Article presented by Devin Johnson
One of the most pervasive myths about the business world is that most people who’ve become millionaires have done so through inheritance or other family assistance. The reality is that the majority of the wealthiest people in the world, two-thirds of them, are self-made. So while not every person willing to set out on that journey will get to the finish line, it’s still true that the best way to reach the goal is to venture forth.
At this point in his life, Anthony Malascalza is still too hungry for further success to say he’s reached his goal. He is the CEO of LCM Inc, a marketing and consulting firm operating in the energy deregulation market. He’s also a real estate investor with plans to become a mentor for a whole new generation of entrepreneurs in the field. Anthony Malascalza doesn’t plan to drop out and retire yet.
Although Anthony’s entrepreneurial journey is still far from reaching its goal, it has been an incredible driver of change. He set out on it because he wasn’t happy with the circumstances of his life, and he wanted to change them.
“My father wanted me to take a trade growing up. I went to a trade high school and ended up taking plumbing as a trade,” he recalls. “But that wasn’t all that, so I got kicked out of my home when I turned eighteen.”
What followed was a life of doing small jobs, sleeping on other people’s couches, and trying to take off a bodybuilding career. Due to a regimen of supplements that wasn’t good for his health, Anthony had to give up on bodybuilding and focus his energies elsewhere. He caught his big break when he was hired to recruit for a company in the energy deregulation niche.
“We went from 14 people in his office to almost 60 in his office in less than six months. But there was only so much money to be made being a recruiter,” Anthony recalls. “So I went and started bringing in an income off the sales side. So I increased my salary almost three times the amount.”
This was the first time Anthony changed his circumstances through the business, but it wasn’t the last time. Before settling on the company he runs now, Anthony went through several partnerships, using every chance to learn as much as possible and improve his standing in the industry. So by the time he formed LCM Inc, he crossed the path from hiring forty-five people for someone else’s business to having his fifteen-strong staff and a hundred contractors.
Through his business, Anthony has also brought changes to the people he and his salespeople meet daily. That’s the nature of energy regulation — consumers get choices, and Anthony and his people are the ones who inform them about it.
“We’re not only pitching and giving customers a green energy choice, but we’re also changing one household at a time,” he says. “So many customers now receive clean energy instead of dirty fossil fuel and coal. We’re changing the environment one house at a time. We’re signing up over 1000 customers a week, and I plan to keep building it to a point where so many people know it that I can eventually step back from this business.”
And stepping back from the business doesn’t mean he’d step back from working towards other business or personal goals. Thanks to the position he’s brought himself into, Anthony got a much better perspective on business, his desires, and the effects of his business activities. He witnessed the life-changing power of a good business idea and how rewarding it can be to bestow it on someone else.
“Every year, we do a seminar. And I had an 18-year-old kid this year attend. He worked for me, and this was his first year. And he broke $350,000 this first year,” he says. “And stories like that remind me of where I came from and what I did. And I want to keep going.”
Setting up other people on their road to success might be the next big thing on the horizon for Anthony. If all goes well and his plans succeed, he sees himself as someone who can help people from the same background as him turn their lives around just like he did. In the meantime, he’s also seen exercising his philanthropic muscles. He’s been to Colombia and St. Lucia, where he helped many families through his program of giving back to communities and providing school supplies to those who need them.
Anthony Malascalza’s entrepreneurial journey has been one of change for himself, his customers, and the people who work with him. Although he’s happy with where he is and doesn’t regret the hardships of his past, there is one thing Anthony would like to change in his younger self if he could. “I would tell younger individuals to value relationships over dollar amounts,” he says. “If I valued relationships over money, I would be further along now.”
