Today we’d like to introduce you to Brendan Coughlin.
Brendan, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Yeah, so I went to Mizzou for undergrad. Before that, I grew up pretty middle class, although money was always a challenge. My parents did well at their jobs, but they never had much in savings. They divorced when I was young, which made things tough for both of them.
At Mizzou, in order to graduate from the business school, you had to complete an internship relevant to your degree. I was a business marketing major. I got two offers, and the one I chose, I thought, was a marketing internship. Well, it ended up being a door-to-door (or business-to-business) sales job—making cold, in-person calls to local businesses in my college town. We were selling print coupons and ads in a student planner that was handed out at the beginning of the year.
This company, AroundCampus, had a genius concept—about 125 teams at different college campuses. They made the majority of their $25 million in annual revenue during this 12-week brutal internship—underpaying college students and giving them, in return, internship credit and minimal commission.
I had never really sold anything before. I was working at bars as a door guy, cook, or bar back—mostly for the social scene. This internship rocked my f*cking world. I struggled hard during the first 2–3 weeks. My team was having success without me, and I had made no sales. I was on the verge of quitting—crying and bitching to my parents and manager. My dad and manager convinced me to keep at it. Our regional manager would come in and go on sales calls with us. Eventually, something clicked, and I finished in the top 10% in the country for sales.
I still didn’t make the commission I deserved, but I learned the most valuable skill—How to Sell—which I didn’t realize at the time would change my life forever. I also walked away with a contact list of nearly every business owner in Columbia, MO, since I had likely knocked on their doors multiple times that summer.
That was the summer after my junior year. Fast forward through senior year, I wasn’t thinking about that internship much. I was doing what most students do toward the end of college… wondering what the f*ck I was going to do—and better yet, what I wanted to do with my life moving forward.
At that time, I was watching Suits and wanted to be a badass lawyer like Harvey Specter. So I started studying for the LSAT—studying hard. But I’m not a fast reader and always struggled with those types of exams, even though I was a great student. I had a 4.0+ in high school and a 3.1 in college (mostly because I didn’t try that hard). My ACT score was rough, too. After two months of LSAT prep and even an additional course, I flat-out bombed it. Scored a 131 when I needed something like a 155 to get into Mizzou Law. I realized I wasn’t cut out for it, even though Suits made it look cool.
At the same time I was studying for the LSAT (early in my final semester), my best friends Mike and John were talking about starting a company in an industry I had never heard of. I had always watched Shark Tank and dreamed of being an entrepreneur, but I never knew where to start. I thought maybe this was it.
Mike had interned with a credit card processor while in school. The guy across the street from him owned the company and gave Mike a chance in sales. He learned all the ins and outs of the industry—and quickly realized how cutthroat and unregulated it was. His neighbor’s company was no different. The final straw came when they tried to take advantage of a family friend Mike had brought in as a potential client. Mike had negotiated the deal, and the company went behind his back and changed the terms to screw the family friend. Mike found out, warned them, and quit.
With his knowledge and creative mindset, he decided to flip the script. Instead of charging clients based on how much money we could take from them or how high we could set their processing fees, we would educate them. Protect them from the bad guys. Help them save money by negotiating better rates and cleaning up contracts. It’s a confusing space, and we help them navigate it. We only make money if we save them money—earning a share of the proven savings. Mike was the brains behind the idea and knew how to set up the company. John was finishing his Master’s in Accounting. I didn’t know much, but I knew I wanted in.
Understanding how the business model worked, I thought: if I could sell that piece-of-sh*t print advertising in a student planner in 2013—when everything was going digital—I could sell this. I could convince business owners in Columbia to let us save them money, and they’d only pay us if we did. A win-win. I pitched how I could add value as the sales guy, and that I already had a book of business in the area. They brought me on at 20%. I was pumped and thought I’d be a millionaire in no time…
Boy, was I wrong. Just because you have a great product or service doesn’t mean it’s easy to sell—or even to get a business owner’s time. But we slowly started making progress. We launched AllianZ Consulting Solutions—now ACSWinWin—in July 2015, the month before I graduated.
Adversity hit early. John quit immediately—he had to work under a CPA after graduating to earn his license. He moved to Denver, and while we stayed in touch, he wasn’t really part of the journey anymore. Mike and I became 50/50 partners. I went all-in right after graduation—working 40–50 hour weeks after going to the bars 4 nights a week in college… this was quite a transition. Mike still had a year left and didn’t want to jeopardize his degree, so he was only part-time.
With no income and minimal financial support from my parents, I got a second job as a server and even filed for food stamps. I loved serving. I’d get rejected all day doing cold calls, then go wait tables where people actually wanted to talk to me and buy from me. What a dream. Lol. Sales is hard.
After a year, we moved from Columbia to Denver. Mike, John, my ex, and I lived in a basement apartment in LoHi—four people, one bathroom—for $1,400/month. It was a dump.
At that point, the company was making about $6,000/month gross. But it became clear Mike’s heart wasn’t in it anymore, and it was straining our relationship. I was out pounding the pavement daily—it was clear he wasn’t. Then we lost our biggest client and dropped from $6,000 to $1,800/month… split between two people. Enough was enough.
I wrote Mike a letter with everything I needed to see change. He read it and admitted his heart wasn’t in it anymore. He decided to finish school and go into Tech and Defense Contracting (where he has had a ton of success). He signed over all of his equity to me as a gift—we were basically bankrupt, and the equity wasn’t worth anything at the time.
I had a decision to make: try to keep this dream alive or go get a “real” job. Thankfully, I had already bought a ticket to a Grant Cardone sales conference happening within a week or two. That event changed everything. I walked away with new ideas, new selling techniques, new contacts, and a new mindset.
When I got back, I pivoted. I stopped targeting small mom-and-pop businesses that didn’t understand the space and started targeting Controllers and CFOs at mid-to-large companies. I used LinkedIn, built lists, and started cold calling—150+ calls a day versus 30–40 in-person. Within a few months, I closed some of the biggest deals we had ever landed and got our revenue back to over $10K/month.
A year later, I signed our first whale—at 23 years old, making cold calls in my pajamas from our basement. The company signed a contract that would pay us $14,000/month for the next two years. Now we were really rolling.
Fast forward to today: I’ve still never worked for anyone but myself. ACSWinWin just had its first $1 million year in 2024. We’re about to hire our fourth full-time employee. We have a few non-equity partnerships we work with depending on client needs, so we operate as a team of 10 or so people under two companies—all with the same mission: save our clients money and protect them from greedy service providers.
We’ve expanded our services beyond Credit Card Processing to include cost-reduction consulting in Telecom/IT, Utilities/Waste, and Freight/parcel. We have clients all over the country. We still operate under the same “eat what you kill” model: saving companies money and sharing in the savings with them.
Maybe the best part of it all? Mike, John, and I are still best friends to this day.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
- Tony Robbins – I’ve been to 5 live events
- Grant Cardone – Conference
- Jeb Blount – Conference + Fanatical Prospecting
Contact Info:
- Website: https://acswinwin.com/
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LinkedIn: Brendan Coughlin
