know, And so they're just kind of stuck there. And so that's the biggest thing is understanding for a lot of people, just bringing the awareness that there are problems in this paradise. And, you know, there's some really good people on the ground doing some work who mostly need financial support. You know, they're struggling to pay their bills cause they have a heart for this stuff and they're doing it full time and they're struggling to pay their bills so that they can continue the mission. And so, for me, a lot of it's about awareness and eventually occasionally we get to go out there and do stuff.

Jack Smith (Host): Absolutely. And more money, more mission. We say that here. I borrowed that from one of my mentors at Pride Industries, Mike Ziegler. And we've really kind of adopted that here. So that's right in line. And that's kind of why I wanted to get it out there, right? There's a lot of conversation about how to best support the folks in Maui right now, because they're obviously visitors or how they make a lot of their income, too. So if you don't come, it's a complication. And so I was just wanting to know you're a little bit more on the ground. It's great to kind of hear from folks that are working directly there.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): So, one other thing I would say, yeah, Maui rescue mission. The one thing that I would say that people don't realize is yes, you can give to the Red Cross and a lot of those big organizations. And there's some trickle-down effect, but I typically look for who are those on the ground people like that, that are small organizations because that dollar that you give, a hundred percent of that makes a difference where it's direct. Again, nothing about bad about the Red Cross, but you may put a dollar into there and maybe 20 cents make a real impact in that area. ‘Cause there's so much other things going on, but it's dollar for dollar a lot of times in those small organizations. And when they're trying to grow and they're a five-person or a 20-person organization, a lot of times they have matching you know, benefactors somewhere. So they- their benefactors want them to raise some money. So it's not just them donating. They're like, hey, you guys raise some money and whatever you raise will match it. So those dollars often it's a, it's a 1:2 ratio. You donate a dollar and somebody else is donating a dollar or $2 or whatever. So it really makes a big impact when you give to the small on-the-ground organizations like that.

Jack Smith (Host): I love it. Thank you for helping us shine a light on that. ‘Cause I know for, for us personally, it's been kind of the challenge of where do we put our resources to be of most use rather than just saying, hey, I threw some money at the problem and now we're on the next thing.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Jack Smith (Host): Wonderful. Well, you have one of the top podcasts for government contractors. Can you tell me a little bit about how- what your podcast talks about, and maybe how- your purpose for that?

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Sure. Yeah. So about nine years ago, we were sitting down, writing articles like everybody else in the industry, and I started saying, we're putting this out and nothing is happening. Like literally nothing. It's just cricket. So I did a poll and I found out for us, this is kind of like the, you know, the what's-in-it-for-us side of it. I did a poll and I was like, wow. So people who read articles, even if I can guarantee them a 10x return on their investment, aren't likely to ever spend a dollar with us. Whereas podcasters, if they were listening to that and I could guarantee him a return on their money, they were almost a hundred percent in on investing in coaching, training, that sort of thing. And so like, I'm going to go to the podcast route. So we dove into the podcast route and almost immediately we had people, “Hey, this is really good,” and giving us really good feedback. And so we doubled down on it and started really investing time and energy in the podcast. And it was really, it became just a platform for me to, as I was saying earlier, just communicate with the market. You know, this isn't that hard. There's some very simple fundamentals. And if you stick around and listen to the simple facts here, you're going to go really far in this market. And so, we know, again, we've been doing this for almost eight years now. We've got, you know, half a million plus downloads on the podcast, which I know that isn't a whole lot for a lot of people, you know, like the Joe Rogan.

Jack Smith (Host): That's not a space everybody's listening to.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah, yeah. It's not a space everybody's listening to, but you know, we have our own little, you know, spin on it. You know, I'm not the buttoned-up suit and tie guy that's going to get in there and you know, talk to you very specifically about regulations in the government or any of that kind of stuff. I try to make it a little more lighthearted and fun. And you know, we just have a good time doing what we do, communicating with folks and teaching them the market through the podcast one-on-one. And you know, it's become a foundation for even our books. So I have a book coming, another book coming out in the spring and a lot of the content from the podcast is being translated over to the book. So, yeah, the podcast probably one of my most fun things to do, and gosh, I don't know. There's so many things I could unpack about it I don't know if you've got any specific questions about it, but I'd be happy to kind of dive in any area.

Jack Smith (Host): Well, we talked a bit about purpose and prosperity and I mean, your passion bleeds through all of those things. So I think we've kind of really covered the things I was hoping to kind of pull out of that from you. So, you know, I love what you're doing. You're giving back. You're making the world a better place and you're making government contracting easier and more approachable, which is the whole thing. You're about to get a customer after this episode, I'm pretty sure, because I really love what you guys are doing and how you make it approachable and the give back and all of that. So I really appreciate it. Is there anything that you didn't get a chance to share with our listeners that maybe you'd like to tell them a little bit about, either RSM or your podcast or something else randomly we haven't talked about yet?

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah, you know, we just crunched the numbers the other day and we were going through and looking at our client contracts because a lot of our stuff is service-based. It just happens to be – it's probably 90% service, 10% product. And that's just the ratio right now. It's been the other ratio before, but we were crunching the numbers and we were like, “Man, how many jobs have we created?” And as we were going through and counting this contract, and that contract and everything, We estimate that we've helped create about 100,000 government jobs in the last decade.

Jack Smith (Host): Say that again, Michael.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah. So, 100,000 jobs in the last, a little over a decade of being in business, just based on the contract values and how many people are on each contract, anything. And it's like, that's- we're really big on metrics. And we just figured that out the other day. And we're like, wow, that's pretty awesome. That is, you know, I hadn't- I didn't realize it.

Jack Smith (Host): So that's impact, right? Like that is the culmination of that as to why we do what we do. It's the people that we feed, the families that we feed. We talk about that a lot here at Fortuna.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, for a lot of people, they think unless you're hitting numbers like that, they don't- you aren't giving back, but to circle back real quick to the domestic violence program that I was part of for almost seven years. So, when we started with that program, they had a little Facebook page. It had about 350 people following it. And when I wrapped up, we had almost 20,000 people, because guess what we were doing? Video, right? We're doing video and marketing on their Facebook to bring people in. It was only about 90,000 a year in revenue coming in. When I left it, it was about almost 600,000, somewhere in there. But that translated into people getting help, people escaping bad situations. And in that county we were in - we served a county of about 15,000 people - and in that county, you know, when we started the program, it was helping about four people a year. So four women a year, and families get away from bad situations. When we left, that number was almost a hundred. And, you know, it's one of those things that doesn't sound big, but even one- like if I would sit here and tell you stories of what happens in domestic violence situations, it would boggle your mind that in 2023, this stuff is still happening. And yet it's happening under your nose right now.

It doesn't matter what income level. So people are like, oh, that only happens in the trailer park. No, no, it happens- there was one person in a town, which I won't mention the town or anything, where the mayor of the town was abusing their spouse. The mayor, and we just happen to know that person and, you know, was trying to help them get away from that person. And so it doesn't matter socioeconomic-wise, what people, what situation people are in, what background they came from, whether they're educated or not. That's an area where people just think, oh, well, that doesn't happen unless you're poor or, you know, you're uneducated or whatever, man, it affects everybody. It affects people, literally your neighbors in any given place. And so to help just one family is a huge impact a lot of times. And so you don't have to have giant numbers like 100,000 employees to make a really big impact - right in your backyard, right in your neighborhood. And sometimes people need as little as $500 to get there, you know, a little bit of food, a little bit of gas money, and get out of a situation. You know, maybe they need to drive six states away to some family or something like that, or relocate through an escape plan. That may be all they need is $500, and that's a game-changer for some people.

Jack Smith (Host): So if our listeners know of somebody in a situation like that, cause we talk about impact all the time. I mean, you want to talk about for that one person that you changed their life for that family, it's the biggest impact in the world. So what can our listeners do to help if they know somebody in a situation like that right now?

Michael LeJeune (Guest): I mean, the one thing is keep your eyes open, right? And start a conversation with them. Because a lot of times, one of the first things that happens in domestic violence situation is whoever the abuser is, they try to cut that person off from family, friends, everything. They try to isolate them as much as possible. And then they go to work on the mental aspect, the physical aspect, any of that kind of stuff. So, starting a conversation, let them know you're friendly. You know, that's a good place there. Try to connect them with services. Every community has some services there. So maybe it's a car ride somewhere because maybe they don't have keys to the car or whatever it is, right? Try to keep it off the radar. And then look, if they need some money, I would much rather give $500 for a bus and a plane ticket or gas money or whatever to somebody than again, $500 to a big organization. It's like that's such direct impact. So maybe it's $250, $500 to get them a little bit of food, some gas money and get them out of the situation. Because if you can do that, that's big. But I think it starts with just being friendly with that person so they know they've got somebody to listen to what's going on and just be there.

The final tip I have on that is that, try not to get frustrated because the average person who's trying to escape often takes multiple attempts because they're so afraid of the situation, what they're going to lose, that it may take them a year, six, eight, ten attempts before they actually break free and do it. One of the last ones that we worked with, it probably took my wife three years of on-and-off discussions with her and her kids, and her kids were friends with my kids. And on-and-off discussions before she finally said, all right, enough's enough, you know? And we were able to help her get out of that situation. But, being patient is another one because it can be frustrating where you're trying to help them. You know that they can get help, but they keep going back because they like, they just don't know another life.

Jack Smith (Host): It's fear, right? That's a part of that. It's a dependency that they create. And so you just have to be patient. That's a learned behavior.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah. It's wild, man. It's so wild.

Jack Smith (Host): I know more about that than I'd like to admit. So I'm familiar.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Me too.

Jack Smith (Host): So I appreciate that, Michael. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing that with our listeners.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): You're welcome.

Jack Smith (Host): You are the quintessential definition we talk a lot about this podcast about making a glocal impact. I talk about making a global impact at that local level, and you've hit both, right? 100,000 jobs, that's everywhere. And that tactical impact of what you're doing for families and people in domestic violence, that's wonderful. And thank you so much for your time and for sharing your wisdom. And of course, showing us the way in the government contracting space, because this place is crazy. Every time I think I understand it, I don't.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Yeah, it's a pretty wild space, but it's fun though.

Jack Smith (Host): Well, I appreciate it very much. Thank you for sharing yourself and your time. Appreciate having you on.

Michael LeJeune (Guest): Thank you.

Jack Smith (Host): Thank you guys for tuning in to Purposeful Prosperity today. Thank you for granting me a minor indulgence. I appreciate you listening to a project that we're deeply passionate about.

Please tune in next week where we'll introduce you to another amazing entrepreneur doing world-changing things. Until then, please like, follow, and share, and please keep doing good in the world. Thanks for listening.