In this episode, Mitch and I talk about the value of building certification programs. Mitch talks about how certification has grown businesses with intellectual property of all types.

Meet Mitch Russo, who started a software company in his garage, sold it for 8 figures and then went on to work directly with Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes to build a $25M business together. Mitch wrote a book called “The Invisible Organization – How Ingenious CEOs are Creating Thriving, Virtual Companies and he’s here with us today with a new book called PowerTribes – How Certification Can Explode Your Business.

https://powertribesbook.com/8steps

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In this episode, Daniel and I talk about the similarities between controlling your diet and become a true high performer. We discuss habits and the power of preparing for success.

Daniel is the CEO of EvolutionEat and serial entrepreneur. He is a transplanted New Yorker to LA where he finds time to run his business and still get out into nature to relax and recharge.

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In this episode, James and I discuss having family and entrepreneurship. He discusses the important work he does with male service professionals in order to align their work with their life and priorities.

James Kemp is a business mentor who works with service professionals all over the world. His programs help professionals launch a scalable offer that pays them well for their work. He lives in Bali with his family.

https://www.facebook.com/james.kemp.311

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In this episode we discuss why understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing is so important. We talk about Nick’s work with entrepreneurs and how they become successful through an understanding of their “why.”

At an early age, Nick developed his SMART Marketing Methodology working with Fortune 500 brands and tech startups while coaching executives lost in today’s digital marketplace. Today, he helps purpose-driven entrepreneurs master their marketing, accelerate growth, increase influence and profit fast.

http://nickcavuoto.com/

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In this episode, I talk with Patty Dominguez about the importance of positioning. She advocates for a concept called “Category of One” where you stand out among all potential competitors. So much so that your ideal client wouldn’t even consider an alternative. We talk about how to make that happen and why in this day and age, positioning is so critical.

Patty Dominguez is the founder of Positioning to Profit. She helps small business owners establish their Category of One status. She believes true expert positioning is comprised of two parts:: external (following a proven framework) and internal (aligning at the core), because your business results will always meet your identity.

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In this episode, I talk with Jason Hartman about real estate investing. We discuss why entrepreneurs often have the wrong impression of their investment needs and how real estate should play an important role. Jason shares the dos and don’ts of getting started with investing in general. Jason Hartman is the Founder of the Platinum Properties Investor Network and host of the Creating Wealth podcast, which is heard in more than 180 countries.

Jason is a genuine self-made multi-millionaire and serial entrepreneur who owns 21 businesses in investing, financing, real estate development, and SaaS software. He has owned properties in 11 states, had hundreds of tenants, and been involved in several thousand real estate transactions. He has visited 83 countries, enjoys adventure, fitness, and lifelong learning.

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In this episode, we discuss prospecting and that dirty word “sales.” Alex talks about why putting these systems in place is critical to your success and the major things that hold people back from selling the way they need to in their business.

Alex Schlinsky is a renowned business coach, speaker and entrepreneur.
 
 He is the Founder and CEO of Prospecting On Demand™, a company specializing in helping marketing agency owners implement the systems and strategies necessary to scale their company and become successful CEO’s.

Alex is decorated speaker and author, making appearances at college universities and being featured in renowned publications such as Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes, and more.

https://prospectingondemand.com/1-call-close

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In this really unique conversation, I talk to Bob Kulhan about the art of improvisation and how it relates to being a better entrepreneur. We cover the elements of improvisation and how they improve creativity, communication, and sales.

Bob Kulhan is an adjunct professor at both Duke Fuqua and Columbia Business Schools and the Founder & CEO of Business Improv® – a 20-yr-old consultancy linking improv to business through behavioral sciences and real world outcomes, for blue chip companies around the globe. Bob is the author of “GETTING TO YES AND”.

www.businessimprov.com/free-download

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I talk with Bill McRea about his entrepreneurial journey in creating traffic sources for entrepreneurs. He is the in-depth expert on paid traffic. We talk about the history of traffic generation and find the threads that have been profitable through each new round of product.

Bill McRea is a corporate executive that elected to start his own digital marketing business. Back in 2008 he launched a software and marketing business that has netted him over 20 million dollars since that time. Bill started with software and has moved into a service oriented business helping thousands of people make a real online income providing service people really need. Bill’s motto is “if you cannot explain to you friends and family what you do without grinning…don’t do it.”

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In this episode I talk to Adam about his work with professionals and getting them online. He discusses the adjustments to his business model and program that helped him finally dial in the service model.

Adam Franklin is the bestselling author of the book Web Marketing that Works. He operates his business from Brisbane, Australia.

http://www.bluewiremedia.com.au

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In this episode, I talk with Allan Dib about his efforts to scale his marketing agency. We talk about the challenges of hiring as well as handing off work to his team. He outlines a path for any agency or service business to grow while having to hire people to do the work.

Allan Dib is a serial entrepreneur, rebellious marketer, technology expert, and #1 bestselling author. He has started, grown and successfully exited multiple businesses in various industries. Allan grew his business from startup to four years later being named by Business Review Weekly (BRW) as one of Australia’s fastest-growing companies.

www.successwise.com

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In this episode, I speak with Alana Joynes about the work she does to help business owners present an authentic marketing message to their audience. We talk about the mistakes people make when using social media to market and why it ends up making things more difficult for them. Alana also shares how she blends support into the group structure of her 12-week program.

Alana helps service based business owners to implement the right marketing foundations and strategy so that they can attract their ideal target whilst building an attractive brand and positioning themselves as a thought leader.

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In this episode I talk to Andrew Sparks. We discuss his amazing journey out of drug use and dealing into a full life as an entrepreneur who now inspires so many. We discuss the secrets to leveraging one’s own story and journey to motivate you to achieve more than you ever thought possible.

Andrew Sparks is the Founder of FitGro and a mindset expert. After overcoming a decade of drug and alcohol addiction, Andrew went down the psychology path to get his own life together, and since has been helping people collapse time so they don’t need to lose the valuable time we have here to create our dreams.

Home

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In this episode I talk to Peter Frumenti about sales mastery for coaches. Peter Frumenti is the creator of the AuthenticEnrollment™ Sales Process and helps coaches, consultants and digital marketers build a sustainable business fast by attracting and enrolling the right clients to work with and then building an authentic and scalable sales process that allows them to go from solopreneur to entrepreneur Fast!

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In this special 100th episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show, I am honored to host JV Crum III, host of the network of Conscious Millionaire podcast and radio shows. We talked about his journey in serial entrepreneurship and what has motivated him to keep climbing past that millionaire mark.

Here are a few things we discussed: – The win-win-win proposition that gets ideal clients to hire you. – How to change your thinking from scarcity to abundance – How to grow your #podcast into one of the most listened to platforms for #entrepreneurs

http://podcastgold.com

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In this Best Of The 6 to 7 Figures Show episode, I talk with Gene Hammett who works with the CEOs of the Inc 500. He talks about what makes the difference between a CEO of an Inc 500 company and other companies. He also talks about why the importance of focusing on his niche has been critical to his success.

Gene Hammett is a leading expert on high-growth company culture and leadership. He has decades of experience with more than $40 million in revenue for the companies he has led and owned. Gene has interviewed more than 300 CEOs of high-growth companies to understand the core principles of fast growth. He consults companies to activate new growth and reduce the high cost of ineffective leadership.

http://growththinktank.com

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Frank Bria: 00:32 Welcome to the six to seven figures show. I’m Frank Bria and I am joined today by Gene Hammett good friend of mine and a leading expert in the high growth company culture and leadership area. He’s got decades of experience with more than $40 million in revenue companies for the companies that he’s actually led and owned himself. Gene’s interviewed more than 300 CEOs, high growth companies in order to understand the really the core principles of fast growth, which we’re going to talk about a little bit today, and he consults companies to activate new growth and reduce the high cost of ineffective leadership. Gene, welcome to the program.

Gene Hammett: 01:14 Thanks Frank.

New Speaker: 01:15 It’s a, it’s a really great to have you here. I know from your experience, like you’ve been working with tons of CEOs in the growth area. What, what are kind of the areas that you’re focusing in now? What, what is, what has you really excited right now in this space?

Gene Hammett: 01:32 I, I really focused my, my work on the top 500 from the inc list. If I gave you the numbers at which some of these guys are growing, like I talk with ’em Swan leap CEO Brad, they grew 75000% in a three year period. Yeah. Those, the, the numbers in that list are always like, you know cause I’ve applied for that list a couple of times and written the numbers down and then I see what shows up and I’m like, okay. So I felt like 400% was really good. It takes about a thousand percent to hit the 508, you know, it changes because it’s the top 500. Sure. But you know, really excited about understanding those leaders and what they’re going through as they transform. Cause here’s the thing that we all know as, as any kind of leader who you are today, you have to let go of to get to that next level.

Frank Bria: 02:32 Sure. And you have to work really hard to get to whatever level level you’re striving to to turn and go, Oh, now I have to forget that to move to another level. So my work comes in when they’re looking to get some insight into how they can navigate that growth period. Not everybody’s going to grow at 1000% across the three year period, but companies that strive to want to create the leadership. And I, you know, I found out a lot of research behind it, which we can dig into, but that’s, I’m really excited about working with these really fast growing companies. Yeah. That, that is fascinating. So I think a lot of people are kind of familiar with the concept that that as a leader, as a founder, you kind of have to change fundamentally in order to, to get to that next sort of quantum level of growth.

Frank Bria: 03:21 But are there, are there specific things that you’re seeing in these leaders that, that end up on the inc 500 top lists that are sort of unique or different or differentiates them from the folks who just aren’t able to generate that kind of growth?

Gene Hammett: 03:38 I think a lot of it is they actually do what the mantras of business say. So one of them foundational, they have a mission that is bigger than just make money. And it’s amazing that they’re growing really fast, but, but they have a mission and the mission is important because they have to get people that are coming on board that align with the mission. And that makes it easier to get top talent that makes it easier to find the right people. So that’s just one example. You know, a lot of companies say they have a mission, but to make money is not a mission They also live by their values. This means they don’t just create them once as a project, put them on a wall and kind of move on with the day. They literally make decisions by, by each of those values. And they want to hire people more for cultural fit than for their resume skills and whatnot. So those are just kind of a few that these companies just over index on. Like I, I talked to one of them the other day in the, some of them run I don’t remember the exact name, but the company who said, you know, we had three employees and one of them was chief people officer and his friends were like, you don’t need that kind of overhead when you’re just got three employees. And that was his fourth. And they’re like, well, culture is so important to me. I want to create a great place to work now that he’s made, you know, the inc 10 list.

Gene Hammett: 05:07 He’s like, they’re laughing at me, I over-indexed on culture and, and, and I won. So that’s the kind of thing they’re actually doing what people know to do. It’s kind of like working out, like we both probably try to eat well and be healthy. We know what to do, we just don’t do it. These companies actually live it,

Frank Bria: 05:27 do, do the thing. And what’s fascinating about that is I think that anyone with any sort of corporate, you know, you know, fortune 500 experience, I, I know this from my old, my old consulting days when I used to work with fortune 500, a lot of corporations talk about vision. They talk about mission, but they end up not living it. So I think that’s the foul, that’s a fascinating sort of insight that, you know, it’s not just something that gets thrown up on the wall, they literally hire to it, literally manage to it and act on it on a daily basis.

Gene Hammett: 06:02 Yeah. I mean, just take values, values become a central part of every decision that gets made in the company and no longer are you as a CEO expected to make every decision. I still make most of the decisions in my company because of my team’s so small. But I do give as many decisions I can to my team so that they’re making the decisions without me because I don’t need them to check on, do I need to put out the newsletter tomorrow at seven 15? I just want it done and I want them to think through, you know, the consistency that’s a part of our values is putting, I’ve put up, I don’t think I’ve missed a week and five years of my episode. The podcast. Nice. Consistency is a big, a big part of what our values as a company is. Nice. So what would be your guidance to a new company who’s like listening to this and thinking, you know what, we don’t have a good set of values. Like what would be step one for them in putting these sort of values down on paper that you’re going to live?

Gene Hammett: 07:06 It usually happens between the leadership team. So you maybe have four or five people, whoever, whoever you think of, if the team’s small enough, I think you should involve everyone. And because when everyone’s involved in the creation of something, they end up having more ownership. And that’s a really big part of it. One reason why corporate companies don’t have people that are willing to, you know, run through walls and blood, sweat and tears like we do in entrepreneurial startups and whatnot is because people don’t have ownership of the work. They just do the work and go home.

Frank Bria: 07:39 Right

Gene Hammett: 07:39 And if you’re, if you’re a leader leading this company, you want to sit down and walk them through a process of values. I do this all the time with companies, but if you want to do it yourself, you sit down and really think about what do we stand for, what are we standing against?

Gene Hammett: 07:57 And you also want to answer the questions like what are the, what are the things that we believe in as a company? I just said consistency. So you may say it’s you know, excellence or what ownership is a big, big value inside of fast growing companies. They want people to take ownership of the work. So you’ve got to define what that is. Get everyone involved and then you’ve got to get it down to a core set. Some people will say three or four is the right number. I talked to a company today, they have nine, they feel like nine is the right number for them. I think fewer is better because who could remember nine probably. But they love it. They live by it. And, and you get to pick the numbers, the number of values. And then the key behind all of this is not what are the values, but how do you actually live by them and you operationalize them. Yeah, I remember that term.

Frank Bria: 08:53 Yeah. Operationalizing, I think that becomes then the key for people. So when I’ve seen this executed well, and you can, you can tell me, you know, how you’re seeing this done with the companies that you’re working with. But what, when we talk about operationalizing it’s in, in everything, it’s literally every decision that’s made. It’s in, in conversations around you know, did something go wrong? It’s in post-mortem analysis. It’s in, yeah, it’s in everything. So talk a little bit about how, how do you build that in to a daily infrastructure in a company so that literally you’re operationalizing your values.

Gene Hammett: 09:32 and a lot of people may not think daily, but I’m going to give you an example. I had horse show, let’s say on the podcast of a few months ago. He’s the cofounder of Ritz Carlton and one of their standards is excellence and they have 24 service standards that they operate from. So this is not their values, but their 24 service standards, every shift change, cause they never lock the door at the Ritz Carlton. But every shift change, they will stand and do a stand up meeting and it may be five minutes long or seven minutes long and they take one of those service standards and they discuss it and they share stories and every shift change every day. It’s the same across the entire chain. And then every day it changes. So every 24 days you’re going to have a different one. So you’ve got to figure out what that rhythm is for you. It may not be daily. It may be once a week where we go, you know, I’ve got a value of, of ownership. I saw that Jill took real ownership of a problem and she made a tough call and it didn’t work out, but she figured out that she needed to change and do it differently and she stayed extra.

Gene Hammett: 10:44 I just want to thank Jill for doing that. That that bit of recognition on a week to week basis really goes a long way to operationalize all your values.

Frank Bria: 10:53 That that’s, that’s amazing. I even think I would even say even small companies on a daily basis would need to do this. I’ve been in companies where core values have been a really important part of what we do. And literally every question that came up like, do you do this? Should we run this campaign? Should we use this language? How do we talk to this customer about something? It always was filtered through, you know, what value we embodying here. So yeah, I can see that it’s a powerful tool. Gene, I want to ask you you know, play devil’s advocate here for a second. Cause I know there’s definitely going to be people in the audience who are sitting here thinking, so all of this stuff about missions and values sounds great, but I’m like struggling to make money and I’m struggling to grow.

Frank Bria: 11:41 How is this stuff going to help me? What would you say to folks who are finding themselves in a position where they feel like a lot of this ethereal work is in conflict with or takes away from what they feel is more tactical growth? Wha why is this still important to them to be focusing on even at that stage of their business?

Gene Hammett: 12:02 So if you have not gotten to product market fit, which is the whole concept of is there demand for what we’re doing and are people paying for it? Are we, you know, we’re generating money if you haven’t gotten there yet. Okay. Maybe I could say you need to get that first. But I do believe that understanding values will help you get there faster and keep you on track as you’re growing. Once you already have sales, you have money coming in. The values kind of, you know, strategy inside of a company really does allow you to scale it out.

Gene Hammett: 12:38 You don’t want to dismiss this opportunity as you, especially if you start bringing on people, I don’t want to bring on another person to my team who doesn’t have the courage to make a decision and stand behind it. Nice. And I learned this the hard way. I’ve grown, you know, multiple businesses, but people that don’t make decisions cause more work for me and for everyone else. Yeah. And people who don’t stand by their decision to make it. Right. I had Frank Blake, a CEO of home Depot, and he was telling me about, you know, working under Jack Welch. He goes, you know what, Jack Welch loves for you to do what he wanted you to do. But what he loved more was for you to go against what he said, what he thought was the right direction or right decision and for you to actually work your ass off to be right.

Frank Bria: 13:31 Yeah.

Gene Hammett: 13:32 Because that was the, the, the, the, the guts. And the grit that it took to take a company that is chugging along and whatever it is, and to see a pivot and to move fast. So if you’re struggling to, to make money, I still think values has a critical role, especially if you have employees.

Frank Bria: 13:51 Yeah, for sure. On the, on the team side, it, what’s fascinating to me as you look through the companies that are on the inc 500 how many of them have their product or service aligned with the, with an overall mission like there, there seems to be a very, very mission-based framework. There’s so many of those successful companies and, and I gotta think, and maybe you’ve got the data for this, but I’ve got to think that so much of their commercial success is due to the fact that they’ve aligned with a market that feels connected to their mission as well.

Frank Bria: 14:26 It really does have a, I haven’t analyzed the exact numbers behind it, but I hear it in almost every conversation. They’ve created a logistics company like, okay, why, why do we need to move things more efficiently and save people money? Well, it has a play to the environment, right? Like every mile that you save a truck from moving, then you’re increasing our chances to, you know, create a better place to live for our children and our children’s children. And that may sound like a farfetched thing, but younger generation, you get on board with that. Oh, absolutely. Bored with just, you know, Oh, we’re going to have this little tweak of, of technology that allows us stuff. But you tie it to something that really matters to your people. They will work blood, sweat, and tears for you.

Frank Bria: 15:16 Yeah. That is something I’m seeing a dramatic shift in, in, in the entrepreneurial world is this movement away from, I’ve found a better mouse trap to I’m improving the world and leaving a better impact that that seems to be a significant shift.

Frank Bria: 15:32 And it’s starting to stick, I think throughout a lot of new companies that are, that are that are making the way,

Gene Hammett: 15:39 it’s not touchy feely. It really does help to align and, and, and, and bask growing companies. One of the biggest challenge still is getting access to talent. They want the best talented people and they may not always pay the most, but they want to create a great place to work. And one of the things that factor into that is what I’m doing makes an impact overall to the world.

Frank Bria: 16:03 Yeah. Yeah, that’s, it’s so it’s so critical and I think you know, back to the original question that I had asked around you know, what if you’re struck and not making any money, I do think that oftentimes finding that mission is going to call out your audience that you otherwise wouldn’t.

Frank Bria: 16:23 And oftentimes I think companies that are struggling in that product market fit that you described are ones that just haven’t found an audience yet that is aligned to an overall mission. And that’s going to be, it’s not the only thing. You still have to have a good product, but it does feel like one of the things that in a company these days is an important element. I agree. Yeah. So, so I want to pivot real quickly to how you are engaging right now with companies. Can you, can you talk us through a little bit of the service model those who are doing the kind of leadership work and, and growth development work that you’re doing. Share with us a little bit if you wouldn’t mind, how you work with your clients and what those processes look like. So I’m going to go back to kind of the beginning.

Gene Hammett: 17:07 I started out running a business and I ran it into the ground like any good entrepreneur has got a story like that. I did a, I wrote a book about it called the trap of success. Great book. I had to let go of the old version of me. And so when I came back out of this and reinventing myself, I wanted to advise companies on growth because I, I’m good at it. I loved it. It really does run through the core of my soul. And I started doing that with smaller companies. I started working with web designers and I was just a one-on-one coach. I really enjoyed it, but I felt like I need it to grow and I needed to grow to a new market. So I went through some iterations and I work with some bigger marketing companies and service-based companies and I started working with the inc 5,000 and that’s been fun.

Gene Hammett: 18:06 I tried to do some group work as I got more sophisticated CEOs. No one wanted to be in my group.

Frank Bria: 18:13 Yeah.

Gene Hammett: 18:14 They wanted one on one coaching, so I kind of just abandoned and all of that stuff. And I’ve tried the courses and I’ve tried everything. It just didn’t work for me.

Frank Bria: 18:24 Yeah.

Gene Hammett: 18:25 And now everything I do has been up to now one on one coaching. I’m working with them VIP days. I’m doing ongoing, some close clients I work with once a week. Some of them it’s know a couple of times a month, but it’s just a handful of people, but at a higher level. And so it’s not scalable. It’s not leveraged. It’s not anything other than I’m just going to be there in the trenches with you to work on your business.

Frank Bria: 18:53 Yeah.

Gene Hammett: 18:54 I wanted to make a shift recently and I’ll, I’ll let you ask your question, but I, I’ve decided to create a, an experience. It’s not an event, but create an experience for leaders to get together with their peers in this hypergrowth company. So the inc 500, anyone else’s not invited. So this is just who it is.

Frank Bria: 19:17 Yeah.

Gene Hammett: 19:17 But I felt like there was a little bit of a blue ocean because there’s so many people going after just companies that have a million or have 12 million or whatever. I’m going after companies that have a thousand percent growth or more. Yeah. And so those companies have different challenges. And so this, this unique kind of way is a little bit more leveraged. 10 to 12 people coming to me for a day and a half or so. And, and some, some unique, unique elements around that to make that possible. But that’s, I’m really excited about serving people that way as an entry point. And then where it goes from there, I want to create community and tribe and, and whatnot around this, this fast growth companies.

Frank Bria: 19:57 Yeah. That’s amazing. And we’ve, that’s a great leverage model, especially for this market. I mean, I, I remember for, for a while I served a group of CEOs of the top 100 financial institutions in the world and we would get them together a couple of times a year for an experience essentially. And lots of best practice sharing, lots of peer networking. We did some teaching, but it was primarily teaching back best practices that we had learned from them. And they loved it. It was a, it was an amazing experience. They paid a great deal of money to be in the room that day and found it to be an incredible experience. So I, I, I personally know that that model is a great one. It’s a great leverage model. And I think, you know, an audience that looks, it looks very highly on being in a room with their peers, loves that kind of experience. I think that’s a great idea.

Gene Hammett: 20:53 So I will tell you, I’m wrapping something into it, cause this is kind of who I am, is I don’t want it to just be the peer-to-peer kind of thing. So my goal and going into this new venture is you’re going to have some coaching sessions with me because you’re playing at this high level, whatever it is. I’m real excited about some of the big challenges they have, but my goal is for you to get an ROI before you actually show up at the event.

Frank Bria: 21:21 That’s fun. That’s phenomenal. I love that. So it has almost an implementation feel to it as well. It’s not just a sort of a feel good event or a pure networking thing. You’re in some sense asking them to implement some of these growth strategies in advance. Are you going to have them share those wins essentially with the group then.

Gene Hammett: 21:43 as a part of that, that, that the, the structure is.

Frank Bria: 21:45 nice.

Gene Hammett: 21:46 What did you decide to work on with Gene and you know, what, how’s it going and then for everyone else to weigh into from, from a peer mastermind kind of standpoint. But if, if I can get them to, and this is a challenge for me cause I don’t think most people think about this. If I can get them to actually get results before they show up to an event, they’re much more likely to like really lean into that vent and be vulnerable and trust the process and have more fun and get more out of it. And it makes it easier for me to do this. So that’s my challenge to everybody who’s coming on board.

Frank Bria: 22:18 Yeah, that’s what you’re speaking my language outcome oriented business. That’s a, I love it. I think, you know, there’s so many times where people get events together and it really is just sort of a rah, rah or feel good.

Frank Bria: 22:33 And it’s true that people leave motivated, but we kind of know from a learning theory perspective that one of the ways that people cement in the things they’ve learned is to actually put them into practice. It, you, motivation will only get you so far. And we’ve all seen this and it’s happened to me. I’m sure it’s happened to you too. You know, you, you leave an event feeling great and then Monday morning you show back in the office again. And a lot of that energy level is pretty much dissipated away. You’ve got to think, what did I get out of that? Again, I’m not really sure.

Gene Hammett: 23:03 So I’m trying to break that model with this group and I really has to, because they’re very sophisticated leaders. They, they don’t have that much time for anything like this. And so I wanted to make it really you know, irresistible from a chance of hanging out with their peers, but also getting insight before they show up.

Gene Hammett: 23:24 And I haven’t mentioned this, but it is truly an experience. The first one we’re doing at a Porsche test track, we have one in Atlanta, so we’ll take a break for a couple of hours. We’d be paired with a professional driver and they’ll be racing around the track, pushing past fears and boundaries. And that’ll tie into the message as, because hopefully they’ll come in as better drivers after they go through that experience. So that’s, that’s, and I want to, I want to create different kinds of experiences at different locations throughout every time we do it.

Frank Bria: 24:00 Yeah. Well, I mean, what you’re, you’re talking about is intentional design, which I love. As you’re thinking through each of the different pieces and how it ties in specifically, you know, I always joke, a lot of people come to me with product design and they say, I’ve got a PR, you know, I’ve got a program and we’re going to go to Bali twice a year and I’m going to have a once a month call.

Frank Bria: 24:21 And I think, you know, that’s not a program. You haven’t designed anything at all. There’s no intention or results behind it. It’s just a excuse for vacation. So I’m always thrilled to see people actually think through like how this actually ties in.

Gene Hammett: 24:34 I feel like I’m over index on thinking through because it’s something I’m so excited about. I can spend hours just thinking about how I want to shape this. And I, I’m, I’m really trying to keep myself focused on just getting people to, to the event, getting the business coming in. So well that’s, I, I, I, I’m excited about, I’m excited to hear how it goes and, and what a dynamic group you’ll have from that particular list, the inc 500 list of of CPMs.

Gene Hammett: 25:07 That’s terrific. So what, what one last piece of advice would you have to give to the up and coming CEO who wants to show up on that list?

Frank Bria: 25:18 You know, tomorrow morning when they wake up and go back into what they’re doing what one thing can they change about what they’re doing that will increase their likelihood of growth?

Gene Hammett: 25:27 So this is going to challenge a lot of people that are listening in here because if you’re one, if you want to be a fast growing company, there’s one piece of data that stands out more than anything else in what I’m doing because it’s just so far skewed. There’s a whole conversation around and you know, customer first you’ve got a background in sales and marketing and you, you understand the value of customers. And I’m not saying that these companies wouldn’t be where they are if they didn’t have customers. Cause, obviously they wouldn’t, but 94.1% of the over 300 CEOs in the inc 5,000 have said that those employees are more important than customers.

Frank Bria: 26:11 Yeah. Yeah.

Gene Hammett: 26:13 The employees are such a critical part. Like not to mention we were really in a, in a war for talent because the job employment rates are at astronomical low levels and the people out there that don’t have jobs probably don’t want jobs. And the ones that are, you’re trying to get to grow your company, you’ve got to create a place that they love to come to work, that they are challenged and they’re growing themselves and they’re, they’re adding value to their skill sets. And if you don’t provide that, if you’re not putting employees first, you can say you won’t, you won’t get there in, a lot of people argue with me on this. They’ll say, well you get, it takes both. It’s a chicken egg and I get it takes both, especially if you’re in product market fit and you’ve got to focus on customer and get that demand going.

Gene Hammett: 27:05 But as you begin to not do all the work, as you begin to let others make decisions, you want them to know that you’re taking care of them. And so that they’re growing. That’s what makes fast growing companies grow is treating employees well.

Frank Bria: 27:20 Yeah. I, I’m not gonna argue with you on that one at all. I think you’re dead on the, and, and I wish I could remember who said this, but I’ve heard the quote, you know, take care of your team and then your team will take care of the customers. And, and that should be the sort of the battle cry of every good CEO is thinking of putting really good talent together.

Gene Hammett: 27:39 That’s a very similar quote to, to what Richard Branson says, okay, that’s maybe where you’re getting it from. And that’s probably what it is. I’ll give Richard Branson credit. That’s, it’s a very smart play because you want those people to think for themselves.

Gene Hammett: 27:56 And, and, and I, I believe this to take it just a step further. I, I’ve seen a huge, a lot of the interviews I’ve done this past week have been companies are growing fast value the entrepreneur spirit inside the company. Yeah. A very people who think resourceful, add value and resilient. The things that we know that come natural because I can’t remember the last time I got a paycheck for something. It was over 20 years ago when I got a paycheck for not doing anything. I believe that I show up every day to create the value that’s always not get paid. You want employees to do the same thing I think.

Frank Bria: 28:31 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. I love that. I think you’re dead on. I think that’s great that you’ve done the interviews and got the data to back it up cause it’s something that I feel pretty strongly about as well.

Frank Bria: 28:42 I think that’s a, that is something that we lose sight of when we start to grow and you have to have the people underneath you or alongside you or in front of you, even as you’re kind of leading the team. So, so that’s terrific. Gene, we’re out of time, unfortunately. But thank you so much for being here with us. For those people who are listening in, want to learn a little bit more about what you do, where, where can they connect with you?

Gene Hammett: 29:06 So my home base is genehammett.com. The podcast is being rebranded, so it has been Leaders in the Trenches. If you’ve heard of that before been around for about five years, but we’re now going to be called Growth Think Tank so you can go to growthinktank.com. It’ll forge you to the right place and it’ll be the interviews with the fastest growing companies out there that are just, you know, heads and shoulders above everyone else.

Gene Hammett: 29:31 And I’ll be sharing with you some of those insights and you can find me on all the social channels at gene Hammett, but right, that’s, that’s my piece today.

Frank Bria: 29:39 Awesome. And that link will be here directly below as well for people to be able to click directly through. Yeah, leaders in the trenches has been an amazing podcast. So as you’re looking as you’re looking for another podcast to the audience growth think tank keep an eye out for it cause you’ll see the same great stuff except with a a more focus on some of the most amazing leaders out there. I think a lot of us look at the inc 500 as a list of a, a lot of leadership must haves. And it really, really looking to embody those kinds of those kinds of growth experiences. So really appreciate that.

Gene Hammett: 30:19 Yep. Thank you for having me. Yeah, you got it.

Frank Bria: 30:21 Thanks so much. And those of you who are listening that so much for being here on the six or seven bigger show, I really appreciate it. And we will see you next time.

In this episode, I talk with Krishna Mohan about mergers, acquisitions, and exit financing. His experience with coaching businesses through this particularly critical phase of growth was evident. We discussed the big mistakes many entrepreneurs make with M&A.

Krishna Mohan is an Entrepreneur, Business Coach, Speaker, #1 Best-selling Author, as seen on FOX TV and multiple media outlets, President of Genius Visionary, Managing Partner of Capital Street Investments LLP, and President of Gifting Boutique. Over the last 20 years he has helped 3 Fortune 500 companies and several start-up organizations focusing on Sales, Business Development and Finance. His management style has been described as decisive and motivational, where success comes from a focused commitment to developing new business, cultivating relationships, training salespeople and creating growth strategies. He is involved in several acquisitions and mergers.

Krishna has a Master’s Degree in Marketing Management MMM, an MBA-International Business and an MS in Finance. Krishna is an acclaimed speaker and regularly speaks in various corporate events, boot camps and management trainings.

http://geniusonlineacademy.com

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In this episode of The 6 to 7 Figures Show, I talk with Dr. Matt Champagne about surveys. He shares his concern with the oversurveying happening in the industry. Also, he talks about the big mistakes most businesses make when giving surveys to their customers.

For 27 years, Dr. Matt Champagne has been a researcher, university professor, author, and serial entrepreneur. He was named “Technology Visionary” by SURVEY Magazine for pioneering never-before-seen customer feedback solutions. When not ranting about how crappy surveys ruin your business, Matt is usually cruising with his family or playing on stage with his Classic Rock band.

http://linkedin.com/in/mattchampagne

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At its core, consulting is all about helping your clients find solutions to their problems. However, for many consultants, they’re offering generalized advice that may or may not be adding value to the business. At its worst, this practice can wind up wasting time and money. At best, it only gets the client part of the way to where they want to be.

On today’s episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Podcast, I’m talking with Corey Rome, consultant extraordinaire. Like me, Carey started his consulting firm a while back, so he’s been in this industry for a long time. However, he really got into the execution side of things and then brought the advisory piece in later. Most consultants start the other way, but no matter how they get into it, the primary goal should be problem-solving.

Over the years, Carey has grown his firm and brought on some big clients, so I wanted to pick his brain to find out what has made him so successful. Fortunately, experience breeds wisdom, so Carey has a wealth of information for consultants, both new to the industry and veterans alike.

Advisory vs. Execution

For the most part, consultants focus on the beginning of the transformation process. They come into a business, analyze the problems that they’re facing, and then draft a proposal filled with solutions. Then, they drop that proposal on the CEO’s desk, who passes it onto the executive team to execute.

While there’s nothing wrong with being an advisor for a company, it’s hard to say that you add value when you’re just involved in the planning stage of things. For Corey, advising wasn’t what he wanted to do. Instead, he started in the execution phase – taking the strategic plan and working with the client to solve the problem.

Having begun his career on that side of things, Carey was able to understand many of the issues that can plague consultants. Most notably, the struggle to find out what’s really wrong with the business and addressing its foundation. All too often, executives and consultants will identify surface-level issues that are actually symptoms of something deeper. Unfortunately, that realization will usually set in after the fact.

Carey’s epiphany came when an executive commended him for helping him work on a project but lamented that they weren’t solving the real problem. After that meeting, Carey realized that adding the advisory position would not only help his business but help his clients.

Building Relationships

Another issue that many consultants face is that they’re always searching for new business and opportunities. Rather than viewing a client as a long-term relationship, they’re focused on earning revenue and growing their bottom line.

Again, Corey learned this the hard way. When starting, he was chasing opportunities – sometimes, flying across the country for a lunch meeting that may or may not turn into a paid project. After the crash of ‘08, he recognized the value of relationship-building. Although clients couldn’t spend like they used to, they still wanted to work with Carey because of their rapport.

Part of the relationship-building strategy as well is generating a long-term view of each project. Rather than delivering everything in the original proposal, start with one issue and then add more as you go. As long as clients can see that you’re adding value to their business, they’ll continue to hire you. Simply put, don’t treat projects and relationships as one-time deals. See it as a foundation for something much broader in scope, and you’ll experience much more success.

Carey and I talk a lot more about the consulting industry in this episode, so be sure to check it out here. You can also find Carey online at linkedin.com/in/careyrome/ or at his website www.cypressresources.com. He also has his own podcast, called Caged Vision, where he helps entrepreneurs turn their business ideas into a reality.

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If you want to grow your money, you invest it. You’ll never make millions or become independently wealthy by working a job and putting some of your salary into a savings account. Entrepreneurs understand this concept a lot when it comes to their businesses, but not necessarily when talking about their personal finances.

Today, I’m talking with Buck Joffrey; a former neurosurgeon turned investor and entrepreneur. He runs the Wealth Formula Podcast, and he has over $250 million in managed assets. I wanted to pick his brain to help understand why so many entrepreneurs will make boatloads of cash in their business, only to turn around and hand it off to a financial advisor.

As you probably guessed, Buck didn’t take the natural path to investing. He wasn’t working some dead-end job and dreaming of a better future. He dedicated years of his life toward the medical field, becoming an accomplished surgeon making a hefty salary. However, what motivated him to switch gears was actually investing.

According to Buck, the “aha” moment came when he realized that the financial industry is designed to keep people investing in the same old stuff – stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. This is the “conventional” wisdom, and everyone and their mom is doing it, so there must be something to it, right?

Well, since Buck is a pretty smart guy, he figured out that he shouldn’t be trusting someone who makes less than he does about how to invest his money. After doing some research, Buck set off on his own and never looked back.

So why is it so hard for entrepreneurs to do the same? As Buck puts it, they are so smart and so successful, but they naturally assume that some advisor knows more about personal investments than they do. That’s rarely the case, mainly because the pitch is always the same – put your money in “safe” accounts and watch it grow conservatively.

Instead of relying on conventional wisdom, Buck recommends alternative investment sources. Real estate, precious metals – there is so much opportunity out there that it’s frankly remarkable that more business owners aren’t taking advantage.

For Buck, investment is all about growing more wealth and expanding your means. As the saying goes, “live within your means.” Well, if you’re only making $40,000 per year, then you’re pretty limited in what you can do. However, if you increase your earnings to $400,000 annually, you have a lot more options.

So, rather than going the traditional route and investing in the stock market, Buck recommends asset management and accrual. You’re smart enough to build a business from the ground up – you’re smart enough to learn how to invest in these alternative sources. Simply put, don’t trust the advisors about what to do with your money. Expand your mindset and figure out the best solution for your needs.

If you want to hear more about Buck’s thoughts on investing, including how rigged the financial system is for those who follow it, check out the rest of the episode here. You can also listen to Buck’s podcast, the Wealth Formula, or visit his website at wealthformula.com. It’s your money – do something with it.

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As you already know, we love entrepreneurs on the 6 to 7 Figures Podcast. However, one of the issues that many entrepreneurs face is that they have the passion and ambition, but not the right alignment for their life. There can be such a disconnect between what they want to do to make money and how they want to spend time with loved ones and family. All too often, this misalignment can create conflict and tension, which will torpedo a business faster than anything else.

To help us understand this problem from someone who’s lived through it, I’m talking with Ariana Sylvester, part of the duo behind Lifestyle Builders. Ariana was a reluctant spouse – pulled into the world of entrepreneurship by her husband, Tom. Tom had the epiphany that starting a business was the best way to build the lifestyle he wanted, and he was able to get Ariana on board, although it took a while for her to get to the same level of passion.

In this episode, our primary focus is on alignment. For so many entrepreneurs, they have this mindset of “I’ll start a business, then I’ll make money, and then I’ll have the life I want.” Unfortunately, that process is a bit oversimplified, as it ignores the most crucial aspect – putting in the work. Becoming an entrepreneur means long hours and a grueling schedule, which also means that your spouse and family have to be on the same page.

For Ariana, alignment happened because she wanted to support Tom and his vision. At first, his epiphany was a cause of significant strain. After buying a house and getting married, Tom started attending real estate courses, putting the charges on two credit cards – all without talking to Ariana.

After the initial clash, however, she recognized what he was trying to do and slowly, reluctantly, became his business partner. However, while she bought into Tom’s vision, not all spouses are going to, nor do they have to.

So, what does it take for alignment to occur for other entrepreneurs? Well, here are some of the things we discuss during our conversation:

• Breaking the Mindset – don’t assume that there is one path toward financial freedom. As a business owner, you have to understand that your needs are unique to you, not anyone else.
• Communicating With Your Family – you have a list of priorities, but have you shared them with your significant other? What are his or her priorities? If they’re not aligned with yours, then you’re going to experience problems down the road.
• Aligning Your Business With Your Client’s Needs – addressing your personal situation is only one step toward success. You also need to understand how your product or business is aligning with your customers. If you’re not offering the right solution for them, how can you expect them to buy from you?

According to Ariana, so many of the people she and Tom coaches are struggling with moving the needle for their business. They’ve been at it for a little while, but they can’t seem to gain traction. With Lifestyle Builders, they make sure to help entrepreneurs incubate and validate their ideas so that they can put the business on track.

We discuss so many great things in this episode, so be sure to check it out here. Also, you can see what Ariana and Tom are all about at tomandariana.com. If you want to see how their Lifestyle Builders program can work for you, visit them at wearelifestylebuilders.com as well.

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As a service-based business, you are expected to deliver on your marketing message. If you promise a certain level of attention to detail and care, then you have to follow through. Otherwise, you’ll wind up with dissatisfied customers and a brand message that will fall flat.

Fortunately, the best way to avoid that problem is to overdeliver. On today’s episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Podcast, I’m talking with Brian Kurtz, the champion of over-delivery. In fact, he literally wrote the book on it.

In this episode, we discuss the value of over-delivery and how customer service is the backbone of your marketing strategy. Highly satisfied customers are not only going to keep coming back for more, but they will refer your business and hype you up to everyone they know, which can build a massive network in a short amount of time.

Playing the Long Game

So, why is over-delivery so crucial for your business? Well, if you’re playing the short game, you may think that it’s not worthwhile. After all, you’re giving too much away and not getting enough in return (i.e., a sale). However, according to Brian, you can’t be thinking that way. Assuming that you want your business to succeed and thrive well into the future, you need to be planning for the long term.

Overdelivering is the best way to build a loyal following that will come back over and over again. Also, creating a stronger brand reputation is going to help your bottom line a lot more than just raising your prices or cutting costs.

Ascension vs. Descension

One segment that Brian talks about in this episode is how he moved from working at Boardroom.com to running masterminds on direct marketing. His time at Boardroom helped him understand the value of over-delivery and how to do it the right way. All too often, companies believe that the best method of over-delivery is to throw a ton of bonuses on top of the product (quantity). However, it’s much better to focus your attention on those add-ons that create value for the customer. One well-crafted bonus is worth more than five or 10 unrelated ones.

But getting back to Brian’s transition. For most businesses, they work on an ascension model. They start by selling a product or service for a certain price and then start charging more as they build and grow the brand. We’re more than familiar with it, as that’s the whole point of our show – growing a business from six to seven figures.

For Brian, however, he chose a descension model. He started by crafting a truly remarkable mastermind, pulling from the resources and experience he gained at Boardroom.com. That mastermind cost $25,000. It was certainly worth the price, but he got so many notices from clients and leads that the number was too high.

So, Brian created a one-time event, and from that, he developed a second mastermind that only cost $15,000, minus the cost of that event. This way, he was able to help more people and build his audience that much faster, all without sacrificing quality or delivery.

Recently, he’s developed a third mastermind, a $200-per-month subscription where clients get access to Brian and all of these resources he’s accumulated over the years. If you want to talk about over-delivery, this mastermind is a prime example. Even though he’s making less per person, the value is so great that no one would ever choose to cancel. If anything, he’ll be able to grow his audience and become even more successful.

Overall, that’s the core concept of Brian’s message – if you’re playing the long game, you can use a descension or ascension model. Let your audience guide the process and tell you what they want, and use that as your path to success.

We talk about a lot of great stuff in this episode, so be sure to check it out here. You can also read more about Brian’s message of over-delivery at overdeliverbook.com. In true Brian fashion, buying the book also gets you a ton of bonuses, so be sure to get a copy ASAP. Beyond the book, he has a website, briankurtz.net, with tons of free information as well.

Brian Kurtz has had two careers. 

The first spanned 34 years as a force behind Boardroom Inc., an iconic publisher and direct marketer. 

During that time, he was mentored by, and worked with, a who’s who of marketing legends (who he owes everything to). 
And more specifically, he worked side-by-side with the most prolific copywriters who have ever lived.

His second career, which he is five years into as the Founder of Titans Marketing, is a direct marketing educational and coaching company where he has also continued working with the best-of-the-best.

Titans Marketing is known for two (soon to be three) mastermind groups, an array of classic books and swipe files Brian has re-published and created…and he is the author of two books himself.

His most recent book is Overdeliver: Build a Business for a Lifetime Playing the Long Game in Direct Response Marketing. It is his opus (but not a memoir).

His first book, The Advertising Solution, profiles six legends of advertising and copywriting including Gene Schwartz and Gary Halbert.

As a business-to-consumer marketer at Boardroom, Brian was responsible for selling over a billion dollars’ worth of products “$39 at a time” to millions.

As a business-to-business marketer with Titans Marketing, he has sold over $5 million worth of products (and services) to thousands, enabling them to spread the gospel about direct marketing to millions.

During both careers, he has been a serial direct marketer, with a foundation in the eternal truths and fundamentals of direct response…while being committed to “overdelivering” over almost four decades.

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Here at the 6 to 7 Figures Podcast, growth is our specialty. The whole point of our discussions is to understand how businesses can accelerate their growth to maximize the brand’s full potential. However, while there are so many tools and resources available, too many CEOs and founders are unknowingly holding themselves back.

In this episode, I’m talking with Bob Kroon, author of a remarkable book Finding Revenue: How Founders, Owners, and CEOs Lead Marketing and Sales. Bob is also an executive coach that helps business leaders learn the skills to grow their companies.

As Bob pointedly puts it, there are coachable people and non-coachable people. Typically, the CEOs and founders that are experiencing the most growth and success are the ones asking for help. Why is that the case? Because no one knows everything and a founder that thinks he knows it all is destined to fail.

I’ve had a similar revelation from my experience in the world of venture capital investment. As an entrepreneur, I’ve had various businesses in the past, and not all of them were hits. At first, I was wary of disclosing my failures for fear that it would make me more of a risk. However, it was quite the opposite. Investors want founders who have had the pain of failure, as that will motivate them to seek advice and assistance when things aren’t going well.

According to Bob, one of the most prevalent problems that he’s encountered as an executive coach is that founders and CEOs mistakenly believe that marketing and sales are not part of their job description. In fact, it was an interaction with the owner of an engineering company that spurred him to write the book.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that business owners believe that the person matters more than the process. So, instead of building a marketing and sales system that exists by itself, they think that the best solution is to find the “right” salesperson. However, while marketing rockstars do exist, they are exceedingly rare, so companies need to focus on building a process instead.

Ultimately, it’s up to the CEO to develop a strategy for the company. What customers are we trying to reach? What’s our value proposition? How are our products and services going to help our customer base? Answering these questions can create a guideline for the business moving forward. Without an overarching strategy from the owner, how can a sales or marketing person align with the brand’s goals?

Simply put, CEOs and owners believe that they’re hiring someone to take the reins on growing the business. However, success begins at the top, meaning that it’s the founder who needs to set the pace and point the company in the right direction. Otherwise, growth is virtually impossible.

Bob and I discuss a lot more in this podcast, so be sure to check out the whole episode here. You can also find him at www.expeerious.com, where he showcases his skills as an executive coach and offers insight for business owners who need some extra wisdom.

What keeps Founders, Owners, and CEOs up at night? What do they worry about? Do they have an opportunity that requires thought and planning? Or an issue they have not faced before?

Bob Kroon is an executive coach who exclusively works with top business leaders. He practices in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley. Following a 25-year career as a Division President, Group Vice President, and CEO, Bob decided to coach others starting in 2015.

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What makes a company run smoothly? If you had to write a list of the most crucial elements of any business that helps it thrive and grow, you’d probably put down things like “quality leadership team,” “effective sales strategy,” or “high-value offering.” While those components are necessary, we’d argue that communication and alignment are actually far more valuable. Unfortunately, as many businesses are learning the hard way, workplace dysfunction brought on by miscommunication is creating chaos and sowing discord among both management and staff. 

Today on the 6 to 7 Figures Podcast, we’re talking with Brandon Smith. He’s an executive coach that’s also known as the “workplace therapist.” Simply put, he goes into companies (sometimes massive mega-corporations) and cures their dysfunction. We’re going to pick his brain about what’s causing these problems and how he became the go-to “curer” of this problem. 

Urgency + Lack of Time = Dysfunction

When looking at the dynamics of the modern workplace, a huge reason for breakdowns in communication and problems arising is the fact that time is of the essence, and everything is extremely urgent. When those two elements are in full swing, the first thing that gets sacrificed is communication. People start to make assumptions, and they believe that they don’t have the time to stop and provide all of the necessary context for any given situation. 

Part of what Brandon has to do is help these companies recognize that dysfunction is costing them more time in the long run. When simple pieces break down, that can cause delays and force everyone to play catch up. Even something as small as how documents should be shared can be an issue that needs resolving. Over time, tiny problems can snowball into bigger ones, and then a workplace is dysfunctional. 

Alignment and Priorities

Another reason why so many workplaces are experiencing these problems is that the leadership team isn’t prioritizing it. Rather than taking the time to ensure that the whole team is aligned properly, they’re focused on getting things done and doing their work without understanding how they are affecting others. 

One note that Brandon mentions is that for every negative piece of feedback, managers should be providing five positive ones. The reason for this is that too much negativity between leaders and workers can put a lot of extra stress. Even if leadership understands the value of this tactic, they aren’t doing it. Why? Because they feel it’s not a priority and that they don’t have time to do it correctly. 

Macro vs. Micro Coaching

Part of what makes Brandon so successful as an executive coach is that he can adapt his approach to fit both the needs of the company and the needs of the individual. A business may need its entire leadership team to get more functional, or it could be a specific manager that is causing problems. There are a couple of ways that Brandon goes about this:

First, it’s 360-degree interviews. This is where Brandon will talk to everyone surrounding a manager and ask for their thoughts on that person. He shares those details with the manager, who likely doesn’t recognize the effect that he or she has on the workplace. 

Second, it’s finding the right motivation. All too often, people choose the path of least resistance, which usually means avoiding pain. However, that pain can be a powerful motivator, which is typically the result of those interviews. Once a manager understands his or her impact on others, it’s an enlightening moment. 

For others, however, they respond to the carrot instead of the stick. Sales associates, for example, want to look at “best-case scenarios” that will motivate them to excel. Brandon’s job is figuring out which method is ideal for the situation and focusing on that. 

Finally, as Brandon puts it, he brings his crystal ball and magic wand into these meetings. His crystal ball is “what does success look like in six months?” while the magic wand is “what would you change instantly if you could?” These tools help him understand the people he works with so that he can craft the right approach. 
This episode has been very enlightening for us, and we cover a lot more territory, including what sparked Brandon’s passion for workplace therapy. You can check him out on his own podcast, as well as one of his websites. One is The Workplace Therapist, and the other is The Work Smiths.

Brandon Smith is a leading expert in leadership communication and “curer” of workplace dysfunction. Known as “The Workplace Therapist” and host of The Brandon Smith podcast, Brandon is a sought-after executive coach, TedX speaker and award-winning instructor. He is the founder of The Worksmiths LLC, an executive coaching and leadership development firm whose clients include numerous Fortune 500 companies.

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In this episode, I talk with April Lewis about her journey from virtual assistant to business coach. She talks about the critical points on the journey that guided her to leave behind the “busy work” that was not helping her live the life she wanted. We run through the process she takes her clients on to create a more rewarded – and less busy – life and business for themselves.

April Lewis helps online service providers scale their business by setting them up as an expert in their field and creating automated revenue streams to expedite growth WITHOUT creating busy-ness that leads nowhere.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildlewis

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In this episode, I talk with Alisa Atkinson McDonald about how she helps corporate teams create breakthroughs. We discuss the importance of communication and diversity. We walk through her process for creating change from the top. She gives a unique insight into the importance of culture and alignment.

A former successful executive who became an entrepreneur focused on inspiring others to discover and sharpen strategic goals and achieve breakthroughs in their leadership and organization. Her business, Renew Your Perspective helps emerging leaders and teams achieve breakthroughs that move them to the next level in 90 days.

http://renewyourperspective.com

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We talk about sales training in this episode. Bill Caskey gives us the lowdown on how salespeople perform best and what keeps most salespeople from having the success they have the potential for. Bill and I talk about his sales training methodology and we discuss the biggest mistakes salespeople make when trying to improve their sales performance.

Bill has been training and coaching sales teams and their leaders for over 25 years. He has written several books including the bestseller same game rules which takes a radically new approach to business to business selling. He also has a podcast at BillCaskey.com

http://billcaskey.com/wth

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I talk with Alan M. Shafer in this episode about business models. We talk about the difference between financing and bootstrapping your business. We also talk about the big mistakes companies make when growing their own company. In particular, we focus on the importance of mentorship and advisors.

Entrepreneurial Mentor, Coach, Speaker, Infrastructure Opportunity Creator, Business Risk Mitigator, Board of Directors Member, The Business Doctor, followed successful corporate career with IBM with successfully helping to launch a variety of startup businesses.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanshafer/

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I talk to Anthony Trucks in this episode to discuss his career as an NFL athlete and how it has shaped his ability to create success for himself and his clients. We discuss the work he does with other athletes and entrepreneurs to coach them in achieving success. We talk about what success means and the difference between those who achieve it and those who don’t.

Anthony is a former NFL athlete, American Ninja Warrior, speaker, author, and coach who helps people make success their second nature.

http://www.anthonytrucks.com
http://www.sloworgo.co

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In this episode, I talk with Alyssa Dver about the concept of confidence. We talk about where it comes from, how to create it, and the surprising fact about confidence that may reshape how you view yourself.

Alyssa is CEO of the American Confidence Institute & Chair of the ERG Leadership Alliance. She’s authored 6 books and “In Confidence” podcast co-host. A Boston Best Speaker, Alyssa teaches at Wharton’s Innovation Center, advises at MIT’s Trust Center, and judges the Stevie’s Women in Business & Best Employer awards.

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Scaling an agency model is one of the more complicated tasks a CEO might face. In this episode, I interview Cody Getchell about his history of growing and scaling his marketing agency effectively. I talk to him about the challenges of scaling and how he has been able to stay profitable while the amount of work and people has multiplied over the years.

Cody is a true serial entrepreneur, after putting himself through university buying and selling used cars he started a digital marketing agency that has since grown to over 7 figures in annual revenue. He also now runs a real estate Facebook group of over 2,000 strong.

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I interview Anil Saxena in this episode. He’s the founder of HR Driving Impact, a coaching program dedicated to leveraging the power of people in teams to achieve great work in an organization. We talk about his journey from engineering to HR consultant and how he is able to leverage his quantitative skills in a “soft skills” profession. We also talk about how the power of people is so often underestimated inside of organizations.

Anil is a recovering engineer, leveraging over 20 years as an internal leader and external consultant to partner with companies and individuals to enable HR to: o Leverage the work they do to impact real, bottom-line organizational results; and o Harness the power of people to make a positive impact on families and communities.

http://www.cube214.com

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In this episode, I talk to Christo Hall, founder of Basic Bananas, a marketing education firm based in Australia. We talk about the challenges of running an entrepreneurial education firm with in-person meetings – as well as virtual support. We discuss how the firm was founded and why they do what they do.

Christo Hall – From professional surfer to renowned entrepreneur, Christo is an in-demand keynote speaker, marketing strategist and business owner. 

Christo is the co-founder of Basic Bananas, Australia’s leading marketing education organization for business owners with over 4000 entrepreneurs attending workshops every year and many from around the globe benefiting from their online programs. 

He is a popular and influential speaker, having presented at business events all around the world and is regularly featured across the media for his business prowess including: TEDx, The Today Show (Channel Nine TV), Virgin inflight entertainment, regular guest on 2GB and 2UE Radio.

Christo is co-author of two #1 international bestselling marketing books ‘Perception’ and ‘Bananas About Marketing’.

Christo has a unique presentation style, his honesty and humour connects with any audience within minutes and leaves them feeling not only inspired, but also with actionable strategies they can implement moving forward.

He is known as the guy who turns big ideas into reality. He recognizes profitable business ideas and has literally added millions to his clients’ bottom lines by inspiring, creating and implementing powerful strategies. 
He also has an incredible talent for making the complex simple and transitioning from big picture ideas to the tiniest of details. 

In his early twenties, he was a professional surfer and spent seven years travelling the world competing on the surfing circuit. 

Christo understands the power of building empowered teams and his approach to team happiness is known for being not only innovative but also courageous.

http://basicbananas.com

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Amanda Abella is the Millennial Personal Finance Guru. In this episode we talk about how the personal finance industry is changing because of the needs of a new generation. She discusses how she uses her influence to change large financial institutions perspectives on the up and coming consumers. We also talk about how she runs an influencer business.

Featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Inc, and Business Insider, Amanda Abella is a Latina Millennial Finance Expert who created an online community where millennials can learn how to make money online and actually enjoy their financial journeys. Her ever growing community is currently made up of over 40,000 individuals across social media and email subscriber channels.

http://amandaabella.com/pitch

Transcript

Frank Bria (00:00):
The 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 81. Ready? Let’s hit it.

Announcer (00:04):
Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria,

Frank Bria (00:28):
Welcome to the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria. And in today’s episode we are going to talk about profitable businesses for millennials. But first a quick message from our sponsor. This episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show is brought to you by High Ticket Program. Did you know you’re only 12 projects away from turning your six figure practice into a thriving seven figure enterprise? In the High Ticket Program Accelerator, we guide you through every step of growth and scale, a process we call leap. Imagine having a world class project team guiding you and your team through every step of pain-free growth, all with the goal of becoming a seven figure enterprise and moving away from painful, time consuming business operations and client delivery. Get a taste of leap in your own business by downloading our free High Ticket Program core offer Blackbook that contains more than 60 pages of standard operating procedures for your business, including onboarding, customer service, graduation, financial management, and much, much more. You can get that for free by going to the show’s homepage at 6to7.show That’s 6to7.show for your free Blackbook. I am absolutely pleased to introduce today’s guest, Amanda Abella. She’s featured in Forbes, the Huntington Post, Business Insider. Amanda Abella is a Latina millennial finance expert who created an online community where millennials can learn how to make money online and actually enjoy their financial journeys. Her ever growing community is currently made up of over 40,000 individuals across social media and email subscriber channels. Amanda, welcome to the show.

Amanda Abella (02:04):
Thanks. I think we might be up to 60 now. We might need to update that by the time this goes live. Who knows, knows Twitter. Our Twitter followers have babies.

Frank Bria (02:21):
So we were actually talking a little bit before we got started. Kind of pre-interview about some of the things that your followers are interested in, what do you think are some of the things that are growing your community so quickly? What are some of the content pieces in the topics you’re talking about?

Amanda Abella (02:39):
So I am very well known for being very, very transparent and very honest with people. I actually started this journey almost 10 years ago. It will be 10 years in 2020 where I was a broke 22 year old who couldn’t find a job. And I was like, “I’m just going to air out all my financial dirty laundry in hopes of being able to fix it and whatever. Maybe someone will find it helpful”. That’s as far as it went back then and now fast forward almost 10 years and we’ve worked with some of the top financial companies. I recently did a campaign with TransUnion, which was really cool. Now I’ve done marketing for most of the major banks in the US and then on top of that, now I help a lot of small business owners kind of build their own brands and teach them how to do marketing and sales. So what I’ve learned more than anything, is my audience has kind of grown with me in a sense. We have people in our community who’ve been with me since the beginning. I mean that’s almost 10 years. What I have found is the reason they stay on is precisely because I’m so transparent and I guess it’s easy for me because I’ve always been that way. So it’s not like I had to try. Sometimes with my clients, they’re a little scared to do that cause they feel like they have something to lose. I’m like, “well, when you’re broke and 22 and living at home, you don’t have anything to lose”. So I was just already in the habit of doing it. So I’ve always been super transparent and very honest with people. So a couple of the things we’ve noticed, there’s a video that we did aboutI think it was five reasons you shouldn’t go into entrepreneurship where I was just straight up with people. Right? Another one is I have a podcast episode on all my financial failures of the last 10 years. Right? And the reason I did that, I’m like, “Yeah, some of you are coming to see me now, you know, 10 years in, we have a multiple six figure business. We’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies. I’m starting to do real estate investing. You’re seeing me now. You didn’t see kind of everything that’s led up to this”. So I will very occasionally go back and teach people, “No, actually I effed up a ton to get here”. To be transparent with them and that’s some of the stuff that we get the most feedback from and the most thank you’s from, because I feel like sometimes once people reach a certain level, they become a little bit untouchable and I don’t want to do that. I made a commitment that I was always going to be super transparent. So then this year we’re in the process of scaling. I hired my first employee, you know, we got a part time CFO on board, you know, and I’ve been talking about that whole process going on behind the scenes and how much I hate scaling, not hate it. But it’s not my favorite thing. I like to be on podcasts, I like to be on live videos, I like to be teaching, I like doing sales, right? That’s the stuff I like to do. I don’t like fighting with CRMs and organizational management. It’s not my thing. I don’t like it. It’s not my jam. But I’ve had to do it all year and I’ve been kind of showing that process behind the scenes. And I recently went out to dinner with one of my students who was in town and she’s like, “No one talks about this like you do, please keep doing it”. And I’m like, “Really”?

Frank Bria (06:02):
It’s the painful stuff that people want to hear because frankly there’s enough voices out there for the fun stuff. You know, I mean there are people who want to talk about launches and all that kind of stuff. There’s plenty of that out there, but there’s something about telling stories about the real life, you know…

Amanda Abella (06:24):
Sometimes this really sucks. Here’s what you’re in for.

Frank Bria (06:28):
Yeah, that’s right.

Amanda Abella (06:28):
But it’s worth it.

Frank Bria (06:30):
And I think that’s probably one of the most helpful things that an entrepreneur can do as helping other entrepreneurs is to tell the truth, you know, to be honest and forthright about what’s the highs and the lows.

Amanda Abella (06:44):
Yeah. Cause you know, and I don’t know if you’ve had this happen, but I’ve definitely had experiences where I’ve, maybe I’ve been following this person’s content or their podcast or I’ve been in their programs and then I meet them in person and they’re a total disappointment, to be frank, right. You know, it happens.

Frank Bria (07:02):
It’s the old adage, you know, be careful when you meet your heroes kind of thing, you know?

Amanda Abella (07:06):
Yeah. You know, and one of the things that I’m so blessed to hear is, “Oh my gosh, you’re the same person that you are on your podcast”. And I’m like, “well who else would I be”? You know? But I understand people put on personas and all this kind of stuff. I get it. But when I first started hearing that, I was like, “What? What who else would I be”?

Frank Bria (07:26):
That’s such a great response to that. Like who else would I be? Well, I think you’ve outlined, I mean, when I hear you talk about the way that you’re interacting with your social media following in your email subscribers, authenticity comes to the top, right? Such a powerful concept. The other thing that you’ve mentioned that I want to call out because I think it’s brilliant that you do it and it’s really powerful, is the concept of having a journey of following a journey. And you mentioned that in your intro, you mentioned that financial journey, your own financial journey. And I think audiences really love to follow the path. They really love to follow the journey of somebody and see what the real life is because so much of social media are just these splashes of single images. You know, we look at someone on a beach.

Amanda Abella (08:18):
And a lot of it is complete garbage, let’s be real, you know. So I try and be honest. Sometimes it screws me over in sales cause I’m like, “No man, this is work”. And I’m honest with people. Most times people respect me. Sometimes it screws me over in the sense of like, “I don’t get this sale”. Right. But then I find out they go hire someone else and then that person ghosts them and they’re out nine grand or they hired an agency and they’re out six grand when they weren’t ready for an agency. So you just weren’t going to do the work. You were looking for an easy way out anyway. So that’s why I’m like air quotes.

Frank Bria (08:53):
Air quotes. Yeah, that’s amazing. So, the work that you’re doing now, can you tell us a little bit about it? Who are you working with primarily and what’s that look like for them?

Amanda Abella (09:03):
Yeah. So I do a lot of spokesperson work with financial companies. For example, I did one with TransUnion where, you know, they had a credit tool that came out and one of the cool, this is one of my favorite things to do, is I went, I did a workshop for all their interns on how credit actually works, right? So that was a really cool little project that we do. And I work on campaigns like that with financial companies that comes because I spent eight years doing content marketing for financial companies. And then when I was done with that, I transitioned over into more like spokesperson campaign type work. Which is, I love it. I love speaking, I love doing workshops like that. I loved doing satellite media tours. It’s the stuff I like. I don’t like the behind the scenes stuff as I mentioned. Right. Then in addition to that, one of the things I do because I realized, “Oh my God, this is where it’s at”. I started to realize that my audience had shifted and they had shifted from budgeting, paying off debt. They’re like, “Oh God, we’re so over this”. And on top of that, a lot of them have student loans. Cause you remember I talk to mostly millennials and a lot of it just became a basic math problem of you’re just not making enough money. But that’s it. That’s what this is, right? So I got a little annoyed with the financial industry because more traditional financial stuff is still like “budget and save and don’t buy the latte”. I’m like, “none of that makes a difference if you’re not making enough money to begin with”. So I started noticing, Oh I shifted, my audience shifted”. So I started focusing more on helping small business owners. Although I’ve done a lot of negotiation stuff too for people who were still in regular jobs. But I tend to attract a lot more entrepreneurs and business owners, right. Who really need to learn marketing and sales because those are the two things that change everything. The second thing I noticed is that most business coaches out there have no idea how to teach marketing in the proper way. So the way that we teach it is, it’s not just the tactical stuff of, I don’t have time and money or here’s my problem. Right? I want you to know these people so deeply that, you know, emotional blocks that they don’t even know they have. Right. That’s what makes a difference.

Frank Bria (11:08):
Yeah. That’s really powerful. The other thing that is really fascinating about what you’re describing is this power for entrepreneurship to overcome the traditional things that people are dealing with. I have to agree, I don’t say this a lot, but so many of the so called gurus in financial management out there just drive me nuts. And I’m going to call her out and I’m probably, she’s such a name. I’m going to get in trouble for doing this, but I listen to Susie Orman and it drives me insane.

Amanda Abella (11:43):
Oh, go ahead. Yeah. So Susie, she was actually on a friend’s podcast and it turned into a big hoopla because I understood what Susie Orman trying to say, but a lot of people in the personal finance community did not. And then on top of that, it didn’t make sense with the video that came out later, but she was basically saying you need at least 5 million to retire as she was talking about her jet or her island or something like that. And people in the personal finance community can get really judgy about stuff like that. Right. People got pissed, right. I totally got what she was trying to say. It’s just that the way that she said it didn’t really land very well. It wasn’t the best delivery. But then a week later you see a video of her saying that buying coffee is like pissing money down the drain. And I’m like, “You did not get your Island by not buying coffee. Let’s be real that’s not how that happened”.

Frank Bria (12:35):
That is exactly it right there. Because I’m from the financial services space too originally. So, you know, all of the classic services that the financial service industry gives or offers to millennials just completely disconnect and they sit back in their offices scratching their heads. You know, I mean, it’s great for folks like you because I feel like they have to hire someone like a Rosetta Stone to be able to talk to these folks, but they just don’t get it because they’re talking about these classic sort of 1950s ideas about how to live your financial life, when in fact the storyline from the 1950s of a single income family, with the home that was already mostly paid off and no student debt and all these sorts of things, it doesn’t even exist anymore.

Amanda Abella (13:29):
Yeah. And the thing is, it’s also a lot of social conditioning. So I’ve given keynotes at Fortune 500 companies and they’re like, “They’re not investing in the 401k can you come fix that”? Right. And I’m like, “No, we’re not talking about that”. And they’re like, “What”? And I’m like, “They’re not even ready for that. They’re up to their eyeballs in debt. They don’t have, they’re not even thinking about a 401k”. Right. And they’re like, “Okay, we’re going to like let you talk about like mindset and stuff I guess”. They were so nervous. Right? But they let me do it, which is awesome. Then I went to go do it and they flew me out and I gave the keynote. And it was fascinating cause I started asking questions. Right. And the human resources group that hired me knew very well what was going on in the lives of the employees. It’s the managers and the higher ups who wouldn’t, they’re just not connected to it. It is what it is. They’re in their offices doing what they gotta do, you know, it is what it is. It’s no one’s fault. It’s just conditioning. Right. So I started asking questions and I’m like, “Well how many of you have student loan debt”? 75% of the room’s hands went up. Right. “How many of you heard a positive conversation about money in your household growing up”? One person raised their hand in the entire auditorium.

Frank Bria (14:41):
Wow.

Amanda Abella (14:42):
And afterward they were driving me to the airport and they’re like, “We had no idea it was that bad”. Right. And I’m like, “That’s cause I’ve been here, getting the DM’s and hearing the stories for almost 10 years”. Right.

Frank Bria (14:56):
I was involved with a company one time that did a culture survey to their employees. And one of the questions they asked is “How many of you could pay off an emergency of $1,000 in cash”? The percentage was so low that, I mean they basically sat down flabbergasted that, you know, all of this conversation about perks and benefits and salaries and stuff that may have.

Amanda Abella (15:23):
They don’t care!

Frank Bria (15:23):
Yeah. The vast majority of their audience was so strapped for cash or the vast majority of their employees, sorry.

Amanda Abella (15:28):
They weren’t even thinking about it.

Frank Bria (15:28):
Yeah. They can’t even think about stuff like that.

Amanda Abella (15:30):
Yeah. And here’s the other thing, and I didn’t bring this up because I knew HR wouldn’t be okay with it, but the audience ended up asking me what about making money on the side? Cause they all had side jobs, right. And then HR wasn’t too happy about it, but I’m like, “I didn’t bring it up. They brought it up”. This is the reality of the economy that we’re living in, don’t buy these job numbers. People are working two or three jobs right now. Right. So I know these things cause again, I’m in conversation all the time and you’re right, sometimes I get hired as like the Rosetta Stone.

Frank Bria (16:05):
Well, especially in the financial services sector, in banking sector, you know, for years now there’s been the, “what do we do about the millennials” and for a long time, and this is a black eye, I think, to most of the banking and financial services industry. Up until probably about 10 years ago, the only conversations I ever heard about millennials was millennials have no money, so we don’t care about them.

Amanda Abella (16:28):
Which is not necessarily true.

Frank Bria (16:28):
Well, no, it’s totally not true. But, forever, I think the financial services industry just sort of ignored an entire sector of the population who, frankly, are going through, I was going to say were going through but still are going through, a major personal financial crisis as a generation and just not enough focus on this at all. So the work you’re doing is critical.

Amanda Abella (16:56):
Yeah. And it’s interesting cause I work with a lot of financial coaches, as clients, and I’ve worked with a lot of CFPs who now have to go learn about financial coaching and they’re like, “what, this isn’t what we signed up for”. Because when you’re in corporate, CFP world, it’s come on, it’s sales, right? Let’s be real. Right? Then suddenly, you know, they can’t get people to even find the money for the investments and they find themselves having to ask questions like, “Well, what do you want out of your life”? And they’re like, “What? We’ve never, we don’t get training for this”. Right? And this is the stuff we have to start getting clear on, otherwise people don’t even get to a point where they need a CFP.

Frank Bria (17:38):
That is true. And so much of the work you know, I saw it, especially in the United States, I think in the United States we’re a bit behind on this. I think other countries do a little bit of a better job at this, but so much of the financial advice is all around retirement planning. And frankly I think most people can’t even see that far ahead.

Amanda Abella (17:57):
Oh yeah. And even the language we use for retirement planning is totally off base because we say saving for retirement, you ain’t saving for retirement. You’re investing for retirement.

Frank Bria (18:05):
Yeah. That’s, that’s a really good point.

Amanda Abella (18:08):
They’re not the same thing. And I think another place where there’s a lot of confusion is credit. There’s a lot of myths out there. People think their whole lives are run by these three numbers. They don’t realize that like, “Hey, whatever you got on Credit Karma, your car dealership doesn’t care and neither does the bank”. They don’t know these things because they’re not privy to it like someone who’s in the financial industry. Right. And that’s another one that causes a lot of confusion or they don’t know the difference between leveraging credit for investments and spending money. They don’t know the difference. Right. They don’t know the difference between investing and gambling. So it’s stuff where there’s just a lot of confusion going on and quite frankly, the financial industry knows, right. It’s not like they don’t know. Right. They haven’t exactly done a great job of helping the situation.

Frank Bria (19:02):
No, I know. So one of the reasons why I don’t work in that industry, I spent a long time there, I’ve got a book published in that space and I still won’t do it anymore.

Amanda Abella (19:12):
But I want to be really clear about something. And there are, cause I do work with a lot of financial companies. There are people in these companies who know that these things are going on and they’re trying so hard to change things around. But it’s a pretty heavily regulated industry. So they got to deal with that. There’s a lot of risk aversion stuff that they have to deal with.

Frank Bria (19:33):
And it’s a culture shift I think.

Amanda Abella (19:34):
Yeah, it’s a massive culture shift. But there are people in these companies who are really trying.

Frank Bria (19:39):
For sure. Absolutely. I mean I’ve seen that shift as well. That’s kind of why I said 10 years ago there was a real negative view, but I think in the last decade I definitely see a lot of these companies saying, “Hey you know, a millennial” and this is the funny thing. We talk about millennials, they’re 35 year old millennials, you know, this is not a 18 year old just out of college anymore. These are professionals, this is a very sophisticated and large segment of the population. I want to turn attention a little quickly because you have talked about the importance of entrepreneurship and its role essentially as a financial planning tool where people are earning money on the side. It’s a gig economy. But what are some mistakes or the myths that you’re seeing millennials make around their assumptions about entrepreneurship or starting a business that’s going to keep them held back a little bit?

Amanda Abella (20:40):
I think there’s two major ones that are coming to mind. The hustle 24/7 thing, which is not true. I work less hours than I did when I was making 22 grand a year. Right. I think that’s a part of it, but I think there’s also this other side of it, which is just manifest your way into some money and it’s like, “no, you actually have to work”. It’s somewhere in the middle of those two things, but I’ve noticed humans have a tendency of going too extreme. So I would say it was those two things. Another one I see a lot is, I’ve heard some crazy stories lately of people getting like swindled out of thousands upon thousands of dollars. But most times what I’ve realized when that happens is what I’ve noticed is people don’t realize, “Oh I have to like do market research and I have to put an offering together and when I start doing sales, all my shit, sorry, about money is going to start coming up and I have to deal with…” It’s hard. Entrepreneurship is the best personal development program there is cause you have to deal with your stuff or you’re not going to make it basically. What I find a lot of people going into is, people are in such financial anxiety and it’s not everybody, but most people are in such a state of financial anxiety for various reasons that they’re easily manipulated.

Frank Bria (22:11):
Yeah, that’s right.

Amanda Abella (22:12):
And I’ve noticed that’s a really big problem.

Frank Bria (22:15):
Yup. I almost wish that we were teaching young entrepreneurs or early stage entrepreneurs how to buy business services. How do you actually like do the research on the person that you’re thinking of buying. How do you, you know, take a look at your different options and make a logical decision because there’s so much emotion tied up in this. And you know, you’ve got a lot of entrepreneurs who are selling emotionally and then a lot of entrepreneurs who are buying emotionally and it’s just this toxic stew of…

Amanda Abella (22:49):
It’s horrible and I did a live video on it. I’m like, “Listen, yeah, there are a bunch of narcissists taking advantage of people with really low self esteem and feeling really anxious right now; at the same time, this is a tale as old as time”. So it’s always going to be there. It’s always been there. Right? So it’s just a matter of you making sure you don’t get caught up in that. And what I’ve noticed more than anything, it’s usually people who are very empathic. That’s one of the ones that I see. They’re so empathic, they really just want to help people. That’s one of them. I’ve noticed it’s also people who, and I joke about this with my own students, cause I do teach money mindset and abundance mindset. But I make a joke and I’m like, “You are limited to an hour a day with your inner child. From 9 to 5 you have to work”.

Frank Bria (23:41):
That’s funny.

Amanda Abella (23:45):
Right? Cause some of them like to sit in that and then they think they’re working. And some people only teach it from that perspective. And that’s not to say that these things are not important. They are, I teach them. Right. But there’s a difference between even if you read like the Think and Grow Riches and The Sciences of Getting Riches book. You know, all those books they tell you to go work like no one said don’t work. Right.

Frank Bria (24:08):
No, I think you hit the nail on the head. These extreme positions are really unhealthy for anyone. The hustle 24/7 approach I think is incredibly self-serving and narcissistic. What people don’t understand is where that came from. You know, cause people look at Mark Zuckerberg and everyone else and they’re talking about hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, and these entrepreneurs are “I slept in my car and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah”. But the thing is, what we don’t understand is, their audience are their employees. They are talking to the people working for them. Of course they want their employees to be hustling 24/7.

Amanda Abella (24:51):
I never thought about it that way but it’s totally true.

Frank Bria (24:51):
Yeah. That’s who they’re talking to. So it’s completely horrible for us to take that lesson because it’s completely self-serving to them. And then on the other hand, no one can doubt the importance of positive energy in what you do. But that’s not the only thing that’s going to get you where you want to go.

Amanda Abella (25:09):
No, a lot of people like to stay there. I’ve also noticed just in general, and this is just like a general society thing, there’s just a lot of shame and guilt when it comes to financial things that people have to kind of deal with. That’s what I mean by going a lot deeper. One of my clients right now, she does consulting for business finances, like getting them set up with the tax stuff and profitability. She’s almost like the person you hire before you hire a CFO, if that makes sense.

Frank Bria (25:40):
It does. Yeah.

Amanda Abella (25:40):
Yeah. So that’s what she does. And I had her go through a market research thing and she’s like, “I didn’t realize how angry people are at themselves for not having figured this out”. She goes, “I had no idea”.

Frank Bria (25:54):
I mean, you see, I saw a meme today, you know, talking about in school, you know, “Hey, can you help us understand taxes and how to pay for them? No, no, don’t worry about that”. But in that particular meme it was like, “Let’s learn about the mitochondria”.

Amanda Abella (26:07):
I’m so glad I learned about parallelograms and parabolas and all this shit I’ve never used.

Frank Bria (26:15):
So, I was a math teacher for like 10 years, so I totally get this. But you try to stay a little more practical than that.

Amanda Abella (26:22):
Yeah. I’ve never had to measure the circumference of anything in my adult life.

Frank Bria (26:30):
That’s funny. That’s funny. The voices of every math student I’ve ever had in my class. Like “What are we ever gonna use this stuff for”?

Amanda Abella (26:37):
Yeah. Meanwhile, and people freak out. And this used to be one of my main things I used to freak out cause I’m like, “Oh my God, money, so much math and I suck at math”. And I didn’t realize that, no actually this is actually pretty basic practical stuff. It’s not algebra, it’s not calculus, it’s not any of that stuff.

Frank Bria (26:55):
It’s pretty basic stuff. So I want to ask you this question before I let you go. So for those people who have a lot of this negative energy around money and finances, I mean it’s so telling when you did that speech and asked how many people had a positive conversation, only one person raised their hand. What’s the step out? How do you get out of that black hole?

Amanda Abella (27:21):
Oh my gosh. So I think number one, and I think this is really, really important. If you are in an environment where people are having that type of a conversation, you need to start getting around some other people. I think that’s number one. I don’t care if it’s online, I don’t care if you’re going to networking events, I don’t care if it’s internet friends. For me it was internet friends for years until I met them in person. But you need to start being around another kind of conversation and another way of thinking. If you start feeling a lot of resistance toward that, cause some people do, right. Start questioning it.

Frank Bria (28:05):
Yeah. There’s such power in the conversations that you’re not only having, but that you are a party to or listening to. That negativity, that mindset does sink in. It just seeps into what we’re thinking and doing.

Amanda Abella (28:20):
Yeah. And even if you had a great conversation at home, all you have to do is walk out the door, right? And then everybody else’s stuff about money cause it’s all social conditioning, starts to hit you like a two by four in the head. So you have to be super, super mindful of it. I mean I think it starts off with questioning your own beliefs about money. And what I have found with my clients is that inevitably turns into questioning your beliefs about yourself.

Frank Bria (28:47):
Sure, yeah. At the base right. That’s, this loops back to one of the common comments that you made earlier, which I absolutely love, which is that entrepreneurship in particular, but I think most money things, but entrepreneurship is a journey in self-discovery and in transformation. That’s what I tell people. I tell them the whole reason we do business growth work is because it’s a transformational experience. I mean, the most fun conversations, although the ones I kind of laugh at my clients about friendly laugh, is when they tell me, they want to grow from six to seven figures, but they’re really uncomfortable. It’s like, “yeah, this is going to be uncomfortable”, right?

Amanda Abella (29:29):
Yes. I’ve had clients start crying. Their limit was 250,000 a year and they start balling. Right. And there’s a lot that goes into it. I mean it’s what grew up with it’s whatever you, there’s a lot.

Frank Bria (29:43):
Yeah. I had a client tell me that she didn’t think she was worthy to make seven figures. So you know, I mean there’s a lot of stuff there for sure.

Amanda Abella (29:52):
Or sometimes people are afraid they’ll have to compromise their integrity and their values to get there. That’s the most common one. Yeah.

Frank Bria (29:59):
Yup. I hear that a lot too. Amanda, I would love to continue this conversation but, we’ve unfortunately run out of time and you’ve been generous with your time to overstay my welcome for this year. Thank you very much. I could keep talking with you about this for a very long time cause clearly we’re seeing eye to eye on a lot of this stuff. Thanks so much for making the time for us. I really appreciate it.

Amanda Abella (30:19):
Oh, thanks for having me to talk about one of my favorite topics ever.

Frank Bria (30:22):
Yeah, my pleasure. So as the audience is listening, if they want to connect with you, what’s a good way for them to do that?

Amanda Abella (30:28):
So I actually have a freebie for them because you told me kind of where your audience is at right now and they’re doing pretty okay. But I’m pretty sure your audience would like it if they got more media attention for their businesses so they can get more leads. It’s actually quite easy. It’s not as difficult as make people make it out to be and they don’t have to spend a ton of money on a PR company. It’s unnecessary. I’ve had clients get full features in Forbes without having to pay a dime to a PR company. So you just really have to learn how to pitch. So if they actually go to amandaabella.com/pitch they can sign up and they can get the exact email template I use to get on Entrepreneur On Fire back when my book launched, on 17 Business Insider, I was recently on Univision. It really just comes down to that pitch and doing it properly. And what I’ve noticed having been on the editorial side of things for as long as I was, is most people don’t know how to pitch.

Frank Bria (31:26):
Yeah, I think you’re right about that. That it is all about being able to communicate and connect with the things that important to the editor. So.

Amanda Abella (31:35):
Yup. And it’s usually a very basic email. It’s not even that big of a deal. Maybe five minutes to write the email, bang it out. And my assistant, I taught her how to do this and she started getting bites within 24 hours. So if you go to amandaabella.Com/Pitch. You can get it totally for free.

Frank Bria (31:52):
Perfect. Thank you so much. That’s a really gracious offer. The link is below the video. If you’re on YouTube, if you’re listening on the show notes page it’s there. If you’re out and about listening, come on back to the show notes page. You can click on through to connect with Amanda on that gracious offer. Thank you very much for that.

Amanda Abella (32:12):
You are welcome!

Frank Bria (32:12):
And thank you so much for being with us on the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria. And just a quick reminder about the High Ticket Program core offer Blackbook contains more than 60 pages of standard operating procedures on how to run your coaching, consulting or expert based service business. You can download that for free at the show’s homepage, 6to7.show That’s 6to7.show for your free Blackbook. See you on the next episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Make it happen.

In this episode, I talk with Lisanne Murphy about Facebook ads. She talks about the big mistakes most companies make when trying to launch ads. We discuss the importance of avatars and having a solid understanding of the psychology of your ideal client.

Lisanne is an academic, turned Facebook Ads Expert, who from watching clients successes and ceilings have become known as The Who Lady. Lisanne is the creator of Midas Touch Social, a 6-figure Facebook Advertising Agency and Educational Platform which took 3 companies across the 7-figure mark this past year.

Transcript

Frank Bria (00:00):
The 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 80. Ready? Let’s hit it.

Announcer (00:04):
Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria.

Frank Bria (00:29):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria. And in today’s episode we are going to focus on advertising. But first a quick message from our sponsor. This episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show is brought to you by High Ticket Program. Did you know that you are only 12 projects away from turning your six figure practice into a thriving seven figure enterprise? In the High Ticket Program Accelerator, we guide you through every step of growth and scale in a process we call leap. Imagine having a world class project team guiding you and your team through every step of pain-free growth, all with the goal of becoming a seven figure enterprise and moving away from painful time consuming business operations and client delivery. Get a taste of leap for your business by downloading our free high ticket program core offer Blackbook that contains more than 60 pages of standard operating procedures for your business, including onboarding, customer service, graduation, financial management, and a lot more. You can get that for free by going to the show page at 6to7.show. That’s 6to7.show for your free Blackbook. I am pleased to introduce today’s guest Lisanne Murphy. She is an academic turned Facebook ads expert and we’re going to talk about that because those of you might know, I’m an ex academic. Actually I say academic fail out. We’ll talk about that later. Is a Facebook ads expert who from watching client successes and ceilings have become known as The Who Lady, Lisanne is the creator of Midas Touch Social, a six figure Facebook advertising agency and educational platform, which took three companies across the seven figure mark this past year. Lisanne, welcome to the show.

Lisanne Murphy (02:17):
Oh, it is my pleasure. Frank. Thank you so much for having me. It really is a pleasure to be here with you and your listeners today.

Frank Bria (02:23):
Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve got to start with the academic thing first. So former academic, what’s the story? Where’s that from?

Lisanne Murphy (02:31):
Yeah, I love it. Well, so when I worked in corporate, in leadership and development, and so I was in a training role and part of my job allowed us to go back to school and get it paid for. So I went back to school to get my master’s degree and in the middle of my master’s degree I was like, “I don’t know if I want to do anything that my master’s degree was shooting me towards”. So I actually left halfway through it to pursue a real estate investing company. I put everything that I had from my savings and my 401k into this real estate investing company and I lost everything. It crashed hard. It was so, so rough. So I begged for them to let me back into school and finish my master’s degree. And they did. And while I was there, I was like, “okay, well, I don’t think corporate’s the place for me and obviously entrepreneurship is not the place for me, so academia, it’s gotta be it”. And I actually really enjoyed it. I was doing research with professors, going to conferences, networking with professors. I was applying for PhD programs. To Harvard and London School of Economics. I was going for the top of the top of what you could for the academic world. And then I had some opportunities come to me to get into entrepreneurship again and, you know, when that entrepreneurship bug bites, it bites hard. And so I thought, you know, “I can apply to be in academia any year of my life, but what I can’t do is this opportunity that was in front of me”. Which was to partner with some other people to do some advertising. And I’d had some advertising experience from, I mean, that’s a whole other story. I decided to make the leap and try the entrepreneurial route and I haven’t looked back since. So I mean my GRE is still active. This is new enough for me that I still could go back and use my same GRE score, but I’m really, really enjoying what I’m doing with my clients and serving them and love the freedom that the entrepreneurial life has given me. So and I did end up finishing my master’s degree, so I’m still a graduate student, but I left. I left academia for it.

Frank Bria (04:41):
That’s nice. That’s great. That’s a great story. And it’s true that when those of us who have had that entrepreneurial bend to us, it’s really hard to shut that off. It’s just a very difficult thing to walk away from permanently. So, but I do find that folks with the academic background have a unique skill set. If they can tolerate the entrepreneurial environment, they really have a unique skillset they bring that a lot of entrepreneurs don’t have. And that’s the ability to sort of communicate, to socialize what they do. There is just some skills there that not all entrepreneurs have unless it’s sort of, you know, kind of natively natively there. So that’s a great background.

Lisanne Murphy (05:22):
Yeah. Well, and my master’s was in organizational behavior, so applying that to Facebook ads makes it really awesome. So with my research background, analytics is, and statistics is secondhand nature to me. And then people behavior is what I studied all through my master’s degree. So I didn’t realize how well suited it was to advertising until I really made the leap. But it was almost like I went to school to do what I’m doing. You don’t have to, but for me it was perfect.

Frank Bria (05:52):
No, it’s great. You know a lot of people describe organizational development stuff as like business psychology. It’s kind of the psychology of people in business. It’s really fascinating. I find I didn’t ever take any classes in it, but I almost kind of wish I did cause it does have that applicability as you go through.

Lisanne Murphy (06:15):
Yeah, I’ll tell you what, I’ll send you my textbooks.

Frank Bria (06:19):
Yeah. This former academic really loves textbooks. Actually I will not, one of the reasons why you don’t see a bookshelf behind me is because it’s all geeky mathematic stuff from when I was a grad student working on my PhD in Mathematics. So we will not talk about that because we will lose every listener on this show.

Lisanne Murphy (06:39):
Another call off the air.

Frank Bria (06:41):
That’s right. Exactly. So The Who Lady, where does that come from? What does that mean and where’d you get that moniker?

Lisanne Murphy (06:49):
Yeah, that’s a great question. So in my advertising agency, I had two major categories of clients. I had clients that would jump into the six figures and things were going well, but they would just hit a ceiling. And then I had clients that just, you could just scale forever and it was just, you could put as much money behind it as they want and as long as they could fulfill on their service or their product, then it was good to go. So those few clients that crossed into the seven figure mark, it was easy, but then I had this handful of clients that they would bump into a 100,000 to 250,000 a year and they would just stop. It would just be really hard to scale. The ads, it was difficult for them to fulfill. And I was like, “what is happening? Why can’t everyone just be these seven figure rising stars”? And as I really looked at it, I realized that the biggest thing that was missing was a very, very clear definition of who they’re serving. And so their client avatar their, “who”, if you will, was not clear in their messaging in the funnel. It wasn’t clear in the offer giving the values of the customer that they wanted. It wasn’t clear in the ads that they were doing. And so they were having to spend way more money than they should have been to acquire a client, which made it very, very hard to be profitable and scale. And sosorry, go ahead.

Frank Bria (08:19):
No, I was just gonna say it’s just fascinating that these basics come up over and over and over again, right. Cause I don’t think there’s anyone who’s listening today that wouldn’t accept that having a good understanding of your avatar is really important. But I see this as well and when we work with a lot of folks, and basically what you’re saying is consistent with the experience that we’ve had as well. That this is just a tough thing for people. That sometimes they just don’t have this set at all and it a really has a big impact, as you’re pointing out.

Lisanne Murphy (08:54):
Absolutely a huge impact, right. And it’s something that most entrepreneurs, they think about in their first step, but it’s all subjective and then they don’t look at it again until advertising comes up. And so one of the projects that I’m working on and we’re not going to be talking a lot about this in the call, on the show today, but one of the projects I’m working about is how to help people develop their avatar in a much more systematic way where they know that if they’ve done these things, that they’ve got it nailed and they can move forward and they can use that throughout the process instead of just this annoying hurdle to jump over. But it’s been a great experiment because I’ll come up with a theory and then I’ll test it with my current clients. And those that know who they’re speaking to, who their avatar is, they have a clear understanding of their dream client. Those are the people that are going to be able to scale their business. And it makes it easy because they just aren’t delivering what the people already want.

Frank Bria (09:51):
Yeah. What do you think some of the things are that are keeping people from nailing that down? I mean it seems on its surface it would be such an easy question to ask, but it’s one that I think a lot of entrepreneurs don’t have good answers to. So as you’re working with folks, and I know you have coaching around this and programs that you offer around this as well, what are some of the hurdles that are kind of holding people back from nailing this down the right way?

Lisanne Murphy (10:15):
Yeah, well I think, there’s there’s two major issues that come up. It’s either, and both come up, that people are overconfident in who they think that they’re serving. And it usually shows up in one of two ways. One is that people say, “Well I’m who I want to serve. So I’m my perfect avatar, therefore I understand it perfectly”. And while everyone wants to serve people that are just like them, I mean that’s like doing statistics with a sample size of one. It’s like agreeing to only sell one copy of your book or your program to you. There are people that are like you, but you need to know how they’re like you, but also how they’re different from you. And so people will say, “Oh, I know my avatar perfectly because I’m my avatar”. And to me that’s just “wah, wah wah”. That’s a huge red flag that no you don’t, sorry, the fact that you’re just saying that shows that you don’t. And then the second problem is, and it goes right along with the first, is that they over-simplify the avatar creation process, right? The reason why they oversimplify is because they want to serve the world. They say, “I want to, my target demographic is all women entrepreneurs”. Oh, maybe I’ll narrow it down a little bit, maybe between the ages of 25 and 40. So it’s all basic, you know, age, gender, and even entrepreneur. I mean, that’s like saying self-employed, which, there’s a billion ways to be self employed, right? And so the overall generalization causes you to really be able to reach out to nobody. And so what people don’t consider is not just basic demographics, you have to consider what is called psychographics. What are the emotional drivers that drive someone to make a decision? They have to consider what’s important to them in terms of status. Do they care about being better than other people or do they care about association with high rollers? What do they really care about? They have to understand “is my person problem aware”? Do they know about the problem that you’re trying to fix and are they solution aware? Do they know that there are solutions out there or that yours is a potential solution? All of those things give so much more dynamics and assets, facets if you will, to the avatar. Sothose are just a couple of the things that I make sure that my clients have in line before they spend thousands and thousands on advertising to realize that their avatar is broken.

Frank Bria (13:07):
Yeah. First of all, I’m going to give you an award for the first guest who’s ever used the word psychographics on the show. We talk about demographics and psychographics all the time. But you’re the first person who’s said that that’s a critical element. So, we’re awarding a point.

Lisanne Murphy (13:30):
Ah yes, to Gryffindor!

Frank Bria (13:30):
That’s right. Exactly. But this is such a critical piece and I think so many entrepreneurs are scared of making a decision, of narrowing this down because I think there’s this fear that a narrowed avatar means fewer clients. You know, and there’s this confusion between market size and client potential that people get wrong all the time. And I hear this, you know, diet coaches, “Who’s your ideal client? Anyone who eats!” Or, you know, relationship coaches, “anyone who has a heart”. I love that one. I heard that one one time and I’m like, no. But I will say it’s happened even to me where I get pushed to “narrow, narrow, narrow”. And this little bit of fear comes up, I think for all of us, where it’s like “I’m losing out. I’m missing out, but I could help this over here”. But there’s a mathematical formula here that people don’t take any consideration. You could be selling to all seven and a half billion people on the planet, but if you don’t have a message that’s interesting, you’re gonna have a 0% conversion rate. So who cares if you have a market size of seven and a half billion? And I think not enough of us take that into consideration. We’re thinking about targeting and advertising.

Lisanne Murphy (14:54):
I love that, Frank you should just clip that out as a little training section right there. Cause I couldn’t agree with you more. Yeah, the riches are in the niches. So don’t be afraid to really, really niche down. And because the world isespecially if you’re a service provider, I mean that that space is becoming more and more and more crowded. And so if you don’t have a very, very narrowed niche, then you’re just going to be fighting on the margins of the big dogs that came before you and trying to figure out whose margin you’re going to be fighting on. And yeah, it’s a critical piece that people aren’t talking about enough. And it’s honestly, my biggest goal for 2020, I should say just for this next year, to just be a voice and a beacon of figuring that out and doing it in a systematic way that really, really helps entrepreneurs and their business.

Frank Bria (15:54):
That’s great. That’s excellent. Do you mind if we pivot to chat about Facebook ads and paid traffic?

Lisanne Murphy (16:00):
Yeah let’s do it!

Frank Bria (16:00):
This is such an area where if you are not familiar with this at all, it feels like tackling this big monster. So let’s start off with sort of the basics. When is a good time for someone to start considering paid traffic? Like Facebook advertising? What kind of markers in their business should they be looking for before they start going? “Yep, Let’s turn to that”.

Lisanne Murphy (16:25):
Yeah, that’s a really good question. Well I think it’s really important, I think there’s multiple phases that you go through with Facebook ads, and the indicators in your business are going to be different for each phase. So the first is, whether I should do ads at all. And the answer to that is, you need to have some sort of offer that you are presenting in front of people in the most simple way. If you’re doing, say Facebook lead form ads, you don’t need a funnel or anything like that. You can do an ad that tells about your service and they fill out a form directly in Facebook to hop on a call with you or to receive some sort of download or book or video or whatever. And that way you don’t have to have any type of funnel but you can still get your stuff in front of people and still get a little bit of success. That strategy works a lot for like real estate agents, for insurance agents, mortgage agents. I don’t know if you work with any of those in your audience, but.

Frank Bria (17:30):
We definitely have those folks in the audience there cause I get emails from them, so I’m familiar.

Lisanne Murphy (17:36):
Good, good. To really, really leverage Facebook ads for the power that they have, you need to have some sort of automated sales system on the backend that you walk them through to show them your product or your service. So we call that a funnel of course. And where there’s some sort of landing page or a sales page where they get an offer and an opportunity to buy something. So if that is set up and you’re ready to go, then you can start ads. Now you shouldn’t go into it feeling like, “okay, I’m ready to make $1 million. I just built my funnel” you need to look at Facebook as “I’m willing to spend money to understand where my system works and where it’s broken”.

Frank Bria (18:19):
I think that’s a really important point. I think a lot of people get sucked into the siren song of, “drop a $10 a day budget on Facebook ads and then in seven days you’re rolling in it”. There’s so many horrible stories of setting poor expectations around paid traffic generation and it drives me nuts. One of those pet peeves of mine.

Lisanne Murphy (18:41):
Yeah. It’s ignorance and not in a bad way. It’s just, people just don’t know the world. I was talking to a gentleman just this morning who he wants to run 3,400 people to his webinar using $400 of ad spend a month. Now I did the math on that. That is less than 12 cents a lead to get them to the webinar. And I hate to break it to you, even though those are the numbers that you chose, that is just not realistic. It’s not realistic. And he was almost upset with me. He was like, “well I guess you’re not the right ads person”. I was like “Well i guess not”.

Frank Bria (19:20):
Definitely not, that is run, do not walk for the exits.

Lisanne Murphy (19:26):
Exactly. Yeah, please don’t talk to me about it anymore if you feel that way because it’s not me. That’s just how it works. It costs to get in front of people. So the first thing you have to be able to realize is that “I have to pay to learn”. You have to approach Facebook with a learning mindset and you need to know what data Facebook is giving you so that you can learn what you need to know “I am I reaching the right people? Is my landing page performing the way that it should? Does my offer need to change? Is my power content? Are people dropping off and in the middle of my webinar” or whatever it might be. That data is there and it can teach you exactly what you need to do, but you need to understand it. So people want to use Facebook ads to make money, which it can and it does, and, Mark Zuckerberg wants us to make money on it because if we spend money on his platform, he makes money, and if we make money, we’ll keep spending on it, you know? But if you don’t go into it with a learning mindset, then you’ll drop out of the game before you even have a chance to win.

Frank Bria (20:28):
Yeah. That’s a really good point. A lot of people don’t understand what that means from both an expectations perspective as well as a readiness perspective. Because one of the things that I like to tell people is, “listen, if you have to make an investment and you don’t have the cash to make the investment, it might be too early for you to be making that particular investment”. So if you’re fighting against this concept that you’re going to probably have to spend a little bit to understand how any paid traffic generation is going to work for you, whether it’s Facebook or YouTube ads or Google ads, it doesn’t matter. It might be a little early. You need to be able to be at a place in your business where you’re comfortable with that kind of an investment. And it’s not like it’s crazy, but I think it’s more of an expectation setting. So it’s good that you’re talking about it in those terms.

Lisanne Murphy (21:18):
Absolutely. Well, here’s the thing Frank, like Facebook is, and maybe I’m biased, I know I have a bias, but Facebook right now is the most powerful platform that people can advertise on in the world right now. Now will it be around and will it be the same forever? I dunno, but in this moment it is the most powerful tool. There are a half of a billion active users every single day. I mean if you just wrap your mind around that, it’s unbelievable. And Facebook gives you the power. Facebook is powerful because it’s precise. It’s like a brain surgeon. You go in there and you say “this is who I want to talk to” and it says, “okay,” so going back to your client avatar, that’s why your avatar has to be nailed down. Facebook is just such an incredible tool, but, you have to be ready for it. And there’s a lot of different ways to learn that data as well. The fastest way is Facebook ads, but you can learn it through organic strategies. You can learn where your funnel works and where it’s broken with organic strategies. And so the point is, to get people through the funnel. If you have an email list, use that. If you have an organic following, or Facebook group use that. If you want to use some organic strategies, use that. If you want to use paid ads, use that. But you have to have an offer and then you need to learn about how that funnel interacts with the people that you’re trying to reach.

Frank Bria (22:43):
That’s a great focus on essentially the automation of your messaging, making sure that as you’re going through, there aren’t any holes or gaps or leaky funnels is, some people like to say, that you’re going through that. I know a lot of people who are listening, a lot of entrepreneurs, the moment you say Facebook ads, this odd noise thing happens up with them. They get all panicky because a lot of people have invested money in Facebook ads in the past and lost it. A lot of money. And probably when you were talking about your experience with real estate investing, a lot of people were like, “that was me and Facebook ads”. I’m sure you have a lot of those people who come to you with stories about how they tried this and it didn’t work before. What are some of the mistakes that you see people making that are causing this? I mean, beyond the obvious you need to spend to learn your way into it, that’s usually the first thing, is the expectations are set inappropriately. But there must be some things you’re seeing in terms of ad copy, in terms of design, in terms of asset usage and copy that you’re seeing that are probably not serving people very well on this platform.

Lisanne Murphy (24:01):
Yeah, I love that question, Frank, and, So here’s the thing, Facebook is amazing because you can be so tailored and so specific that you could send ads to your family members only, you know, you could, you could narrow it down to that degree, right? The way that Facebook is able to do that is they have a lot of moving levers and getting the right combination of those levers can be very, very frustrating. Do you use dynamic creative or not? Do you use campaign budget optimization or not? What age do you use? How many interests do you put in an ad set? Do I use lookalikes or not? Do I have a seven day click, one day view and no? Or do I go for impressions or clicks?

Frank Bria (24:52):
It has become quite complex since the beginning, that is true.

Lisanne Murphy (24:56):
Options are endless. A lot of people make a mistake, again, there’s two major areas. One of the areas of where people make a mistake is this, they just don’t know what they’re doing. And so they just are counting on whatever the default is and just hitting publish with a wish and a prayer that it’s gonna find the right people. If you don’t know what you’re doing, imagine you’re on the beach and you’ve got a life preserver and you run up to a family eating tuna sandwiches and you’re like, “I’m going to save your life”. And they’re like, “what are you doing? Like you are creepy. Go away”. But if you are running down the beach and you see someone caught in a riptide and you throw them out the life preserver, they’re going to be praising your name for the rest of their life. And so you’ve got to set it up to make sure you’re reaching the right people.

Frank Bria (25:51):
That’s a much better metaphor than mine. I’ve actually described this in the past as throwing an envelope, throwing a letter into the ocean, just throwing it out and letting it, but of course, no chance of reaching the right place. Your metaphor is better. But yes, very difficult.

Lisanne Murphy (26:09):
No I like yours a lot. The second one, which is a lot easier to fix. The second problem is that people don’t pay attention to Facebook’s policies. So Facebook has become so much more strict, especially just in the last 18 months because of all of the press around all the privacy stuff that’s going on in terms of whether they were involved in swinging campaigns and leaking people’s information and blah, blah, blah. But because of that, they’re being so much more sensitive to the products, to the messaging, that are out in the marketplace. And so if you don’t know the rules, you’re going to break them without even knowing that you’re breaking them. And Facebook has very low tolerance. You’ll get your ad account shut down, you’ll be put in Facebook jail is what they like to call it. And once that happens, it is just one of those things where it’s like, “Oh, I can’t believe I have to deal with this”. It’s just a time waster for your life because you have to appeal and it’s hard to get a person. And so, know the policies. Know what Facebook accepts. Know what they reject, they’re very, very clearly outlined. If you just Google Facebook policies, boom, they come up. Make sure you’re not breaking any of the rules. If you don’t break the rules, you can play. If you break the rules, you can’t play.

Frank Bria (27:25):
Yeah. And one of the things I find is it’s useful to have a professional helping you with this because the rules change all the time. It really is tough to keep up on stuff. I mean, at the time of this particular recording, I was reading an email just a few minutes ago, sent out on new rules Facebook’s putting out for automated messenger applications they’re gonna roll out in January of 2020. So they’re changing all the time. And I’m trying to get up to speed with it and going, “I’m so glad I hire somebody to take care of this for me cause I don’t want to know all these little ins and outs”. It’s tricky. It can be really tricky. And the impact is pretty significant. I mean I tell people it’s like when your old principal used to tell you that it was going to be on your permanent record, Facebook keeps track of this stuff and if you go into Facebook jail once, you’re more likely to get in there again. And, and it’s a little bit tricky to stay on top of all that stuff.

Lisanne Murphy (28:25):
Yeah. Well in fact, I’d love to add one more if that’s okay because this is something else that is easy to fix and that is, a lot of times when people will start running Facebook ads, they don’t think about the actual user. It’s so important that you actually, you think about and use your own experience to realize this. Think about what is my person that’s seeing this ad? What are they doing when they see it? Because Facebook is the platform used for what we call pattern interrupt advertising, right? It’s not like someone searching on Google, “my window’s broken. How do I fix it”? You are catching them as they are. I mean, let’s be honest, they might be sitting on the toilet, they might be on the phone and they’re bored. They might be watching an NFL game, they might be talking to their mother-in-law and they’re just scrolling, they’re in the middle of something. So you have to be thinking about that when you create this ad. If your ad is dull, boring, unattractive, then they’re just going to keep scrolling past it. So realize that because Facebook is a powerful tool, but it’s a pattern interrupt tool. And so you need to be ready to interrupt their pattern, whatever that might be in the moment. So you have to speak quickly and poignantly to them so that they’re like, “Whoa, okay, I need to save this post to come back to it. Or I need to stop what I’m doing right now and engage with this because it’s good stuff”.

Frank Bria (29:51):
That’s a great thing to remember. I think a lot of us do forget this, it’s about user experience. It’s about your prospect experience and thinking about it from their perspective and that that means you usually think about it in the funnel itself, but it starts all the way back at the ad. That’s a really good reminder.

Lisanne Murphy (30:09):
Yeah. Whenever I work with clients, I say that the funnel is from the second they see your ad till they’re in your community consuming your product, it’s not just what’s in click funnels or in Javi or whatever they’re using.

Frank Bria (30:22):
Right. That’s a great, great insight. I hate to do this, but we are out of time. I would love to continue this conversation. It’s been a lot of fun and really enlightening, I know this is an area where people get tripped up all the time, so you’ve given some really good insights. One last question before we go, and I really appreciate the time you’ve carved out for this already.

Lisanne Murphy (30:45):
Yeah it’s been my pleasure. It’s super fun. I can’t believe it’s over already.

Frank Bria (30:48):
Yeah, I know. It’s one of those things where I’m like, “I promised I wouldn’t take up too much of your time when I scheduled this out”. So, the audience is thinking about their avatar, they’re thinking about their messaging in their paid advertising strategies. If they want to get in touch with you, if they want to learn more about what you’re doing, what’s a great way for them to do that?

Lisanne Murphy (31:12):
Yeah, that’s a really good question. So I’ll make sure that you have all these links so you can post them in the notes, but you can find me on Facebook. You can search for me there on Instagram. My handle is Lisanne Murphy HQ. I also would love to give your listeners a free, I call it the Facebook Metrics Made Easy, so it helps you know exactly what the metrics are and how to read them so that you can know if your ads are working or not. So I’ll give that to you as well and that’s found at midastouchsocial.com and then I’ve also got a group as well that I’ll give you the link to that people can access if they want to get in there and chat with me and ask questions.

Frank Bria (31:51):
So Facebook group you’re running?

Lisanne Murphy (31:52):
Yeah.

Frank Bria (31:53):
Great. Yeah, those links are here below the video or on the show notes page. If you’re listening to the audio, if you’re out and about, come on back to the show notes page and just click on through. Thank you very much. That’s a really generous offer. Thank you very much.

Lisanne Murphy (32:07):
Yeah. Yeah, my pleasure.

Frank Bria (32:09):
This has been a thrill, thanks so much for taking time. I know you’re super busy. Thanks for blocking out a little bit of time to share your expertise with the audience. I learned a ton. I know that people who are struggling with this whole Facebook ad thing and even all the way down to the critical, who am I actually selling to? That’s such powerful stuff. Honestly this is like the number one thing I tell people if they can get that fixed or figured out there, we’re like 80% of the way there. So thanks for this. Great. Appreciate that. Thanks so much. And thank you for being here with us on the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria, and just a quick reminder about the free High Ticket Program core offer Blackbook contains more than 60 pages of standard operating procedures on how to run your coaching, consulting or expert based service business. You can download that for free at the show’s homepage, 6to7.show. That is 6to7.show for your fully free Blackbook. See you on the next episode in 67 take can show and make it happen. [inaudible].

Amie is a strategy consultant focused on municipal infrastructure. I interview Amie about how she goes about leveraging strategy in her engagements. We discuss the challenges of aligning a large organization and what goes into a strategy plan.

Amie Devero has been a strategy consultant and executive coach for over 25 years, and has run a number of startups in the smart cities industry. She currently works with high-growth startup founders and executives both on developing and executing strategy and as a high-performance coach.

Transcript

Frank Bria (00:00):
The 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 79. Ready? Let’s hit it.

Announcer (00:04):
Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria.

Frank Bria (00:30):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria, and in today’s episode we are going to focus on strategic consulting and high performance coaching. But first a quick message from our sponsor. This episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show is brought to you by High Ticket Program. Did you know that you are only 12 projects away from turning your six figure practice into a thriving seven figure enterprise? In the High Ticket Program Accelerator, we guide you through every step of the growth and scale process, something we call leap. Imagine having a world class project team guiding you and your team through every, each and every step of pain-free growth, all with the goal of becoming a seven figure enterprise and moving away from painful, time-consuming business operations and client delivery. Get a taste of leaping your own business by downloading our free high ticket program core offer Blackbook that contains more than 60 pages of standard operating procedures for your business, including onboarding, customer service, graduation, financial management. You can get that for free by going to the show’s homepage at 6to7.show That’s 6to7.show for your free Blackbook. I am absolutely pleased to introduce today’s guest Amie Devero, who has been a strategy consultant and an executive coach for over 25 years and has run a number of startups in the smart cities industry. She currently works with high growth startup founders and executives both on developing and executing strategy and as a high performance coach. I mean welcome to the show.

Amie Devero (02:03):
Hi. Thanks for having me.

Frank Bria (02:04):
Absolutely a pleasure. So for those people who don’t know, what is the smart cities movement, what is that all about?

Amie Devero (02:11):
Well, it’s a horribly overused and ill defined buzz word that means essentially taking cities. You know, most of our cities have been here really long time and they have pretty old fashioned technology running everything. And utilizing the tools of digital technology. So that means data and wifi and you know, sort of internet connectivity and utilizing those tools for everything from citizen engagement to managing sustainability concerns like electricity, smart grids or traffic patterns. Most people get their first sort of inkling of smart cities by paying for parking with an app. And that is the actual businesses that I ran. I was at the very skinny end of the wedge of smart cities.

Frank Bria (03:03):
Well, it sounds like the bleeding edge of the, cause we did see a lot of that come first and then now there’s all sorts of other things that are going on. So would your clients then be the cities? So you would essentially contract with the cities themselves?

Amie Devero (03:19):
I have had city clients, but that’s not really what I mostly do when I was running technology companies in that sector. They were my client. Yes. But it’s a peculiar kind of business interface because while the city contracts with you, your actual end user customer is the public. So if you’re providing mobile payment for parking, it’s people like you and me who use it and the company makes its money when the citizens use the product. So the city brings it in, but the city doesn’t actually use the product except on the back end for parking enforcement and interfacing with their parking ticket system or other aspects of the parking and transit interface.

Frank Bria (04:09):
Yeah, that’s interesting. That would be, I think, a fascinating sales model where you’ve got the user and the contracting entity kind of different. Those of us who have done some enterprise sales work might recognize that. But for those people who sell to smaller businesses, that’s a complex sales process.

Amie Devero (04:29):
Well, and it’s cause you’re selling to the public sector. Of course everything is done through a procurement process. But then you’ve got the other side of the equation, which is if you’re venture funded or you’re funded by investment capital of some variety, you also have to answer for revenue. And so you have to develop the expertise that serving your city client, but also becoming a retail marketer to get customers to use the things that you make some money. It’s a challenging and interesting business.

Frank Bria (04:56):
Yeah. It’s a B to G and B to C play all at the same time. That’s that’s fascinating.

Amie Devero (05:02):
And B to B because you can also provide it to private parking operators or hotels or you know, all of the other, there are plenty of private operators in the parking world.

Frank Bria (05:12):
That’s a really growing technology space. That’s a fascinating place you’ve been, but you’re doing a lot of high performance coaching work now and a lot of strategy work. Who are you primarily working with these days?

Amie Devero (05:24):
So most of my clients are not so different to what I was when I was running those companies. Although I was not a founder, I was hired management. But so most of my clients are founders and the executive teams of post revenue startups. So these are companies that are tech startups. In fact, all of my clients are in tech in some way, shape or form. And they founded this company, they’ve gotten venture funding, so I don’t work with them unless they are actually earning money and have funding because my real skill set is with 25 years of strategy consulting and authorship and development of an approach, my skill set is decision making and strategy and dealing with the relatives, you know, sort of demands and needs of various stakeholders. So that’s everybody from the public, the marketplace and the investment community and the becoming a leader so that you can serve your team and so forth. So that’s mostly my clients and I still deliver both sides of that equation. But strategy consulting and executive coaching, sometimes for the same clients, sometimes not.

Frank Bria (06:32):
Yeah, it’s great that you’ve identified that post revenue phase for those companies who the problems are vastly different for the pre-revenue, pre-funding phases and the post revenue funding phases.

Amie Devero (06:44):
And quite honestly, I don’t know enough about taking it from an idea to revenue. I really don’t know how to do that.

Frank Bria (06:53):
But that’s the power of, of niche. That’s the power of specialization, which I think a lot of consultants don’t really do. They don’t really recognize that their specialty is probably what makes them more powerful than sort of a broad strategy consulting. I think a lot of us have, at least at one point, I know for me personally have fallen into the trap of, “Oh, I can, I can solve that. That’s, you know, I’m a smart guy. I’ll figure it out”. So good for you.

Amie Devero (07:23):
And in fairness, I think that’s a really challenging problem. I mean, I see it with my clients too. Is that specialization or I would say even something more grand than that. I would say genuine strategy means knowing what you do and knowing what you’re not doing. And it’s very, very hard to do that because when your business is growing or worse yet, when it’s not growing in the way that you want, you really, there’s a tremendous amount of anxiety and fear wrapped up in saying no to anything. If somebody is dangling revenue in front of you, you feel like an idiot to let a burden the hand go when everything else seems like just potential and potential doesn’t pay the bills.

Frank Bria (08:07):
Right. So that’s a really fascinating direction because you talk about decision making processes with your clients. So how do you get them through that decision making process? How do you get them to focus on longterm winswhile passing up what could be potential short term gains but have dead end paths to them? How do you get them to sort of up level their thinking?

Amie Devero (08:36):
Well, I don’t know that I always succeed at it. I mean, it depends on which part of my business. So in the strategy consulting, it’s an easier nut to crack because there, we’re really dealing with the brass tax of “What is your business hypothesis? How are we testing it? What is the plan for executing against that end”? At that point, you have a lot of data and a lot of hopefully evidence that says this is the right decision and this is the right path and that’s the consulting piece. And there we can take a hypothesis and we can drive it all the way through a strategy map, which is a very useful strategic plan as opposed to most strategic plans which are really not very useful. But on the coaching side it’s a little bit different because in the moment when, let’s just take one of my clients, has a, you know, a million and a half dollar prospect that’s ready to sign, but it’s not quite where they ought to be. Saying no to that can often be virtually impossible because they are not remembered. They’re not like small businesses. They have investors and those investors are often institutional investors and they have seats on the board. And if they see a million and a half dollars of revenue vanish because of a “strategic decision” that can just seem like bad leadership. And so the real role of the coach in that scenario is not to say do it or don’t do it, but to walk them through the decision making such that when they look back on that decision, regardless of what the outcome is, it was the right decision given everything they knew at the time. Because you know, hindsight is really an amazing kind of brilliance, but you don’t have the benefit of that on the front end and on the front end when the notice coming due or you’re going to market and they want to know where the revenue is. Sometimes you have to actually bite the bullet and do the thing that isn’t strategic because it pulls the revenue in.

Frank Bria (10:41):
Right. And because it might be the only thing that is keeping things afloat as you go. Again this comes back to, I have an affinity for decision systems and decision making processes. Cause I just think it’s fascinating and we don’t do enough of it. I think in business a lot of times we like to apply sort of one size fits all rules or intuition, very simplified kind of views of the world and the fact that you’ve laid that particular decision out with the level of complexity that says, “Hey, actually, you know, it’s a situational. You really do have to look at all of the different things” and with that overlay of you’re making the best decision you can right now given all of the information you have, those are really powerful principles that I think a lot of business leaders forget. That will second guess themselves on Monday morning will, be trying to apply sort of the wrong example to their situation and think, well, this is what we’re going to do. Even though it doesn’t feel like it’s the right thing to do without looking at it from a broader perspective, that’s a robust skill set that I don’t think a lot of leaders have.

Amie Devero (11:56):
Well, and I think even when you do have it, it can be really difficult to do it by yourself because you know, it’s like, I don’t know about you. I have an athletic background and I know that I am clueless about what, when I’m swimming, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I know what I think I’m doing. I know what I feel like I’m doing. But until a coach or a video camera shows me what I’m actually doing. It’s very difficult for me to see myself. We really can’t, you know, it’s the sort of thing when you’re walking past a shop and you kind of try to catch yourself in the mirror, but you can’t really catch yourself how other people see you because the minute you look in the mirror, you’re looking in the mirror. So the utility of a coach is that, that’s the person who’s going to kind of be you outside of you. The other thing I would say about decision making is that what we are often guilty of is sort of indicting our decision when we don’t get the outcome we wanted. And you know, so there are a lot of things at play when decision outcomes emerge. It can be luck, it can be the market taking a downturn, it can be you had an employee that sabotaged you. I mean, there’s a million things that could happen that can make a decision turn out badly even though the decision was really the right one. And so sometimes what we do is we get a bad outcome and then we go, “well, that was stupid. I never should have done that” when the truth is that was actually smart. It’s exactly what you should have done. It just didn’t turn out the way you want it.

Frank Bria (13:27):
Yup. That is a powerful principle. This idea of that look, all decisions in life, not just business, have an element of risk associated with them that anytime you make a decision, all we’re really doing is we’re trying to increase the likelihood of a successful outcome and not creating 100% potential for a successful outcome. And then when it does turn bad, a lot of times we’re learning the wrong lesson from those outcomes. And to have, I think you’ve done as you’ve outlined, this incredible strength of perspective from an outside coach where you’re seeing things from outside of yourself from a different perspective that you would never have the ability to see and you’ve got someone you know, talking you off the ledge. I as it were occasionally when things don’t turn out exactly the way that you expect they’re going to. And so you’re able to say, “well, wait a minute, actually let’s think about it. This actually, we did all of the right things here, even though the outcome isn’t the way we would have hoped”.

Amie Devero (14:34):
Better yet, if your coach does this, which I do, they have hopefully documented all of that. Because I usually have copious notes about what the conversation was, what the considerations were, what the decision matrix looked like, and how that decision got reached. And so even if you’re not keeping your own decision journal, which I often think is a very high bar for most humans I start off every year meaning to keep one and then somewhere around March it languishes, you know, but having a decision journal or at least having a record of what your thought process was, how you made that, that particular decision, what you thought the probability of success would be, knowing that as you quite wisely point out, there is risk, there is luck, there is just simply terrible things happen. I mean, 911 happened and everything went awry for everybody for the next still happening, you know. And that is how life goes, so you never can make a perfect decision. You can only make a perfect decision given what you know, and then hope that the stars aligned to, you know, to sort of push your probability over the edge into the right, you know, right outcome.

Frank Bria (15:47):
And what a great idea to have a decision journal. That’s such a fascinating…

Amie Devero (15:51):
Not my idea. Stole it, I completely stole it. But it’s a great idea.

Frank Bria (15:56):
Well, it’s the first time I’ve heard of it. So I mean you’re going to get credit for it, but.

Amie Devero (16:01):
I will take the credit, but I’d want to make it clear, it’s not my idea.

Frank Bria (16:05):
That’s fine. That’s fine. There are very few truly, you know, original things in business anyway, a lot of times we’re piggybacking on someone else’s thought, but what a great opportunity to document, you know, all the thought processes and the context. Because from my perspective, I think a lot of entrepreneurs, I know I’ve fallen into this trap myself. A lot of us will second guess the decision making and then make the mistake of second guessing our abilities. The decisions didn’t turn out the right way and we forget in the fog of difficulty or failure, as we might want to call it, that actually this was some pretty smart stuff going on behind the scenes. And that as a leader you were doing the best you could. And as the stakes get bigger, as the number of people you lead increases and you’ve got a larger, more complex organization, I’d imagine the power and the advantage of having that kind of context with you has really got to be, has gotta increase. That’s gotta be a great thing to have at your side.

Amie Devero (17:12):
I think it is. And the other thing I think that plays into this need for coaching and/or consulting depending on the situation, is that, you know, I think we underplay how cognitively sort of disabled we are when we’re in the throws of frustration or pressure or anxiety or desperation. All of those things come into play. Certainly for my clients. Certainly for me in my life, probably for you too. We’ve all had those experiences and there’s a tremendous amount of data right now that shows and where the data comes from is from looking at poverty that when people are desperate about money in their own lives, their IQ falls and there’s actual documentation about that. But the same things, the same brain processes that make somebody less smart in the moment when they don’t have a job and they can’t pay the electric bill. Those same emotional and psychological pressures are on a startup CEO when the runway has, you know, come down to a month. And if they don’t get that next round of funding, the company is going to be gone. And so with those pressures on you, then expecting yourself to be this kind of, brave, powerful, optimistic, visionary leader, which is the sort of absurd paradigm of leadership that we have. It’s unreasonable to expect yourself to make your best decisions in that situation. And that’s why having a decision journal and having somebody who can lay it out with you to look at all of the competing needs and competing stakeholders to make the right decision given the information is so valuable because it adds to your own potentially flagging IQ in that moment. And I must say my clients are brilliant. I mean these are people who I am in awe of, but they are not at their best in that level of pressure or anxiety. None of us are.

Frank Bria (19:17):
Yeah, I think we can all identify with that sense of confusion or fog or uncertainty and self doubt. And ironically, I think a lot of leaders who are in this exact moment will cut the spending on the exact thing that will get them out of this hole. Strategy consulting, strategy work is sometimes the first thing to go when funds are tight and organizations really don’t see a lot of future in the runway. You know, and again, this goes back to poor decision making in times of stress.

Amie Devero (19:58):
That’s funny you say that. I actually got my job, my first job running a startup while desperately unemployed and broke when the bottom fell out during the great recession and nobody would pay for my speaking engagements or strategy consulting cause everybody was cutting that. And so there I was broke and ended up one of several people on the front page of the then St. Petersburg Times, now the Tampa Bay Times with an article called something like people you would never believe can’t get a job. And I was one of the people and that’s how I got that job because I would come cheap, you know, it was like, “Oh wow, here’s this really qualified person for way less money than they’re worth”. And that’s kinda how I ended up with this pivot in my career to technology and smart cities.

Frank Bria (20:48):
Oh, nice. Yeah. And you never know. Sometimes those things just come out of nowhere and we look back at the path and think, “I don’t think I would’ve planned it that way”. But I want to pivot a little bit here to talk about the work that you do, get a little bit more into detail about that. So as you are engaging with an executive or their team, what are some of the outcomes that they’re looking for in an engagement with you? What are some of the problems you’re typically solving?

Amie Devero (21:20):
So there are a couple of sort of problems that come up repeatedly. When a company is going from being a very small intimate team. You have to remember how most startups form is this very intimate team with young, my clients, the leaders are not necessarily that young they’re usually in their forties, but the team that they have around them is often quite young. And these people have been called upon to be everything from the CMO to the chief bottle washer and everything in between and to work 18 hours a day. And so there’s a tremendous intimacy and, loyalty. But at a certain point, as you bring in more capital and the board grows and the team grows, and the levels of management grow, that has to change. What doesn’t necessarily change though, is the mentality of the people on the team who were there from day one and they have an expectation of very immediate access to the CEO and of a kind of tenure that their own maturity may not warrant either because they’re too young and inexperienced or just arbitrarily because the investors say no, we want somebody older, more seasoned with a better track record or who’s more famous. And that can be really difficult for the CEO and the C suite in general to navigate that transition. So how do you go from being a startup founder with an intimate team of cohorts who you adore and are instantly accessible to, to being the leader of an enterprise that may grow in orders of magnitude over the course of a couple of years from, you know, 25 people to 5,000 people. That’s a huge shift. So that’s a big portion of my work is navigating that, creating systems and processes, having the conversations that will empower the subordinate such that they stick around and hang in there because you know, being a director when you used to be number two can be a blow to the ego. But if it comes with a massive increase in potential wealth because of the valuation of the company, then sometimes there’s work to be done there with those folks in a subordinate levels to deal with their ego blow while understanding that they’re going to gain out of this. So that’s one piece. Go ahead.

Frank Bria (23:44):
That’s a huge dynamic that I think if people haven’t been in a venture capital funded firm, I don’t think they appreciate the complexity of that dynamic. You know, we look at people like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs and we think, although Steve Jobs is probably a counter example since he was fired and then brought back, and we look at founders and we think, “Oh well, they just immediately became the CEO of this big, large organization and everything’s all happy and wonderful” and that’s usually not the path for most founders as the tech companies grow. And there are these sort of right hand people, right-hand men and women who then get sidetracked into other positions because the company’s growing and oftentimes that person doesn’t have the skill set to perform at the enterprise level, immediately out of the shoot. And it can be a challenge and that dynamic is tricky. So that’s again, for those people who have not been in an organization like that may not appreciate the battle you’re waging.

Amie Devero (24:47):
Right. But it is a battle because you have to satisfy the folks who have been there from day one for one thing, they’re the only people who really do have that intimate knowledge of every aspect of sometimes the code. I mean, they may be the ones who understand how to make everything work because usually things aren’t working quite how they appear. There’s a lot of man behind the curtain stuff usually going on. That’s one piece of it. The other thing though, that I see a lot, which was very shocking to me because my consulting history was largely with legacy companies, is how hard it is for leaders who are largely millennials and the subsequent generation to be tough. You know, I’m old enough that my bosses were mostly really kind of assholes along the way. Nobody seemed to mind being an asshole. But that’s not true today. Today there’s an expectation that everybody is kind and generous and inclusive and empowering and that makes it really difficult to draw boundaries and set limits and push back and be the kind of tough loving boss who says, you know, “Your performance review didn’t go that well. Here’s what you need to work on. Here’s your performance improvement plan”. That doesn’t come naturally to people just slightly younger than me. I don’t know your age, but then near you. And they’ve just been raised in a very different way. And certainly their juniors even more so.

Frank Bria (26:15):
Yeah. So I, late forties, I totally get this dynamic. But yeah, there’s a very different expectation for how people engage with each other. And the tech industry in particular, I find that a lot of times there can be some really rough stories. I was reading David Horowitz’s book, “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” and he tells a lot of stories from the tech industry about the way people talk and I know a couple of the folks the book and I’m like, “Yep, that’s how they work”. It can be a little challenging.

Amie Devero (26:48):
It’s a great book by the way. Almost all of my CTOs just have, they all recommended it to me, which is how I came to read it.

Frank Bria (26:55):
Yeah, it is a really great book. What do you find is one of the pieces that you really have to work on with these founders to get them sort of over that hump to kind of begin that transformation? Are there things they need to do or mindsets that need to change that you find are kind of common themes or elements in that work you do?

Amie Devero (27:17):
Well, some of it is sort of setting the table up front is how to create the right expectations with your team. So I often come in right before series A, so they’ve had seed funding and they’re in revenue and they’re making money, but they’re going out to get money. So they haven’t necessarily hit that yet. And the big challenge is coaching them through the communication to have with the team in advance of outside investment coming in or big outside investment coming in so that the team is ready. So they understand that “look, anybody could be gone in the next iteration or could be demoted or moved sideways that, I’m no longer the last line of decision making”. And that’s a hard lesson to understand for yourself. And remember most of these CEOs went to Columbia for MBAs or to Harvard for MBAs. I mean these are super smart people I’m talking to who know all of these things conceptually. But it’s a whole different thing to have to now say to your 12 people who have been there from day one in the little accelerator space working away 19 hours a day to tell them like, “Listen, as we get this new money, they’re going to get board seats and they’re going to have demands, and if those demands mean that you become a director so that we can bring in outside management, I’m doing that and you need to understand that”. And those conversations are the ones that I coach them through or that I have with them, with their team, because I typically work with the whole executive team, not just with one person.

Frank Bria (28:53):
That’s smart. Yeah, exactly. What a great, I mean, the expectation setting is such a critical element in any consulting engagements. But that’s got to really help. I mean, it doesn’t make things easy down the road, but I think it really smooths things that could be challenging.

Amie Devero (29:14):
At least it kind of averts giant dramatic disaster. That’s your hope at least.

Frank Bria (29:19):
Surprises. Yeah. It’s like, well, we talked about this.

Amie Devero (29:24):
Yeah. Don’t be too surprised, this is what we said might happen. The other thing is it’s also really important for leaders to figure out or at least to learn if they don’t figure it out on their own, how to deliver a message that is both, “I appreciate you and you make a massive contribution and here’s what needs to get better”. Those two pieces go together and I think a lot of times when leaders are coached into being a little bit tougher, they forget about the appreciation piece. And I don’t mean that as a kind of puffing people up. I mean genuinely appreciating the fact that you have folks on the team who are loyal beyond what any business can possibly deserve it is after all just a business, but to let them know that their skill sets and their sacrifices and their work really does make a difference. It is not unnoticed even if you’re too busy to talk to them. And that while there are these corrections in these things to improve, if there weren’t things to improve, you might as well just be dead or have become white light. Right? I mean, we are all in the process of becoming something, becoming better at something. And if you’re already a done deal there, that would really be problematic.

Frank Bria (30:40):
Yeah, and I mean what a contrast that you’re drawing between what is sort of conventional wisdom, good news, bad news, good news sandwich, which everyone knows is a tactic and doesn’t play very well. But to truly be authentic in the appreciation because you do point this out, in really good tech companies, those teams, they do put in time and dedication. I know when I was involved in tech startups, there were times we were doing the insane and I slept at the office for 36 hours to get code out the door like that. That was part of the process. So that it’s great that you mentioned that. I mean unfortunately we are out of time. I apologize, this is a fascinating conversation. I’d love to keep talking with you about this mostly because I love hearing the work that you’re doing in parallel to the work I did in tech and I yes, that would’ve been so nice to have somebody talking to me. But thanks so much for being with us, really appreciate it. I know you’re busy and thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule. One question before we go though, as folks are listening to the work that you’re doing, if they want to connect with you, what’s the best way for them to reach out and make make that connection?

Amie Devero (31:55):
Probably just go to my website and fill in a contact form. They come directly to me. They’re not filtered at all. So it’s amiedevero.com, and you can figure it out from there. We all know how to work a website.

Frank Bria (32:12):
Terrific. And we have that link below the video. It’s on the show notes page for the show. If you’re out and about listening to the audio, come on back to the show notes page and just click on through to connect. Thanks so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.

Amie Devero (32:25):
It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Frank Bria (32:28):
Thank you very much. And thank you all for being with us on the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria. And just a quick reminder about the high ticket program core offer Blackbook contains more than 60 pages of standard operating procedures on how to run your coaching, consulting or expert based service business. You can download that for free at the show’s homepage, 6to7.show That’s 6to7.show For your free Blackbook. And we will see you on the next episode. [inaudible].

This episode focuses on enterprise consulting and decision support. I interview João Teixeira who runs a consulting/software solutions company focused on helping law firms make better decisions. I ask Joao about helping companies get past their internal barriers to decision making. We also talk about the challenge of introducing complex and even mathematical tools to organizations and what the adoption curve looks like.

João has achieved an extensive experience of 20 years as Consultant & Business Developer in a wide range of sectors and industries, he now operates with value management consulting services for all kind of legal firms to legal departments in private, public and state-owned organizations, including banking and financial services.

Transcript

Frank Bria (00:00):
The 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 78 ready? Let’s hit it.

Announcer (00:04):
Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor and strategist Frank Bria.

Frank Bria (00:29):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria and today’s episode we’re going to be focusing on strategy development for law firms and corporate consulting. But first a quick message from our sponsor. The this episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show is brought to you by High Ticket Program. Did you know that you’re only 12 projects away from turning your six figure practice into a thriving seven figure enterprise? In the High Ticket Program Accelerator, we guide you through every step of growth and scale a process we call leap. Imagine having a world class project team guiding you and your team through every step of pain, free growth, all with the goal of becoming a seven figure enterprise and moving away from painful time consuming business operations and client delivery. Get a taste of leap in your own business by downloading our free high ticket program core offer Blackbook that contains more than 60 pages of standard operating procedures for your business, including onboarding, customer service, graduation, financial management, and much more. You can get that for free by going to the show’s homepage at 6to7.show That’s 6to7.show for your free Blackbook and I am very pleased to be introducing today’s guest. His name is Joao Teixeira and he has achieved extensive experience, 20 years as a consultant and business developer in a wide range of sectors and industries. He now operates with value management consulting services for all kinds of legal firms to legal departments in public, private, and state owned organizations, including banking and financial services. Joao, welcome to the show.

Joao Teixeira (02:13):
Thank you Frank for being here.

Frank Bria (02:15):
Oh my pleasure. And we were having a little bit of a conversation prior to the interview, we were joking about our common engineering background. It seems to be that we’ve had a couple of interviews with folks with engineering background in the last few episodes. It seems to be a really good skill. So talk us through how you think that kind of infrastructure, that kind of background helps you in your consulting practice.

Joao Teixeira (02:46):
Yeah. Normally in engineering, and I’m from Portugal, we are taught to be a critic about everything that goes around us. So I have a degree with engineering, and then afterwards, several years ago I took another degree, a master’s degree in industrial management and engineering. And what I have looked upon as I am doing my consulting work was that I only worked as an engineer for one and a half year. Right after that, I started doing some internal consulting within the company that I was and I was invited by a software house to develop software and to be aware of all the prerequisites of the clients to do the software itself applied to the customer demands. So what happened was that I work in several areas from total quality management, the easel line fathered one certificate snore.(?) And I’ve also apply these to management consulting, several services consulting. And I finally ended up doing law practice management consulting in software that is applied to law decision making. It is very interesting to see that engineering can be used as a process for you to be critical about all kinds of approaches and reduce the burden of the bureaucratic procedures from the normal lawyers and these goals from the sole practitioner to inclusive the banking and financial and also government. We apply several metrics and several KPIs during the consulting procedure. And we normally do business user cases so that the clients can follow up the procedures in a more efficient and productive way.

Frank Bria (04:56):
So is this a, would this be considered sort of decision sciences, is that right?

Joao Teixeira (05:01):
Yeah, decision management.

Frank Bria (05:03):
This is a fascinating area, man. I worked in decision management in the banking industry for a number of years and you know, I think a lot of corporations are missing a great deal of benefit from not implementing some kind of decision management framework. And for those people who are listening and are not aware of what that means, essentially it’s some kind of an automated system from either rules-based or AI. There’s lots of different algorithms, but helps organizations make better decisions and decisions which are aligned with their strategic objectives rather than, today I feel like doing such and such. It creates consistency and organizations. Do you find that as you’re working with law practices specifically the management, is that more of a revenue item or an expense saving item for those practices?

Joao Teixeira (06:03):
More revenue items seen by the lawyer, but expensive items seen by us doing consulting. We break the norm because we apply both within our software. We normally tell our clients that they have to look upon a binomial factor, the right per cost hour and the rights of the value hour that has to be applied for the lawyers to be producing time, producing and factoring. This because the lawyer itself is only one active ingredient to be able to be payable. And that is time. It is not experience, it is not faxes, diagrams, procedures. It is time, 24 hours a day and they can only produce faster or slower. Normally when we do consulting, we try to increase the productive abilities of the lawyer, of the organization itself. And I am very proud to say that while applying law decision making software to the organizations, we normally apply from 40% to 42% increases in productivity.

Frank Bria (07:23):
Wow. Yeah, that’s pretty significant.

Joao Teixeira (07:26):
Yeah it is.

Frank Bria (07:27):
There is something about the mathematical or whatever you want to call it, algorithmic decision making pieces that create productivity that I, a real human being, I don’t think could really do. I remember working a number of years ago with a software company that was working in the banking space and they were using this kind of algorithm decision making to increase profitability in price setting. And the conventional wisdom, I guess, was people were like, “Well, you know, experienced people can make good decisions. They don’t need machines”. And this particular software the CEO of this particular software company, he always would walk into a conference room and make a bet with anyone in the room that they could outwit his algorithm. He’s like, “I will buy dinner for everybody in the room if you guys can even come within 10% of what the computer can do”. And no one ever could, you know, there’s too many moving parts for a human being to figure out.

Joao Teixeira (08:33):
I’m all for it. I can also bet the time way over 10% normally our clients, what they look upon is that they lack several metrics to manage the business. And this is only accomplished by a solution that is straight forward and giving mathematical metrics.

Frank Bria (08:54):
Now, are you a lot of consulting upfront to help organizations figure out what their strategy should even be? I mean one of the things that I saw when I was in this space was that most organizations thought they were using metrics to make decisions, but they didn’t even really have a good definition of what success looked like to them. Is that, is that a big part of your practice as well?

Joao Teixeira (09:15):
Very big. Normally we have about 80% of our consulting practice is driving the customers forward. The kind of tools that they have to use. Only 20% of the consulting is operational and this is kind of art. Normally the client doesn’t know exactly the metrics that they need to operate the business, and this is odd because we’re talking about banking, financial, government and several impact law firms that are in the market and when they are focus within their problem, within their metrics, they are not looking inside the organization itself. They are looking only and focusing on the problem. Not only when we enter as an outside person just right. This is exactly just what you do, Frank. When you enter as an outside person doing consulting, we are able to see the old picture and direct the directors of the company, banking, financial to what is more important than that single problem. That is why the metrics are for that is 80% of consulting, normally 20% of operational consulting.

Frank Bria (10:39):
That, and again you’ve identified one of the magics or magic things about corporate consulting is depending on the organization. In fact, I was talking to a very large fortune 500 company just a few days ago and they were saying they’re trying to solve a problem internally, which they kind of know the answer to. They could use a little bit of help, but frankly, they wanted to bring outside people in because half the organization won’t even believe anyone internally. They need someone from outside to come in and tell them what to do.

Joao Teixeira (11:11):
Normally what happens is that when you do the consulting that drive the customer forward, he’ll end up being the policeman.

Frank Bria (11:20):
Yeah, that’s true. That’s a great metaphor. So there’s a lot of consultants who are listening to this who do a lot of corporate work and there’s a sort of common theme that’s a challenge for a lot of consultants that I think you guys have tackled cause you’ve been really successful going to market with this that I’d like to talk about and that’s you are fundamentally, your solution is complicated. You know what I mean? In the end it’s a complicated thing to explain and complicated things are hard to sell. So what are you finding is the positioning that works for you to communicate the benefit of this very complicated solution? What kinds of things are working for you in terms of messaging?

Joao Teixeira (12:06):
Yup. Then normally we have two core business in our company. One is law practice management software and another is digital marketing. So it is kind of easy for us to do the right marketing for our customers and we do it in a way that normally it is the customer itself that provides value. Okay. It is very important that the client knows the added value of the consulting that we do and that the software offers. But more important than that, is that we have 12 clients reference in order to be successful in our strategy of communication, direct marketing for the clients. And this is an odd Harriet(?) work. When you are trying to work in law practice management normally it is not you look upon the clients, these, the clients that want to look upon the best consultants in the market to work with and we are perceived in our company and, I’m fortunate to say, that we’re perceived as consultants with a very, high degree of added value. So we do not have great problems contacting clients and normally it is a clients of competitors. We are fully booked for three months and it is quite the challenge.

Frank Bria (13:33):
Well, clearly your reputation makes the whole thing a lot easier when you’ve got a good reputation in the of inbound requests. Did you push through that challenge as you were starting, as you were growing of trying to communicate what you do? Cause I think a lot of people, and it doesn’t even have to be as complicated as decision sciences as industrial engineering, a lot of corporate consultants have processes that they run, which I think one of the mistakes that a lot of consultants make is they sort of lead with that process. They lead with the, the secret sauce and they ended up talking about sort of inside baseball as we like to say in the United States. They talk about stuff that no one really cares about unless you’re in that process. This client certainly doesn’t care about it, they want the result. Did you have to kind of push through that to get to build the reputation that you have?

Joao Teixeira (14:28):
Let me quote Jocko Willink. You have to go get some, you have to grind it off. It is no chance at all. You have to grind it off. The beginning was very tough. You have to learn a lot of things. You are from engineering, you are going to management consulting, then you are going to law practice management consulting. Then you are directing metrics for lawyers that are, you should know exactly what they do. You have to commit your full time to it. There is no escape. The grind that you apply to the business goals into your reputation add value that the client perceives of you.

Frank Bria (15:11):
Yeah. Well we just lost half the audience by telling them it’s not easy. It’s a common misconception that there’s some magic pill that you can take that makes all of that easy. But the fact of the matter is building a successful consulting practice is very, it’s hard work.

Joao Teixeira (15:29):
Indeed.

Frank Bria (15:29):
For sure. So let’s turn the attention a little bit to the kind of work that you do. Because you’re providing a solution that’s sort of surrounding a software practice. Can you walk us through what an engagement looks like with you guys? So you know, what kind of onboarding do you do? Kickoffs. What kind of milestones are you looking for as you’re working through an engagement? Do you mind sharing a little bit of that process?

Joao Teixeira (15:57):
Yeah. Normally we are contacted by the client itself, either due to several word of mouth within the several sectors of law practice and also due to several announcements that we have on the social networks. I’m talking about Instagram, Facebook, including Tik Tok now. Yeah, we are using them all because we are following a range from the 26 years to lawyers until 70 years old. And normally the onboarding processes, proceed with the consultation, this is free of charge. Okay. We have to add some kind of value upfront for the client to start… For the clients being able to start to gain some trust in our ability and what he might perceive of our work. And as I’ve talked earlier, normally the law practice management world, it is misinformed in financial and our software is very financial based. What I talked early about the cost hour versus the right hour. It is a binomial product that normally the lawyers don’t get along with well. Our software produces all kinds of metrics. Combining these two together and automatically in real time.The perceived value is that the lawyer doesn’t have to change his way of working to produce your body process that we offer. It is an integration with Alto word(?), the normal tools that lawyer needs that works in the Trek, the time in an automatic matter for the right to be able to tell himself, “okay, this is exactly the produced time that I have” and then when you will have to dictate objectives to his company, institution, he will be able to direct the produced time and you can translate that to the time that will be billed to the customer. When we are talking about banking or financial, you are able to have objectives directed to the producing expected time to several kinds of process. This is a framework and a checklist that is introduced within the system in order to be able to start out with the greatest buyer inside the organization or not. This is all about consulting over here. When you are talking about consulting. The first consulting is giving added value the binomial product or the financial adjustment of the costs for the client. Possible costs for billing, for talking about this law firm and this perceived value. It gives us the opportunity to present the software for the client. Normally we do a business user case that directs all the questions and all the metrics that the client is not looking upon when we are talking to them and afterwards we do a demonstration of our software. If this applies to the customer itself, then we follow up within the requisites to develop specific kinds of reports, metrics, diagrams, faxes, everything. It is very straight forward process. It is add value, trust, and deliver.

Frank Bria (19:58):
Yeah. I was going to say that it just taking it up one level as applicable to a lot of different consulting practices. I think it’s interesting. First of allthat you’re doing the free consultation to add value at the beginning of the process. I think that’s important. A lot of consulting companies are starting to move away from that now or are afraid that they’re kind of giving away too much in that first piece. But I think that’s a critical first area. So at first it sounds like you are defining the metrics for success. In other words, you are helping the organization get the framework to even understand whether or not they’re going to be successful in the engagement upfront.

Joao Teixeira (20:45):
More than that you are really finding the metrics that they have upfront and doing so, you are surrounding yourself with all the information that you can get in order to do a better job implementing the solution. This is the main gain on the free consultation.

Frank Bria (21:11):
And this is critical. I mean, most consultants will go through a process. One of the things I think is critical here that a lot of consultants don’t do is set themselves up to be able to declare victory at the end of the engagement. I mean, you want to be able to have an agreed upon definition of what success looks like in the engagement. And most organizations don’t even know what that is. They haven’t created their own internal framework for measuring that so that you do that up front is really, really smart. The other thing that you’re doing that I think is really interesting and I think people need to listen to this as an example is you are leveraging the solution inside of their own existing process. You know, a lot of people do process change work. You know, they’ll do change management and they’ll re-engineer processes and then other people are optimizing outcomes in existing processes. And most consultants will confuse these two and they’ll try to do both at the same time. Well, and I’m sure that there are processes that change, but I’m kind of hooking onto the idea that your, the person who could be the biggest challenge for you in the engagement, the lawyer, is keeping with their existing tools and you’re making this sort of friction-free for them. You know, you’re making it an easier process for them to adapt the new framework that’s again, really smart. Really smart move.

Joao Teixeira (22:45):
Thank you. We normally apply one procedure that within these kind of business is not applied. Normally it is only the lawyer that is being evaluated and we advocate that the administrative personnel should also be evaluated. So the work that they produce because normally when law practice management what our law practice management software does and our consulting does also, it’s been able to talk to tell a law firm and also government and banking and financial that they are losing money if they don’t consider the administrative personnel that is working for them. Because normally this encompasses for 18% to 20% of the work time. They didn’t considered the total amount of time produced and the costs associated with it would have to be quite direct in this. It is financial matter. At the end of the day. We want to have money in the bank.

Frank Bria (24:00):
Right? Yeah, again, you’re coming back to this idea that at the end of the day you’re there. This is a financial transaction for the organization. You’re working for him. Even though there’s complex mathematics and things like that, an engineering and process work and revamping and metrics going on in the background. At the end of the day, they’re just trying to make more money. That’s great stuff. We are unfortunately out of time and I really appreciate, I would love to talk you about this, I geek out on this stuff with you for hours probably, but most of the podcast guests would get lost in the mathematics, but I think it’s fascinating what you guys are doing. And you’ve laid out a really good framework for consultative efforts for a lot of corporate engagement. So hopefullylisteners are taking that away and as they have their own engagement that they’re designing for folks as well. One last question though before we go. As folks are listening and they want to be able to connect with you, what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you and your company?

Joao Teixeira (25:10):
So best way to contact the company is go direct to the websites, kaimylaw.com or the cloud website that we are presently developing. That is solutionsforlawyers.com or you can also look upon the link that Frank can put up that is a direct link to my LinkedIn profile. Normally I am contacted by almost 90% of my clients through my LinkedIn profile.

Frank Bria (25:37):
Okay, great. Great. Yeah, we’ve got those links are below the video. If you’re watching the video, if you’re on the show notes page, they’re in there. If you’re out and about listening to this audio, come on back to the show notes page or the YouTube channel, and you’ve got the links there to click on through. Joao, thank you very much. This was a fascinating conversation. You’ve shared a lot with us. It’s terrific. Thanks so much for taking the time.

Joao Teixeira (26:00):
Thank you, Frank.

Frank Bria (26:01):
And thanks for being with us on the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria. And just a quick reminder about the free high ticket program core offer Blackbook. It contains more than 60 pages of standard operating procedures on how to run your coaching, consulting or expert based service business. You can download that for free at the show’s homepage, 6to7.show. That’s 6to7.show for your free Blackbook. And thanks so much for being with us and we’ll see you on the next episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Make it happen.

In this episode, Jeremy talks about the work he does with youth and entrepreneurs to get them to set goals and keep them. We discuss the importance of accountability.

Jeremy comes with a passion to lift, and inspire individuals to remove “I Can’t” from their vocabulary. A Dad of four children and married for 13 years brings joy beyond measure. Teaching, training, and coaching have provided knowledge and experience to focus on High Performance. Jeremy continues to influence the business world producing well-being and sustained performance.

Transcript

Frank Bria (00:00):
The 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 77. Ready? Let’s hit it.

Announcer (00:04):
Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria.

Frank Bria (00:29):
Welcome to the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria, and today’s episode we are going to focus on high performance coaching. But first, quick message from our sponsor. This episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show is brought to you by High Ticket Program. Did you know you’re only 12 projects away from turning your six figure practice into a thriving seven figure enterprise? In the high ticket program accelerator, we guide you through every step of growth and scale a process we call leap. Imagine having a world-class project team guiding you and your team through each step of pain-free growth, all with the goal of becoming a seven figure enterprise and moving away from painful, time-consuming business operations and client delivery. Get a taste of leap in your own business by downloading our free high ticket program core offer Blackbook that contains more than 60 pages of standard operating procedures for your business, including onboarding, customer service, graduation, and financial management, and much more. You can get that for free by going to the show’s homepage, 6to7.show that’s 6to7.show for your free Blackbook. I am pleased to introduce today’s guest, Jeremy Smithson. Jeremy comes with a passion to lift and inspire individuals to remove “I can’t” from their vocabulary, a dad of 4 children, married for 13 years brings joy beyond measure, teaching, training, and coaching and providing knowledge and experience to focus on high performance. Jeremy continues to influence the business world producing wellbeing and sustained performance. Jeremy, welcome to the show.

Jeremy Smithson (02:10):
Thank you very much.

Frank Bria (02:11):
So let’s start off with this definition of high performance. There’s lots of people who talk about that from the, there’s the sort of athletic world and a lot of other. What’s your definition and what are you trying to achieve from high-performance with your clients?

Jeremy Smithson (02:29):
Yes, absolutely. Really good question. High-performance is an interesting thing because a lot of people think it only applies to sports or athletics. But it’s in all areas of life. Now what high performance to me looks like is it’s a sustained energy of success that lasts for a long period of time. Instead of having the peaks and valleys that we go through on a regular basis. I’ve worked in sales for many years and you know, how one quarter will go up, one quarter will down. My goal is to help individuals to sustain that high-performance without burnout. And so that’s, that’s how I define it.

Frank Bria (03:11):
Okay. What, as you’re seeing entrepreneurs or other business folks kind of go through that sort of cycles, the ups and down cycles, what are some of the big mistakes they make that are degrading their ability to perform at a high level?

Jeremy Smithson (03:31):
Yeah. It’s been really interesting to see how I, and I’ve even seen this in myself, but as I work with professionals on a regular basis we think that we’re being the most productive that we possibly can are. We think that we’re totally clear in regards to what we want to accomplish, but in all reality we are just spinning our wheels and nothing is coming to fruition from it. And so I worked really closely with them to make sure they have a processmaking sure that they have a structure to their day. Maintaining energy is something that’s absolutely critical, and now when I mentioned energy to a lot of professionals, they think, “Oh, it’s just physical, it’s just me exercising”. But there’s a mental side that is absolutely incredible and what mental energy looks like is taking time prior to a meeting or a conversation to prepare yourself to know exactly what you’re going to say, how are you going to interact, what that demonstration or what that that call is going to look like so that everything is totally clear once they conclude that conversation. So my goal is, and you mentioned in my bio in regards to removing the “I can’t”so often I hear that, “Well, I can’t remove those meetings from, from my day. I have to be there”. Well, what you think, but let’s drill into why you’re attending those meetings, why you think you need to be there. And in all reality, it’s just a presence. It’s actually not a good purpose to be there where someone can take notes, return the notes to you, and you could be doing something else productive in that timeframe. So there’s a lot that people can adjust real quickly. Everything that I do is focused on kind of the challenge or action behind it. And so it’s not just going to be, “Hey, here’s a philosophy or a way of thinking”. It’s, “Hey, let’s go try this out and you tell me if it doesn’t work and then we need to adjust it”. But it’s all fine tuned to the individual.

Frank Bria (05:41):
Yeah. You’re talking about managing energy flow essentially of the person throughout the day. I can imagine that a lot of listeners are thinking about this. And of course they grabbed onto the, “I can’t”, and one of the first “I can’t” they probably threw in here was “I can’t find extra time in my day for prep”. Like prep for every meeting, every conversation, that just feels like a lot of work. But obviously, high performance coaches and consultants and executive coaches all talk about having that preparatory energy. What are some of the things that you find we’re having to do to kind of optimize our schedule to make room for that kind of energy management?

Jeremy Smithson (06:28):
Absolutely. No, one of the research studies that’s been done for quite a while as regards to having productivity time scheduled throughout every single day. Now one of the things to optimize that time is have some time prior to work. I actually sit down every single day with a journal and with a calendar to plan out my every single day. And I even answer questions before something happens. Like, “what could be a stressful situation today”? And I identify how to react to that. Yeah, now my morning schedule is very routine. So get up at 5:30, I read, I study I meditate. Lots of different things that help me prepare for the day and I do that journal as well. That just kinda sets the tone for the day. But in regards to optimizing your time throughout the day, we talked about meetings, like let’s really identify if you have to be at every single meeting. What the research has shown is that if you can have two to three block times a day, now what a block time is, it’s an hour time. It’s 60 minutes. So for 50 of those 60 minutes, you are 100% focused with zero distraction on a certain task or project or whatever you’re working on, and then the last 10 minutes is re-energizing yourself to redo what you just did. But if you can have two to three times doing that throughout the day, the research has shown that you can increase productivity by 30%. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I could work with the marketing team or our client success team or sales team and increase sales by 30%, I think that would be a pretty awesome deal. So I think it’s worth identifying what can we do to remove the things that don’t matter and incorporate those things.

Frank Bria (08:22):
So again, this is drive back to structure. One of the things that you talked about earlier is making sure that there’s structure behind it. I want to talk a little bit about your journey into this. So you talked about your background in sales. What’s the journey for you personally that takes you from sales to high performance coaching?

Jeremy Smithson (08:43):
Yeah, absolutely. So my career has been a little bit of, it’s mainly been an educational aspect because early on straight after college, received a degree in communications and went right into education as a recruiter for a small college in Utah. As time went on, I became an Associate Dean, started teaching online. And then I wanted to jump ship and do the tech thing, and so I went into educational technology. I wanted to stay in the education space and continued to teach while I was in that space and moved into a more sales role where I’d be selling software. Did do well with that and my heart and my passion was always the on the training side. So I’d find myself creating mentoring programs and creating all these different things to help people on my team or external for my team to just improve and be better. So a couple of years ago something happened in my life that I have been dealing with since I was 11 years old and that was an addiction to pornography. I dealt with this for a long, long time and I had gotten to this point and in fact, my first job out of college, I lost my job because of that addiction. So it was a big eyeopener, that actually put a lot of shame and a lot of fear into my eyes. So I went into hiding for eight years where my wife and nobody knew. Then I had had it. I literally had hit personal rock bottom and I’m a very religious person and my faith in Jesus Christ. And I prayed. I knew I did not have the courage at the time to tell anyone, but I needed to change. I needed something to expose me basically is what I needed. So I prayed that my wife would find out and what happened two days later, my wife found out and then I started on my journey of recovery and healing myself. I got to a point that through that recovery went really, really well. I felt just so close to my Savior and also close to my family, to my wife, but I infused myself into a community of people that wanted to change and wanted to grow. I found myself coaching on a regular basis, these individuals and helping them change their mindset of, “Oh, we don’t need to focus on the negative, focus on the positive here” or kind of reposition their day a little bit. Then I ran into about a year ago high performance coaching with Brendon Burchardand started to really follow him really closely. Then this last May I decided, you know, this is what’s going to support what I’m already doing. The values and the vision behind it is right in line with what I see. So I decided let’s go full force. And now here I am a year later after kind of jumping into that and this is what I do full time now. So it’s awesome.

Frank Bria (11:49):
Oh, nice. Yeah. You know, I think most listeners are going to identify with a journey that involves some major life event that pivots them in a different direction. I think that’s a common theme among folks who feel called to transformational work. I think everyone’s got their own individual stories of what that looks like for them. I think again, also this common theme of a service to transformation. It’s essentially a call to service other folks through that process. So that’s a phenomenal journey. What for you is the unique element do you think to you coaching people? What’s your story for them that attracts them to your coaching practice?

Jeremy Smithson (12:53):
My unique aspect of it is that phrase of “not why me, but why not me”? Now, let me give you a little bit of background about that. So when I was 17, almost 17 years old, my family moved from Portland, Oregon to Salt Lake City, Utah. That’s every 17 year old boys dream, right? Leave your senior year of high school, and go and uproot everything. So it was pretty upsetting for me. I was actually even, kind of, dating someone and so I was really upset that I was leaving her behind and leaving all my friends. I ended up moving into my sister’s house with my mom and dad and it was all due to some health problems my dad was having at the time. Now, me being pretty a happy go lucky kid up to this point. I sat down in that setting and had no friends. I jumped from job to job to job that summer. I literally, I think I had five or six jobs in a matter of about three months because I would be there for two weeks and just hated it. What I came to realize was I was hating myself. I wasn’t happy with anything. So I didn’t know at the time, but I know now that I was depressed, I didn’t know how to get out of this. I was very self aware and so I’d try to get involved with my family and it ended up with isolation and that kind of thing. It all happened on a Saturday morning. I woke up, I was laying on my bed, it’s actually about noon cause I had nothing to do. So here I am still laying there staring at the ceiling and I was rolling through my mind, “Why me? Why did I have to move? Why did my dad have to get sick? Why am I in this situation”? And then all of a sudden a thought in my mind came that said, “Why not you”? Immediately my mind shifted and it was just a huge paradigm shift for me. It was like, “Wait, I’m doing this to myself”. It was totally situational and if I want it to be awesome, I’m going to have to make it to be awesome. So it was a really big shift and a big eyeopener for me. That is actually what I bring to the table here with high performance is yes we have struggles, we may not be the high-performer that we want to today, we may not be productive, we may not be clear, we may not have the energy that we have but why not? Why not me gain the understanding, learn the principles that are going to help me be productive. We have a huge gift called agency that we can choose every single day to be powerful. So that’s what I bring this a little bit different to the table in regards to high performance coaching.

Frank Bria (15:46):
Yeah, that’s interesting. What kinds of clients typically make up your practice? Are youdo you have industry specific areas or certain folks that you typically work with?

Jeremy Smithson (15:58):
Yeah, so I am doing kind of two things right now. One, my primary focus is to help the community of addiction recovery. Me having understood that that process and the need to have a really set schedule and that kind of thing really does help. My coaching is three months. It’s fantastic. It’s 12 weeks. So if someone’s involved in a 12 week program that’s for addiction recovery or something like that, this could go in line with that. It goes really, really well with that. But I also am infusing myself into corporate to give leadership coaching and group coaching specifically for teams. So right now I’m doing a lot of lunch and learns and infusing myself that way to help them amp up and level up.

Frank Bria (16:50):
Great. Walk us through that process as you’re working with folks, how are you taking them through this journey? You’ve indicated a lot of the elements here for us; the structure, the mindset the changing of that daily routine. How do you help people? What’s the process you take people to actually implement those elements in their lives?

Jeremy Smithson (17:18):
Yeah. So one on one coaching is obviously going to be very different than group coaching, but in that kind of setting I ask a lot of questions. So if you want to really do a percentage or something like that, it’s going to be like 80/20. They’re talking 80% of time. I’m asking questions 20. 80/20, that way. What that translates into is, as Brendan always says, common sense is not common practice. So my job is yeah, I do have some key principles, but in relation to that, you actually probably know a lot more of what you need to be doing then you give yourself credit. So my job is to bring that out. So each week I have worksheets that they’re going to be working on throughout the week, but by the time I’m done with every single session, there is going to be at least three action items. So for example clarity I’ll just use productivity. Productivity was that block time. The assignment for that week would be “Okay every single day this week have at least two block times, and then we’re going to report on how that actually… Did it increase your productivity? What did you find? What are the trends with that”? So each individual session there is something that’s diagnosed to do along with our worksheet, but also we’re going to discover some things that’s just kind of organic in the session that they also want to accomplish too.

Frank Bria (18:53):
Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like there’s a mix of having these core principles that you’re building on the structure. Creating opportunities for mentorship where you’re helping the client essentially apply those principles to their own lives. Then with assignments you’re providing accountability to actually get that done and follow up to make sure it’s getting implemented. Does that sound about right?

Jeremy Smithson (19:17):
Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Frank Bria (19:18):
Yeah. That’s great. Do you have an example some that you’ve worked with that’s got a great story you want to share with the audience?

Jeremy Smithson (19:26):
Yeah, well, one young man actually now in regards to like the addiction recovery world, I would absolutely love to be able to work with youth to be able to prevent the things that come from the heartache with a marriage or even financial strains that go on a family and that kind of thing. So one young man he and his parents came to me specifically asking for some help because he struggled with the same addiction as I did. So we sat down over those 12 weeks and it was amazing to see the transformation in him because it came from this young man that really, he graduated from high school, he didn’t really have a lot structure. He worked, he had a part time job that was maybe 16 hours a week. So he had this free time, and you know, how free time idle hands is terrible for especially a teenager. He just didn’t find that there was enough structure for himself. So the one that I actually had that session on productivity, we identified that he had eight hours a day, that he didn’t have any structure. At the end of the session I asked him, I said, “What did you take away that was a big aha for you”? He turns to me, he goes, “I was like, squandering eight hours a day doing nothing. That’s just crazy to me”. That was really the turning point. That was five sessions in. He had had some ahas up to that point, but at that point he was like, “this is serious. I going to make a change”. It was amazing to see the transformation that never in his life had he gone longer than two weeks of sobriety. He had been sober for a week when I started and he’s sober today. So it was amazing to see that he wasn’t focusing on the addiction anymore, he wasn’t focusing on even sobriety. He was focusing on high performance, he was focusing on good quality things to do and he was a happy kid because of it. So that’s one of those that really stands out to me.

Frank Bria (21:47):
That’s a compelling story of the power structure. That’s great. Jeremy, we’re out of time, unfortunately. I’d love to talk with you more. I’m really grateful that you’ve taken the time with us. I know you’re busy to be able to have this conversation. But before we go, one last question. For those people who are listening to what you’re doing and are interested in hearing more about you or connecting with you, what’s a great way for them to connect with you and to get in touch?

Jeremy Smithson (22:18):
Yeah, so my website is normally the best way to get ahold of me, which is alignedforlife.net. You can read all about my coaching there as well. My email address is alignforpurpose@gmail.com. And you can also find me on LinkedIn. The linkedin.com/jeremyrsmithson so those are the best ways to find me.

Frank Bria (22:41):
Excellent. And we’ve got those links here below the video. If you’re on the show notes page, they’re here as well. If you’re out and about listening to this audio, come on back to the show notes page and click right on through. Connect with Jeremy. Jeremy, thanks so much for being with us today. Really appreciate it.

Jeremy Smithson (22:56):
Yeah, thanks for having me

Frank Bria (22:58):
And thanks for being with us on the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria and just a quick reminder about the free high ticket program, core offer Blackbook that contains more than 60 pages of standard operating procedures on how to run your coaching, consulting or expert based service business. You can download that for free at the show’s homepage, 6to7.show. That’s 6to7.show For your free Blackbook. Thank you so much for being with us and we’ll see you on the next episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Make it happen. [inaudible].

I talk to Keegan LaMar about his athletic background and how it shapes the work he now does with high performers. We did into the concept of high performance in this interview and break it down into its parts. He discusses how his sports background allows him to connect with his clients as they suffer setbacks and overcome challenges.

Keegan LaMar is a certified professional coach and performance dynamics specialist who helps people create an unstoppable mindset in sports and business.

http://lamarcoaching.com

Transcript

Frank Bria (00:00):
The 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 76, let’s hit it.

Announcer (00:04):
Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor and strategist, Frank Bria

Frank Bria (00:30):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria, and today I’m absolutely thrilled to be joined by Keegan LaMar. He is a certified professional coach and performance dynamics specialist who helps people create an unstoppable mindset in sports and business. Keegan, welcome to the show.

Keegan LaMar (00:50):
Thank you Frank. I appreciate it.

Frank Bria (00:53):
So what’s the connection with sports and business? What’s your sports background? Why the focus there?

Keegan LaMar (01:01):
Absolutely. So a little bit about my background. I’ve been an athlete pretty much my entire life. I grew up in a sports family. I also grew up in a family where both of my parents held pretty high levels in job positioning, some fun facts. My dad who is Kevin Lamar, he founded, in a garage with one of his buddies. They invented Bowflex. So he did that. He worked for Schwinn cycling for awhile, had a few businesses. So I had an amazing role model in having someone who was connected in business and pretty much loved business his entire life. He also played in the NFL for a few years. So as you can imagine, my upbringing was a little bit more strict than most other people. It was at a certain age, you start playing sportsand you play at a very high level or you don’t do it. So when I went into high school, I was an all state athlete, played in Fairview high school in Boulder, Colorado, and then played football at the University of Colorado as a long snapper. Sothat’s kinda where my official sports career ended was after I played college football. So since then, been working in business and just have really had this mindset towards how bringing a sports mindset to me, to the business world and understanding that there’s so much crossover between people who are in business and people who are in sports. Just the mindset as a whole, what they go through, the challenges they have, the stress that they put on themselves and how they’re put into a position to need to perform. It’s just, it’s almost one to one in some cases.

Frank Bria (02:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So I have to say then as a graduate of Colorado State University, I will not hold it against you.

Keegan LaMar (02:59):
Here’s what I’ll say. I actually, I almost went to the Colorado State University and it was one of those things whereI was on the phone with them and they were like, we want to offer you a scholarship, but we don’t want to lose this recruiting tool. So can you commit and come to us and then we’ll offer it. And I said, can we flip it for some way, shape or form? Can you offer me? And I’ll say yes right now. Long story short, it was just one of those things where it just, the cards fell where they did and I found myself at University of Colorado. But hey, no malice towards you. It’s an amazing school.

Frank Bria (03:39):
No, no, no, that’s, yeah, I’m just kidding. I did my graduate work there anyway, so it’s one of three Alma Maters I’ve got from a college perspective, so it’s totally fine. So the pressure that you’re talking about that is from the athlete perspective and the entrepreneurial perspective. I think most people who are listening to this can completely identify with this regardless of whether or not they had an athletic background or not. What are the secrets then to, I mean, what does the athlete learn about how to create top performance that the entrepreneur needs to know?

Keegan LaMar (04:21):
Absolutely. So the first thing I’ll say is everybody wants to know the secret, right? Everybody wants to know, “Hey, this is performing at an unbelievable level. How do I do that”? And the secret is that it’s perfectly unique and everybody who’s performing at a very high level at what they do, they’re doing it in a unique way, which it gives some comfort to people, but it also stresses some people out because the main underlying truth there is that for you as an individual to become successful, you are going to have to figure out. So we face challenges. Everybody faces some of the same challenges and you look at athletes, they face the same challenges, which is you know, you’re being defended against or you’re trying to stop an offense or you’re trying to do all these other things. Same thing in business. You’re trying to create more money. You’re trying to create opportunities. You’re all, everybody’s faced with the same challenges. Where you find success is how you uniquely approach them. And so that’s the main thing that a lot of people overlook is that their unique capability to solve a problem, is usually the first thing they tossed aside and they try and look for a formula. Whereas, the formula to success is actually driven by these energetic dynamics that are at play, which I mean just kind of listing them off, there’s about five. So there’s spiritual dynamics, there’s mental, there’s emotional, there’s environmental, there’s physical, and then there’s social dynamics that are at play in what everybody does in everything that they do. So the dynamics then people just, if people sat and they really took inventory of where all five of those factors sit with what they currently do and define those things. If they looked at them and they said, what are ideal for me, they’d probably realized that there’s a little bit of a misalignment between the two, and that might be the difference between succeeding at something that you’re doing and actually feeling like you’re in a rut or you’re just kind of in zombie mode trying to figure out how to survive.

Frank Bria (06:30):
You know, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs will say they’ve experienced that feeling of, you know, some people describe it as not being in flow or the energy not being aligned, but I think a lot of people would nod their heads at saying they know what it feels like that to be misaligned, to feel like they’re not leveraging their true skill set, and feeling like there’s something about entrepreneurship which sort of doesn’t fit their skillset or maybe it’s not them. So I bet it’s a refreshing thought for a lot of people to be listening to that and thinking, “Oh wow, maybe I am trying to use someone else’s sort of secret elixir to a success when in fact, you know, it’s in me all along”. Not to get overly movie themed about it.

Keegan LaMar (07:20):
No, you couldn’t be more right. And for most people, so there’s an important aspect of that. When you’re young, obviously, you want to look at people who are successful and when I say young, I mean if you’re not 80 years old, because if you’re younger than that, you’ve got time. That’s another thing that people don’t realize is they think they’re locked into something. I’ve been working in corporate America for longer than I thought I was capable of making a change and I made a change and now I have my own business and I know people who’ve done the exact same thing. So it’s important to realize one, you have time to, it’s okay to look at people who are successful and start thinking “What is it that they’re doing that really makes them successful”? But there’s a nuance there. So the important thing is not what they’re doing, it’s why they’re doing something. So you look at someone, and I mean, there’s amazing people out there and someone who disrupts the entrepreneurial landscape really well, gives amazing advice. Someone who I love listening to and watching, Gary Vaynerchuk he’s amazing. He gives awesome advice, and the main thing for him is if you have something that’s burning inside of you to do something, then figure out a way to do it. How you figure that out is going to be unique to you because he’s somebody who just like all of us, just like me, where you come across a challenge and you realize, okay, for me a huge role model of mine is, you know, the father of coaching at this point, in this day and age, Tony Robbins it’s not a, “I want to do what he does”. It’s, “I realize that his passion is helping people create beautiful lives”. So that’s powerful to model after. Whereas coaching is something that anybody can do. They can go through a program that can do all those other things, but if the “why” you’re doing anything doesn’t align with who you are as a person, that’s where you’re going to run into friction. And that’s where you run into burnout because people go down these paths and they’re like, “this seems like it would be really cool”. But then they get into it and they realize there’s friction there because of that misalignment you spoke of. That’s the biggest indicator that you may not be doing something that aligns with who you are as a person internally.

Frank Bria (09:41):
Yeah, but you bring up a really good point, which is, I think, a relief for a lot of people. I mean talk about Gary Vaynerchuk, talk about Tony Robbins and you know, people look up to them and respect them for what they’ve built but don’t always feel aligned to the energy that they project in. And there’s a lot of worry, especially I think Gary Vaynerchuk probably pulls this out of more people than Tony Robbins does. But a lot of people look at Gary V and go, “I can’t do that. Like there’s no way I could do what he does, and if he’s saying that that energy, that dynamic is the only way to be successful, I’m screwed because there’s no way I can do that”. So it’s really enlightening to hear you say “No, that’s not how it works”. You can look at them and look up to them for the passion that they have and the why they haven’t. Those are both great examples because they have very strong background, strong wise out in the world. But that you can do it your own way and with your own dynamic.

Keegan LaMar (10:48):
Yeah, absolutely. And you touched on it so beautifully. You have people who may look at Gary V’s and may look at Tony and they say, I don’t know if I have the same engine that they have. And so I can’t exactly do what they do. That’s okay. And that’s, as coaches, for me and for any other coach that’s out there, we have an inquiry based approach with what we do, which is basically trying to help people by asking them questions that help reveal and bring out the answers that are unique to them. So when you start pulling that stuff out, then the individual that you’re working with, you’re kind of creating this really creative process and you’re trying to figure out, okay, what are your internal values? What are the important things to you and how do you translate that from internal values to external successes and external things, your what, who you serve. And in order for there to become, create this really nice alignment between who you are and what it is you do. Because most people, they don’t realize that there’s a things that they could probably do, and it all depends on how they do it. Because how you do anything is the difference between finding real success in what you do and feeling that level of friction that most people do in the workplace.

Frank Bria (12:09):
Yes. So this is a really good segue cause I’d like to spend a little bit of time talking about this process because it’s fascinating to me how, as you’re discussing this, connection of the why to the what and the how and I don’t know that a lot of us have connected those dots. We understand why, what gets me out of bed in the morning, but this translates into those daily dynamics and performance habits is kind of fascinating. So can we talk about this? One of the things you said up front was everyone’s a little unique, everyone’s different, everyone’s got different processes, but do you have an approach? Like is it really unique for everybody? You kind of make this up for each individual or is there kind of a process that you take each person you’re coaching through?

Keegan LaMar (13:00):
Yeah, so there are some things that are pretty standard practice within coaching. But for me, probably 90, 95% of what I do is completely tailor made to whomever I’m working with, which is what I think makes it super interesting to me. Really. I feel mentally fulfilled and it’s the right level of stimulation when whomever I’m working with, I know has this unique imperfect path that they are on. Therefore there is no kind of cold cut type of cookie cutter thing that’s gonna work for them because nobody is cookie cutter. There’s not a single person who is. So why should there be an approach in coaching that is cookie cutter? So when I’m working with anybody, the main things that I want to know is one, where they are two, where they really want to be, and three, what has been stopping them from getting there? When I understand those three big things, it lets me know a couple of things. One, how are they winning today? Because there’s, I mean cleaning up the language a little bit, but there’s a book by Gary John Bishop called Unscrew Yourself and you can probably imagine what the word is, but.

Frank Bria (14:20):
That’s okay. We have other folks that have dropped the F bomb on this show. That’s not at all. I totally understand.

Keegan LaMar (14:27):
Absolutely. And it’s an amazing read because it really hones in at a very detailed level about one of the concepts that I love to talk about in my coaching, it’s called energetic validation. So when I talk to anybody, I want to understand what they’re validating today, which means how are they experiencing life today? Because when they’re experiencing life, if they’re like, “I’m running into blocks here, blocks here, I feel this is monotonous”, it lets me know that everything they’re experiencing is actually a reflection of stuff that they believe about themselves. If people say, “you know what, money’s always tight. I’m always chasing money. I’m always blah, blah, blah”. Then I start diving into it and I say, “okay, well, tell me about your beliefs about money. Tell me what story you’re telling yourself and reminding yourself that you’re actually validating that money is something that is scarce”. So it actually attaches a level of energy to a specific thing that they’re validating externally. So energetic validation is one of the biggest things that I like to discover whenever I’m working with anybody. Next, where they want to be. So when, when I ask somebody where they really want to be, your brain only comes up with scenarios that it believes it can come up with, it believes are actually achievable. Some people aren’t. When I say, where are you going to be someone is probably not going to say, I mean maybe Elon Musk, I’m not going to live on the moon, you know? But if somebody really says “I want to be in a position where I can make a big impact on X, Y or Z”, then it lets me know that their brain is capable of putting themselves there. They’re allowing themselves to envision them being able to do that. When your brain thinks something is possible, truth is, it is because your brain is only able to come up with things that it is familiar with. So what people don’t realize is the difference between where they are and where they want to be is really minuscule. Everything that makes up who they want to be is actually already within them. It’s just they haven’t found the best place to let all of those internal pieces come out and play and be able to be in full effect. For one reason or another, they believe that they’re not allowing themselves to not fully live everything that’s within them and all their values. Then, what’s been blocking them. So this lets me know what are the challenges they’re facing and how they’ve been trying to get through them. Most times it’s a “I’ve tried doing this, but I keep running into this and I tried doing this and I keep coming up with this”. Most times there’s a story or there’s an assumption, some type of limiting belief that puts people in the cycle of you run into a challenge and you think, “okay, I ran into something and there’s only one way to win or one way to lose” and it’s either succeeding or failing. Whereas if you create more win scenarios in your brain, you will realize that you will probably find a thousand different ways to actually get to really where you want to be. You can start coming up with really unique solutions on how to get there. And that’s what a good coach will help somebody do, is come up with those creative ways that they can overcome obstacles, overcome challenges through the answers that that they’ve had inside of them the entire time.

Frank Bria (17:56):
Wow. Yeah. I know a lot of people are familiar with this concept of, being able to actualize what you can imagine. But you hit on a point that I don’t think a lot of people understand enough, which is that your brain really can only visualize what it knows and it can’t possibly visualize a scenario it doesn’t know. That’s a really powerful concept of our brain for both good and for bad, you know, cause we also don’t understand the potential that we could have because we don’t believe it yet, even though it could be out there and we kind of have to go through this leveling up process so that when we get to another level, we get, a good metaphor I guess would be, to see out over the mountains, you know, your from Colorado. So you know, if one 14 footer to another, you know, be able to see over the next peak to see what’s possible and that, that’s not always doable from where you stand today.

Keegan LaMar (19:02):
Yeah Absolutely. You brought up a really good descriptor there when you talked about potential cause performance as a whole actually is, there’s a systematic approach to performance. And there’s a simple formula that I use with any of the athletes that I work with, with any of the business people who I work with. Performance is simply your potential minus distractions. So, to put it into almost, you know, the most simplest terms I can when you think of performance, you think of, how high can somebody jump? Well, how high you can jump is your muscles capability of how hard you push into to the ground and how fast you push into the ground to fight gravity. So there’s an actual measurable potential that’s there with where you are currently at. Obviously we continue to work hard and we continue to change performance based on our potential actually continuously going up. However, for some people, they feel like they hit this plateau and when in reality their potential is probably still going up, but they create distractions that actually take away from their potential. So distractions are all the things that we come up with. I can’t do this, can’t do that. The equipment’s not right. The situation’s not right. I haven’t been set up appropriately. What you’ll notice there is everything that comes up as a distraction actually comes from within the individual. It’s not external, it’s internal distractions that hold us back from our maximum potential. So it was great that you brought that up because there is a systematic approach to performance that most people think performance is just kind of this “hopefully it works” and honestly it couldn’t be more opposite.

Frank Bria (20:49):
I love that formula. Now I know exactly what we’re putting in as the little quote blurb for this episode. Sweet. That’s totally it. So who are you working with? What kinds of folks are you attracting into your business right now?

Keegan LaMar (21:10):
Absolutely. So I would say the types of people that I really want to start attracting into my world that I can help with are the people who are in a pretty good position. Some people might even say, “Hey, I’m in a pretty great position in my life”. However they understand that there’s something missing that would make them unstoppable. When people think of unstoppable I actually had one of my pro athletes yesterday, he had like seven or eight beautiful quotes because he’s starting to just completely change everything. So he brought up Bulletproof. So I call it unstoppable. Some people call it Bulletproof. Other people call it whatever they want. Unstoppable mindset is when you want something, you know exactly how you can get there and it doesn’t matter what challenges you face because challenges are simply a means of you being able to continuously grow and you learn how to get past that challenge and then you add another skill another arrow to the quiver if you may. So the people who I like to bring into my world are the people who are in a pretty good situation or honestly a great situation and they want to become unstoppable. And there’s something missing that would help them become unstoppable. In business, maybe unstoppable for them looks like being able to take care of all of their employees without hesitation and be able to help people create unbelievable careers. Maybe in sports being unstoppable is finally being able to give back more than what has been given to them. There’s, you know, a thousand different definitions of it. So I help people really understand what that missing piece is or pieces are. That is the difference between living a pretty good life where things are sailing on smooth seas and they want to become unstoppable. So those are the types of people that I usually work with. I have worked with people who are a little bit less than ideal and I actually just celebrated a client of mine who I worked with for only six months. He was going through a divorce, he was in a job that he worked insane hours. He worked as a first responder and was working insane shifts, was not getting paid all that well. In month four of working together, he signed a contract with a fire department that doubled his income, is paying for him to go to paramedic school, which is something he’s always wanted to do, but didn’t believe he could do it because he didn’t have the money to get there. So they’re paying for him to do that and they’re paying him more when he gets out. And he just bought himself a brand new truck because his car was on its last limb and we even manifested exactly how it needed to come into his life. Almost two days later, the scenario that he said would have to happen, happened. I’ve never seen anybody manifest as well as he has. He has talked about exactly what he wants and he learned how to control his energy like no one else I’ve met so far and he has been manifesting stuff left and right. So he’s someone who was a little bit less than ideal and now is in a place where he’s like, I couldn’t feel better about things, anything if I tried.

Frank Bria (24:43):
Wow. That’s a great story. That’s a terrific example. We are totally out of time and I apologize, I’d love to continue this conversation. I have a ton more questions on performance and this energy. It’s really fascinating. But thanks so much for taking the time with us so far. I know you’re really busy. You’ve got clients to take care of and all that as well. So thank you for spending time. One more question before we go though. If people are listening and they want to connect with you, what’s the best way for them to be able to do that?

Keegan LaMar (25:16):
Of course. So a couple things. One for anybody who’s listening to this I’m going to be sharing my personal email address for my company. If anybody, and I mean anybody who’s listening to this wants to reach out to me. I will set aside 30, 45 minutes for a session for just you and totally free. So number one. Number two, I’m currently running a holiday bundle on my website and it’s four sessions plus an energy leadership index assessment and a debrief session for $1,000. I’m giving everybody on here an extra 20% off. So $800 total. Just mention when you email me, mention you want to do the holiday bundle and mention that you heard it from this podcast. So to get in touch with me, the best way to do it is my name keegan@lamarcoaching.com. So keegan@lamarcoaching.com. If there’s a hundred people, if there’s 200, if there’s a thousand people who reach out, I will set aside time for every single one of you because that’s why I got into this. I’m here to help everybody and anybody who, if you have simple questions to, you want to start a coaching agreement with me, I’m there for you. Sowith said, this has been amazing. Thank you so much.

Frank Bria (26:45):
Hey, thanks Keegan, that’s really gracious of you and a really awesome offer. Your contact information is below the video by the way if you’re listening to the audio on the show notes page, we’ve got it here for you too, so you can just go straight from there. If you’re out and about listening to this audio, come on back to the show notes page of the video or in YouTube and you will find that information so you can just click right on through. Keegan, thanks so much again. Really appreciate the time you spent with us. Really enlightening conversation. Thank you.

Keegan LaMar (27:16):
Thank you. I appreciate it and I appreciate you.

Frank Bria (27:20):
And thank you for listening in on this episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I know you’ve got a lot of stuff going on in your lives as well. So if you’re spending time with us, we’re honored and this is a fascinating discussion about performance. If you want to take it to the next level, you’ve got a formula there and a contact. So I suggest you take a look at connecting. Thanks again for being with us, and we’ll see you on the next episode. Alright everyone, take care. Bye bye.

In a unique take, this episode focuses on technology. I talk to Steve Waite of Simplii about the power of communication in your business. VoIP has transformed our ability to interact with prospects and customers. I ask Steve some of the best practices in phone communication and how a small business can leverage telephony to get a strategic advantage.

Steve Waite is the director of business development at Simplii. He’s been at Simplii for 7 years, originally from Portland, Oregon. Now he lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. He’s married and has four children.

http://simplii.net

Transcript

Frank Bria (00:00):
It’s the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 75. Let’s hit it.

Announcer (00:04):
Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria.

Frank Bria (00:29):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the 6 to7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria, and today absolutely thrilled to be joined by Steve Waite, who’s the director of business development at Simplii. Am I saying that right, pronouncing that right?

Steve Waite (00:41):
You were saying that perfectly.

Frank Bria (00:42):
He’s been at Simplii for seven years, originally from Portland, Oregon and now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. At the time of this broadcast heading into winter, which is a beautiful time there. The snow in the mountains.

Steve Waite (00:57):
Well I got the jacket on.

Frank Bria (00:59):
Yeah, he’s married. He’s got four children. And we’ll be talking about Simplii and what it does. But Steve, welcome to the show.

Steve Waite (01:06):
Thanks Frank. I’m excited to be here.

Frank Bria (01:08):
Yeah absolutely, absolutely thrilled. So first, let’s, Simplii, let’s talk about that. So what’s the company, what do you guys do?

Steve Waite (01:16):
So Simplii, we are a hosted voice over IP phone service provider with offices here in Salt Lake City and in Boise, Idaho. Yeah, hosted phone service with a real slick integration into most major CRMs. And we’ll discuss some of that. But yeah.

Frank Bria (01:39):
So for those people who are getting tripped up on the tech buzz here, voiceover IP is kind of like… I mean we kind of use this technology a lot in phone calls now, right? Cause people are kind of doing voiceover over web. Are you guys focused on business owners and setting this up essentially as a business integration tool?

Steve Waite (01:59):
Yeah, so specifically for businesses, we don’t touch residential phone service at all.

Frank Bria (02:05):
Okay. Just out of curiosity, a lot of business owners today are using their cell phone. Why is this an improvement over just putting your cell phone out there as a phone number?

Steve Waite (02:19):
Yeah. Yup. This is a great question. I get it all the time. I work with a lot of business owners that do use their cell phone and that’s fine. We try to take it to the next level. So when I’m talking to a business owner, I try to convey the message that it’s all about appearance, right? When customers are calling you and you’re answering on your cell phone or they get your voicemail, most of the time they can kind of tell that that’s your cell phone they’re calling. So what we try to explain to business owners is, we can create a really professional auto attendant, right? Or an IVR, a virtual receptionist. They can say, “thanks for calling X, Y, Z corporation, you know, for sales, press one for billing, press two, to schedule an appointment, press three, and it just gives the appearance of a larger company, a more professional company. Not saying that they aren’t professional, it just gives the appearance of that they’re talking to a bigger company. So it’s all about appearances a lot of times.

Frank Bria (03:27):
Okay. I mean as a lot of small business owners are trying to scale up and growI think a lot of them struggle with this sort of communication of teams. You know, you’ve got multiple people. Is this something you guys solve? Is that a problem you guys solve for a lot of business owners is how to connect these remote team members? I mean you’re remote, right? You’ve got offices in Boise and Salt Lake, but that seems to be a model that a lot of small business owners are handling these days. How do you connect those remote team members?

Steve Waite (04:04):
Yeah, so the beautiful thing about voice over IP isI can have a desk phone here in my office. I can also have that same desk phone at a home office. They both ring as the same extension. So if you call my office phone, my home phone rings at the same time. Right? I can also have it hunt out to my cell phone so I can answer a call on any location. And then we also have an app where it’s tied to your cell phone where you can dial out from your app as your business line. So yeah, to tie in remote users, it’s just as simple as giving them a desk phone that they plug in at home and they operate as if they were sitting in your office.

Frank Bria (04:53):
I don’t know a lot of people feel the same way I do. Maybe it’s just cause I’m old, but there’s something about picking up that handset and having it versus a cell phone. I don’t know. I have a hard time operating out of my office with a cell phone. It’s just maybe I’m old, I guess. But it’s really fascinating that now we’re talking about voiceover IP in ways that integrate into the marketing and sales automation and things like that. Because one of the things that really stood out about your company that was kind of fascinating, is that you guys are you talked about earlier, this integration into CRM. You know, for me, voice over IP solutions have been very tactical. You know, it’s like “Where’s the phone ringing and how does it follow me as I’m traveling around”? But, talk a little bit about this integration to CRM. What does that mean for businesses? What does it allow them to do that they couldn’t do before?

Steve Waite (05:59):
So there’s a couple of advantages. I mean, the first advantage is, let me take step back. When I talk to business owners, I usually ask them, “What is the phone experience that your customers get when they call your business”, right? If they’re calling your cell phone, what’s that experience, right? What happens? Do you answer? Does it go to your voicemail? So what we try to do is, especially if they’re using a CRM, we have the ability, when a customer calls in, it gives a screen pop. So they get a screen pop, it has the customer’s name, their phone number, and a link to the CRM in which they’re a contact. So Frank, you call our business, I see your name, I can click on your link and it pops your account inside of let’s say, Salesforce for Jeff. Well then what it does is it’ll actually log our phone call. So it logged the call, it attaches the call recording of our phone call, and then if there’s any SMS or text communication between us, it logs that inside the contact record as well.

Frank Bria (07:10):
Wow. That’s a lot of information that I like. At least I scramble to kind of put it in to figure out, you know, when was the last time I talked to the person andncall recordings as well. That’s got a lot of data associated with it. What kinds of businesses are you finding this is working really well for? I mean, as people are listening to this, thinking “Am I big enough? Am I ready for this”? What are you seeing from a customer perspective?

Steve Waite (07:44):
You know, I’d say most businesses, I mean there’s a couple of angles in which businesses utilize a CRM. Some use it for just customer management or customer relationship management. They want to know when’s the last time we had email interaction, was our contract sent out, some of that basic stuff. Other business owners use the CRM as a marketing tool and they use the marketing automation side of the CRM. So it doesn’t necessarily matter the size of the company. I have one userbusiness owners that it’s just themself. They work out of their home and they just use that to store their interactions with each client. And then I have multi location companies that have 300 plus employees and they use it as kind of a three prong approach. They use it to manage clients, they use it to market and then they use it to submit orders and things like that. So it just depends. It depends on what the need of the company is, but we can work with anybody.

Frank Bria (09:02):
Got it. Do you get a lot of questions about how to optimize and leverage the technology? I mean, I’m assuming a lot of people first kind of come to you guys with the idea of getting this location independence for messaging. But there seemed to be a lot of hooks and a lot of potential power in there that someone like me, if I were signing up for something, I might not be squeezing all the juice out of the orange as it were.

Steve Waite (09:28):
You bet. So I always, when I work with clients, I take the consultative type approach. We’ll literally sit down with a client. Again, I don’t care if it’s a plumber or a CEO of a fortune 500 company, same approach we walked through. What’s the customer experience when someone calls your business? Does it hit a live voice? Is it ringing to your receptionist? Okay, well then what happens if they want to speak to Frank or do they want to speak to the sales department? Is that just a quick transfer? Great. Well, what if they call in, is it ringing to a virtual receptionist where then they can quickly decide “”I want to speak to billing or customer service and it’s all automated. So we talk about that. We also talk about how do your phones ring after hours, right? As a business owner, are you 24/7, or do you put the phone down after six o’clock. Okay. And if you do, what happens if there’s an emergency or what happens if there’s a sales call? Do you still want to be able to take that call or do you want to route that maybe to an answering service? We have the ability to route it anywhere you want and we can also set up some automated SMS replies. So if a client calls you after hours or if they text you after hours, it’ll send an automated text message saying, “Hey, we’re closed. Here’s our website”. Or you can disseminate any information you want on that auto text. So there’s a lot of way to ways to still manage your business, capture some sales and things like that without necessarily having to be tied to your phone 24 hours a day.

Frank Bria (11:23):
Yeah, that’s interesting because…

Steve Waite (11:24):
We walk you through the whole gamut, the whole thing.

Frank Bria (11:27):
Okay. So it is a consultative kind of onboarding approach that you take. I think that’s refreshing because a lot of tech companies don’t do that. You know, they sort of like, “Here’s the product, good luck. Go to the FAQ. Figure out how to install stuff”.

Steve Waite (11:43):
I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve worked with thousands of business owners, small to large. So I usually have a pretty good idea of how to maybe guide them if they’re not sure what they want to accomplish. Then if they do, I always tell business owners, the nice thing about voiceover IP is, if you can think it, I mean, we can almost make it happen. Right? And our big motto is we want to be a whole office solution. You know, we want to be able to handle a call if you have a receptionist or if you have a sales team, you have a marketing department or do you have an accounting department. We can handle phones for your entire office, or if you’re the business owner with just a mobile phone let’s create an auto attendant and then no matter what selection they press, it still rings to your cell phone. But it gives you the appearance of being a bigger company.

Frank Bria (12:40):
Sure. Well, and the appearance piece ties into something that you mentioned earlier that I kind of want to dig into. And that’s around customer experience. Because you talked about like “what’s the customer experience”? You know, a lot of entrepreneurs today are talking about the sort of boundaries right around their communication, their contact, “I’m only checking email once a day or I’m only getting to…”, They’re pushing out these boundaries which are creating kind of… They’re doing it for the lifestyle, which I think we understand, but it creates a customer experience that probably has unintended consequences. What are some of the big mistakes you’re seeing business owners make in this contact customer experience that people are sort of accidentally creating? Like what kinds of things should we be avoiding?

Steve Waite (13:28):
I’ll give you an example. I’m working with a disaster services company, right? They do disaster cleanup and things like that. Their struggle right now is you call their business after hours and if it’s an emergency, and it could be an insurance agent or it could be a referral that was sent to them. Someone’s house is flooding and they need immediate service. Well, right now this company, it rings out to a cell phone, one person’s cell phone. Their struggle is, if that person’s already on a phone call and it’s an emergency, it’s hard for them to jump over and try to grab that other phone call. So, they’re missing a lot of business. So my suggestion when I talk to business owners is, you’re right, what’s the experience and what are you trying to accomplish? Are you like this disaster services company where that one phone call you missed, they told me this, they said it could be a $40,000 phone call that they just missed. So that’s their struggle and a lot of business owners struggle with, kind of, what you alluded to. How do you juggle giving the best customer experience, but maybe not having to always be tied to your phone. You know, there’s ways to route calls appropriately so that you don’t always have to take the calls. We can send text messages, you can communicate via text. If you’re indisposed and you can’t jump on a phone call, we can have those route to other employees. We can have those route to an answering service. We can do a lot of things.

Frank Bria (15:18):
Yeah. In the movement towards all of this internet based or email communication or instant messaging communication. You know, some people have the idea that picking up the phone and calling a business is kind of outdated. Are you seeing that? Is that true? Or what are the trends on phone communication these days for business owners?

Steve Waite (15:42):
Yeah, it’ll depend on the industry, but for sure we’re dealing with a younger generation, you knowwe’re old school. I’m used to just, “Hey, just call me, let’s talk it over, talk it out over the phone”. But this generation now they want to text. So we’re starting to see that SMS and texting and MMS sending pictures and video. But that’s how people want to communicate now, so I think business owners have to adapt because guess what, your competitor is, right? And so we give them solutions. We can set up a mobile app that can, you can text, you can call. I mean you can, however you need to communicate with your potential customers, you need to communicate the way they want to communicate and not the way you want.

Frank Bria (16:35):
Right. Yeah. It’s interesting the moment you said pictures, I immediately, I remember a client of mine a number of years ago, this is one of the big struggles we had is they were, they do a HVAC work, so a lot of server room construction for tech companies in the Bay aArea. And the challenge was, people send pictures in to a tech, and then you’ve got other people involved in the work order or something else and someone’s like, “where’s the picture”? No one can find it, It’s on some guy’s phone who’s on vacation and there was no central repository. People were having to doing crazy things like forwarding pictures to someone else who could then download it off their computer. It was a really like messy thing and you know, but that’s the way people wanted to communicate. They wanted to just take their cell phone out to the equipment, snap a couple of pictures and send it in, and it’s amazing that without really thinking that through, that can be a real hassle.

Steve Waite (17:36):
You bet. It’s funny. Technology now, it’s crazy. We have on our service the ability where I can do a screen share. Literally I can share my computer screen out to your cell phone.

Frank Bria (17:52):
Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that. I’ve seen it demo’d a couple of times, a couple of tech companies, but it’s fascinating and it’s underused. I think a lot of people aren’t using that very often.

Steve Waite (18:04):
Right, so let’s say I’m, if I’m a business owner and I’m sending you a quote and you’re like, “Oh, can you email it to me”? “Yeah, I already did”. “Well, I can’t, I didn’t get the email”. Okay. Well, “Hey, if you have two seconds, let me just share my computer. I have the quote right up on my screen right now. I’ll send you a link and you can just review it right on your cell phone” and you just share your screen, they can see that right on their cell phone. So again, there’s just so many different ways to skin the cat, right, and it just depends on the business. The business owner, a lot of business owners are really open minded and they’re open to “Hey, Steve, educate us. Let’s find a way that we can better communicate with our client base”.

Frank Bria (18:52):
Yeah. I saw some technology demo’d in the banking space a couple of years ago where people are using their cell phone to call in to a call center and then in the call center, they switch it over into screenshare mid-call. They’re actually swapping over, “Hey, just take a look at your phone right now and I can walk you through stuff” And we don’t even think about the potential for that. I’m on a phone call and it’s one channel. It’s one mode of communication and I’m able to sort of explode that channel of communication into a number of different areas to get visual, to get hands-on, to get really tactical with people. If you’re in the sales and marketing space and you’re talking to potential clients, I mean, the possibilities seem endless there.

Steve Waite (19:44):
Yeah, and Frank, I don’t want to scare people, right? So, I mean, I’ll talk technology all day long with business owners. However, there’s also business owners that are like, “No, no, no. Hey, whoa, let’s just keep it really simple. I just want it to ring and if I don’t pick up, it goes to voicemail”, right? I mean, I’m not going to argue. I’ll do whatever you’re comfortable with. I will try to open your mind to some alternative solutions that might enhance your business, but I’m not going to fight against you if you’re dead set on, “I want it to ring. If I don’t pick up, it goes to voicemail” because we have the ability to take that voicemail and send it out as an email attachment. So now they don’t have to call back into their office to listen to their voicemails. They can just pull up the audio file on their email and listen to it there. And then we can also send, any text messages can be sent transcribed into their email as well. There’s ways to make it a little bit more efficient for business owners to not get too complicated.

Frank Bria (20:58):
Yeah. I mean anyone who’s going to go through any kind of tech curve, it’s layering on complexity piece by piece rather than eating the elephant all at once. That’s a smart way to do that. So that’s great. Well, I think the important point is you’re handling an onboarding process and a consultative process that’s going to be really helpful for people. Cause I know this is one thing we preach for our clients is, if you’re going to do onboarding and if you’ve got a product, you want to own the success of the product for people and make sure that they have everything they need to really get the full return on their investment to really see how it integrates into the business and fundamentally just be successful at it. So it’s great you guys have that take. Stevewe’re out of time unfortunately. I really appreciate, you’ve given a great time, taking time out of your busy schedule for this conversation. Really appreciate it. One last question though. As people are listening and they’re thinking this is something they want to explore, what’s the best way for them to get in contact with you or the company?

Steve Waite (22:06):
Yeah and Frank, maybe you can distribute this, but they can call me direct. I’ll give you my phone number. It’s 801-449-9810. And then they can email me as well. It’s just stevew@simplii.net and I’m sure we’ll distribute that out to people if they need to contact us. And then for anybody that’s listening to this that hears about us from the program, we’ll give them their first month free so they can try us out. And we have 24/7 support service. We help onboard, we’ll ship phones out, we do it all so they don’t have to feel like they do it themselves.

Frank Bria (22:47):
Wow. That’s a generous offer. Thanks. Thanks so much. Well, the contact information is right below, so if you’re watching the video, it’s right below the video. If you’re on the show notes page, you’ll see it embedded in the notes. If you’re out about listening to this broadcast, come on back to the show notes page. If you didn’t catch that and you’ll get that information, I would be very surprised if Steve didn’t give out a phone number given all the discussion we had about making sure that you connect.

Steve Waite (23:12):
Call me everybody, we’re a phone company! Nawh kidding, you can email me.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Either way, so that’s great. Steve, thanks so much for spending time with us. Really appreciate it.

Steve Waite (23:23):
Wonderful, Frank, it’s been a pleasure.

Frank Bria (23:25):
Thanks, and thank you all for being with us on this episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria, and this has been a fascinating conversation about the leveraging of technology in your sales marketing process. I really do recommend you take a look at your customer experience when it comes to how your customers perceive you. A lot of times entrepreneurs, we oversteer to this get out of my face view of the world in order to create boundaries around what we do, and this is just a really good way to think about this from a customer perspective. So, highly recommend you check that out. Thanks again, and we’ll see on the next episode. Take care. Bye bye.

In this episode, I talk to Mandi Ellefson about scaling consulting services. She is one of the experts on how to grow a service business with done-for-you services. We talk about the big mistakes CEOs make when trying to scale their service businesses. She shares her process on productization and scale.

Mandi is the creator of the Scale to Freedom Scalable Service growth model. She leads consulting agency owners to have lives with greater freedom and success. Mandi has consulted with over 100 consulting agency CEO. And helps them immediately free up to 20-50% of their work week to focus on accelerating profits.

Her clients have added 5 figures of net profit every month, added millions of dollars in sales, and have exited the day-to-day so they can scale growth. Some have even sold  their business.

Mandi is a published author and host of The Hands-Off CEO Podcast. As a committed Freedom Fighter, a percentage of business profits go to rescuing enslaved victims of child sex trafficking. Mandi is a mother of 2. And enjoys mountain biking and exploring the outdoors with her husband.

https://handsoffceo.com/roadmap

Transcript

Frank Bria (00:00):
The 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 74, let’s hit it.

Announcer (00:04):
Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria.

Frank Bria (00:29):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria and today I am absolutely thrilled to be joined by my good friend, the lovely Mandi Ellefson, the creator of the Scale to Freedom scalable service growth model. She leads consulting agency owners to have lives with greater freedom and success. Mandi’s consulted with over a hundred consulting agency CEOs and helps them immediately free up between 20 and 50% of their work week to focus on accelerating profits. Her clients added five figures of net profit, every month. Adding millions of dollars in sales. Yeah, you can’t stumble over this stuff, this is the good stuff, Mandi. A millions of dollars in sales and exited the day to day so they can scale growth. And some have even sold their businesses. Mandi’s a published author, host of the Hands Off CEO podcast. And as a committed freedom fighter, a percentage of business profits actually go to rescuing enslaved victims of child sex trafficking. Mandi’s a mother of two and enjoys mountain biking and exploring the outdoors with her husband. Mandi, welcome to the show.

Mandi Ellefson (01:42):
Thanks so much for having me, Frank.

Frank Bria (01:43):
Yeah, my pleasure. You know, it’s really funny when I first read the bio and you said freedom fighter and you’re talking about the profits going to sex trafficking victims. I was like, that’s a really good double name for you because what you do in your work with your CEOs is fight for their freedom too essentially. Right?

Mandi Ellefson (02:09):
Right and I think what we’ve actually encouraged our CEOs to do is to find a cause that is actually aligned with the visions and the values of their company. And in doing that, you can really call in and attract the perfect types of staff and employees to your company because it’s, it’s part of what…They want their work to be meaningful and not just with the work that you do with your clients, but also how you’re changing the community and the world at large. So that’s one of those ways that you can compete for really good staff against the bigger corporations. Like it’s one of these super powers that we can have as the small companies.

Frank Bria (02:50):
Yeah. I mean, there’s really good examples of that. You know, Lulu Lemon started that way and now they’re huge. You know, they started by donating some of the revenues to charity and it’s a great thing for you. And I know you personally, so I know it’s not a tactic. Like this is something that’s meaningful to you. So it’s great that you’re encouraging your clients to do the same thing. I think that’s amazing.

Mandi Ellefson (03:16):
Well, and you know what, it’s been really cool to see that. And maybe I’ll just kind of jump into story for Philip, one of our clients and he’s gone from like 600,000 to 2.1 million in a year. Now he’s beyond 3 million and that’s just one of his companies. He started another one, but you know, he had hit a point of where they kind of stalled out and I could see what was happening. It was like they were looking for a deeper meaning, a deeper course for significance of their employees. But they didn’t quite have that language to really ask for that. But what transpired though, was that they were able to take some of the profits and start donating it to this charity in Africa that actually trains other fishermen, which is aligned with what the service that they have. And the result of it is that the engagement of their team went way up. They’ve had employees that have gotten job offers, really very lucrative job offers, who’ve turned them down to stay there. Because of the vision and the values that the company has. And they want to be part of that.

Frank Bria (04:26):
Yeah, that’s amazing. And it seems to be, in our industry, there’s a lot of people who are now talking about the mission that they have behind their business. You know, you see posts on Facebook, you know, my mission is to dah, dah, dah, dah. But it’s a totally different thing when you back that up with dollars actually flowing to that mission. That’s pretty cool.

Mandi Ellefson (04:48):
Well, yeah. And I think that when you can really weave it into your sales message, and it’s not just this lame value statement on your website just nobody really wants our about page, but really your about page should be about the prospect that’s actually there to visit it. It’s all about them. So anyway, I’ve kind of digressed here a little bit, I’ll let you lead the interview.

Frank Bria (05:17):
No, that’s great. Actually, this is a really important part.We’ll move on to scaling and saving time because I do think that’s pretty important. You and I have had lots of great conversation about that anyway, but just as a last note on this, I think it is a great, it’s not a tactic, it’s a really good strategy. It’s a really good underlying differentiation point. So that’s awesome that you include that in. So a lot of the CEOs that come to you, Mandi, this is about getting tied back. They’ve hit a wall. I know that you have talked before about how there’s low hanging fruit when you usually just jump in there and you can start really I guess, carving away at that schedule. What are some of the things you see CEOs do that drain their schedule away from them?

Mandi Ellefson (06:13):
I think that it really comes down to the mindset and really knowing exactly what they’re focusing on and being able to prioritize based on that. And that’s one of the biggest things. A lot of that is, so much time is wasted in sales, actually is in talking to prospects that are never going to buy in the first place. Just having a better qualification process, actually knowing, you know? I think you might have a very similar process to me on this one too, but the one client you work with, what is the one painful 6 or 7 figure problem, and what is the outcome you deliver for them? Like the guaranteed outcome. So when you know so clearly, exactly who that is that you’re serving and what they can get from working with you. Now your sales process just becomes qualify, quantify. So you qualify if you can help them. You quantify how much pain that they’re in and if it’s really in a good place to have you help them solve that problem.

Frank Bria (07:18):
That’s great. It will. This is why you and I get along cause we talk the same language. Right? But that’s so critical. It’s so easy to get sucked back into that stuff again because even those of us who know this, you know, we’ll have moments where we just, for whatever reason, we forget. We forget who we’re really trying to focus on and someone will come along and they’re not a good fit and we know deep down it’s not a good fit. But you kind of get sucked into that. “I Don’t know, should I try to close this deal”? It’s so true. Just stop wasting time with that. Stop doing that.

Mandi Ellefson (07:59):
Well, and it really comes from a scarcity mindset and understanding. Instead of that hour you’re spending and an enormous amount of time and energy, actually trying to like to hold space for the sales conversation and to see it through. If you invested that in actually just doing prospecting, you’d have a whole lot more opportunities and then you can really pick and choose exactly who you want to work with. Butthose are uncomfortable things and really knowing your vision and knowing why you are actually building this. This kinda comes back to what we were talking about with having bigger causes because what really happens, like you might see this too with clients you work with, is I see them, they hit a certain point where they’ve grown, the business has gotten to some level of success, but what’s next? And really feeling a drive to keep moving it forward. And I hit this mark pretty early in my business too, actually, because, I don’t financially need to work. I don’t have to, I don’t have to work. So I really had to come up with “Why am I really so invested in this business? Why”? And it’s been about how we impact these families that we’re helping and being able to give them back their dad or their mombeing able to make their work so effective that they help thousands of people, being able to free them up to work on other projects. Like Peter, this one client who just graduated our program, he was able to get his wife to work to quit her job and come stay on with the business. He’s working 15 to 20 hours per week and he makes more than he did even when his wife was working. And has all this time for him to be spending working on these parenting classes and marriage classes. And that’s really where his passion is. Being able to have this company that is hands off without him. He’s provided jobs for people, for him that something was real. He’s really passionate about good quality jobs and in doing this, he just focuses on the fun stuff in the business and his team does the rest. But meanwhile he has this really good solid foundation, all this really solid income so that he can focus on his passion projects, and that’s really what it is to be a hands off CEO in my book.

Frank Bria (10:33):
Yeah, it’s interesting because there’s so much talk. I mean you and I are in this space, so we do this a lot, but there’s so much talk in the industry, overall about trading time for money and getting your time back and all this stuff. It sounds really all kitschy and markety, but at the end of the day, these are real people with real lives and families and friends and priorities that get pushed off to the side. There’s real lives impacted by making these changes. It’s sometimes we forget that, that’s what’s really, at the end of the day, what’s going on here.

Mandi Ellefson (11:09):
Yeah. And can I say something on the time for money thing? Maybe a little bit of a rant here because time for money, like, yes, it’s bad. We don’t want to sell our time for money, but the reality is we are selling our time for money and it’s just a matter of how much money are we selling our time for. And the coaching industry, it’s all about “Well I don’t want to to sell my time so I’m going to sell this piece of crap product that isn’t going to do anything, any good and I’m going to build up this whole lame structure of” I don’t even need to continue on, but you know where I’m going with this, but it’s this BS that doesn’t actually deliver any results. They’re just so terrified of actually standing by a true outcome, being responsible and being responsible for the results and that starts with your client selection. Who are you actually allowing into your business? Can you guarantee results for them? If you can’t, maybe you shouldn’t be working with them. In doing that, I know that you do the same kind of work, but you’re able to double, triple, quadruple 10 X fees. Is trading your time so bad now? Just to give you an example, Madeline, one of our clients, she was really in this space where she has a consulting agency and she’s like, “Well I don’t want to sell”. She didn’t say sell my time for money, but it was something along those lines of like, I want to make this scalable, dot, dot, dot, dot. Right. She was charging $30,000 for services. Not too bad right? But it was very intensive. Cause it’s a done for you service and that’s what we specialize in, done for you services, which is a little different than yours. You do more coaching. It’s really intensive. But here’s the thing is that we put together this client success map, got really clear and focused on exactly what they would get, the outcome, had a really strong guarantee, turn it into a “shut up and take my money” type of offer. She went from 30,000 to 300,000. Once the program is done with the payouts surgery(?), it’s going to be a $300,000 offer. I don’t mind selling my time for that, you know?

Frank Bria (13:32):
Well, you know that that’s a really good point that you bring up because again, there’s so much garbage out around internet marketing and digital marketing and entrepreneurship these days. And you have to kind of filter this stuff out. And it’s true. This whole don’t sell your time for money trope has resulted in a lot of garbage. You’re absolutely right about that. I was having a conversation with someone just yesterday about this and that and in order to worry about, they literally were making no money at that moment, and they were worried about getting into a place where they had no time. Because of that, they didn’t even want to do any kind of a service that would be transformative at all, worried that that was going to take their time. I’m like, “You’re not even gonna sell this stuff if it’s garbage, trust me, you’ll have time, that’s not gonna be your problem”.

Mandi Ellefson (14:31):
I would call all of that head trash and that’s just them making up excuses for why they really can’t be successful. I think that the industry is littered with folks that don’t want to sell their time. They believe this BS from, unfortunately, books like Four Hour Work Week, which actually has a lot of good information in the book itself, but…

Frank Bria (14:59):
It’s classic clickbait title.

Mandi Ellefson (15:01):
Oh, I know. But here’s the thing, is I think that a lot of people just read the title and just said, “Hey, that’s what I want”.

Frank Bria (15:07):
That’s right. That’s the only thing they remember is that they’re only going to be working four hours a week.

Mandi Ellefson (15:11):
But here’s the thing, you can get to that point, but it comes after you do some hard work and really understand how to add value, really add bigger value. So, I kind of went off on a tangent there.

Frank Bria (15:27):
No, no, no, no, that’s fine. I do want to pivot a little bit though, so that people can get a sense of the work that you do. Do you mind if we chat a little bit about how you get done, what you get done? What’s that process like as you’re taking CEOs through this process of taking the service and moving stuff off their calendar? Are there steps you kind of take them through?

Mandi Ellefson (15:57):
Yeah, definitely. So we have our Scale to Freedom system. It’s five key profit drivers that makes your service sellable. So kind of some of the things we talked about, you know, the $300,000, so sellable. It makes it scalable, which we haven’t talked about at all, and then it makes it more profitable to deliver. So we have the five steps. We talked a little bit about finding time, so we tend to find them 10 extra hours per week in the first week. The first session we work with them actually, and it’s just a few tweaks, but for companies that are at capacity and they’re looking at, “I can’t scale past myself, I’m stuck in the middle of it”. This is really valuable for them and it really gets them focused on what they actually need to be doing to actually grow the company. That leads into the second step where we put together this predictable, scalable growth map. So this growth map that helps them know “What do I need to be doing every single day this year to be able to grow the company to hit our growth targets and to be able to do it in a way where you can step back more and more in your company”? Then the third step is this irresistible service product. We talked about it with those three ones. Like you know, the one client, the one really painful problem and then the one outcome. So looking at putting together a compelling guaranteeable offer. And in doing so it’s going to increase in conversions and it allows you to command higher fees. Commanding higher fees, that’s key in order to have a much more profitable business. This is where I see so many businesses totally trip up here, is that they don’t have enough profit to scale. They are trying to scale the company and their products and services they’re not scalable. They think it’s not scalable because they’re stuck in the middle of it, and that’s part of it, but the real reason why they’re stuck in the middle of it is because it’s not sustainable. There’s not enough profit in it to step outside of it. So looking at how do we add more value and actually first doing what’s not scalable. First you start with what’s not scalable and then that gives you sustainable. Sustainable, then you can hire the people and then you can do all the magic to really scale up the company, but you can’t do that if you don’t flipping have money.

Frank Bria (18:26):
Right.

Mandi Ellefson (18:26):
So stop, like, I see all these companies try to scale up, we work with consulting agencies, and we see them trying to scale up and they’re hiring these crappy employees and they’re just like this frazzle, having to do too much of the work themselves and not even having the time and space to train people because it’s this endless cycle. There’s not enough money in the business and if there’s not enough money in the business, it’s not because they’re not charging high in the fees. It is actually because they’re not charging high enough fees, they can’t command higher fees because they’re not actually delivering enough value. They’re not overcoming the resistance their prospective clients have to actually getting results for them. They haven’t overcome the risk. So as a result, what’s happening is they’re just throwing spaghetti against the wall and that’s what their new clients are doing, but they’re never getting big enough budgets to actually do the most impactful work. So that’s step three.

Frank Bria (19:30):
I’m glad you have a focus on that. That’s so important. I think you’ve made a point that I don’t think a lot of people grasp that’s so critical. There’s a time and place for the investment. So many people ask me “well, how am I supposed to put this automation and hire this person? I hired this person when I don’t have any money”. And I always tell them the answer is, if you don’t have the money, it’s probably too early for you to be doing that. There’s probably other things you should be doing first, but bootstrapping should work if you have the right business model in place. You shouldn’t have to go into debt, you shouldn’t have to not be paying yourself a salary, you shouldn’t have to be doing that kind of stuff if you’ve got the business model right. That’s a really critical point.

Mandi Ellefson (20:17):
Yeah, absolutely. The answer to all of this is more sales, but more of the right sales, right? And that’s what, in that step three, the irresistible service product, we’re looking at “what are the right sales that are going to actually become scalable”. So, and that’s in step four, looking at the scalable delivery system. So how do we streamline this service and deliver the promise with these? One of our examples of our clientsJamie, they do affiliate marketing, they have an affiliate marketing agency and some of their client results were over here and some of them were way over here. Some would be high millions and some of them would be 500,000 these kind of results that they would get. So how it happened is it kind of priced somewhere in the middle. They were just really reluctant to have any kind of promise. So anyway, they put together a promise around “We add $10 million in three years to your beauty and skincare brand”. So $10 million in three years to beauty and skin care brands. They do that through their affiliate marketing channels. That’s completely revolutionized their selling, and now getting their foot in the door with a number of these really big brands that they’re household names, they have meetings with them, right? They’re closing these really great deals, but that came from really being willing to put together this big promise that’s kind of terrifying at first. The real key then is to take that, reverse engineer with your team and say, “What’s it gonna take for us to get that”? Now this wasn’t something that they’d never done before. They had done this before. I’m not just saying pie in the sky. “Oh Yeah, that’d be nice to add $10 million to a company, maybe we could do that”. No, they’ve done that before. It’s looking at your best case studies and how do we replicate those? And then that’s how you and the scalable delivery system is looking at “What is it going to take to get your team to do this”? And your team actually builds out what we call a service management blueprint and that’s actually what we use to train up their operations manager. So you can hire a project manager and then use that to train them and develop them into operations manager, maybe they become a COO at some point as you continue to grow. So that’s step four and what that does is it helps you put the pieces in place to get the business to profitably run without you. Step five is really where it starts to run without you, and actually throughout the process, your company starts to run without you more and more. So this is a progression, right? Sounds very linear. We do our best to make it linear, but the reality is, “I’m going to hire somebody and we’re only in step two, but that’s cool. We’re gonna hire somebody, right”? Or I just landed this big client, so how do we…” So we do our best to keep it linear, so anyway, this step five is enhance off growth. It’s like looking at I talked about the operations manager, it’s really developing this person and getting them to shelter you from the noise so that you can keep on growing the company and so that they manage your whole team for you. What’s different about this is that this is designed for companies in the six to seven figures, six and seven figures, so multiple seven figures. So the ideal is about 500,000 to 5 million. We take clients in the lower six figures, if they have a strong sales engine and we can see a clear path, and if they don’t have too much head trash.

Frank Bria (24:09):
You’ve identified your ideal client really well there.

Mandi Ellefson (24:18):
Yeah. You know what though, we’ve had Madeline, where she was at was a little earlier than some of our other clients, but the thing is that she had another company before, that she had already sold. So it was someone that we could help generate income really fast. So anyway, we train them and we actually have an operations academy that’s like a kind of sidecar to our scale to freedom program, which our teams will participate in. Jennifer, our lovely program director she runs that program and that’s just a bonus that we have as part of our scale to freedom program.

Frank Bria (25:00):
That’s nice. Yeah, that’s really critical. That’s a huge value right there. People underestimate the time and energy and effort it takes to train up an operations person. So the fact that you’ve got that right there as a support mechanism. That goes back to what we’ve been talking about the whole time and the way I put it, slightly different than the way you’ve put it, but talking about the same thing and that’s wrapping your arms around the whole problem, so that you can guarantee the success. So you’ve done everything necessary to get the outcome and having that training that’s so critical because that is one of the important steps along the way to success. If their operations people can’t take over, if they’re not trained, then all this stuff falls apart. So that’s great you’ve put that in there.

Mandi Ellefson (25:47):
Yeah. I think this is also an example of how there’s this really botched belief that when you scale, quality declines, but we’ve actually found that to be the opposite for our company. We find that to be the opposite for our client’s companies too. What happens is as you scale, you have more resources and you have more, I have a lot more bandwidth to be thinking about ways to improve client results. Because I’m not doing all the little mundane things that used to just drive me insane. We see our clients get better and better results because, you know, I have an idea and I just sent him over a quick email, “Hey, have you thought about doing this”? It’s like that one thing maybe they needed, but if I, as the CEO, totally overwhelmed with all the details, there’s no space for that. The other example is, Jennifer, coming in and being able to provide a different resource. I mean, she’s been a fractional COO for 10 years and a hundred different companies, right? I don’t have that experience. That’s a different expertise that she brings to the table. As you scale your company, you have more opportunity to bring this in and it allows you to step back and really allow the business to grow instead of it just being you growing the number of hours so you can grow your income.

Frank Bria (27:10):
Well, you’ve got the benefit trifecta there. So you’re helping your clients essentially grow their income so they have the resources to scale you get more time back in their schedule because you’ve proceduralized things, and quality goes up because everyone’s working on the right things at the right time with the right headspace. That’s, the trifecta right there, money, time and quality.

Mandi Ellefson (27:35):
Yeah. I didn’t think about it that way. That triangle. Yes. Thanks for pointing that out Frank.

Frank Bria (27:39):
You got it. That’s what I’m here for Mandi! We’re so totally out of time. I’ve totally overstayed my welcome with you. I really appreciate it though it’s an absolute blast talking to you. Before we go though, one quick question. So people who are listening, they want to connect with you. They want to learn more about what you guys are doing, what’s the best way they can get with you?

Mandi Ellefson (28:04):
The best way to do that is to go to www.handsoffceo.com/roadmap and you can download our Ultimate Roadmap to scaling your consulting agency. That that will help you be able to find all sorts of money in your business, which we like, and dig a lot deeper into what are these three hidden roadmap blocks that are really holding you back from scaling? Yeah, so go to that link, www.handsoffceo.com/roadmap and there’s lots of goods there for you.

Frank Bria (28:36):
Good deal. That link’s below the video. It’s on the show notes page. If you’re out and about listening to this, c’mon back to the show notes page and click on through or you can just type it in and get there directly. I can tell you, one of the things that Mandi is incredible at is in communicating this information in a way you’re going to get, and be able to implement. This is like one of her superpowers. So go download that. That’s a great resource. Mandi, thanks so much for taking the time, really appreciate it. This is terrific.

Mandi Ellefson (29:06):
It’s been my pleasure, Frank. Thanks so much for having me.

Frank Bria (29:09):
Yeah absolutely. And thank you so much for being here with us on this episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria, and like I said, go grab Mandi’s roadmap. That’s seriously a great resource. She’s one of the people I go to to bounce ideas off of and get my head straight around process. She knows this stuff really, really well, so I couldn’t endorse it more. Thanks again for being here and we’ll catch you on the next episode. Take care. Bye bye.

I interview Damon about the power of coaching executives. He discusses the process he uses to drive change and goal attainment among his clients. We also discuss how he lands new clients and how to accelerate “referral marketing.”

Damon is a performance specialist working with two types of leaders: corporate C-Suite executives and founding teams of venture-backed firms. His work focuses on: mindset, resilience and storytelling.

He has worked one-on-one with hundreds of CEOs at Fortune 500 brands. His experience spans Wall Street, Hollywood and consumer brands.

Damon is a global keynote speaker, serial founder, board member, investor and adviser to multiple international companies.

http://legacymentormastermind.com

Transcript

Frank Bria: 00:00 The 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 73, Let’s hit it.

Announcer: 00:04 Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor and strategist Frank Bria.

Frank Bria: 00:29 Hey everyone, Frank Bria here with the 6 to 7 Figures Show and I’m pleased to be here with my guest, Damon D’Amore and we are going to be talking about his background, his experience and Damon is actually a performance specialist. It’s working with basically two kinds of leaderscorporate C-suite execs, founding teams of venture backed firms and his work really focuses on mindset, resilience and storytelling. He’s worked one on one with hundreds of CEOs of fortune 500 brands. His experience spans Wall Street and Hollywood and consumer brands and he’s a global keynote speaker. Serial founder, board member, investor and advisor to multiple international companies. So Damon, thanks so much for being here, really thrilled to have your experience.

Damon D’Amore: 01:19 Thank you for having me. This is wonderful.

Frank Bria: 01:21 Yeah, absolutely. So you and I share a little bit of a common background here in having worked with some fortune 500 companies before and some CEOs of those folks. What would you, for those who have never experienced that before, what is it like going toe to toe with a fortune 500 CEO and trying to get them to do something that maybe they didn’t want originally do in the first place?

Damon D’Amore: 01:50 It’s funny because most people get intimidated because, you know, but what you need to realize is that if they’re asking for help, they really, really want help and feedback and that they want to play in your sandbox. They’re in their own sandbox all day long, where they’re the king in the castle and one of the first big CEOs ever met who had like a $6 billion company. I showed up at the meeting in a suit. His secretary opened his office door and the guy was wearing a Grateful Dead tee shirt and jeans and sneakers. He looked at me, he said, “why are you wearing a suit”? I said, “why are you dressed like that”? I said, I’m here. He said, “because this is the day I get to be with the cool LA guy, the coach, I get to be like, in your world”. I was like, Oh, this whole perspective just shifted. So it’s not so much about, you know, it’s much easier to pull than to push. So if somebody’s coming in to me, they want the help and they want to be open and authentic. The hardest thing is really getting them to trust you so they can tell you all the things that they can’t tell their board, their employees, their spousesand everything’s confidential. It’s getting that trust. It’s really, really difficult. And I gained that trust through saying what my background has been and telling them stories about, you know, loss and resilience. Once they get comfortable, then they open up.

Frank Bria: 03:12 Yeah. I do think that’s something that’s interesting that people who don’t have a lot of experience with fortune 500 executives. You know, CEOs as well as a lot of the senior executives, is that a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them, they already are pretty self aware about their blind spots and they don’t really have a lot of issues. It’s not like they have to wear some kind of external armor to pretend like they’re something they’re not. They’re not trying to prove themselves to anyone. There are exceptions to those rules clearly, but usually if you’re standing in their office, we’ve kind of already passed that point. It is interesting that I find actually a lot of these folks very open to feedback. You know, they’ve got opinions and they’ll challenge you on your opinions and you’ve got to have a really good reasoning and some framework and experience to bring that to them. Cause they’re used to having that kind of intellectual debate with people, you know, with their teams. But that they are, they’re very open to to say, you know, all right, let’s go, where are we going. Which I found really refreshing. So it’s, it’s interesting you’ve had that experience too.

Damon D’Amore: 04:23 Yeah and it applies across all industries. After my Wall Street time and before my corporate American time, I worked in Hollywood for awhile and I got to work with a big A-list actor from The Godfather, whose name I won’t drop but you could imagine, he was looking for feedback on something and everybody in the room was just telling him whatever he wanted to hear and you could tell he was getting very pissed off. And in my head, “Well this is why I left Wall Street. This could be my shot. I’m going to tell this guy what I think”. And I did, and we developed a rapport over it and he actually called my boss the next day and said, “Thanks for sending that guy over. He’s the only one that had the balls to tell me what he thought”. Not in a rude, crass way, but you need to give constructive feedback because their time is the most valuable thing and if they feel like you’re wasting it, even by being polite to them, it’s not, it’s the same thing in coaching, you knowyou dont get rough or really down in the weeds with people just for the sake of it. If they need to hear something that nobody else is telling them, that’s my job in order to hold up a mirror. And they ultimately appreciate it.

Frank Bria: 05:24 Yeah. I think that that’s true. Again, you know, it’s a self-selection thing. There are definitely people who don’t have the strength of ego to hear bad news, but they’re also then probably not hiring you or paying you for very long. I don’t have a lot of patience for that. It’s like, “Hey, you know, you hired me. Like, why are you arguing with me”? It sort of doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Damon D’Amore: 05:49 When I first started coaching, I had a big suite(?) client and we were in person for our fourth or fifth meeting and I could tell they were just like spinning the wheels and I was nervous cause it was, I was new at this. I was like, “You know what, you’re wasting my time too”. I was like, boom, boom, boom. And they got, they got up and stormed out and like literally stormed out of the meeting and they got on a plane in LA and flew back to where they were going. I assumed our engagement was over. From the air, I got an email that was like two pages long and it’s like, you’re supposed to be supportive. Nobody’s ever spoken to me like that, but once I cooled down I realized you’re 100% right and if you’ll still work with me, how do we address this? So yeah, it’s a…

Frank Bria: 06:30 It is a rollercoaster for sure. There’s something about that I just find it fascinating. I still when I get an opportunity to work with a large corporation executives there, it’s still a lot of fun. But let’s talk about kind of how you got to where you got to. What you’re dealing in the area of resilience and comebacks right? So what is your journey through that? How did you get to where you are, where you’re working with these folks on those subjects now?

Damon D’Amore: 07:04 Sure. And I know we have a time constraint so you could ask me to any dive into any specific part, but the high level wasI grew up in Jersey and I started working on Wall Street at 21 while I was still in college going for undergrad. One of my first jobs after six weeks of being told that I would be an assistant until I graduated, I was actually on the trading floor. And by the time I was 22, I was running a trading desk for one of the biggest bond trading firms in the world and building new businesses for them, reporting directly to the C suite, the CEO and the COO. So very early on at 22, just interacting, I realized these people think differently than everybody else in the company. They see their challenges, their strengths, their weaknesses differently. They communicate differently and over a five year period, I built businesses in New York and London at the trading desk and essentially FinTech before it was called FinTech. Loved it, got burned out went into Hollywood and when I transitioned to Hollywood, I wound up being a producer of reality TV. And the first show I produced was The Apprentice with Donald Trump. When I got there, they said, “Well, you’re the only producer who has producing experience”. Cause I did some before that. But also could talk to these executives about their business. Nobody here knows anything about business. So I became the liaison between the CEOs on the show and doing grant integration, built up a number of relationships, big brands. It was wonderful, did that two seasons transitioned into interactive gaming for a bit with Dreamworks and AOL working with their C-suite and then ultimately went to Undercover Boss. When the show came out, I helped them select the CEOs for the first season and then ultimately a second season. Being around these business folks all the time, at that point I had gone through two careers, a marriage and an implosion, and 9/11, because I worked in Tower One, on Wall Street. So a lot of the questions that I get from people initially were, “Man how do you do it? Like you’re so resilient”. In my mind I’m like, “I’m not really, I’m just living my life”. So after Undercover Boss, I interviewed probably about 700 C Suite execs for the first year and a half to be on the show. Ultimately when I left, I started a consumer products company that I was passionate about with a friend, raised a small venture capital fund. I had this other business life after Hollywood, but always these CEOs were my investors, my advisors, my mentors, channel partners. The soft trade that we were doing was they were giving me their advocacy, their brand or their investment, whatever. But I was giving them at the time, performance coaching. All the conversations were around mindset, focus, resilience. How do I tell my story? Ultimately in 2016, one of them reached out to me for a formal coaching relationship. I’d never done it. I agreed to do it. I loved it. And just through referrals, I built up a book of about 14 CEOs that first year, and now it’s what I do for a living and i love it. I realized the coaching business is so large, I needed to find a niche. So initially it was legacy and now it’s these three pillars. Because I’ve gone through a tremendous amount of wins and losses and always figured out a way to pick one positive thing from the ashes that I can build upon. I can really draw a line from 1993 to 2019. The people who have worked with me appreciate that and they want to know like, how do I, how do I do that? How do I transition and survive and thrive? So that’s a long, long answer.

Frank Bria: 10:26 Yeah, that’s a really fascinating journey. It’s really interesting, I think the people who are really successful and making an impact don’t have that straight line path. You know, it’s like a pinball machine bouncing between different things, and again, you look back and you go, “Wait, what was the one thing out of that experience I can pick out and build on”. So it’s really interesting you call that out because that is something that I’ve personally seen, not just in my own life, but in a lot of people who I think are successful or are really building off of those experiences. That’s the one thing they’re able to do. So that’s interesting.

Damon D’Amore: 11:12 You can tell a lot about somebody, the way that they perceive that journey. Some people are like, “Oh man, you haven’t stuck to anything in the last 30 years”. Other people, are like, “You’ve experienced so much growth in so many different ways”. That’s like, “Oh, I want to work with you”. Not just because you’re giving me props, but because you understand the value in failure and, and you don’t know how to win until you fail, and you can’t really grow unless you suffer, which sucks. But that’s life.

Frank Bria: 11:38 Well, and I think that it makes people better for it. I mean, I remember a conversation I had one timeyou know, one of the tech startups that I was involved in, we were raising $6 million to get it kicked off. And we had just come off a really, really, really lucrative exit. Of course, when you do that, you got a lot of wind at your back and there’s people asking a lot fewer questions than they would otherwise right? So after a really successful presentation where it looks like we were about to close the deal, I felt like one of the investors in the fund, I kinda needed to come clean, you know, and say “Listen, it hasn’t always been like this. This last one was great, but I gotta be honest with you, I’ve had a couple of others where it was a complete failure, like we carried the furniture out in the middle of the night kind of stuff”. He looked at me and I just thought I was having to clear my soul before they invested money, and he goes, “You know what, good, we only invest in folks who have failed” because they said, “You know, people who have never had that experience, they think they’re God. They think that everything they touch is going to be perfect and every decision they make is awesome”. He’s like, “We want people who can reflect on the experience and pause and go, wait a minute. Is this going to turn out badly”? There is value in that for sure.

Damon D’Amore: 13:02 My first couple of months of running a trading desk, I lost a ton of money and I put my head down, thought I was gonna get fired. I went to my boss and he was like, “Yeah, I’m pissed that you lost the money, but this is the best thing that could have happened to you because the guys who make a crazy amount of money their first year of trading think that they’re superheroes and invincible and they have the biggest, worst crashes you could ever imagine”. So, yeah.

Frank Bria: 13:24 Yeah, I believe that for sure. So, I want to pivot quickly cause you just launched a really successful mastermind with some great folks in there that I’d love to talk about. Can you tell us a little bit about this that you just got kicked off with some of these CEOs?

Damon D’Amore: 13:42 Sure. Somy work generally with coaching is two types of people, Fortune 1000 style CEOs, a hundred million plus, usually billion plus revenue or C suite or venture backed people that are top startups that have the cash to scale. But I do a lot of public speaking and I work a lot with early stage entrepreneurs. I love doing it and I always get asked to coach them, but I can’t do it one on one, it’s a time resource issue. So I’ve been in the mastermind for 12 years in LA and we had some people with massive nine figure exits. We’ve had other incredible implosions. But I know the format well that works for me and my peers, so I decided to do it online and it’s called Legacy Mentor Mastermind. Our first cohort is running now and I limited it to 12 people even though we have less than that because in order to get in, you need to be an early stage entrepreneur, founder or at least an executive that’s in the mid-level of your corporate structure but trying to get ahead. We had some people that were way too early stage who applied where they would offer no peer mentorship to everybody else. So I had to weigh revenue now versus bad experience for my people. But basically it’s a wonderful format, it’s a lot of one on one time. We have two large interactive zooms a month where everybody goes over 30 day personal professional goals. Everybody goes over their business issues. We have a big two hour AMA where they get to tap into my brain as a coach and not pay some crazy corporate rate. Then they all get one-on-one zoom with me also. So there’s a consistent, trackable, measurable system that we work on and we launched and we have people that are in corporate America and leaving and starting a company, in corporate America who are basically running a startup within a corporate structure, we have a founder who started a high eight figure, low nine figure business and sold it and now is starting all over again from a bootstrap mentality and wanted to be around these fresh energetic mindsets, and we have someone who’s just left, a big, big industry who is doing a tech startup for the first time. He’s not a technical person but he’s already gotten validation and presales in a SAS model. So people were off and running. It’s funny, it’d be the people who were in corporate already on the first call offered so much value and perspective to the founders who thought that, you know, they know everything but they’re in a four wall mirror room all the time. So it’s wonderful and I tried to keep a price point high enough that it meant something to these people as individual to pay for it, but not prohibitive. Otherwise they’d be full time coaching clients. And it’s a six month program.

Frank Bria: 16:16 Six months. Okay. Very nice. One of the things that you mentioned, which is really key, and we kind of talked about a little bit before we started the interview too, but something I think a lot of people leave out is this curation, this very active curation work you did upfront. Because things live or die on this, you know, it’s really great that you spent the time to make sure you were getting peers in the room because we’ve all been in groups where we’re kind of like, “Is this the right group of folks to be around? Am I in the right room, you know”? If you’re going to do this, and again, have it at a price point where it’s a significant commitmentyou do, you wanna make sure that you’re creating the right room. So that’s good that you did that. I think a lot of entrepreneurs get mixed up in this cause again, this is something we talked about before, it’s like you also have to kind of turn the revenue down when it’s not the right person and if you’re in the wrong mindset about it. It’s kind of like, but I can take the cash.

Damon D’Amore: 17:21 But if you think the long game, because I’ve started so many businesses, six months from now when it’s over, if these people had the most amazing, fulfilling experience and they’ve grown, their testimonials and going after their networks, they’re going to fill two or three more mastermind classes rather than collect an extra 40 or 50 grand now, which isn’t going to be a game changer. In my personal mastermind, I’ve had people that we let in because we wanted to grow and it wasn’t even about money, it was about growing by ego. We have this big group, and they’re just sucking up time and energy so. I match off our current members with accountability partners so they have somebody to talk to throughout the month. And they were all so happy with the partners they got. So it takes time to call everybody who applies to your mastermind all around the country, but I did, I got on the phone with everybody because you need to have a vibe for this conversational piece because the whole thing is conversation.

Frank Bria: 18:13 Yeah, you do that’s so true. Glad that you’re, that’s modeling great behavior for anyone who’s listening to this, who’s trying to create their own group that you really do need to actively curate. That’s great. So you’re working with them for six months, they seem to have different backgrounds, but do they have common threads in the goals that they’re trying to create? Are you building off of that?

Damon D’Amore: 18:38 They do. They’re all overwhelmed with opportunity and possibilities and figuring out what to prioritize and work on and why. More than three quarters of them are struggling with, “I can keep bootstrapping as I am or I can go raise money” and they see these big unicorns questionably failing now like, (?) and these companies going public crashing and they’ve been living in this venture capital unicorn world for a long time now, but they had a scarcity mindset. “Should I raise money and take it while I can at whatever price I can get so that I can sustain this” or “Is it bette to bootstrap”. The answer is different for both depending on your business. So my general response to people is, “What are the metrics you need to hit your next milestone”? If you can do that with bootstrapping and presales and whatever and spend minimal amount of money, do it cause you’re going to have a better valuation, more validation. But at some point, if you think that your game is all about customer acquisition, than marketing dollars, you need to just go hoard as much cash as you can.

Frank Bria: 19:44 Yeah, that’s really wise. You know, there really isn’t one. I’ll occasionally, get questions. Just yesterday got a question about raising capital and there’s just no one right answer for everybody. There’s a lot of different ways to do that. But leading with a metrics first approach like you recommended, I think that’s wise, that’s really smart. So, this group, you’ve curated itwhat are your growth plans for that? Are you going to add to this group? Are you going to start a new group, do you think later? Are you going to create cohorts and they stick together? Do you have any plans for that growth?

Damon D’Amore: 20:24 So my plan, so this group’s closed now that it began because they’re on a six month schedule and at the end of our next meeting they’ll all have a 12 week, 90 day cycle set of action items that they’re going to be accountable for. My goal is, I looked at my world of my business and I do public speaking and right now it’s probably about one sixth of my revenue stream. I’d love it to ultimately be a full quarter or a third, but that takes a lot more time and energy both creating content, testing it out and getting those gigs. So I can coach one on one with my corporate and VC, I can speak, I can create content. I’m trying to finish a book because you need some sort of authority out there and I could do my mastermind. Revenue wise, time wise, all that, my goal with the mastermind is by the time January rolls around and we have a solid three months of a case study; to go hardcore and really do some paid marketing this time and see based on my network and the extension of it, I think I can fill up two of these cohorts per six months every year so I can tolerate 4 a year. That’s my goal, and I really only work with two to three corporate clients a year and they’re on one year contracts and I try to work with no more than three startup clients and they’re on six month contracts because the cashflow might be, you know, so I’m hoping.

Frank Bria: 21:41 Nice. Yeah, that’s really solid. I think that three months in you, you should have some really great testimonials and that’s gonna really drive a lot of the marketing avenue. But again, this is one of the reasons why it’s so important all of the strategic pieces that you put up front, right? To have the right group, to make sure that there’s front-loaded, really solid milestones people are hitting so that they can create. You don’t have to wait until the end of the six months for them to be able to express what’s going on. You got great stories to tell and then you’re able to kind of put the next one in place. That sounds like a great plan.

Damon D’Amore: 22:21 And creating structure. Like a friend of mine runs a mastermind online, it’s a lower price point in one of these giant zooms with like hundreds of people and he’s like, “What do you do in a prep”? I’m like, “Oh, I built a shared Google sheet where they all do their updates, I built this, I built that, I built that”. He’s like, “Why are you doing all that”? I’m like, “I want to make it as easy as them to succeed and if they had a shit ton of money, they’d be hiring me as a coach and already to be funded. So their time is scarce just as their money is”. We need to create systems around you so that I already know for the next four weeks what blog post and podcast are getting listened to about, whether it’s time management, productivity, forming habits, raising money, whatever. I already know what’s going to go down. So it’s about doing all that pre-work for the last month and a half sitting in my house on a weekend watching college football with a notepad being like, what do I wish my mastermind could do if I could start all over?

Frank Bria: 23:11 Yup. I mean that effort about sort of designing the customer success in advance, that’s the critical success factor I think. And it’s funny, there are a lot of people who just don’t do it. Either because they don’t understand the importance of it or because they sort of expect the client to do all the work to get the success. “I Just show up, they have to do the work” and I just feel like there’s a balancing act there around making sure that your clients are set up for success, that you’ve got the structure in place and you’ve thought it through and you know what the path is to the next milestone. So good. Good for you.

Damon D’Amore: 23:56 I’m a big fan of therapy. I’ve been with my therapist like 12 years, but I prep my notes for next therapy session in a file every two weeks before I see her. I texted her the other day, I said, “I need you to watch the seven minute Toastmaster’s speech I did because it’s related to something” and she will because she’ll do the work. You need to be, yeah. You need to expect your clients to do the work, but you need to put them in a framework to do it because most of them, if they’re coming to a mastermind, they don’t know about accountability or time management or like what they should even be doing.

Frank Bria: 24:23 Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. No, that’s great. That’s good structure. You’re doing all this stuff that we teach people to do with that. So that’s great. That’s a great case study, do what Damon’s doing everyone. That’s cool. Hey, we are out of time, I really apologize. I’d love to continue the conversation, but I know you’re really busy and really grateful for the time you’ve taken today for this conversation. But one last question for you. So for folks who are listening and are intrigued by what you’re up to, want to connect with you, what’s a great way for them to do that?

Damon D’Amore: 24:55 So the mastermind website is www.legacymentormastermind.com so they can reach out there and there’s a contact form, it links to my bio and also to my full website. My website for corporate and venture backed clients is www.legacy.mentor.co. Somebody’s holding my “.com” domain hostage, which is crazy in this day and age. But so the mastermind is legacymentormaster.com and legacymentor.co. You can email me through both of those sites. I’m on LinkedIn, my profile is public if they want to reach out. Yeah.

Frank Bria: 25:26 Cool. And we’ve got the link to the mastermind here below the video. If you’re on the show notes page, it’ll be there. If you’re out and about listening to this audio, come on back to the show notes page and click on through. If you didn’t catch that URL and click on through to Damon and all the great stuff he’s doing. Damon, thanks so much for spending time with us. Really appreciate it.

Damon D’Amore: 25:46 Thanks. Really this was wonderful.

Frank Bria: 25:48 Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for being with us on this episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria. Take a look at the structure of what you’re doing and see if you’ve got all the structure there for customer success. It’s a really great lesson for me, really appreciate that. We’ll see you next time on our next episode. Take care, bye bye.

I interview Kyle about the power of video storytelling. Kyle talks about how he uses video to transform the story around brands and individual people. We also discuss the importance of aligning the story around the thing that’s most important to you.

Kyle Lasota helps 7 figure entrepreneurs become the category king in their niche using video storytelling.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtgIes_eJBLsm2DUZCEgPYQ

Transcript

Frank Bria: 00:00 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 72, let’s hit it.

Announcer: 00:04 Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria.

Frank Bria: 00:29 Hey everyone. Welcome to the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria and today I am absolutely thrilled to be joined by my good friend Kyle Lasota, who is the expert in helping seven figure entrepreneurs become the category king in their niche using video storytelling. Kyle, welcome, thanks so much for being here.

Kyle Lasota: 00:51 Hey, thanks for having me, Frank.

Frank Bria: 00:53 So let’s start off with what is a category king?

Kyle Lasota: 00:58 Great question, a category king is, think of Airbnb or think of Uber or think of these iconic brands that we now knowmaybe even as simple as Kleenex. And these companies, they didn’t enter into a market trying to disrupt the market, they actually created something that never existed before and they created their own category. Essentially becoming the category King and because they created this new category, there is no competition. You know, a lot of people talk about red ocean, blue ocean, a lot of people talk about category of one. This is a whole new concept that, well listen to me, I’m such a marketer taught, right? Like the new opportunity. But it’s true. There is a new opportunity. I like to think of it as a new paradigm or a new way of thinking is like, let’s not compete. Let’s create. And so how do we create our own category where not only do we stand alone, but we create a new need for the marketplace. And what’s really interesting about the category King stuff is I did this for myself without even knowing that I was doing it. And then I read this book called Play Bigger, which is actually where that term was coined. I forget the guys’ names who wrote the book, but some dudes in Silicon Valley, I read that book and they were talking about category King stuff and I was like, “Yo, this is really smart”. And I had developed this for my own business without even realizing that I had done it. And then I realized that this is what more and more people, especially in the online space, especially as the marketplace gets noisier and noisier and more people trying to communicate their message, then it’s more important now than ever.

Frank Bria: 02:47 Yeah. And you are emphasizing the idea that you create this category through storytelling. Why is that the, the thing? I mean, why is it storytelling instead of product quality or accessibility or price or anything else? Why is that the thing that does it?

Kyle Lasota: 03:06 Yeah, totally. That’s a great distinction, and I think for me, the way that I saw it is of course it just works for what I’m doing, right? And that’s what I’m selling. But what it comes down to as well is, especially now that personal branding has become more and more of an importance. And I think, eventually, is going to be leading every single company, even the biggest companies in the world, you know, you’re going to have to have a big personal brand and manage it appropriately and sort of control the narrative of how people see you. To make sure that it’s in alignment with the goals of the company and what you’re trying to create so that the message is really congruent, not only from a top down approach, but from a bottom up approach. So with storytelling, why is that the gateway with personal branding? Well, anyone can try to compete with you on product. Anyone can try to compete with you on price. Anyone can try to compete with you on go to market strategy and no one can compete with you on your story and your message. There is no one else in the world, Frank, who has been through the experiences that you’ve been through and has had the revelations that you’ve had and has been given and gifted the purpose that you’ve been given and put on this planet to fulfill. So by you articulating and clearly communicating your story in a way that’s authentic and genuine to who you are, you will be able to be seen by exactly the right type of people and you’ll be able to stand alone in your own space and separate yourself from everyone else because you communicated your story in this way. It’s going to be different than anyone else. My job as a marketer, as a, as a videographer, as a creative, is to figure out okay, I know how to tell lots of stories, but how do I see the story that hasn’t been told in this context and for this person that is going to completely set them apart from everything else so that they’re not competing anymore. People are going to come to you not because of even what you do or how you serve people, but because of who you are.

Frank Bria: 05:19 You know, one of the things about that that’s fascinating, and for those people who don’t know you, I’ve sat down to be able to talk with you a few times about your business and what you do, is you pull that out of people. Cause I don’t know that all of us, I think we all kind of know that there probably is a story and it’s probably unique and we probably have some ideas of what that is. But, I think one of the fascinating things that you do and one of the things that kind of makes you really good at what you do is that you kind of come to it a little bit with a clean slate and you’re like, “Okay, well you can tell me a little bit”, but you dig in and pull that really compelling story out. I’ve seen the work you’ve done with a couple of your clients, and it’s fascinating because it goes way deeper than I think any of them would have expected it would have gone.

Kyle Lasota: 06:11 Yeah. So,ith that it’s, I dunno, the way that I look at my process is that I can’t take anyone to a place that I haven’t gone. And because of my life experience and because of different things that I’ve been through, there was a time in my life where I suffered quite deeply and I realized that that suffering was such a gift that was given to me because it really humbled me. With that humility, sort of let go of how I judge people and I developed a much greater sense of empathy. So when I sit with someone to do this interview, I give them the opportunity to be seen without judgment and in full presence. This sounds very esoteric, but it is somewhat of like a spiritual experience, because rarely in our life do we ever get to be a witness in such intense presence. The power of what I do is capturing the essence of someone’s soul, and seeing them without judgment and in full empathy and understanding for just who they are as a human being. Walking around in this existence, in their meat suit that we call the human body and I just get to capture and extract that moment in time and then encapsulate it and turn it into a beautiful piece of art that is not only reverse engineered to speak and connect directly with the ideal customer, but also represents them in the deepest and truest way possible that they didn’t even know was attainable. And then turn that into a marketing message.

Frank Bria: 08:23 Yeah. That is, I think the essence of the difference, the depth that you go. I mean I almost think “videographer” is such a bad title for you, you know what I mean?

Kyle Lasota: 08:35 I’ve been working on my position, I’ve been trying to come up with a better way to say it.

Frank Bria: 08:41 I mean I get it. It’s functionally accurate, but the thing is that where most people I think would, would get down to the visual aesthetics of the product and maybe some scripting and things like that, for you, the script is the person. That, I think, is fundamentally what differentiates what you do with a lot of other people. So the question I guess, cause a lot of people are probably thinking about this and obviously everyone’s got a story and obviously that story is fundamental to their business, but what’s the right time to engage in this journey, for lack of a better term, in the lifespan of a business? When someone’s just starting out, do they have the requisite understanding of who they are and what that journey is or would they have need to have gone through some of their own entrepreneurial turmoil first?

Kyle Lasota: 09:36 So the story doesn’t always have to be this rollercoaster, up and down, right? It could be a story of transformation or it could be just a story, a moment, you know? It could just be a significant moment where they had a realization or whatever, it doesn’t have to be super emotional in the sense of like, “Oh, everyone’s crying”. It could just be, I’ll give you an example of a story, right? I had a story, this summer, you know, of “I did really well in business this year for my terms”. Then what I realized is that there was something that was missing, right? There was something that I had missed. My business model wasn’t right cause I was getting burnt out, and if you’re ever getting burnt out, then that’s a signal that something is off. Right? So in the process of trying to figure this out, I just said, you know what, I’m going to put my business on hold and I’m going to just stop for six weeks and I’m going to go on vacation. When I was on vacation, I went to a mine value(?). I was listening to Vishen Lakhiani who’s the CEO of Mind Valley, speak about this concept called sole print values. What I realized through doing this exercise with Vishen, is that my company didn’t have my core values imbued into it. So there was a misalignment between what I was doing in business and who I was or how I was acting and behaving and showing up. So the big realization that I had when I was on vacation was that I needed to start acting in alignment with my core values through my business and in other areas of life. So when I got back, I made a declaration like, “Hey, I’m moving more and more into the health and wellness space cause that’s my top value, and that’s why we’re going to talk about the YouTube channel, that I’ve got some stuff brewing over there and I’m starting to partner with companies that are in that space”. The reason why that is so important to me is because wellness is such a big part of my life, and I felt like this business wasn’t serving the need that I needed to fulfill through that value, and thus I was burning out. So there’s a story of realization, right? That has nothing to do with like, “Oh my God, it was so tumultuous and it was so emotional”. It was just like, “Oh my God, I had this awakening, wow”. If someone’s listening to this and they’re feeling out of alignment or they’re feeling burnt out, something I might have said may trigger “Oh my God, I need to go check out this thing called the Soul Print Value. So I need to go look into Vishen Lakhiani or I need to reassess where I’m at with my core values”. So we can use strategic storytelling to imbue and to conceptualize an idea in someone’s head. Because the only place where real learning takes place is through storytelling, right? If I tell you information, that’s me giving you something right, then it’s not yours, it’s mine. But if I told you a story and then you decide what that means for you, then that’s yours. So that’s where you get to decide what something means and you get to own that idea. Until we own an idea, we’ll never take responsibility for it. So that is why it’s the greatest teacher and the greatest way to market, and to message, and to attract and bring people into what you’re doing and to enroll them into your programs or your company.

Frank Bria: 13:22 That’s a pretty convincing argument for using story as a marketing angle. I mean, I think a lot of people have heard that before and have seen people do it effectively, but you kind of mentioned this in your journey and story as well. I think a lot of us, when we start business or we start doing something or serving, it’s very tactical. It’s very much like, “What do I do”? “What Are my skills?” and you’re making a case for identity entrepreneurship. Essentially, understanding who we are as a person and making sure that everything we do has that identity fulfillment component to it. So it’s not about skills, it’s not about action per se, it’s about identity. It’s about making sure that our company is a reflection I guess, of our own identity. That’s an interesting concept.

Kyle Lasota: 14:20 Yeah. There’s a distinction there too, and it’s something that I’m going through right now. I just posted about it on Facebook today actually, was that it’s less about who we are. Because who we are is a static, fixed idea that’s made up. It’s made up of beliefs of stories and events that we’ve given meaning to that crystallize into what we know as an identity. What my realization has become, is that it is not about who we are, or who we think we are, but it’s about who we’re becoming. If we want to grow, we have our current self and we have our future self, and then there’s a gap in between. We will never be able to achieve what our future self is after, with who we actually are right now. The beliefs and the identity and the events and the stories and all this stuff that make up this current self, are not in coherence with the future self. So when we are trying to make change, we’ll be stuck in this cycle and we’ll hit a ceiling because our identity is not in alignment with where we’re trying to go. So the way that we actually make that change is by intervening with new beliefs about, not who we are in the future because there’s a difference there, but it’s about who we can become. So as we reaffirm who we can become, then we can actually change who we are. It’s not this static thing, it’s this ever evolving thing. So with your core values, not only is it about who you are, but for me, I’m not anywhere near where I want to be in terms of my health and my wellness and all that stuff, but there’s that aspiration. It’s who I want to become. So if I don’t shift things and move things in that direction towards where I’m going and who I’m trying to become, then there’s going to be issues and there’s going to be problems.

Frank Bria: 16:25 You know, that’s a really good distinction. I was reflecting, I was thinking about this, and I’m trying to remember the author’s name, but the book Atomic Habits, I think it’s Charles Durning or Charles something, anyway, but he makes this distinction that you’re making. That’s a really good point where it’sif you want to do something, if you want to achieve something, you have to take on the identity of the thing you’re trying to achieve. Which is going to be different potentially, or probably, than what you are today. So you have to start thinking about these achievements as a future self. So that’s a really good distinction. I want to pivot here real quick to talk about the great stuff you’re doing. You and I have chatted about the health and wellness space before, but let’s catch up. What are some of the cool things you’re doing in the health and wellness space from a partnership perspective? What’s brewing?

Kyle Lasota: 17:15 Yeah, so I just started an engagement with a infrared sauna company and I’m going to be doing a 30 day, I dunno, I haven’t decided yet. A 21 day, 30 day challenge where I take blood tests before to measure like for exampleheavy metal in my body or in my blood. Then I will do the 30 days or the 21 days, whatever, then take blood tests after to show the before and after. Then I’ll review the product and show the process of me doing it the entire time and I’m going to be putting that video on YouTube. So I take a percentage of sales on the back end and they also sent me this big infrared sauna. That’s kind of how I’m changing up my business model a little bitwhich is going to require me to grow an audience, which is great and I’m also excited about that. So that’s one example. Another example is I’m going to Summit in LAwhich is a big event, and I’m also going to this event in Silicon Valley called Transformative Tech. I’m just getting into the network, I’m getting into where these companies are hanging out and building relationships with the most innovative health and wellness technology companies. What I realized is that I want to work with companies that have products that I would personally use. Working with experts is great and I still will continue to do that and I love them and I love all my clients. It’s just, I’m not buying a bunch of coaching packages and a bunch of online marketing stuff. So even if they’re doing great work, I get really excited about working with companies whose products I’m using. So that’s sort of the transition I’m making. It’s a slow process because I had deep ties into this one market, but I’m just slowly inching my way towards more and more of that stuff.

Frank Bria: 19:22 Well it’s also an interesting, sort of, fascinating take on the business model where you’re leveraging the power of storytelling and participating in the success of the story itself for this particular company. That’s a really unique way to kind of change the business model to make that transition over.

Kyle Lasota: 19:44 Yeah. Well I had done something that I think is really hard for service providers to do, which is to productize your offer and make it really optimize and really sequential and super systemized, but I was so stuck in this time for money sort of trap, and project based income, and chasing the next client so I could land the high ticket deals. But it would take me a lot of time to fulfill on them and then I’d have to go back and like lead gen(?) and it was always this up and down. So I didn’t really want to scale that business model, cause it didn’t sound like fun. So my work around was if I build an audience, I’m using my skill set, which I’m really good at, which is communicating, and storytelling and creating compelling content along with like the marketing stuff. Using that skill set to grow an audience then I have leverage to partner with these companies and that way I can create an asset that works for me over and over again and creates MMR and I can charge higher fees on the front end. If I have a big audience, I can do much bigger deals than I was doing. So I can do a big fee and the percentage on the back end, as the audience grows. In addition to that, I could just hire maybe a couple team members, like an editor, a social media person and an admin person. Then I could have a really boutique business that does multiple, six, maybe seven figures in revenue and really high margins, and it gives me the lifestyle that I want. I get to do the types of activities I want, I get to sell products that I love and it sounds all really nice like that. It’s going to be a lot of work and I’m excited about the work too.

Frank Bria: 21:32 Yeah. But it’s a great case study in deconstructing a business model that you didn’t feel was serving you and was hard to scale, not that it’s impossible, but you recognize this doesn’t sound fun, this doesn’t sound like the thing I want to do. Then you’ve got a business model alignment, a values alignment and essentially a lifestyle alignment, where you’ve basically twisted the business model around to get you all three of those things all running in the same direction. That’s really impressive. That’s pretty cool.

Kyle Lasota: 22:07 Yeah. So my goal in the next year or two years, because everything takes longer than you think it’s going to take, is just to build up a nice size audience and to do a couple deals with some great companies and sort of in the next few years replace my income with hands off revenue. So I do the project once and then it works for me for a long time and it continues to pay me out that way I’ll have a little bit more sustainability in what I’m doing.

Frank Bria: 22:41 Right. Well leverage, you’re not going to hear me argue with the concept of leverage. So good job. Kyle, we’re, out of time and I know you’re super busy. I really appreciate you taking the time for this conversation, but as folks who are listening and they want to connect with you and kind of follow this journey as you’re going through, what’s a great way for them to just start off that process in getting into your world here?

Kyle Lasota: 23:08 Yeah, definitely just come find me on YouTube Kyle Got Camera or connect with me on any of the social media platforms, whether it’s Facebook or Instagram it’s Kyle Got Camera. If you’re wanting to work with me on an individual basis or for your company, then you can go to apply.kylegotcamera.com.

Frank Bria: 23:27 Great. And we’ve got your links there, so they’re below the video if you’re watching this on YouTube. If you’re listening to this, review the show notes on the audio, it’s there as well. If you’re out and about, come on back to the show notes page and you can just click right on through. But Kyle Got Camera is pretty catchy, so you should really remember that one probably on your own. Kyle, thanks so much for being with us, really appreciate you taking the time today.

Kyle Lasota: 23:49 Yeah, thank you, Frank. I appreciate you, man.

Frank Bria: 23:52 You got it. And thank you for being here with us on this episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria. I love the concept of a journey and alignment of your business model with who you are as a person. Kyle does this really, really well. So take a look at some of the stuff he does, and if you haven’t gotten a picture ofthat transformative story he tells, you’ll see it from his YouTube channel. So check that out. Thanks so much for being with us and we’ll catch you next time. Take care, bye bye.

Thom Shea is a former Navy SEAL and now runs a leadership consulting firm. We discuss how the lessons of the SEALs translate into the corporate world. We discuss how he leads leadership teams through the steps they need to take to accomplish their most important goals.

Thom Shea is a retired, highly decorated Navy SEAL Senior Chief, author of UNBREAKABLE: A Navy SEAL’s Way of life, which was originally intended to be collection of lessons to his children in the event that he did not survive combat in Afghanistan

http://thomshea.com

Transcript

Frank Bria: 00:00 The 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 71, Let’s hit it.

Announcer: 00:04 Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your six figure practice and turn it to a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor and strategist, Frank Bria.

Frank Bria: 00:29 Everyone, welcome to the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria and today, absolutely delighted to be joined by Thom Shea. He’s a retired, highly decorated Navy SEAL, senior chief, author of UNBREAKABLE: A Navy SEAL’s Way of life, which originally was intended to be a collection of lessons to his children in the event he did not survive combat in Afghanistan. He’s the founder of Adam Antine Alliance where he is a leadership instructor, speaker, executive coach and along with a small team of his SEAL brothers, he provides corporate consulting for companies across America and in several other continents. Thom, welcome to the show.

Thom Shea: 01:08 Thanks for having me.

Frank Bria: 01:09 Yeah, our pleasure. So there’s in corporate America, obviously there’s need for sort of leadershipand things like that. A lot of times it feels like corporate America is moving into a, what I would think would be a little less aligned with a more kind of disciplined military approach, but you seem to be approaching it from the standpoint of going in that direction. Are you feeling like that’s still, like there’s still a desire, a need for this kind of more ready, disciplined approach and leadership?

Thom Shea: 01:45 I think it’s a misconception of what maybe the SEAL’s were or what we provide. The SEAL’s are not disciplined. Please do not ever use that word in the sentence with a SEAL.

Frank Bria: 01:59 Really? Okay. That’s good.

Thom Shea: 02:02 So I don’t think corporate America or any organization is going off the rail or going left or right off center. What we look at is we only look at the human factor. And that’s really what SEAL’s do is they say what makes you good in combat is not your weapon, it’s not. Your training is about you training to be better as a human being. As a better warrior, better operator, better teammate, better leader, whatever the paradigm that you’re in. What we look at as a human factor, and all organizations are really missing the mark on what we call the human factor. The current trend is to call it a culture. So the culture in the business world is gray at best. So it has nothing to do with discipline. Discipline is easy factor.

Frank Bria: 02:56 Got it. So, the elements of, because I know you’re talking about, sort of, the human factor, but as the shows up in corporate team dynamic and things like that, what are the missing elements do you think that you’re installing here that are really important?

Thom Shea: 03:15 Well, I think there are only basics to anything to tell you the truth. And what we found as SEAL’s is that the basics make up everything. You’ve just got to learn a lot of basics. And in the corporate world, what I found in my first kind of rendition of training executives only, was that the basics, and I’ll explain it, but the basics were missing. And so then we designed a curriculum around hammering the basic skill sets of the human dynamic, how you actually get better at you. And when you discover that, it makes things very simple. So one of the things that we find early on, is a simple factor that we didn’t anticipate or I didn’t anticipate either. And that basic factor is that people don’t do something simple. I hate to say it on live or any broadcast, people don’t honor their word. From the leadership level down to, not down to, but across the spectrum, the elemental factor of “If you can’t do what you say you’re going to do, you’re of no value to an organization”. And what we’ve found is organizations don’t even think about that as a powerful means in which to operate. So, you know, like I have roles and responsibilities and everybody signs a document organizationally that “This is my role and I’m responsible to do an A, B, and C and I’m compensated however I’m compensated” and then they don’t go do it. And that’s not what they do in the organization is they’re not, they’re hired to do something and then they don’t do it. So what we found early on is to address that as a very hot topic. Thinking that it wouldn’t, you know, you guys got to do what you say you’re going to do. In the SEAL community if you don’t, you don’t stay. So we weeded out everybody that can’t do that. So I wasn’t quite sure that that was what the missing link was. Every organization has that as a big factor. So that, that’d be the first thing that we look at.

Frank Bria: 05:36 I think that a lot of people would agree with you. I think that would resonate with a lot of people who were kind of familiar with the corporate culture. I wonder what you think the underlying problem there is. Cause it seems like it could be complex. Is it an accountability? I mean, I guess it’s really easy for us to kind of go, “Oh well we just got a bunch of people who just don’t want to do their jobs” right? But is it a more complex dynamic? Like, is it an accountability thing? Is it a systems incentive thing or is it really just a gut you just not showing up for what you said you were going to do deep down.

Thom Shea: 06:12 It’s not complex. It’s a very…

Frank Bria: 06:16 I guess I supposed you would have said that given that you’re retired(?)

Thom Shea: 06:19 It seems complex accountability is a complex conversation because accountability is an adjective describing a series of events that either happened or didn’t happen. But then you have to go back to the original event. So it’s a third order of effect. So accountability is a conversation that’s great on a Power Point. But if you say, “Hey, we got to hold everybody accountable”, you still don’t know how to do it. So what you have to, and it’s not being taught anymore, it’s not effectively being taught organizationally. Probably stems from school’s not actually teaching it, parents, whatever the dynamic is. We saw that in the SEAL community. It’s simple things, you know, and one Admiral that was on a podcast said “You make your bed”. It’s that simple. By the way, you’re supposed to make your bed make it. And so not very complex. It’s actually very hard to install in an organization though.

Frank Bria: 07:25 Sure. Well, you’ve got a lot of moving parts it feels like. So are there two sides to this? In other wordsit feels like you’re addressing the core motivational piece, which is, there needs to be an internal commitment to this, but it feels like organizations also can be guilty of letting this slide if they don’t actually have the followup conversation and there’s consequences associated with not doing your work. A lot of people might wink their eye at it or think, “Oh, well, you know, whatever. I guess someone else will fill in”. It seems like there’s gotta be an organizational level of this as well right?

Thom Shea: 08:08 Wellwe’ll consider that being said, say the baseline foundation of being successful organizationally, whether you’re a leader or whether you’re looking at the whole company. If success is predicated on people doing simple things like honoring your word, the next thing that you build on that is all tasks. So what are people supposed to be doing? And that is where it becomes complex is we make our day to day tasks so complex, nobody can carry them out and they’re never going to be effective. And what we do in our training methodology is break everything down into threes. So commit to only doing three simple things a day. And everybody’s like, well, I have a million things to do. By the way, it doesn’t matter, you’re never going to get to a million. And we learned that element in combat. So combat is very complex. There’s a thousand bullets flying at you. You can’t look at all of them, but you can look at one or you got 20 enemy running at you, I can’t deal with 20, I can deal with one. So we teach that same methodology corporately is, you know, foundationally honor your word and then break things down into very simple things that you can do when you’re tired or whatever. And when we do that, what we see is what we call it the ROI, the return on that training or investment is about in three months they hit their yearly goal by doing simple things. Across any organization that we’ve seen from insurance companies to lumber mills to anything is break things down to and hammer the simple. You don’t have to get to the complex if you hammer the simple.

Frank Bria: 10:06 I mean that, yeah, that seems to be a recurring theme. I think that you’re right, we do make things way more complicated than they need to be. And I think especially in corporate, there’s this concept of, “I gotta add value”, which is going to add another layer of complexity. So just really quickly want to, kind of, pivot a little bit. How did you make this shift into corporate leadership training? What was that journey like from SEAL to corporate?

Thom Shea: 10:34 Try to make it a two minute conversation? I don’t know that I can. So when I retired maybe six years ago, I’d been in for 23 years and during retirement or right before I retired, I had had a manuscript written for my kids and my wife Stacy said, “Hey, let’s get it published”. That ain’t easy and I had no intent to get it published. So,e got 10 books printed out and you know, in a first edition fashion, gave it to our family, Stacy puts it up on Amazon and it goes viral. So out of it going viral, I had to decide, you know, do I want to have a job, the three letter word that you know, or the four letter word? Or do I want to figure out this nebulous space of where the book is going to take us? So I decided to do the hard thing is to figure out the entrepreneurial side. And as the book got out, CEOs of companies engaged with me directly saying, “Hey, I want you to teach me what you’re trying to say in the book”. So I designed a curriculum around teaching executives through a long, extended, year long process in five areas. And that’s their physical health, their ability to learn, their ability to make money, their ability to have good, quality relationships at home and their spiritual ability, if you will. And it took a long time and then they said, “Hey, can you come and work for me”? And I’m like, I’m not going to do that, but I’ll help you grow your company. So we designed a methodology around approaching companies by working with the executive first, because if the leader doesn’t get it, you’re wasting money and time.

Frank Bria: 12:27 Yeah, absolutely. You’re right on that.

Thom Shea: 12:28 And so I can’t say the transition was easier. I think the transition was harder than actually being in combat. I knew what the fuck I was doing there. I didn’t know what I was doing here. I really enjoy seeing people get their stuff in order and make their life work and whatever they’re going to do. And we’ve created a method to actually move the human needle, if you will.

Frank Bria: 12:59 That’s great. So, I mean, it’s the great storyline of having that book lead out to opportunities. I mean, I think many people see that as a potential for themselves to be able to put something out there and then have it be the core focus or the center point of some kind of curriculum. So it’s great, it’s great story you’re able to make that work. I know it’s never like a straight line, you know.

Thom Shea: 13:24 Just because you see people doing it. I, you know, I had mentors that were helping me. It wasn’t me trying to do it solo and you know, it ain’t easy. And I’d come from a world that wasn’t easy. So the transition was just me taking everything that I’d learned from mindset to skillset and to the nebulous corporate space or the business world and hammer and be relentless and pull people along with me that were also relentless. If you think you’re going to write a book and then make a million, you better have the ability to recover from failure cause that’s what’s going to happen until in some point in time it works out.

Frank Bria: 14:14 Yeah. No, that’s really good advice for anyone who has authored a book. It’s not always an easy thing. It always looks like it’s a quick and easy path from the hindsight. But no one ever sees the twists and turns of the path.

Thom Shea: 14:29 Oh yeah it’s brutal.

New Speaker: 14:30 Yeah. It can be. Oh, I gotta say, just a pause for a minute and say, for me, my big takeaway has got to be, I’m going to feel way better about myself that you said combat isn’t as bad as the entrepreneurial journey cause that makes me feel way better.

Thom Shea: 14:43 Oh it’s ruthless. It’s actually people not trying to kill you though. That’s the only, you know, difference, that people are actually trying to help you in the entrepreneurial world. I think the world more embraces people that are trying to take risk.

Frank Bria: 14:59 Yeah.

Thom Shea: 15:00 But nothing seems to work out the first 152 times that you try it. If you’re going to try, you know, if your listeners are trying to think about entrepreneurial or growing a business, you have to be able to fail and recover. That’s the key.

Frank Bria: 15:23 Yup. That is a really good insight. And I do think that the difference between successful entrepreneurs and unsuccessful ones are the ones who are emotionally, resiliently able to recover from failure. Yeah. I do think that is a key Want to pivot really quickly to the process that you take companies through. So let’s talk a little bit about what that looks like. Soit sounds, you’ve already started this discussion a little bit, cause it sounds like you start with the executive and kind of move down from there, which I think is a brilliant move. I think a lot of people try to manage up through the corporate consulting.

Thom Shea: 15:57 It’s dancing through a minefield if you start at the bottom.

Frank Bria: 16:00 Yeah, exactly. So, as you were, could you walk us through kind of your process. You obviously outlined different, sort of, areas that you’re working in, but how do you actually work logistically with the company to help them create their strategy and execute?

Thom Shea: 16:16 You know, hopefully somebody listening or watching will get some kind of benefit from this. And I, we use what was now in year five, we have an acronym. So we look at leadership first and there are obviously truncations of leadership. Then we look at how the organization or the leadership targets their environment. So the acronym is leadership targeting and then we look at how that organization actually goes out and recruits either people to come into the organization or recruits client. And there’s a method to those three first elements. The fourth element is how they actually train their organization. So lead, target, recruit, train. And then at the end we look at retention. So retention of personnel, retention of climate or clients, and obviously money. It’s a great way to measure retention. So when we colonate that whole, you know, lead, target, recruit, train and retain, those are the five points that we look at organizationally.

Frank Bria: 17:31 Okay, right. And about how long are you typically engaging with the company on this journey?

Thom Shea: 17:39 Yeah, we tailor it to the demand of the company. You know, not all companies don’t want to produce, you know, position to sell. Some just want to grow and retain the organization. I would say 50% of the time it’s about a year long process. And what we look at is we’re going to produce 2.5X in nine months. So wherever we start in those five areas measured and we produce measurable ways to analyze that, those five areas are two and a half times better then when we started.

Frank Bria: 18:21 That’s great. I think this is a good conversation for anyone who’s doing any kind of corporate consultative work where there’s longer term engagements. Are you finding that it’s easier for you to kind of get in with a smaller engagement and build from there? Or when you first go in, have you already agreed on a longer term set of targets? What works better for you?

Thom Shea: 18:45 We’re so adaptable. I don’t think we look at just the long term retainer initiative cause sometimes it’s not what’s needed. What we find is a three month initial setup to engage with us and with them and have an end point to it. So, either we’ve achieved the results in three months that we initially decided on and we want to extend that to achieve more or we complete it. For some reason, most people, most companies want to extend out to a year.

Thom Shea: 19:25 Sure. Now, I mean that framework of, you know, establishing a win in a 12 week timeframe and then expanding it out is a really classic, best practice for corporate consulting contracts. Since it’s almost a little magic, the people really want to see some kind of milestone hit or a win at that 90 day mark, it’s a human nature thing. I see it across all industries.

Frank Bria: 19:50 If you hire somebody to teach you to lose weight and in 12 weeks you’ve gained 50 pounds, you might want to rethink of it. You know, they’re in that disruption period of the first period of time. From our vantage point, we’re always, “Oh my God, it’s going to not turn”. Cause when you disrupt an organization or a leadership teamit always has down river effects on finances. But boy, when it actually is you solve the leadership problem, there’s actually a quicker return.

Frank Bria: 20:26 Mm. Yeah. I do think that’s an under valued concept. I think a lot of people, a lot of corporate folks when they see financial results, not quite the way they want, it’s very easy to go knock on sales and marketing’s door and think it’s really all a top line problem. Butit is amazing that turning the knob of leadership can have those financial results and it’s not always the first knob people go to. I do think it’s underwriting(?). Last question for you. The corporations who need this kind of work, how would they recognize, what are the symptoms of illness they would recognize in their organization where they think, “Oh man, we got to jump on this”. What are they observing?

Thom Shea: 21:19 They’re stuck. Sousuallywell we take on our corporations or small groups or small teams or even individuals that have already achieved success, but are now stuck, they’re on a plateau. They invest a shit ton of money and it doesn’t work. They try this, they try that, and they’re stuck. So I would say 90% are the stuck, you know, people or companies, the other 10%it’s a big risk to us, not financially, but it’s a big risk to take on a bleeding asset that everything is going bad. Because that’s such a disruptive event in their life and in our life to break it again when things are a problem is because there’s a problem. And 10% of the efforts that we go on are what we call bleeding assets, where everything’s going wrong. Everybody knows they’re going wrong and nobody wants to, nobody knows how to solve it. We go into that and it’s very disruptive. Same method.

Frank Bria: 22:33 At that point. Yeah, and anything’s going to be painful. Any change is gonna be painful. But necessary, I mean, what else do you do? Either you lose the company or you make the changes I suppose.

Thom Shea: 22:43 Most people ride the company all the way into the ground.

Frank Bria: 22:46 Yeah, I have seen that. That’s true. You’d think, you know. But anyway, Tom, we’d love to continue talking about this, but we’ve run out of time. I know you’re super busy and really appreciate you taking your time for the interview. Before we go though, for folks who are interested in connecting with you, learning more about what you do, what’s a great place for them to go to connect with you?

Thom Shea: 23:09 I would say threeplaces@tomshea.com. And that’s the website. You can get a brief of what we do and then Thom Shea on Facebook or reach out to me directly in an emailengage@adamantinealliance.com. And hopefully you put that in notes cause I can’t even spell the dang name myself.

Frank Bria: 23:39 No, we’ve got, we’ve got the link below the video and on the show notes page. Soif you’re out about listening to this, come on back to the show notes page and you can click on through to connect with Thom. Thom, thanks so much for being with us today, really appreciate your time.

Thom Shea: 23:53 Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Frank Bria: 23:54 Absolutely and thank you for being with us on this episode of the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria, and if you are doing any kind of corporate consulting work, there are really good lessons here from Thom about how to structure that and how to engage. So take that, apply it, and hopefully that helps you push through. Thanks for being with us and we’ll see you next time. Take care, bye bye.

In this episode, I talk with Michael Griffiths about using strategic partnerships to grow your business. He talks about a number of different kinds are partnership opportunities along with how you know when your business might be ready to use them.

Michael is the founder of referral marketing guru and is the #1 authority on referral marketing training for service providers around the globe.

Michael shows people how to generate 10-15 warm qualified leads and referrals a day by using referral sources, their networks and partnerships.

http://michaelgriffiths.com.au

Transcript

Frank Bria: 00:00 The 6 to 7 Figures Show. Episode 70. Let’s hit it.

Announcer: 00:04 Broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the 6 to 7 Figures Show. Tired of working so hard and having no time? Take your 6 figure practice and turn it to a thriving 7 figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor and strategist Frank Bria.

Frank Bria: 00:29 Hey everyone, welcome to the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’m your host, Frank Bria and today I’m absolutely pleased to be joined by Michael Griffiths, the founder of ReferralMart and referral marketing guru. He’s the number one authority on referral marketing training for service providers around the globe. Michael shows people how to generate 10 to 15 warm qualified leads and referrals each day by using referral sources their networks and partnerships. Michael so thrilled for you to be here. Welcome to the show.

Michael Griffit: 00:59 Yeah, thank you Frank. Very excited to be here and to be with the listeners.

Frank Bria: 01:03 Yeah, absolutely. It feels like referrals are the thing that is a dirty word for a lot of service providers. They know they want them, but they can’t quite figure out a way to get them. They feel random. They feel like luck. One day they show up and another they don’t, but a lot of service providers live and die on these. So what’s the secret to making that not just luck of the draw, but actually designing a better process?

Michael Griffit: 01:33 Yeah, 100%. I think it comes down to probably two things. It comes down to most people are reactive rather than proactive. So they’re sitting back and they go, “Well, I hope a client refers me” or “I hope someone talks about me” or “I hope that something happens”. So really there’s no process, there’s no plan. It’s sitting back hoping that something happens, so that’s our first problem. The second problem is for whatever reason we feel awkward, strange, uncomfortable in asking. Which is really quite, quite funny because we’re happy to ask strangers or we’re happy to ask people to come and buy from us, yet people we’ve got a relationship with, people who already trust us, people who already know, like us; for some reason we feel strange in talking to them about that. So in essence, we want to be able to knock those two things on the head by having sort of simple processes and systems around it, where really it just happens with or without you in terms of these opportunities and referrals coming someone’s way.

Frank Bria: 02:42 Yeah. It’s really interesting that you mentioned that because I mean I certainly have been in that position where I felt a little bit awkward asking for a referral, and then I sit and I think about it, I reflect on it a little bit and I think, “Wait, I’ve had people ask me for referrals before who I like and trust and it really didn’t bother me all that much, so why am I bothered by it”? I guess we never really look back and reflect on our own experiences with this ourselves.

Michael Griffit: 03:07 Yes so, so true and I think it comes back to, and most people don’t really probably fathom this enough, that as humans we actually like to help other people. As humans, we want to give, it’s inside us, that’s how we are actually made up. So when we actually start to understand that a little bit better, it’s just, water off a duck’s back asking. And it’s also water off a duck’s back when you don’t hold onto the result, you don’t get emotionally attached to the results. So there’s two big things for people to think about straight away now.

Frank Bria: 03:43 Yeah. Well, there’s been a lot of talk recently about the focus on process rather than results, or kind of as you’re describing, because you know, when we get attached to the outcome, a lot of times we’ll sort of talk ourselves out of doing the things necessary to get the outcome. But when it’s all about process, I can imagine that if you focus on making a request, sort of, “I’m going to ask a certain number of people, regardless of the outcome”. Eventually the outcome will come. It’s just that we have to sort of understand what that process is and getting into a little bit of habit forming I guess.

Michael Griffit: 04:22 That’s so true, yeah, 100%. So, we sort of talk about 9 accelerators to be able to do this and it’s just a matter of, again, going through building “Good, now I’ve got accelerator one, now I’ve got two, now I’ve got three”. It’s a matter of just putting those in place rather than there being any emotion to it whatsoever. It’s just building a system. No different to what the accounts payable system is ,or the calendar system is, or the daily workout system is. It’s no different and that’s how I think people need to see it.

Frank Bria: 04:56 That’s a really great way to put it because I do think we get really emotionally attached to anything having to do with sales and marketing for some reason. But invoices get sent out, you know, sothat just happens. You work with service providers. What kinds of people do you find that this process works best for? What kinds of companies, how long do they have to have been around? Is there a certain level of income that they need to do in order to put this into practice?

Michael Griffit: 05:28 Yeah, the lovely thing is that it doesn’t really matter what type of business it is. We focus on service providers because that’s what makes me not have to go too far from the system. That allows us to be able to leverage and scale it a little bit more, but we’ve had businesses that are online stores through to brick and mortar local businesses, through to service providers, people who have opened the door yesterday, through to people who’ve been around for 30 plus years. The bottom line simply is if someone is ready to grow, if someone is tired of wasting money on ad spend or can’t get ad spend to work for them, they’re sort of the perfect people. And for a lot of service providers, I know certainly here in Australia, there’s a lot that are actually restricted by where they can spend money on ad spend and they’re not allowed to do certain things through regulations. And therefore, being able to get word-of-mouth and referrals is the only thing that they’re actually allowed to do. So therefore we find thatcoaches, consultants, peopleattorneys and financial planners and mortgage brokers, mortgage lenders, all of those service orientated providers, there just, isn’t one that hasn’t been able to have great success.

Frank Bria: 06:51 That’s phenomenal. You know, there are folks who, granted, they’ve got invested interest in the paid ads community, but there are folks who say, you know, “Referrals are great, but you can’t really grow that necessarily”. Is that what you’re finding? Is that true or are referrals just sort of one of many diversified income streams that you should kind of put in place?

Michael Griffit: 07:19 Yeah. Nice. So, certainly I wouldn’t know problems with spending money on ads if that’s what’s working for somebody that’s just not our space and we focus on our space. 99% of people cannot grow a business based on referrals because they are reactive and they’ve got no stuff in place. If you’re only going to get four, five referrals a month, no, you can’t grow your business on referrals and that’s what most people get simply because they don’t have things in place. When I look at our guys who are getting 30 40, 50 referrals a month, that’s more than what most people get in their paid ad space.

Frank Bria: 08:02 Yeah that’s true, and they’re probably warmer leads too.

Michael Griffit: 08:05 Oh 100%. You should be closing referrals up at 75-80% where most people, they get 20% of cold traffic. They’re over the moon type of thing. So I sort of go at accelerator one, it’s Build Referral Sources. Well, if you want, let’s just go. So referral sources, someone who sells to the same people you sell to and you don’t compete with one another. Simple. So you just simply ask yourself, where else do my clients spend money? Because they’re people that I could partner up with. So if you had 10 referral sources that pass you one referral a month, well there’s 10 referrals. So let’s take that out. If you had 50 referral sources, there is 50. We’ve got a whiteboard here of nearly 400 referral sources. If they passed us one referral a month, there’s 400. You can grow a business on referrals when you’ve got the right things in place.

Frank Bria: 09:03 Yeah, that’s a great perspective. And it’s true. I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s the reactive versus the proactive view and this idea that referrals kind of only come at the end of some milestone or something like that. And you, you’re kind of restricted as to when you can ask. I think it sounds like just in looking at that first accelerator, I think it opens up a lot of people’s minds what the opportunities are. I know that a lot of us, cause I, I’ve been in this position too, you know, curious if you have as well. I’ve had people ask me for referrals who I love and trust and think are amazing and I would love to help them out, but I kind of don’t know really what to do with the request, you know. I kind of think “I don’t really know anyone off the top of my head and I’d love to help or figure it out, but I kind of feel lost”. And so I’ll shake my head and say, “Sure, you know, I’d love to, I’ll keep you top of mind or something”. How do people break through that experience and get actually some traction out of what would otherwise be a really warm prospect for a referral?

Michael Griffit: 10:13 Yeah. Great. In building what we call Million-Dollar Referral System, which is sort of what we help people build. To me, it’s not just a matter of me coming and going, “Frank, do you happen to know anyone that needs blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you do, love for you to pass me their name and number”. That’s what people generally think is getting referrals. That’s an awkward conversation. That if you don’t, then you all of a sudden feel, “Oh how do I handle this? What do I do? What do I say? How do I go about it”? Where I say “Well, let’s actually make it real easy for anyone to be able to help us generate new business”. So the bottom line is, we want people who have a pain point looking for a solution coming into our CRM. We should be filling our CRM everyday, customer relationship management system. So I could go, let’s just pretend, Frank’s playing a client of ours. And instead of going, “Well, Frank, do you happen to know X, Y, Z”? I think that “Frank, we’ve got this great nine point referral game plan. Would you mind just sharing that out to your network”? How easy is that for you to be able to do? Straight away, anyone that has the pain point that they’re not getting enough referrals, anyone that wants the solution, they’re going to now come to us, give us their name and email, allow us to be able to educate, nurture, stay front of mind, and really it’s taking you five seconds to do something that’s probably going to provide us with more warm opportunities than what you could be having to think about it.

Frank Bria: 11:53 Yeah, so in some sense, you’re kind of lowering the threshold for what would be considered a referral. In other words, you know, a lot of us think when, I’m asked for a referral, I kind of have to think of someone who is in the market to buy directly. You know what it is, but it’s not. It could just be a very warm introduction with a handoff of some value.

Michael Griffit: 12:18 100%, because there is a range from 0 to 10 in terms of the referral letter and a 10 is definitely, “Oh, I met this person who needed exactly what it is that you did. I spoke to them about you, ensured that they’re ready to be able to speak to you. Here’s a name and number. They’re expecting a phone call”. Perfect. Number 10, top of referral. If we only waited for them, we would probably only get one or two a month, because they just don’t fall on people’s laps all that often. So therefore, that will naturally happen when you’ve got referral sources doing other things for you also. Just simply because you are more front of mind, you are really sort of in their realm of talking about you. So therefore, you will always get those opportunities, but rather than sitting there waiting just for that opportunity, let’s get people doing other stuff for us also.

Frank Bria: 13:16 Yeah, you’re basically describing opening up the referral funnel. The same way we would in leads, you know, we don’t wait for the very last minute to start talking to people. We try to create an earlier opportunity for a conversation. That’s great. I want to pivot really quickly to the work that you do. Soas you’re working with folks to basically install these accelerators and get them up and running, how do you work with them? What’s the process that you take them through that helps them get these things up and running?

Michael Griffit: 13:51 Yeah, so a combination of both the 9 accelerators, I’ll list quickly: Build Referral Sources, Create Joint Ventures, Systemize Client Referrals, Grow our Networks with Perfect People, Engage with our Networks, Create Conversations with our Networks, Leverage Access through Partnerships into Organizations/Associations Where all of our People hang out, Fill our CRM through Partnerships and Gain Mass Exposure into other People’s Networks. There are the 9 accelerators. So we take those 9 and we actually build out what we call Million-Dollar Referral System. So it starts with “What do you know him for”? Cause if you’re not creating the perception that you’re the go-to, then why would a partner want to partner with you? Why would your networks want to promote you? Why would you get podcasts, webinars, speaking opportunities? Why would people want to be your referral source? So it starts with what are you known for in creating that perception? Then we’ve got the five channels: the partner channel, the network channel, the social channel, the live and livery(?) channel, the retargeting channel. Everything is done through not having to spend a cent on paid marketing. And it’s done, pretty much, through leveraging into other people’s networks. From there that’s sort of all top of funnel: building our audience, putting people into the CRM. So then we can come into the middle of funnel. Now we’ve got to be able to educate, nurture, stay front of mind, show that audience that we are the experts. So there’s a whole bunch of activities that we get our people to do in there that makes that happen, because as we bring them from being in our audience to now realizing that we can help at the bottom of the funnel, it’s about getting them to raise their head and say, “Hey, I actually think that you’ve got what I need. Can we please talk”? So again, it’s about having a whole bunch of activities that happen day in, day out that allow us to be able to get people to raise their heads. So now we’ve got the ability to create sales. So in building out that Million-Dollar Referral System, it’s building top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel. So they’ve really just got all three segments of marketing working well for them.

Frank Bria: 16:05 That’s great. Yeah, that’s very well organized. Do you findyou are providing implementation support for people with these things?

Michael Griffit: 16:14 Yeah. Great. So we pretty much do these two programsImplementation Program is our lower program where it’s a lot more do-it-yourself modules online, learn the modules, but then you turn up to various group sessions where Partnership Club is our flagship program. And that is very much hold your hand, be part of the community, live intensives every 90 days, weekly implementation sessions, monthly trainings, monthly planning. So there’s a lot more within Partnership Club and it’s pretty much, unless you really tried hard to fail, you just can’t fail because you’re getting your butt kicked the whole time to make it happen.

Frank Bria: 16:55 I love that. Unless you’re trying hard to fail. That’s the tagline right underneath. That’s great. That’s awesome What do you think are some of the things, we talked earlier about the fear, sort of, getting past this fear of asking and I want to pivot into mindset a little bit. I know we talked about systems and things like that, butwhat’s the key there? Is there something that people need to get past in order to kind offeel comfortable stepping out into this referral and partnership world?

Michael Griffit: 17:35 Yeah, it’s interesting. And, we talked something the other week on a video, that unless you are confident and secure internally then anything you try to do externally is probably gonna end up failing. So you’ve got to be, not so much sure of yourself, you’ve just got to be confident enough that everything you’re currently telling yourself to why it can’t work or why you’re not doing it, is actually not true and just being okay with that. I did a recording this morning for some of our content next week and from a conversation yesterday where one of our guys had some odd, just wrote something really nasty on one of the social media comments and it’s just aroundyou’ve just got to focus on making an impact for the people you’re making an impact for. No one else matters. I think when you’ve got that way of thinking that “Hey, you’re just talking to your people and not everyone’s your person, you don’t need everyone to be your person” and when you just focus on creating the impact that you really want to create for the people who actually really enjoy and value, then all of a sudden it becomes an awful lot easier to do the things that you should be doing.

Frank Bria: 18:56 Yeah. I think that’s a really powerful principle. You knowone of my mentors is Michael Portan author, a New York Times bestselling author, and he always used to saythere’s some people in this world you’re meant to serve and others not so much. So if you’re ever online or interacting with social media and you’ve ever had the experience that you described, you realize how important and powerful that principle is to apply, cause otherwise it’s pretty hard to get up in the morning.

Michael Griffit: 19:29 Yeah, yeah. No, 100%. And it’s like you’ve, just got to feel sorry for them and their life and give it about a second’s worth of energy, cause that’s all it deserves. And to realize that the impact you’re making means that you need to be going out, you need to be getting doors open, you need to be speaking to people, you need to be creating opportunities because you’ve got more people to help. And that’s where our focus should be.

Frank Bria: 19:54 Yeah, I love that. And one of the things I find is people who do referral,etworking and partnership networking,eally, really well are the ones who treat their partners and their referral partners and joint venture partners and those folks just like their clients. In other words, they see it as sort of an extension of their client base and service. So that’s a great way to position it. Yeah. I really would love to chat some more, but Mike, we’re out of time and I know you’re really busy. I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to spend time with us. Before we go though,or those people who want to connect with you, learn a little bit more about the accelerators, the work that you do, what’s a great way for them to begin that connection with you?

Michael Griffit: 20:46 Yeah, so pop over to MichaelGriffiths.com.au. That’s an easy spot. You’ve got all of our social media at the top, so come hang out in our referral network Facebook group. Grab the 9 point referral game plan, which is there right front and center on the site. So that one place has everything to either connect, to reach out, to grab the 9 point game plan. It’s all there, MichaelGriffiths.com.au.

Frank Bria: 21:14 Great. And that link is below the video, or if you’re on the show notes page, it’s right there. If you’re out and about listening to this audio, come on back to the show notes page and click on through to connect with Michael and his team. Thank you Michael so much for being here. Really appreciate the insights. I know for me personallyyou’ve opened up a couple of windows into opportunities that I wouldn’t have otherwise thought with referrals. So appreciate that insight.

Michael Griffit: 21:42 Yeah absolute pleasure. Great meeting with you Frank and thanks to the listeners for listening.

Frank Bria: 21:46 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for being here with us on the 6 to 7 Figures Show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria. We know you’ve got a lot of things you could do with your time, so if you’re spending it with us, we are honored and thanks so much for being with us and listening to this and we’ll catch you on the next episode. Alright everyone, take care, bye bye.

Amanda and I talk about how to leverage the personality type of your prospect to sell better. This episode talks about the B.A.N.K. code. We dig into the different ways your prospect may be hearing what you’re saying when you sell, and how to adjust your pitch.

Amanda is a proud Mama of three boys, (11, 9 and 7,) and two rescue dogs who lives in Tempe, AZ. Amanda has a Master’s in Education and is a Certified Trainer in BANKCODE. She is the Founder of Abundance On Purpose – whose goal is to coach clients in intentionally creating a life of consistent abundance, freedom and flexibility. Amanda trains entrepreneurs and small businesses on the B.A.N.K.® methodology and uses the training and technology daily in her professional and personal relationships. 

crackyourbuyerscode.com

Transcript

Frank Bria: 00:00 The six to seven figures show, episode 69 let’s hit it.

Announcer: 00:04 Broadcasting from the Valley of the sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the six to seven figures show. Tired of working so hard and having no time. Take your six figure practice and turn into a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria

Frank Bria: 00:29 Welcome to the six to seven figure show. I’m your host, Frank Bria. And today I’m absolutely thrilled to be joined by Amanda Schneider. She is the proud mama three boys, ages 11, nine and seven and two rescue dogs lives in Tempe, Arizona, just in our backyard, actually a little bit South of us, but with a lot more water than we have up here in cave Creek. Amanda has a master’s in education with a certified trainer in bank code, which we’re gonna talk about. She’s the founder of abundance on purpose, whose goal it is to coach clients in intentionally creating a life of consistent abundance, freedom and flexibility. Amanda trains entrepreneurs and small businesses on the bank methodology and uses the training and technology daily in her professional and personal relationships. Amanda, welcome to the show.

A Schneider: 01:17 Thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here.

Frank Bria: 01:19 Oh thanks for taking the time. So let’s dig into, cause that’s intriguing. What is bank code?

A Schneider: 01:27 It is a contrary to what you may think when you hear bank. It is not a financial institution. It’s a a, it’s a methodology. It’s based in personality science dates back 2,500 years ago to Hippocrates who had, you know, took his patients and divided them up into four different groups, temperaments and decided or learned that he could treat them differently based on their temperaments. So we’ve had all sorts of personality assessments developed through the years. There’s nothing new there. There’s usually four just like Hippocrates and ours is the acronym, acronym, bank blueprint, action nurturing and knowledge. Where we differ though is instead of just having personality science and using a personality assessment, it’s different because Sherry tree, the founder who created it, reverse engineered it to, instead of looking at me, it’s looking at your buyer, your potential customer. If you think about sales, sales is simply influence. So it’s, if you’re in a conversation, if you’re a parent and a child, if you know anything, we’re all all in sales at some point. So instead of looking at me, I’m going to look at who I’m talking to and adjust my communication to them.

Frank Bria: 02:42 That’s really fascinating. I know a lot of people in there are like, I guess recently I’ve seen some sales trainers talking about sort of broad principles of matching verbal patterns of your buyer and things like that. But this is, I think for a lot of people are going to be sort of a new concept, actually. Think about personality typing the person that you’re talking to and then figuring out, can you give a couple of examples of how people use that?

A Schneider: 03:07 Absolutely. So, yeah, and I think, you know, we’ve got these wonderfully successful sales people. In various ways, they just know how to do it, but they don’t typically if they have a team know how to duplicate themselves. They just have this natural ability to really clue in and ask the right questions. And that’s where bank really resonated with me because it’s a very simple, quick, easy way. So we offer personality coding technology. We’ve got virtual tools, but really it all comes down to these. There’s four simple cards. Each card has 12 values on them and you know, literally if I go and I meet with a potential client or customer I have an online link as well where you can see them online. So typically a lot of my work is online, but it’s, Hey, do me a favor, before we meet, click on this link or take these cards.

A Schneider: 04:04 There’s, you know, 12 values on each card, read through them, sort them in order of importance to you, most important down to least important. That’s going to help me serve you better and save us some time. Who doesn’t want to be served better and save some time. So it takes typically 60 to 90 seconds, depending on some of their codes. It can take them a lot longer just because that’s the nature of the code. But within that short period of time, I now know where I need to really focus in on and where I should probably stay away from.

Frank Bria: 04:36 That’s interesting. Yeah, that’s fine. And you know, I mean, this is, it’s interesting that you mentioned this whole concept of how some salespeople are just really good at this and and for us, it sometimes it kind of looks like magic. You know, they, they’re able to read the room where they’re able to just pick up on little nuances that other people who sort of feel that they’re not sort of natural salespeople can’t figure out. So it’s really fascinating that you’ve got a way to sorta proceduralize this so that those of us who maybe aren’t as skilled in that can pick this up. What are, what are, what are some of the ways that what w we’re in the sales process, would you kind of leverage these different value areas and how would you sort of adapt the process?

A Schneider: 05:24 You know when I picked up bank, I had a a company that I’ve had for eight years and bake, kinda came back across my radar back in December. And so when I got my, you know, bank pass my technology, what I did was, I mean, it can come in at any point in the process. I went and sent the assessment out to all of my existing customers and I just said, Hey, I’m in implementing this new tool. It’s really important that I really serve you well and, you know, connect with you better. So do me a favor and, and, you know, complete this quick assessment for me. I use it for brand new prospects. Pretty much anybody I talk to, even even in my personal life, if I’m gonna engage in some sort of a business contract with somebody or hire somebody, that’s like I told them I want to know who I’m dealing with.

Frank Bria: 06:14 It just helps communication. So that’s great. And, and, and you’re working with businesses as well, correct? Is that correct? Absolutely. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about, yeah, tell us a little bit about how you work with them and what you do.

A Schneider: 06:26 So we I’ve worked with solo preneurs small and medium sized businesses primarily. I do come from a direct sales background, so there’s a lot in that area as well. And I work with them on providing the tools, either the virtual tool version of this. We do have an AI that we just came out with, so you can plug in marketing materials, like, you know, a website campaign or I’m sorry, an email campaign or a website copy, plug it into our tool and instantly get the code back so you can identify, is my message reaching all four different codes or do I need to kind of, you know, work on my message a little bit to bring it up. So I educate about those tools and help them integrate those into their business. And then I’m also a trainer in this as well.

A Schneider: 07:22 So we offer live trainings. I love to come in and you know, to a sales meeting and just do a brief intro to this. And then if the company is wanting to invest more in it, we can tailor a package to come in and really get them versed in the methodology. And not only does it help with sales, but it helps, you know, organizations and companies work and communicate better. You know, my husband is an an engineer at a major tech company and he went through this two day training and came back and he’s like, Oh my gosh, this is huge. He’s a, a high high knowledge and a couple high actions in the office. We’re really irritating him. And once he’s had that knowledge, he came back and now their relationship working relationship is a heck of a lot better. So

Frank Bria: 08:09 Yeah. Yeah. So and, and and just to educate the audience a little bit knowledge, we’d be it.

A Schneider: 08:16 Do you want me to,

Frank Bria: 08:17 It’s just a little bit, just so we can kinda get a phone.

A Schneider: 08:21 Well, we’ll start in order. So bank blueprint is the first one. So think about, these are people that can, the color blue is more cool, so they’re more conservative. If we use the box as an analogy, they’re inside the box. They like systems and structure remaining within budget and minimizing risk. And we have action. Action is outside of the box. They may act like they had red bull for breakfast. They like VIP treatment. They need to be the leader. If you compliment on you know, something that they’re wearing, that’s a way in to really like break that ice down with them. They don’t care so much about risk. They just want to know that they’re buying the greatest and the best and being treated extra special. Yeah. And we’d have our nurturing that is they’re not inside or outside the box.

A Schneider: 09:15 They want to repurpose or recycle the box. They are, you know, warm and friendly and eye contact and loyalty is very important to them. So, you know, in a business meeting you’re not going to be wanting to check your phone or you know, you’re breaking that, that connection with them and they care. They care more about the bigger picture, impact over income. So coming in and talking all about all the money that you can make them probably not a good idea. Yeah. And then we have our knowledge or knowledge are wanting to re-engineer the box and make it better. They’re really interested in information, research and science. They can tend to be the ones that are more skeptical. Very rarely will they make a buying decision in the moment. They need time to think about it and do their own research. So yeah, that’s a quick synopsis.

Frank Bria: 10:02 Yeah, that’s great. That’s really fascinating. And you know, a lot of us, I think we, when we think about the marketing and sales process and think about tailoring the benefits to the audience in general, but I don’t think we do a lot of test, spend a lot of time thinking about what’s important to that buyer and how to position those benefits in a way that actually speaks to them. I can see the power in that for sure.

A Schneider: 10:28 Absolutely. So when I go on and I work with my clients, you know, we’ll, once we get them understanding each of these codes, we’ll go in and say, okay, your product or service, what can you focus on for a blueprint that you know, really can meet that need? What about your product or your service can meet that action needs? And then they’re able to kind of, we really should have at least four sales presentations, but typically we have fun. All right. You know, coming from direct sales, it’s what’s your story? What’s your story? Tell your story. And it was always my story and my language. It doesn’t always attract and reach all of the other people

Frank Bria: 11:08 That is, yeah, that is, that’s, that’s a really, I think a lot of people are going to be scratching their heads now going, Hmm, that’s interesting for sales presentations instead of one. That’s, that’s true. We don’t, we do think about these all from sort of our own, our own perspective. Do you find that people use one of these four the, these four personality types to kind of filter out clients who probably wouldn’t work with them very well? Is there, is there some filtration that might be working there or,

A Schneider: 11:42 You know, I haven’t had that experience. In terms of, I mean really we like to make, you know, create labels and put people in inboxes. We’re, the truth is, is we really are a combination of all four of these. That’s why we call it thank code. And we do have, when we go into more in depth training, we have a 20 question assessment, which lets you know how high you are in each one. And there are certain people that are really high into three or even four. And to me, I’m, I’ve got a theory that those are the really successful sales people that just can easily make it look like an art back and forth between them. Yeah. You flex. So yeah, a lot of people can be close and they’re easy, you know, it’s easier for them to flex. But no, the, you know, what I overwhelmingly see is people just love being able to use this to improve their communication. You know, people that used to irritate you or you know, hurt your feelings or, you know, it turns into compassion and understanding because it’s like, Oh, it’s not personal. It’s just how they show up in the world. And that’s different than me. So

Frank Bria: 12:51 That’s interesting. It can, it, can people use this to, to hire people to hire the right,

A Schneider: 12:58 The right roles in their organization as well? Absolutely. you know, it’s, it’s such a, it’s interesting, it’s been around for 20 years, but it’s really starting to take hold and, and spread quickly. Right now people are understanding that this, you know, is something that’s different. San Francisco state university did a white paper in 2016 that find typically validated that yes, this is unique, this is different and you can predict buying behavior in 90 seconds or less. And so that’s starting to take holds of colleges and universities. Sherry’s been asked to, you know, she’s taught some entrepreneurs at Harvard and UC Berkeley and so it’s starting to kind of bubble up all over, which is really exciting. But yeah, I mean if you’re looking for a certain type for your sales team or you’re lacking something and you really understand where that need is, absolutely.

A Schneider: 13:52 And it can definitely improve employee communication. And I have a fellow trainer who, she was a general rep, the general manager at a restaurant and she took the cards and she coded her whole staff, put everybody’s codes up on the office door, gave him a little bit of education. And she learned that her entire chef cooking, you know, all the cooks in the kitchen were nurturing. Oh, she’s high action. And she would just come in and say, Hey, we’ve gotta do this, this, this, this. And, and then she learned they were all nurtured. They love to cook and take care of people. And so she adjusted how she was communicating with them and it just made a huge difference and bonused all over the place. They were the number one store. And it just, it really helps. I mean, it all comes down to communication, right?

Frank Bria: 14:39 Yeah. I can imagine that. And you know, the, I just thinking when you talk about the nurture a role, you know, if I was going to hire someone or someone, someone wanted to hire somebody to be the liaison or the customer success person, you know, you’d want to, I see. It feels like you’d want someone in that nurture role who’s going to be really good at, at understanding that, that, that function.

A Schneider: 15:01 Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. We’ve that you can, you can definitely, once you kind of learn about this and start seeing, there are people that are, you know, very, very nice, great people, but their nurturing is last in that role and they don’t have as easy of a connection and, and ease in connecting with people. And so, yeah, if you’re looking for a liaison, you’re going to want somebody that just in their natural state, it comes easier for them. Right?

Frank Bria: 15:30 Absolutely. That’s, yeah. Yeah. In my own business, I’ve found that’s a, that’s an important thing. That’s, that’s a blind spot for me. So we always get someone in client relations who’s, who says, you know, Frank, it’s their birthday. We might want to do something nice for them. People have birthdays. I didn’t even know that. I want to pivot for a second and talk about specifically how you’re working with, with customers. Can you walk us through kind of the process you take your clients through that help them integrate this into what they do?

A Schneider: 16:01 Absolutely. So we do it one of two ways. I mean I have, you know, the solo preneurs that come in. And so I offer an introduction to bank seminar periodically, usually one or two a month where people will come to a location that I’ve arranged. They learn about in 60 minutes they learn about the basics and then from there decide if they want to implement the technology into their business or if they want to take one of our we call it a code, a bank code summit. It’s a two day course where they, one is the fundamentals. We, we get eight hours into the good stuff of this. And then day two is speed coding where we get even further in. And then we, it’s actually kind of like speed dating. You sit across from somebody, you have a three minute conversation, you have your little bank poker chips, you arranged them in order of what you think their code is.

A Schneider: 16:55 They reveal their code and then you have three minutes to talk. So it’s wow, it’s so much fun and it’s, it’s great to just see the light bulbs go off and you know, people really learn things. So as they engage in that process, they become a customer of mine. And so my customer support, you know, is about checking in with them, answering questions, helping them, you know, come up with a plan for how you’re going to implement it. You know, your existing customer base, how you’re going to implement it into when you meet with a new potential customer. The second is going into an office and speaking to a sales team, you know, on one of their weekly or monthly meetings. And then from there, if they would like to engage, it’s, it’s tailoring a package because it’s, it’s pretty hard to ask a whole office to take two days off for a training. So it’s okay. Do you want, you know, what can we do in four hours or six? And so it’s a very tailored process, which I love. I’m very high action. So I like the freedom and flexibility to make my

Frank Bria: 17:59 Yeah, make it work for you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s fascinating. So talk like focusing for a second on the sort of smaller business in the solo preneurs as they’re there. So, so it sounds like first they’re learning about this and making sure that they understand it and can absorb the concepts, identify people when they’re talking to them and, and understand how to adapt the communication. And then are you helping them integrate that into their own sort of sales and marketing content? You earlier mentioned website and probably sales presentation and

A Schneider: 18:35 Yes, so for instance, I just starting because we had our AI that just came out last month. So what I’m doing right now is offering a pilot program to a solo preneurs or anybody that’s interested in improving your business where for 30 days we’re going to work together. They’ll get access to the AI tool, the online bank pass where they can crack codes and then it’s two, one hour group session trainings with me via zoom. And then there’s a one, a 30 minute one-on-one where we kind of go over, okay, what are the numbers for your business? Where do you want it to grow in the 30 days? And, you know, really working with them, helping them through that process of specifically integrating this tool into their business and you know, tracking the results. And

Frank Bria: 19:23 That’s nice. So you have a, a offense, fundamentally a group, a training piece as well as sort of implementation support. Does that sound right?

A Schneider: 19:32 Absolutely. It’s, it’s, it’s training, it’s tools and help supporting and implement [inaudible].

Frank Bria: 19:37 Right. And, and in your estimation, sort of when, you know, I know, I know everyone’s going to say like everyone needs this, but your w w you think is sort of a good time for business to start to look at this as something they should be integrating into their sales process.

A Schneider: 19:58 Ideally, you know, we know the statistics for new businesses and it’s, you know, especially depending on the market, what, what marketplace you’re in. It can be pretty tough. Like, you know, one out of two businesses fail after the first, you know, year or two. So I mean, ideally I would say the earlier the better, especially if you’re implementing, you know, new procedures and systems and, you know, training and different things. If the earlier you can bring that on, the better. But honestly, it’s just at any point where you’re able to just bring in a tool, it’s not a big distraction. It doesn’t take away a whole lot of time. It’s not like, you know, you have to go to six weeks of training to bring us in. It’s, you can, you literally use it right away. So,

Frank Bria: 20:44 Yeah. And it sounds like also, I guess if you’re solo preneur who is having a sales conversations where they feel frustrating or disconnected in some way, that’s probably a sign, right? That a, that something’s off in your, in your communication so that if that’s something that’s happening on a regular basis, then that’s great. Yeah,

A Schneider: 21:09 Of course. Dot com. I’m not sure what year they came out with a statistics that they found that 89% of salespeople do not feel prepared for their presentation. 66% of potential customers are turned off by the presentation. So it’s a pretty easy,

Frank Bria: 21:24 I’ve been to a few of those presentations, so I can assure you

A Schneider: 21:29 I met former, you know, I used to say that I was allergic to the word sales. Like in my direct selling business, I never sold anything I just shared. I don’t sell, I just share because I think we’ve all had that experience. You know, when we do our training, we talk about cracking the code or cracking the vial of vinegar where you’ve said the wrong thing or somebody just is so different than you and you’re just like, eh, that was just icky. So it’s funny that, you know, I laugh, I’m like, I’m this former person that hated sales and now I teach, I’m in sales and I just don’t have sales. And I train on sales. But I love it because this to me, has the ability to get rid of the icky sales situations. Sales is amazing. You know, everybody in sales has a product that they love. You know, I hold, yeah,

Frank Bria: 22:14 That’s a, that sort of does feel like step one.

A Schneider: 22:17 It does. Yeah. I mean, if you’re selling something that you don’t believe in it, that’s probably, we got other issues, you know? I mean, most people love, love their product and they have people that need their product and sales is a great, amazing process when it’s done, you know, authentically and correctly.

Frank Bria: 22:36 Yeah. You know, it’s interesting that you mentioned that sort of cracking the vial of vinegar. I’ve never heard that expression before, but it resonates, right? Because people who really don’t like sales either being sold to or selling themselves is that feeling that you have to get into some emotional manipulation tactics to, to push through. And it sounds like what you’re saying is, is that a lot of that you know, moving into emotional manipulation is just because you’re not making progress because you didn’t align with the values of the person that you’re talking to fundamentally. And if you knew what those were and you knew how to talk to that person, you wouldn’t have to resort to those kinds of tactics to begin with.

A Schneider: 23:20 Absolutely. And I think some people can kind of, and by the way, the nurturing and the knowledge are typically the ones that are most like two sales. Just a heads up on that. But [inaudible] if some people will say, well, isn’t this manipulation? Like you’re going to find out about your client and you’re gonna change how you talk? And it’s, it’s not, it’s here’s, here’s all of the benefits of our product. Here’s what’s important to you and I’m going to come with what’s important to you. And then there’s a lot less of that miscommunication, which can then resort to more violent, manipulative feelings.

Frank Bria: 23:59 Yeah. I mean, I, I, yeah, I, I can see where people might think that, but it feels like any time you do something in a conversation to make the other person feel more comfortable, whether it’s letting them talk about themselves or anything is essentially a tactic to build relationships. If that’s manipulative, then, then we’re kind of all in trouble as a society. Yeah, that’s a, that’s fascinating. Amanda, this has been really great. Unfortunately, we’re at a time, I’d love to continue to talk about this, but I know you’re super busy and I really appreciate you taking the time with us today. One last question before we go. If people are interested in hearing more about this and connecting with you on how to leverage this, what’s a good place for them to go to, to start that dialogue with you?

A Schneider: 24:44 I think the easiest place my email, which we can put on there, but what I wanted to offer is if anybody wanted a complimentary personality assessment they can go to bankcode.com forward slash Amanda and they’ll get the cards. They can arrange them, they can put their information in. And then yeah, my email address is abundanceonpurpose at gmail.com and I’d be happy to give some complimentary help.

Frank Bria: 25:18 Yup. That’s, that’s an amazing offer. Thank you very much. And that link to the assessment is below the video here. It’s on the show notes page. If you’re listening to the audio, if you’re out and about listening, come on back to the show notes page and you can click on through. Thanks so much for offering that amount. It’s very generous of you. Thank you.

A Schneider: 25:33 Certainly. Thank you so much Frank. I really appreciate to getting to talk to you.

Frank Bria: 25:37 Yeah, absolutely. It’s been great and thank you very much everyone for coming today to this episode of the six or seven figure show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria. We know you got a lot of things to do and if you’re spending time with us, really appreciate you taking the time to listen and do, learn more about what you do to grow your business and we’ll see you next time. Take care.

In this episode I interview Bob Clark, the host of the 808 Podcast. He and I discuss the incredible networking power of podcasts. In fact, he and I met first as I was a guest on his podcast. Bob gives several tips for using podcasting for networking and lead generation rather than audience building and ego building.

Bob Clark is the host of the 808 Podcast with over 359 episodes. A value bomb with a smirk. The creator of an original system, to start conversations, build relationships, and get more referrals and add clients faster. 

http://808podcast.com

Transcript

Frank Bria: 00:00 The six to seven figures show, episode 68 let’s hit it.

Announcer: 00:04 Broadcasting from the Valley of the sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the six to seven figure show. Tired of working so hard and having no time. Take your six figure practice and turn it into a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria

Frank Bria: 00:29 Hey everyone. Welcome to the six to seven figure show. I am your host, Frank Bria. Absolutely thrilled to be joined here by my good friend Bob Clark. Dammit. I was told to specifically include the “dammit”.

Bob Clark: 00:41 Very important.

Frank Bria: 00:42 Yes, it is very important. Host of the 808 Podcast with over 359 episodes. A value bomb with a smirk. And you’ll see why when we get into talk in here, a creator of an original system, to start conversations, build relationships, and get more referrals and add clients faster. Bob, welcome to the show.

Bob Clark: 01:02 Thank you for having me, Frank.

Frank Bria: 01:03 Absolutely. My pleasure. So okay, we got to start off with the name of the podcast. Why eight Oh eight podcast.

Bob Clark: 01:11 The AOA podcast was, I’ll give you a little bit of the story behind it. I have a company where we turn phone calls into video testimonials. And so when we were doing it from a done-for-you service, I had to get in front of people because it’s one of those things you have to really explain, you know, that that part there. So I’m talking to my coach and said, you know, it’s been three years, I’ve always wanted to do a podcast. So she tells me, great, you’ve got 24 hours to schedule your first episode. But I don’t have a website. I don’t have this, I don’t have that. She says, I don’t care. You’ve got 24 hours. So I’m like, okay, well let’s get this done, done. So I’m thinking, well I want it to be 10 minutes but you under 10 minutes.

Bob Clark: 01:47 Because that way I can post the videos to LinkedIn without having to do any fancy YouTube postering thing there. It’s like, okay, let’s do around eight [inaudible] eight to nine cause I want to give people a little bit of time in case someone talks too long. So I’m like eight Oh eight [inaudible] eight Oh eight looks like Bob. It’s, I’m like, okay, that has to be taken. I go and go on Google and what do you know? I mean you go go daddy. And eight eight podcasts was available and the Twitter was available, the Facebook was available, the Instagram was available. I’m like salt mine.

Frank Bria: 02:15 That’s the first thing I saw when I saw that. When we were first getting acquainted, I was like, Oh, he’s from Hawaii. I’m pretty sure that’s like the area code for Hawaii.

Bob Clark: 02:25 And there’s also the eight Oh eight beatbox, which helps build rap songs.

Frank Bria: 02:28 Oh, okay. Well, so there’s a, there’s a couple of yeah, but that, that’s, you know, it’s really lucky when you find the brand you want and all that stuff is available. And so it doesn’t happen as often.

Bob Clark: 02:39 It doesn’t. So that’s how, that’s why it’s six questions at eight minutes and eight seconds because eight Oh eight looks like Bob.

Frank Bria: 02:46 Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s literally the reason. I love that. I love that explanation. So, so why podcasting? Like what, why, why did you think that was something that you wanted to do to begin with?

Bob Clark: 02:57 Well the idea was that to explain what I do, you have to get in front of someone basically one-on-one. So I’m thinking how do I, if I do a long form podcast I’ll get less guests on because it just, you know, black people have to think about what am I going to talk about for 20 minutes and then all that part there. So I was like, you know what, I want to use this as a networking tool than a branding tool. So like what you’re doing here is great. It’s designed to be a branding tool cause you do like one or two a week in that part there. I build podcasts as networking, so since I can do them so quickly, an entire podcast from the second you log on to log off is 15 minutes, which then gives me 15 minutes to talk to the person afterwards. And I’ve actually done 392 episodes as of the time of this recording. And only four people have said go away after the fifth. The podcast is done. Huh.

Frank Bria: 03:44 That’s pretty good. Yeah, that and well, I think a lot of people when they think about podcasting, think about the, the time commitment and all of that. And so the idea of using podcast for networking, I mean, w when I first thought about that, I was like, that’s never gonna work. I, I never talked to enough people fast enough. But the the format works for that. A really what really nicely.

Bob Clark: 04:07 It works really well. I mean, if I couldn’t have had, again, my one year anniversary is coming up and I will have done over 400 episodes in a year. Yeah. That’s pretty good. Yeah. And a lot of people tell me how great, crazy and awesome that is. But I want to think about this way. So say you’re a business owner who’s in hustle mode, like you’re going to, you’re working, you’re working hard, and I tell you you had 400 one-on-ones in a year. That’s good. Don’t get me wrong. I’m like golf, clap. But that’s not crazy. And saying, you know, wow, how did you actually do that type thing.

Frank Bria: 04:35 Yeah. But, but there is something about the podcast format that really transforms the conversation from just a, Hey, we’re getting to know each other to a real value add. I mean you’re the, you know, it gives you sort of a, an element of credibility. It gives you an element of Hey, I’m doing something for you cause I’m getting your name out there. It’s, I gotta think it counts for more than just a one on one.

Bob Clark: 04:59 It does, but it’s still, again, the amount of time it takes as a Tom of a one on one. Yeah, true. I built it specifically where I don’t get, there’s no editing. I actually, the reason I allow, you know, my podcast is purely because that way if someone says, fuck you told me beforehand, I can say a therapist at there. So basically if I decided I didn’t want to podcast with custody and someone says the F bomb because I have to go back and edit, that’s more work and sometimes it just slips, you know, just some people just do it there. And so I was like, you know what, I’m gonna allow cussing for the simple fact that I don’t want to edit video or audio. So there you go. It’s done.

Frank Bria: 05:34 Yeah. Process driving format. That’s great.

Bob Clark: 05:37 Yeah. Everything that I’ve done I do on my podcast is designed to be the least amount of work possible.

Frank Bria: 05:44 That’s great. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, especially when it’s effective and you’re getting in front of a lot of people. So, so if all of the crazy interviews you had over the, the, you know, almost 400 now what one sticks out the most?

Bob Clark: 05:59 The one that sticks out the most probably would be the person who was four minutes late for the interview, told me, explained it. I mean five minutes late, took four minutes to explain why know that part there. I’m like, I really don’t care why you’re late. This is get it done. And then I’m like, okay, so this guy’s a talker. We’ll be good on the podcast. I’m assuming if you’re gonna just Blab lab lab. And he shortened to the point for every single question. And I usually expect every question like the first four, cause I do six questions in eight minutes and eight seconds because eight, Oh, it looks like Bob first four should be 30 seconds ish. Fifth question, three to five minutes. Last question, 30 seconds, you know, itch around there. He was like five seconds, five seconds, five seconds, and then through and then two minutes. I’m like, what am I doing here? You know, I wasn’t expecting that.

Frank Bria: 06:44 That’s interesting that that is a, that is the thing about podcasting. I you kinda gotta like roll with it depending on what’s going on there. Right. But I would think that the bigger problem is that most people can’t fit like what they want to say into eight minutes and eight seconds. That’s gotta be a, a tough challenge for most people. Just like

Bob Clark: 07:03 Not, you know, it’s funny, I have more problems with people who take for who do I have more problems with people who are too short that people are too long.

Frank Bria: 07:10 Oh really? Really? Huh. So they just, it’s so it’s just kind of a clip. They’re probably prepped for short and so they think

Bob Clark: 07:18 Right then they go really short. I’m like, okay, you know, that’s a little too short.

Frank Bria: 07:22 Right, right. So this concept of podcasting is networking is kind of a, you know, people are starting to talk about it now. You know, in the, in the old days, podcasting, like when I first started you know, four or five years ago, it was all about the getting the, the, the advertising dollars and sponsorships and stuff. And I think, you know, except for the top sort of 20 podcast, people are kind of rolling away from that idea. How’s it working? Like talk us through the, you know, the, the actual process of how the podcast actually is driving business for you.

Bob Clark: 07:58 Well, I’ll always remember the first person I ever scheduled, and this is kind of the part there, sends me a message on LinkedIn. Hey, we should connect. I accept. It gives me a generic things for connecting, you know, copy and paste message. You know, a lot of people do it. No problem there. And I sent a message that says, Hey, you want to be on this podcast because you know, it’s six questions at eight minutes and eight seconds because eight Oh eight looks like Bob, I’m going to keep saying that for brand new.

Frank Bria: 08:21 No, no, no, no. It is very obvious why that’s a branding thing for you.

Bob Clark: 08:25 Yes. That part there. And so then what happened was, is he, you know, he asked me, what’s your website? Well, it’s an eight Oh eight podcasts.com but I just bought the domain 20 minutes ago. All right. How many views do you have? You’re literally the first person I have ever asked. I just decided to do this 30 minutes ago. Okay. do you have account scheduling league? That’s a good idea. I probably should get one of those. And he went through, we talked to 15 minutes afterwards, kind of told a little about what he, what we did. You don’t want to sell that 15 minutes afterwards cause then it feels like it’s a bait and switch. But you asked a lot of questions, was very interested. So I said, well, why don’t we schedule a time to talk in more detail. Yeah. He likes, sure. You know, that works there. He’s interested enough. Became a client of ours. I bet other people would. Again, when I was doing the, when I was teaching, doing the phone calls, the video testimonials, a guy went on and said, I saw your website. I’m in. How much? Okay. You know, this, you know, that works there too. Now that’s rare, but it happens.

Frank Bria: 09:22 Yeah, sure. No, that’s great. Yeah, I think that you know, I was having a conversation, an earlier episode with John Corcoran about podcasting. And I guess one of the things that, you know, we see a lot is people kind of using the podcast to kind of stretch out to some crazy thing. You know, in other words, it’s like, I’m going to get Richard Branson on my podcast or something like that, you know, and it’s like, okay, well you go work on that for four years and in the meantime people are actually going to do real business. But that sort of use of that platform to kind of for self aggrandizement rather than for actual business use. I think it’s starting to die, but there, you know, when we started off it was a lot of that,

Bob Clark: 10:05 Not a lot. I was just talking to this guy, he works a day job and he says, I want you on my podcast. Okay. So what’s the podcast about? Well, I’m here to educate people. Okay, so what’s your, what is your plan for the podcasts? Like what, what are your goals trying to figure out there? I just want to educate. So you want to be poor. There’s a reason American teachers don’t make money, you know, that part there, you know, a little bit, a little bit of a political shade there and he’s like, well, you know, I’m, I’m all passionate about education or thing. I says, okay, then you know, obviously you’re not making enough money online because you have a day job and that part there. So in other words, you have a hobby. Yeah. And I, I, one of my best friends, he has a podcast where him and his buddy just basically bullshit about movies. It’s a hobby for him, right? Sure. Let it be a hobby. I’m not saying hobbies are bad in any way. Just accept it. Really, the only difference between, in my mind, the only gifts between a hobby and a business is one makes money. One doesn’t.

Frank Bria: 10:59 Right, right. Absolutely. Yeah. I saw, I saw you post that actually on social media the other day. Yeah. that’s true. And, and, and early on in the fork format, I mean, podcasts was originally a hobbyist sort of format when it first started. And now, now it’s kind of being taken over by business. I guess we’re the, we’re the late comers to the party, but it is really strange that we do see some weird behavior in businesses around this stuff. There’s this almost it’s almost like you don’t want to to reach out. You’re trying to do this very stay high level, you know, don’t, don’t piss anybody off. Don’t, don’t like say who you are or what you do because you, you just want to be this platform or this authority in it. I don’t see it particularly useful.

Bob Clark: 11:47 It takes a lot of time and a lot of money to do that. Yeah. A perfect example. I know this lady she got a podcast and she was so proud that she worked 40 hours a week for four weeks and she got to number 80 in iTunes in her niche, and she was all proud about it. I said, sweet. So how does that number 80 go towards, you know, get you business while it hasn’t? Well then it’s a hobby, right? You spent 40 hours a week on a hobby, right? And just, you know, that part there and she’s all shit and all frustrated in that part there. And then I have clients talking to one guy and he says, look, you know, he just started work of me. He says, I made one sale but haven’t made you know, lots of sales yet, but I got all these leads. I’m like, great. That’s the goal. Gets you in front of people.

Frank Bria: 12:29 Yeah.

Bob Clark: 12:30 So that, that’s part of there. And so, and he’s like, he’s a static, cause again, he’s been in now his lead gen instead of trying to convince people to talk to them one on one, that part there, he builds apps for people and he’s holding now is get, get them on the podcast. Yeah. And now they get on the podcast, talks to them, he’s listening to see if there, there’s any remote level of interest and now he’s got the people in the sales funnel.

Frank Bria: 12:49 Yeah. That’s amazing. It’s such a smart way to do things. Yeah. the, we want to pivot back to process a little bit because we were talking a little bit about sort of the podcast. A framework, right? Like you talked about you know, you had like a Calendly link, like an appointment scheduling. Like from a process perspective, what are you seeing out there that people are doing in the, like to get guests to book guests, all that stuff that’s not really working very well or that feels like a lot of friction.

Bob Clark: 13:21 Two things. And these are two things you did not do, Frank, by the way, I will tell you, golf class did not do the show. Can we go number one, lots of homework.

Frank Bria: 13:29 Yeah.

Bob Clark: 13:30 If I have to spend more than five minutes scheduling for your podcasts and that includes looking at my calendar, I’m not interested. Right. And that part there just cause there’s a lot of people as all these questions they want, they want to basically, because they’re not good enough of a guest, they need you to give them a lot of information so they can, I mean, good enough of a host, they give them a lot of information so they can actually build it on there. Right. I’ll say it, I’m going to be completely, that’s an unpopular opinion. I don’t care. And again, I am not that good. I don’t think I’d be a good enough of a host for a 20 to 30 minute podcasts. I’m okay with that. So therefore I built a system where I don’t have to be there. You know that part there.

Bob Clark: 14:05 Second thing that they do that drives me crazy is they don’t put their name when they send out the County link, the schedule one link, whatever it is there, they just put their podcast name. Okay. So for example, I was on a podcast where basically it was like three a three letters podcast. Yeah. And there were three common letters. So I had to reschedule the meeting cause I’m looking, I’m like, Hey, this isn’t going to work. I schedule my podcasts. You usually later out and everything. I’m like I just gotta reschedule. I’m telling him a month ahead, he can deal with it, you know? That’s just my attitude. It happens. It happens. I had to go look him up and finally I had to send the guy message cause I knew that it was some who want me on podcasts. Hey, is this your podcast? Yeah, we’ll do it. You need to put your name into this in the invites so I know it’s actually used. So I’m not having to look you up. And other people I would look you up cause I did we sketch it like yours? It

Frank Bria: 14:52 Was Frank Bria podcast. Okay. Yup. I knew the, it’s surprising how those small things like makes such a big difference. Especially, you know, if you’re, if you’re attracting guests, you know and you don’t, you don’t have to think, you don’t have to go after Richard Branson, but I think you want to at least try to treat your guests as if you’re going after Richard Branson. I mean they’re, they’re doing you a favor to come on. True. It’s, you know, it’s expensive some time. Yeah I mean I could certainly take the attitude of well I’m giving you a platform, but I just, I find that really,

Bob Clark: 15:26 Yeah, it’s kind of, it’s kind of, yeah, I kind of, it’s a little bit of 50 50 with me where I say, can we got 30 minutes? We got to get this done quick. Cause you know, it’s all about the speed and everything there. So if I have someone who’s lollygagging that I might just say, you know, I don’t think we’re a fit. One of the questions I’ll ask is basically a number five is dropped the value bomb when they spent three to five minutes giving them business advice. And if I don’t think their business advice is up to snuff, I’ll tell them. So I had one guy that basically talked about how creativity is important. No, I want to actual how to business advice. And then he did that. He tried doing the, well, we might not be a fit. Your rights, it also, what you’re doing the pull sale on me. Wait a minute here. That’s not supposed to happen.

Frank Bria: 16:05 Right? Well, I mean, as the podcast host, I think you’ve got a responsibility for the quality of the stuff that comes out.

Bob Clark: 16:14 Right? I bet it’s very important there. One of the awesome benefits of, because I do right now, I want to start doing 15 episodes a week, is I don’t have to worry about the quality as much. So the thing is, if you’re doing a weekly podcast and you have a bad episode, I just want to take you a week to go recover from that episode. True. For me. I have a bad episode. Okay. It’s going to take me a couple of hours to recover.

Frank Bria: 16:37 Yeah. So I think also one of the other things that’s happened as podcasting has become much more sort of integrated into the regular content marketing framework is that w we’re not as hung up on stuff anymore. I mean, five years ago, man, people were like, if you, if you don’t have the right microphone and you don’t have the right, like, I just think a lot of that stuff is really not as critical anymore. I think people are a lot more forgiving, right? There isn’t this sort of like a, back when it was a hobbyist thing, there was definitely a bit of a [inaudible] you gotta have the right, you know, right equipment, the right stuff, if it’s not good audio, whatever.

Bob Clark: 17:15 But there’s still some on audio checks. I mean, there are, sometimes I’d have people that did it at a Starbucks. I’m like, no, not going to work. That part there. And again, my microphone. I have a $100 Yeti. That’s it. Yeah. I have two lights to over here. I’m not gonna move my count around to show you, but they still put light on my face and everything. They’re a webcam. I’m done. Yup. Watch the video. I just keep this up for a very specific reason. I’m pointing to it right there. There’s a dent in my wall. I keep this dense in the wall on purpose to show people you don’t need a background. That’s it in a dent in the wall. It’s just the Denton. That’s great. No, and I’ve actually, my business partners have come and says, Hey, do you want that dang paint? You know, we can get someone to paint the paint over that. Nope. It stay in, but it’s a dental. I know. I’m keeping it there.

Frank Bria: 18:05 Well that is a I mean, look, that’s the whole you know, better done than perfect thing that I think a lot of people get hung up on for sure.

Bob Clark: 18:15 Yeah. I just said that’s the whole thing. There is mild strategy. I tell people it’s like when I train people how to do podcasts, just get the damn thing done. Yeah, right. I actually had one client and he was like, I want to do this. I want to make all these cool things here. I’m like, no, we’re just going to get the damn podcast done, but when you do all this fancy stuff with it, let’s get the damn thing done first. Then talk about making it fancy.

Frank Bria: 18:34 Yeah, yeah. I I, I mean whoever you were working with mentor wise that said, you know, when’s your first episode? That’s sort of the right way to look about, look at it. It’s too, too much. You know, trying to plan everything out and have everything all perfect it, it doesn’t end up working really well.

Bob Clark: 18:50 Right. And it’s actually a funny thing is like when I’m working with clients and again the training, once the train is done, it’s not a very long train. They says, okay, what can I start now? Sorry, I don’t like it. You again, you got your students set up, you got your County link, go. Yeah, that’s great. This is one of my things I do with my clients because a lot of, I have clients who want to know about the posting aspect of it. How do you post it? I don’t talk about posted episodes until you have 14 of them. Reason being is you want to do four episodes on your first day and that you want to be two weeks ahead. So you didn’t want a day. So basically 14 episodes there. Yeah, that part you’re there and they can play well, I want to know how to post. I says we’re not going to talk about that until you’re 14 episodes. I have all the training ready, but once you get your 14 episodes, then we’ll talk about that. And it’s just what I always feel like, well, I need to make sure everything’s all perfect. No, you don’t get the damn episodes recorded first. I’m not going to waste my time training on something. Cause if you’re not gonna do 14 episodes, you’re never going to post them anyway. Yup, that’s true.

Frank Bria: 19:46 That’s such a great model of [inaudible] like pivoting going a little meta here. It’s such a great model for anyone actually who’s trying to teach or mentor anyone through anything is to create these milestones, these Gates they have to get through rather than sort of dumping everything all at once because we as entrepreneurs tend to get lost. We like to, you know, wander off and weird stuff and find lots of things to not avoid doing the things we really should. Right. Yeah, for sure. So, so who, in your opinion, I think I know what you’re going to say here, but I’m, I ask anyway, who in your opinion should be having a podcast?

Bob Clark: 20:25 I would say basically any business owner and here’s why. Okay. So let’s talk real estate agents for example, there. I want to say something that pisses off real estate agents. When you go to a networking event and there’s four other real estate agents there, you are not special. Yeah. And they’ll say, well, but I do this over there. Again, as far as the perception of the entire world is you’re just one of the four real estate agents there. Right. Well, imagine going to a networking event. Everyone does their 32nd commercial. I’m a real estate agent as specialize in dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, and everyone at this point, literally everyone else is on their phone. Oh, it’s another real estate agent. I’m just going to be on my phone the whole time. You then go and say that actually I’m doing this with a financial planner. She’s now going up and saying, and she’s in the Denver tech center area. Hi. You know my name is so-and-so here. I’m doing a podcast where I’m showcasing business owners and executives in Denver tech center area. It’s six questions in eight minutes because you have that part there. Yeah, I’m looking for guests. Anybody want to be on, come on. People will chase her down to be on the podcasts in her having to chase everyone else down.

Frank Bria: 21:26 Yeah, it’s definitely a differentiator and, and it’s a great excuse to get face to face time with people who you wouldn’t otherwise. Right.

Bob Clark: 21:32 Awesome. One thing I like about financial planners is think about this. Any type of advertising you do is in compliance. You have to deal with compliance there, right? So here’s the trick and I actually hurt this lady. This is the conversation we had last until compliance with all my podcasts. No, you don’t. Yes I do. I’ll say, well, let me ask you this. If you decide to start doing karaoke night on Friday nights, would you have to tell compliance? Well, if they paid me to do it. Okay, that’s fair. That is fair. If you got paid to do karaoke or a band thing, you’d have to tell compliance. I can agree to that. Right, but you did it just as a hobby, like something you want to do. Just for the fun of it. Do you need to tell compliance about your hobbies? No. Do you have to sell compliances after you do karaoke?

Bob Clark: 22:11 Someone walks up to you, you’re sharing a Drake with them and they ask what you do. Do you have to tell compliance about that? No. Okay. Then you’re going to do a podcast for the local community and you’re not going to talk about finance at all, but it’s when getting get in front of all these people you want to get in front of. And she’s like, you can see the wheels spinning in her head. She’s like, so basically what I’m doing is I’m doing a service for the community. Like yeah, that’s what it is there. And it’s a hobby. Yup. You don’t have to deal with compliance settle. And we made sure the questions, there’s nothing about finance in there. We skirted a little bit, like basically there will nothing. They can say anything and there you go.

Frank Bria: 22:45 Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s true. And again, cause I, I’m from the old finance world, so I know the whole, we like to use compliance as an excuse.

Bob Clark: 22:55 Right. And Eric will be, so you as a finance compliance guy, everything I said, do you believe that everything,

Frank Bria: 23:00 Yeah, totally. That’s true. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, very particular around advertising materials. And of course, companies can overdo that, right? They can if you’re internal someplace. But I think it’s brilliant if you’re, if you’re doing, I think what I’m hearing you say is if it’s worth it for you to network, go to a networking event. It’s worth it for you to have a podcast.

Bob Clark: 23:23 Also, if, if, again, if you want to get in front of people, that part’s there. So really get my clients, the ones I’m working with right now, they’re using a mini podcast to basically get in front of five to 10 people a week. Yeah. And that’s building their network. Once you get to a hundred episodes, which again, if you’re doing five to 10 a week is actually fairly quick. You’re an expert. Yeah. And again, I say there, I say it’s a pure perception thing again, because I’m going to do 400 a year. Oh my gosh, I’m a podcast expert. Yeah. I say jokingly, but again, there’s this, there’s perception about that.

Frank Bria: 23:57 No, I mean it, it is a perception and it’s a value add.

Bob Clark: 24:01 Essentially evaluate concept. Right? And also cable, want to work with people who are actually working. There are so many people that are online marketers that are hobbyists. It’s their, it’s their hobby, you know, they say that. Or if you’re for business, you’re really not, you know, that part there no one that I’m doing a hundred episodes shows P like first hundred. They show that I’m actually working and I’m not just, you know, pin a paddling hoping that one day I’ll become a rich millionaire.

Frank Bria: 24:24 Scrolling through Instagram and Instagram, I’m working, I’m working. I got getting pissed off at other people’s inspirational posts. Yeah. We all know how it works. But we’re totally out of time. I, I love talking to you though. It’s a lot of fun. Before we go though for those people, we’re thinking, Hey, maybe this is an angle I need to take. How do they connect with you?

Bob Clark: 24:48 Just go ahead 808podcasts.Com why podcasts are there. There’s an email address there you want to be on my podcast. Just send me an email with your website and I’ll look it up.

Frank Bria: 24:55 There you go. Invite the people who are looking for for opportunity for a PR and and definitely get their feet wet on this. I’d been on your podcast. It was a lot of fun. I have to say. That’s the goal of it there. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. For sure. Bob, thanks so much for being with us. Really appreciate you taking the time.

Bob Clark: 25:12 Hey, thanks Frank.

Frank Bria: 25:14 And thanks everyone for being with us on this episode of the six to seven figure show. I’m your host, Frank Bria, and we know you’ve got a lot of stuff you could be doing, so if you’re spending time with us, really appreciate it, appreciate it, the trust and go to it and see you on the next episode.

In this episode I talked with Ryan Miller about working with high performing salespeople. His objective is to achieve “alignment”. We dig into what that means for Ryan and his clients. To make it even more interesting, he does this work with corporate clients as well.

Ryan Miller is a coach to high performers and a consultant to industry leaders. Through great tragedy, he learned the importance I’ve getting clear on who he was in order to help other people do the same and achieve all they have been created for.

linkedin.com/in/rjmsalespro

Transcript

Frank Bria: 00:01 The six to seven figures show, episode 67.

Announcer: 00:04 Broadcasting from the Valley of the sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the six to seven figure show tired of working so hard and having no time. Take your six figure practice and turn into a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria,

Frank Bria: 00:29 Everyone. Welcome to the six to seven figure show. I’m your host, Frank Bria and today absolutely thrilled to be joined by Ryan Miller’s, a coach to high performers and a consultant to industry leaders through great tragedy. Learn the importance of getting clear on who he was in order to help other people do the same and achieve all that they’ve been created for. Ryan, thanks for being here. Welcome to the show.

Ryan Miller: 00:52 Thanks Frank. I appreciate it. You know, every time somebody introduces me, I always feel so important. You know, they start talking about like titles and like maybe one or two things you accomplished. And I’m like, man, we’re off to a good start now. I just kind of live up to it.

Frank Bria: 01:05 That’s right. That’s our goal here is set the bar high. That’s awesome. All right. So Ryan, tell us a little bit about the kinds of people that you’re working with. I mean, high performers and industry experts that you’re looking to sort of, you know, dive into that thing that they are meant to do a, meant to achieve. Um, how’s that go? Well, who do you work with typically?

Ryan Miller: 01:27 Yeah, so, uh, there’s typically two domains that I live within on the coaching and consulting side. Uh, I’ll say the consulting first is normally, uh, an organization that is looking to further scale or maybe they have recently grown. And so they need to go back in and restructure, uh, their sales, business development, marketing efforts. And so I’m working with them to help them create and then implement and execute on a strategic sales process. Everything from ideal client identification through to the execution of the actual in-person sales process and onto fulfillment of whatever promise we made during the sales conversation. Uh, so that’s on the organizational side of things. And then sometimes they’re, uh, they will then invite me in to coach some of their, uh, sales leaders, uh, sometimes other people in an executive leadership role, uh, as well as ancillary, uh, employees like speakers and maybe some out of their outside consultants trying to help them to stay in the right frame of mind as it relates to performance and things of that nature. Got it. And then other than that, I tend to attract a lot of individuals, either entrepreneurs or some sales outside sales role. And those people are typically a, at some level of, I would say reasonable performance. And yet they’ve plateaued, plateaued either because they just don’t have any more time or maybe they’ve even admitted to a little bit of contentedness and so they’re looking, break through and take it to the next level.

Frank Bria: 03:01 Got it. Excellent. So yeah, salespeople are got, it’s a quirky mindset thing, right? Those of us who’ve been in that role kind of know what I’m talking about, that’s all with all the love I have. But what are some of the big, um, I guess, blocks, rope, mental roadblocks that you’re having to push through with these folks? Um, when they’ve plateaued to get them to the next level? Like what’s usually the hangup for, for, for us.

Ryan Miller: 03:27 Yeah. I mean, you know, there are there traditional raw ones right around, you know, I hate to like lead out with something like this, but you know, some sense of pride, uh, some sense of like, I’ve already arrived and you know, and so there may be exploring what’s possible out there. Um, but I think that more than anything, what I’m tending to find is, is they’ve gotten to a good level of success and that can, and that can mean so many different things. I’m not talking about the million dollar earner though. That’s possible. It could be a young business development professional that’s killing it, right? Setting a lot of appointments and doing well. They just don’t know, like what’s next for them. And then, and then oftentimes, even there is, is maybe they’re finding success in the industry that they’re in, but they don’t have a deep seated belief in what they’re doing. Like the product or service isn’t maybe a tapping into their heart. And so I’m trying to help realign, you know, whether or not, um, that is truly where they should be. Because I believe that belief is one of the key characteristics to becoming successful and being fulfilled. And so if we don’t have that alignment of belief and alignment of values with whatever it is we’re selling and who we’re selling for, then eventually we’re just going to struggle. And again, that’s whether we’re making 50 grand a year or you know, $500,000 a year.

Frank Bria: 04:48 Yeah. It’s interesting because in the sales profession, the career path is a real doozy for people sometimes, right? Because besides just selling more, you know, the, the really, the only sort of upward mobility path is into sales management. And not a lot of salespeople are actually good managers, but very similar to I think a lot of corporate career paths. Like now you just have to supervise people. Uh, how do you see that happen? Is, is there a, like for the folks who really don’t want to do that, what are their, do they just move to another company? Do they look for other opportunities are more aligned with,

Ryan Miller: 05:29 yeah, that’s a fantastic question. I’m sure you’ve talked about it plenty, but I hate, hate, hate, hate the fact that the trajectory of career for salespeople is ending up in some sort of leadership role. And I think that that has a ban manifested as the result of just kind of like a, a poor understanding of what it means to have accomplished something in life. And so like, I have a title, I have more. And so therefore I am, and I just despise of that. Um, there are people that are set up well to be great sales leaders, but like you said, uh, rarely I think is that a high performing salesperson that becomes that person. And so for me, one of the first things that I talk to organizations about as they’re trying to create career paths for their salespeople and then with individual salespeople is, is having them begin to understand what fulfillment means for them.

Ryan Miller: 06:27 Like what, what gets you out of bed every single day? Like what gets you really, really excited because you know, as well as I do that, um, you know, even once we get a title and get a role and gain some authority eventually, if that’s not where our heart’s at, then we’re going to be bored there and we’re going to leave anyway. So, so I think that it’s all about like if you find an industry you love or even better, if you find an organization you love and you are able to, to produce and be good at as a salesperson, good Lord, stay there for ever. There’s nothing wrong with continuing in that path. Like that is an amazing career. It’s lucrative financially, it’s beneficial to the organization. It keeps you charged up. There’s no, there’s almost no better career path I think in this life than selling because of just how dynamic it can be.

Frank Bria: 07:16 Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s interesting you mentioned that cause I, I, I haven’t managed a sales team before, but I’ve managed a, a software development team and they have similar kinds of issues where totally software developers don’t want to advantage other software developers. I, I remember one of our very, very best mathematical programmers, I was sitting down and doing sort of a career conversation with them and, and said, well, you know, have you thought about supervision? You thought about management? And he said, Nope, I just want raises every year raises every year and I’m fine. And it was like an eye opening thing for me cause I was like, wait, where’s your sense of, uh, like moving onto the next thing. But it’s interesting in the sales management space that these skills don’t even line up very well. There was a large financial services company that I worked with, um, that had a, they had a course called, so you want to be a manager and they brought these sales people in and they basically put them through the ringer of, here are all the things you have to do as a manager.

Frank Bria: 08:13 And they take these scenarios like, so now you’re at a bar with your coworkers on a Friday night and someone decides to do something or other, um, a, you have to report them to management in the morning, be, you know, and they’re like, Whoa, what half the people who went through that course decided they did not want to manage the track. It was incredibly successful to like weed out that whole thing. Yup. So, so you, you’re doing some something that I think a lot of people are listening to the podcast would love to be able to do, which is sell, uh, provide a personal development services into larger organizations. What is some, what are some of the things that you have had to do to establish organizational relationships? Because that for a lot of people feels like a huge wall to jump over, you know, how do you connect with a large organization, um, you know, you not just running Facebook ads to people, so you have to do a different sales process. What’s been working for you in that, in that Avenue?

Ryan Miller: 09:13 Yeah. So, um, they have all come by way of some sort of referral and or word of mouth. Um, again, you know, the age old adage, know, like, and trust. And so, you know, getting into an organization and the larger it gets, the more challenging and complex it is, require such a high level of trust. And so I’ve been super, super fortunate to be connected over the last 20 plus years of just, you know, being in sales and being in the marketplace, uh, to build some great relationships. And so that has been extremely beneficial to me. What I will say is, is there are some organizations out there that I would love to work with and I don’t have connections to. And so strategically I’ve tried to build relationships with people that have influence into or have sight into those other organizations. Because by way of like, let’s take LinkedIn for instance, like if I can build second and third tier connections, uh, to influencers in that organization, then eventually they’re going to begin to see what I’m doing.

Ryan Miller: 10:21 I mean, right now, like, uh, over the last couple of weeks I posted something on LinkedIn. I decently, I get pretty decent engagement regularly, but I have this one post going absolutely viral. It’s had over 165,000 views on LinkedIn. Like it’s absolutely absurd, but the, but the people that are seeing this are people that I would die to do business with and I don’t know them. And so I think sometimes it’s just continuing to live in the brand that we’re building for ourselves to eventually attract those people. So I think kind of, you know, that’s the beginning at least

Frank Bria: 10:52 it’s AGS really fascinating because as you talk about the whole networking and connection thing, I mean that was the whole purpose of that LinkedIn was built for [inaudible] and all and now we get lost in all these other things. But forget like one of the original features was you are, you know, here are all of the people who could introduce you to this and what a powerful tool that is. And you know, now we, we kind of ignore it and try to do all this mass stuff, but relationships really are key. Super big. Yeah. So, so let me pivot the conversation a little bit cause I’d like to dig into a little bit about your process. So your providing what I think a lot of people would feel like it’s kind of a squishy result for folks. You know, when, when, when they’re looking for a change, they’re looking for alignment. Uh, how do you execute that on a regular basis? What’s the process that you take people through? I was hoping you were gonna tell me we can schedule a call if you want to do that later.

Ryan Miller: 11:49 Um, okay, so there’s a few things. So, um, let’s just, let’s talk in the, in the corporate environment to some degree because I think that’s where people would be most curious and there’s so many things at play, right? So I have a few objectives when I’m working, uh, at the corporate level. Number one is I continue to remind myself that I have been hired by the organization and so I need to have a deep understanding for what they are trying to accomplish longterm. And so even when I’m working in the touchy feely of personal development of one of their employees, I have to be in the frame of mind of how does this help to contribute to the organization’s goal of, you know, X number of million dollars more in revenue or, um, you know, building a substantial brand in the marketplace, whatever that may be.

Ryan Miller: 12:39 So that’s got to constantly be in my frame of mind. And so then when I’m reporting back to the CEO, if that’s who hired me or a COO or VP of sales, whomever that may be, I have got to make sure that I’m demonstrating to them a trajectory of, let’s just call it success or progress with that individual. And so I’m regularly reporting to them. And by that, that could be either weekly or biweekly, just some kind of measure of progress. So, you know, when I began engaging with employee a, a, they were on the verge of a mental breakdown. They weren’t productive. Their employees, their, you know, coworkers hated them. And now here we are and they just engaged in this really challenging conversation. Uh, it was very productive. They were able to do X, Y, and Z. And so as we can see, progress is being made and eventually we know, we just have to know that as people become better personally, they will produce better professionally.

Ryan Miller: 13:39 So, so sometimes it’s things like that. For others, it is very, very hard line. So I do when I’m working with salespeople specifically and then I’m, I’m, you know, uh, I’m communicating back to their sales leader. I am, I’m holding them accountable to the same goals that their sales leader is. So if you have to make 20 calls a week and set one appointment a week and close one deal a month and you have a $250,000 goal for the year, part of our conversation is where are you as it relates to your goals and why are you not accomplishing them or how did you do X, Y, andZ ? I’m trying to reinforce what the leadership wants me to, but I also ended up [inaudible] and this is where the beauty and the joy of a relationship like this occurs for me is I get to, I get to help the individual become the best version of themselves, even if that means eventually working them out of the organization.

Ryan Miller: 14:34 So like I had a case recently where, um, I actually told a woman who had just been hired there a few months prior. I said, I actually don’t think you’re going to make it because I don’t think that you are aligned with what they want from you. And that’s a scary thing for me to say because she could walk into the boss and say, I quit and then I look like the jerk because I got that, you know, new, new hire to quit in this case. Thank God. I just found out two days ago that she had conversation with the CEO. It went amazingly well. There was this real alignment of values and you know, and they’re off and running. That’s great. So, so I think that it can be touchy feely, but no matter what I am being, how I hold myself accountable to the goals that I’ve committed to for the organization.

Ryan Miller: 15:19 Yeah. Well the other thing is, there’s a couple of things that you said that were amazing I want to touch on, but, uh, really briefly, I mean, one of the beauties I guess of working with sales professionals is that regardless of all the messy internal stuff that’s going on, in the end, the output’s pretty measurable. You know it’s different than you know a a project manager or something like that where it’s a little harder to measure that kind of output. But you said something that I really want to emphasize because you’re in an enterprise sale capacity working with the organization, which for those people who don’t know what that means, that means you’ve got multiple, multiple interests that you’re balancing and this idea of understanding who the economic buyer was and what their goals are for the engagement and making sure you stay on path that that even as you are working with other people in the organization.

Ryan Miller: 16:09 Super, super critical. I mean one of the things that, the simple thing that I’ve done at the beginning of most enterprise sales contracts, which has made all the difference in the world is to simply ask the question, how would you define success? Like at the end of this project, if you guys are as happy as anything, how, how do, how would you measure that? How do you define that? And just knowing that, I mean, so like getting the answers to the tests. So there’s some, there’s something though that that, at least for me, this is critical and many people will say this, a few people actually put this into action. So I want, I want to be clear here, I don’t force any of my clients into a contract. We are in a month to month agreement regardless of whether it’s a multibeam not this big, but like, you know, $500 million organization or an individual, it’s a month to month.

Ryan Miller: 17:00 Yeah. And, and part of that reason, there’s a lot of reasons why I do that. Part of that reason is because one of the things I tell them up front is I will do what’s right regardless of what you want. And so that means at some point they may ask me like, Hey, you need to hold my salesperson accountable to this goal and I’ll go back to them and tell them like, you’re ridiculous. That’s not fair. That’s not the right thing. Like you haven’t set whatever. I’ve got to risk getting myself fired every single day. And most people won’t do that because they’re too attached to the financial reward of getting that check every single month or, or whatever that retainer is. And so I do that. Like I actually, I just had that happen the other day. I walked into an owner and I told her, I said, look at, I said, what you want me to do? I said, I’m going to do it because it’s not right. And she pushed and pushed and pushed. Thank God. I ended up winning the argument and the end and we’re going to move forward, but only because I felt deeply in my heart what was right. That doesn’t mean I’m right. It’s just what I feel comfortable with.

Frank Bria: 18:03 Well, and you have an aligned values that you want to be able to execute on. And if someone else has different values than even, it doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong, it’s just not gonna work. Know that that’s so incredible, uh, of a, uh, a learning for, for anyone who wants to do anything in corporate consulting. This, this ability to sort of like, stand and speak the truth and to not just go along. That is for, for new consultants that is really hard to do. Um, you know, and I’ve been in the role, it’s scary, like stand in the office of the CEO of a fortune 500 company and go your wrong. And I’ll tell you why. It’s really, really hard. It’s nerve wracking. But I will tell you that the good leaders, um, they, they appreciate that actually they, they’re bringing you in to get a different perspective. They’re not bringing you in is to be a yes man or yes woman. Um, and uh, and, and, and you’ve got to sort of have that skill set. I think that’s amazing. Yeah. Um, how long do you typically work with, with companies I, regardless of contract?

Ryan Miller: 19:08 Yeah. So, uh, the, the shortest period of time I’ve ever worked with anybody. So I’ve been doing this for seven years now. Uh, the shortest period of time I’ve ever worked with anybody was three months. Uh, that was a very specific outcome we were trying to produce. Um, the longest one is I’ve been with a client for five years. Um, and that looks different over different seasons. There’s times when I’m in the office, like in the office a couple of days a week. And like right now it’s a about a, a biweekly check-in just to make sure things are going. Um, so it really depends. Um, I, I don’t try and string them along again, like I can’t afford to lose a single client. I want them all. I want to continue to generate revenue, but I’ve got to believe that I’m contributing to them consistently or I’m going to pull the ripcord.

Frank Bria: 19:55 Yeah. And, and it’s no fun, like, you know, if you feel misaligned with stuff like that, um, what’s one piece of advice you wish someone had given you, uh, before starting that as you look back now, you’re like, man, that would’ve made things a little bit easier.

Ryan Miller: 20:11 Gosh, that people rarely throw me for a loop. So, um, I think that, um, I think it goes back to, you have to be so clear on what is most important to you and what you want out of this. And again, like I want to be gracious with people in saying that like if it’s, if it’s to be financially successful, then that’s fine, but then commit to that if it’s to, to, to do good or whatever. Like for me, and again, like it’s taken me a long time and a lot of iterations to learn this. But for me it is all about helping other people to be successful and changing other people’s lives. And that has cost me Frank money that has cost me my own integrity at times because I’ve had to push hard on or step away from something and it makes me look really bad. But I know deep down inside that it’s the right thing. And so I think that is the most important. And it took me a long time because I needed to make money because I really wanted to work with some clients. Um, and just, you know, by the grace of God, over time, I’ve gotten to a place where that has become the most important thing to me. And I think that like not only does it produce a really good feeling inside, but it will attract the right people to you externally.

Frank Bria: 21:34 Yeah, that’s for sure. I think there’s a really powerful principle. I mean, if things get tougher, everybody in business, I mean there’s no such thing as a smooth path. Um, and when those bad things happen, when those really tough things happen, man, you got to have a North star to go back to, to help guide your decision making through stuff. Otherwise you just get clouded by someone that’s this other emotion and fear and all that, you know, sense of I’m not good enough and everything. I that that’s a really powerful thing. Um, Hey, we are out of time. Unfortunately. Ryan, I’d love to keep talking, but, uh, uh, I know you’re super busy. I really appreciate the time that you’ve taken for this interview. Um, before we go, those people who would love to reach out and connect with you, if, uh, you know, they’re looking to get the kinds of services that you’re talking about or if they’re looking to just kind of do something that, um, uh, is similar to what you’re doing, what’s a great way for them to connect with you?

Ryan Miller: 22:27 Yeah, so the best way to listen to just hear everything that I talk about is that is definitely LinkedIn. It’s, you know, you can search me, Ryan, James Miller or it’s literally linkedin.com/in/rjmsalespro. Um, so that’s the best way outside of that. My website, Ryan James miller.com is also a good way to do it. And yeah, I mean I’m happy to have conversation and contribute in any way I can.

Frank Bria: 22:49 Great. Excellent. Well those links, so you’re below the video. Um, they’re also in the show notes page. If you’re out and about listening to this, come on back to the show notes page and click on through to connect with Ryan, uh, brilliant guy doing great stuff. Highly recommend that, uh, you take that opportunity. Um, Ryan, thanks so much for being with us today.

Ryan Miller: 23:06 Thank you, Frank. I appreciate it.

Frank Bria: 23:07 Absolutely. And thank you for being with us on this episode of the six to seven figure show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria, and uh, again, no, you got a lot of things to do. So if you’re taking your time,

Frank Bria: 23:16 that’s spending with us really precious [inaudible].

I talk with Haley about her explosive growth and scale. She and I discuss the challenges of launching an offer and getting it up and running when you’re doing most of the work. She talks about her team and the work they do together to create an amazing culture with amazing processes that keep the train on the tracks.

Learning from those mistakes, she now specialize in the art and science behind growing a simple automated business that creates consistent income, all while allowing you to have the freedom to work when you WANT to and not just because you HAVE to.

https://www.scalabilitylounge.com/free

Transcript

Frank Bria: 00:00 The Six to seven figure show. Episode 66 let’s hit it.

Announcer: 00:04 Broadcasting from the Valley of the sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the six to seven figures. Show tired of working so hard and having no time. Take your six figure practice and turn into a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor, and strategist Frank Bria.

Frank Bria: 00:28 Hey everyone. Welcome to the six to seven figure show. I’m your host, Frank Bria. And today I am absolutely thrilled to be joined by the amazing, vivacious, lovely Haley Burkhead. She quit her job and went from zero to 36,000 a month in six months at the age of 24. But if you rewind time, you’ll see her story actually wasn’t that pretty the way she puts it and her, these are her words, running my business felt like I was on a hamster wheel. It was exhausted seeing no results from the countless hours I put in. Then I hit a wall, my health failed. I was forced to reevaluate how I ran my business and my life, learning from my mistakes. I spent now specialize in the art and science growing behind, growing a simple automated business that creates consistent income all while allowing you to, having the freedom to work when you want and not just because you have to. Hailey, welcome to the show.

Haley Burkhead: 01:23 Thank you. So what an introduction man. Oh man, thank you. “Vivacious” I love that word.

Frank Bria: 01:30 Yes, absolutely. And, and there’s, we were, we were kind of joking before the, before the recording started, but this is kind of your, this is your brand. Like you live a very, a free lifestyle. Do you do want you, you make things happen. You’ve got a great team that supports you, but goodness slows your Instagram feed, like knows you are, you’re doing lots of stuff. And then the last one, you’re just hanging out. You’re not chained to the desk.

Haley Burkhead: 02:00 Yeah. No, I’m not at, not much of a desk worker. Not my steroid. Might not my strength. I joked with, like I said, I’m the person that’ll show up to his fee. With a spaghetti stain on my tee shirt to a meeting? I’m like very scattered. But I think most of us visionaries are, you know, I think most of us visionaries are very scattered people. We don’t like organization. We don’t like being delegated to. We like delegating, you know, so you can, I was just having a conversation with a friend this morning about that and said, you know, sometimes we see this as like, Oh man, all of our shit’s not together. But in reality, that’s the strength of a visionary.

Frank Bria: 02:38 Yeah, absolutely. And I think there’s a, there’s really a strong correlation between having that visionary skillset and actually looking sort of that disorganized. I mean, these two things are related and I think it’s because you are, you’re thinking about big picture stuff, you’re thinking about vision, you’re thinking about longterm and small details. You know, like, I laugh about that because I’ve totally done that before my, yeah. Yeah. My kids basically wouldn’t let me leave the house for awhile without inspecting. That’s what I get for having three daughters. You but you know, we kind of are simplifying a little bit because one of the things that I know you talk a lot about is having the right business process and the business model that allows you to do what you do. Can you talk a little bit about the business model that you help your, the entrepreneurs who work with you create that allows them to have that kind of freedom of lifestyle?

Haley Burkhead: 03:41 Yeah, so my high ticket offer is recurring profit and that model is teaching them the evergreen model. We do not live launch, so a lot of people online, which I don’t think that there’s a writer. Well, I want to preface this with, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to run a business. I don’t think that my way’s better. I think my way is better for people like me that don’t want to spend all their energy selling on the front end and be too exhausted and having a launch hangover and not being willing to serve, not have the energy to serve on the backend. You know, I would much rather spend my energy serving than selling. I love loving my audience. So if that’s where you’re at, if that’s where your heart’s at, then that’s the method that I teach and we call this the recurring profit method and it really does free up a lot of time when you can have a simple no pressure live launch with a purpose is not cashflow.

Haley Burkhead: 04:38 You get your recording and you have a very high converting sales machine on the back end basically on evergreen. And what I always like to tell people too is, you know, I think a lot of, a lot of us when we think of automation and cells, we immediately see what Facebook ads that are that are on our feed right now of the guys with the cars and all this stuff. And they’re like, Hey, this is my fiance. You know, or like yeah let’s see. We’ve still CVS. You know what I’m talking about? Cause I’m not going to go further. And that’s what we think of when we think of selling. But it doesn’t need to be that way. What it can be is you can actually serve through selling. And so I show people, I call it the easy yes webinar formula. So it talks a lot about high level sales, psychology and the five persuasion elements that you need to go deeper to where your sales experience is. Wow. Laura is not just selling to me. Laura is a motivating and she’s empowering me and she has this transformation that I can buy at the end of it.

Frank Bria: 05:35 Yeah, it’s, it’s really interesting that you mentioned the psychological element of that sales and marketing process. Cause I do think that’s an area where a lot of people you know, they’re not thinking about it or they don’t put enough energy into it. But this idea of really persuading and motivating and empowering, that’s a critical element. What, why do you that’s so hard for people? Like we see so many bad examples. I mean you’ve just given a few. Why do you think it’s so tough for people to like tie into this emotional motivational piece when they sell?

Haley Burkhead: 06:09 I think there’s so much fear, Frank. So much fear. Oh my goodness. It is crazy how many, how many of us entrepreneurs make decisions based out of fear and what I like to call survival mode. So there are two modes in business. You are either in survival mode or growth mode. There’s no in between. And once you get to growth mode, that doesn’t mean something’s not going to trigger you and put you back in survival mode. So what survival mode looks like is whenever you’re constantly afraid, whenever you have anxiety, whenever you have shame around something in your business or scarcity mindset of everything is a cost versus investment, you know? But that type of thinking is survival mode. You’re just wanting to survive and then there’s growth mode and that’s completely different. It’s, it’s very abundant field. It’s, it’s very futuristic thinking. It’s, Oh, I’m so excited.

Haley Burkhead: 07:00 This is gonna be fun type of thinking instead of, Ooh, I don’t know how to do that. You know, if you start a sentence with I’m afraid of, or I don’t know how to, that survival mode thinking right there. So that’s the big difference that I see is, is whenever we are basing our decisions or basing our behaviors on survival mode, we make decisions that are not the best for the growth of our business. And we’re losing typically tens of thousands of dollars. And I say that amount because that is the amount that I have lost. I have lost tens of thousands of dollars in just the past 365 days on survival mode thinking it can be dangerous and very expensive.

Frank Bria: 07:40 Yeah, that is, that is absolutely true. It, it is. It’s you, you act differently I think as a CEO when you’re in, in those two different modes of, for sure. I want to pivot a little bit and talk about your program and how it functions. So, so first of all what’s the program dedicated to who you’re working with? What does it do?

Haley Burkhead: 08:00 Yeah, so recurring, thanks to Frank, by the way. Oh my goodness. I had, I want to just tell you I don’t want to come. It’s not that I’m coming across as perfect and polished at all, but man, his process was messy to get to. So right now I’ll say the end result and then I’ll tell you how I got here. So recurring profit helps service-based entrepreneurs phased out their clients to create consistent 10 K plus months with their course or membership site using an evergreen funnel. So that’s our transformation senates. But I resistant that sentence so hard. It took me over six hours at an in person workshop. Like this wasn’t just like six hours of me thinking this was six hours of Frank going, Haley, stop. No, Haley, Haley, like visit. It was, it was bad. I was resisting it. I was so afraid of saying a specific amount of money people would make. Now that I’ve gotten that specific, we had someone have a $42,000 launch within 45 days of the, because they had a metric in mind. Like it’s crazy. So it’s just like a shout out there. But yeah, so that’s what, that’s what we do. That’s what our program is.

Frank Bria: 09:05 That’s awesome. And w how, what are the steps? Essentially that people need to do. This is a fascinating concept you’re talking about about phasing out clients and moving them into sort of a recurring revenue model. I would assume that sentence scares some people a little bit.

Haley Burkhead: 09:22 It does, yeah. We get a little bit of a freak outs on sales calls like, okay, let me hyperventilate for a second. Yeah, for sure. It makes a sales call process very interesting, but we take them through five phases. So the first phase is a lot of conversion centric messaging. So we give them, we call it phase one your scalable offer. So we have to make sure that your offer is spelled, and what I mean by that is this is tailored towards a small audience. So if you have a small audience, you don’t have people to buy, you don’t have people to buy from on your [inaudible], you don’t have a 20,000 Instagram following. Right. Or even if you have a big audience, you want to beat your people over the head with your offer, 24, seven. So whatever audience size you do, that’s why we put you through phase one, which is conversion centric marketing.

Haley Burkhead: 10:09 That way let’s say your name’s Laura and Susan is over here. It gives you money. Susie’s never met Laura. So what Susie wants to do as Susie wants to give Laura the money, but she doesn’t know Laura, she doesn’t trust Laura. So in phase one, you craft messaging on how we talk to Laura to give you the money in her hand and be really excited and smile afterwards cause she’s super excited. Even though Stacy or whoever what her name was, hasn’t met Laura. So that’s what we do during phase one. It is powerful. But people overlook this. So lesson, it’s really hard to message simple things that people don’t think they need. So we have to make a lot of visuals and analogies of this is how this leads to more money. I’ve thrown this distressed me. Phase two is the easiest webinar formula that I talked about earlier.

Haley Burkhead: 10:55 We create a webinar through cell psychology and then phase three is live launching. We don’t do high pressure launches. It’s very simple to the point, very scrappy. I give you copy and paste spreadsheet access to that and then you live launch phase fours go evergreen. That takes less than 24 hours. And then phase five is, is the funnel growth series. That’s where we, we actually add, this will be cool. I think a lot of you guys would love this idea. So whenever you get to a fork in the road, which we found when we had beta, we got in a fork in the road of our high ticket and they got stuck. They were like, okay, they had their funnel up. But then what? Like I gave them over 10 lead injection strategies and I said choose to like how do I know what to choose? They over-thought the whole proc with on. I choose the wrong one and I won’t make money. All the, you know, all the overthinking typical things. And so we did, our idea was let’s make a quiz. So we now have a quiz that they take. At this stage that tells them what direction to go. And this saves us a lot of time on customer support

Frank Bria: 11:54 Emails. Let me tell ya. I bet. Yeah, that’s brilliant. Yeah. I think a lot of people in their, in their programs end up with, okay, there’s a lot of different ways you could do this. And frankly, at the end of the day you kinda kept the pick one and stick with it. But there are going to be certain things where, you know, certain people have certain audience assets that are available to them. It would be better. So that’s a really great, that’s a great tip. That’s amazing practice right there. That’s terrific. So I love what you, when you talked earlier about launch hangover and how this sort of solves that problem and kind of getting that pushed out there. What are some of the big big barriers people have to get over as they’re going through your program? What are some of the big challenges?

Haley Burkhead: 12:45 Well, challenge number one out of a hundred goodness is there’s so many. How can I attract a cold audience if I can’t even attract a warm audience? That’s a big one. Yeah. And the answer is you like all the answers. And, and this is what’s tricky is how to get people very blunt, direct feedback and show them how much you love them and want their success. And me, it is a fine line and it’s like you want a balancing act but people need, well, and also I guess it depends on who you’re attracting. My people want blunt direct because I am blunt directly listen to my podcast. So they want the blunt drug. But I, I say, listen, it’s because of you, your way. You’re talking to your people. No one’s gonna want to buy from you. And then I go and evaluate. I’m like, okay, let’s go to your Instagram. And then I point out specifics, thanks on the sales call and I’ll say, why would anyone want to buy from you right now? This isn’t going to convert. And what if we did this? And I give them like one simple tip, like what shifted their entire mindset around why now that they realize that they’re the problem. I’m the solution. Yeah. And, and that, that’s a big thing. That’s a big switch.

Frank Bria: 13:58 Yeah. And, and the, it, we’re going to call you a tough love Haley now. Yeah. It’s interesting though, because you’re modeling essentially the exact infrastructure for conversion language that you’re teaching. Is that true? Are giving someone a reason to buy from you because you’ve given them something mind shifting? It’s not these small little tweaks, it’s not the sort of playing around the edges. It’s something fundamental and to, to their success. That’s, that’s great stuff. The, the program itself, how long has it run for?

Haley Burkhead: 14:38 So the program runs for 12 months. Yeah. 12 months.

Frank Bria: 14:41 Great. And the, you, you have had a lot of people go through this program. Tell me what are some of the things that you’ve put in on the back end to allow you to basically work with these folks? Because this is also something you teach. But again, and [inaudible] I know this is sort of like a fake interview question cause I know you do this really well, but I’d love for you to share with the audience, like what are some of the things that you’ve put in place because you’re operating at scale fundamentally.

Haley Burkhead: 15:11 Oh yeah. Okay. No, totally. We are. And I want to say, so we started beta this program three or four months ago. I took over 60 70 sales calls in two weeks. It was crazy. I got on the phone with Frank and I said, I am miserable. And he said, that is normal. He’s like, you need to put brake buffers in there. Which I wasn’t. I was like, eight hours day to sales calls is so draining. But we ended up making like three or $400,000 in two weeks. Oh well not immediately, but like, you know, with all the payment options. And so it was great and we ended up getting 35 starter people in there. Something along those lines. It was like, okay, well let’s, let’s do this. And so we didn’t, it was bright. And then I had the idea, typical here, here comes scatterbrain Haley over here.

Haley Burkhead: 16:03 Oh someone just DME. Let’s just tack them on it. And even though he had a beta group and they’re going to be behind, let’s just tack them on it. Out of people are behind. It’s fine. And so before you know it, two months later, now we have like 60 people and I’m doubled it because I just attracted those. I don’t even know how it happened. We do not have an evergreen system right now. And it’s been great though. It’s been great. So this is how we were able to support that many people. First team culture, if you have a team, your culture has to be so customer centric. So our motto is we ask ourselves this question, do they feel heard, seen, appreciated and loved? And if they do not, how can we make that happen? So if people get upset because they tagged me and I did not respond in 24 hours.

Haley Burkhead: 16:51 Okay, that’s a little bit dramatic, but that’s fine. So you asked the thing, you have to go back a little bit. Okay, what do they feel right now? They feel unseen. How can we set a better expectation of Haley’s life does not revolve around the Facebook group 24, seven and then that’s on us. That’s what it asks. We not set that expectation clearly. So that is one thing that helps me pivot decisions is am I setting clear expectations? Sometimes I’m not. And some sweet fix that easy pivot, right? And then other times is sometimes things happen in the program. I mean will it always will, things happen and it’s not actually about what happened. It’s not actually about the fact that I missed attack. It’s because they feel a certain way about that happening. So you just have to counteract that. And it usually goes to a neutral situation.

Haley Burkhead: 17:39 So that’s just the emotion side of it. So many emotions in a high ticket offer cause they’re spending a lot of money, very emotional, which is normal and you accept, you take on all the emotions you want to accept and make them feel open. The second is the operational side point standpoint, which I geek out on. So what we did for this is I’ll just go from the very beginning and feel free to copy and paste this guys cause it is really working for us right now. So we have the fitting call they onboard, right? Actually let me go, do your people have sales calls yet? We have sales calls. Sales calls, yeah. Okay. Then let me do it from the standpoint of a sales call. So let’s say they get on a sales call with someone else, not even me. They don’t have a sales call with someone else, which we just now implemented.

Haley Burkhead: 18:24 I send them a personalized welcome video because they’re boring for me. And you know, people say the face is not the brand, the face of brand, let’s be honest. So I would, they’re spending $9,000, I’m going to give them a 32nd welcome video. Everything doesn’t have to be automated. So I send them a welcome video and then we have specific steps. So the first step is they have to fill out an accountability workbook. We split up the program. So, and this was actually off of what Frank Frank says, it’s ringing a bell. So we say that there are, we call them just homeworks. We don’t say ringing a bell to me say homework. So there’s different homework segments you get to within each phase of the program. So in each homework they actually have to put the date of when they want to accomplish it within the next 90 days.

Haley Burkhead: 19:10 So we have this at as an air table form, they submit this to us and we have a full time salary person checking this every day and following them up if they do not hit their dates, if they do not give us that homework assignment on October 12th you better believe Ashley or Shelley is going to be in their Facebook messenger, attack them in the Facebook group on the thread and say, Hey girl, I saw you didn’t turn your webinars slides and is there anything we can do and can I submit a question for the weekly call to Haley for you? And that way, like those that were, were going above and beyond for them. You know, and not a lot of high ticket has accountability like that and people get really disappointed. So, and do we do this perfectly because we scaled so fast? Heck no. We, we have missed, I think there are three things that I’m thinking of right now. Like sometimes we miss it. But that’s just a matter of that’s just selling a business and then you figure out how to pivot and make that person feel special. So yeah, no, like everything’s not perfect all the time, but just take action, get messy and do it right.

Frank Bria: 20:15 You know what I would say you’re doing it perfectly because you have a feedback loop in place that helps you learn. Like that’s the definitely perfect execution. It’s not getting, it’s not like literally checking off every box, every time. It is learning and constantly improving. Like you’re never there. You know you’re there.

Haley Burkhead: 20:35 Yeah. That’s a mic drop moment right there. Mic drop.

Frank Bria: 20:41 I want to go back to the first thing you said cause that’s incredible and it’s value, like you’ve just opened up a huge window for a lot of people, which is focusing in on that emotional response for people as they feel very, I’m invested both financially and emotionally in the, the fact that you guys have a like a customer C w I mean this is essentially a customer success program in place where you’re following up on all that stuff and you’re able to hit all of these concerns, these emotional outbursts that happened totally a bunch of clients. That’s brilliant. And, and yeah, I’ve, I’ve always said this over and over again. Like if someone comes to you and says, you know, I didn’t get responded to fast enough or I didn’t get this fast enough. It’s always, always, always, always. I’m not getting value out of the program where I don’t feel like I’m getting value. And it as soon as you go, let me get this right. Like if you were getting clients right now, you kind of wouldn’t care if Paley got back to you in 24 hours. And it’s like, yeah actually that’s the root cause.

Haley Burkhead: 21:53 Yeah.

Frank Bria: 21:54 So you solve the problem by having that accountability infrastructure in place, which is great.

Haley Burkhead: 21:59 And, and also there are going to be people that are going to come to you, which goodness. Painting the pain and the bootay people, there’d be like, I didn’t, I didn’t even get the result. I didn’t get the value that I was wanting to write an email you like Frank was saying, and you can go back to this red sheet that’s kind of a lovely spreadsheet that they fill out and you can say, looks like you haven’t shared homework. And in 30 days I tagged you on Facebook three times in the past seven days, haven’t had a response. You haven’t attended the past two calls from Haley or submitted anything. I, and I just wanted to state this to know that. Just so you know, we don’t state that as to make you feel bad. So I want to make sure to like preface it with that. So the way we surround that information is, I want to tell you this because I want you to know that we’re watching you and we care about you and that we cannot help you if you don’t want us to help you. And so if you have a specific question right now, let them know so I can submit it to the Wednesday call. Boom.

Frank Bria: 22:53 That is amazing. And I love, cause you’ve said it a couple of times, so I want to call it out. The fact that your staff is pre submitting the question for your client, the call. That’s, that’s really awesome stuff. And, and that’s a thing. So how many people, how many of us when we’ve launched programs have said you’ve got to, you’ve got to do the work, you’ve got to do the work. If you do the work, you’re not tracking that. How can you possibly loop back on that with the client later? You’ve got it all in a spreadsheet.

Haley Burkhead: 23:25 And you know, I want to add to that because I told my team that you said that is, yeah, cause whenever you, you told me about that at that workshop I was like, Oh that’s mind blowing. And then I heard this thing this weekend that I’d actually did a video about. So we have a phase zero in my program that sets them up mentally and we can refer back to it. So like the Dunning Kruger effect, that’s a big that we go through cause everyone wants that Kruger hit. And I always say, are you getting high off the Kruger effect right now? Gotta settle down from that high. I think you’re trying to get high. We always like joke around about it and calls. If they come up with a random idea, they’re like, I need to read my website. I’m like, stop getting high. So we have fun things that we do.

Haley Burkhead: 24:05 But with another thing that I added, going back to that is it is not my job to motivate you. It is my job to inspire you. I cannot motivate you. In my program, you are responsible for that energy to being in the room. You are responsible for being motivated to go through the content. It is my job to provide you with an awesome textbook and it is my job to inspire you to think higher and deeper and coach you when you need it. And that the having the terms motivate and inspire, helps them realize, Oh, Haley’s not supposed to change my diaper, you know, because they can get to that point sometimes.

Frank Bria: 24:43 That’s amazing. I love that metaphor. Terrific. Haley, you, we’re out of time, unfortunately. I love to talk to you. You’re so much fun to talk to you. So exciting. No, I mean I wanna just sum this up for those who are listening cause we’ve, we’ve gone through a lot of different content here, but clearly you can see Haley knows what she’s doing and she’s got her team doing it. And I think like if I have to sum it up for you, Haley, I think the reason is, is because you model what you teach, you model it like in your behavior and what you do. Like you model what you teach. I think it’s, it’s good stuff. One last question before we go. If people who have been listening to this are thinking I need to get in touch with healing and her team and figure out how all this section works, what’s a great way for them to start that process off?

Haley Burkhead: 25:30 Yes. So two things. First, I’m on Instagram. At Haley Birkhead I respond to every single DM. Seriously, even if they get 500, I am responding to them. So come over there and DMV and let me know that you listen to this episode. If I can help you out in any way, I am totally here. Second, if you want to go to recurring profit.com to find out more about that specific program, just go over there and if you have any questions or kind of want to see what our application form looks like to see what the questions are like, you know, anything that and like tick, tick our funnel apart. Totally feel free to go over there.

Frank Bria: 26:06 Great. And that’s a link is below the video. It’s on the show notes page. If you’re listening, if you’re out and about, come on back to the show notes page and click on through directly to connect with Haley and her team. It’d be worth it. Trust me. They know what they’re doing. That there are, there are people who are really, who really have this process figured out. I really feel like Hayley and her team do. Thanks so much for being with us, Haley. It’s always fun to talk to you.

Haley Burkhead: 26:30 Yes, thank you so much. It’s great to meet everyone.

Frank Bria: 26:33 Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for being with us on this episode of the six or seven figure show. I’ve been your host, Frank Bria, and again so much that we’ve talked about terms of a customer success. If you, if you get that emotionality, if you get that customer success, if you starting to track, that’s a huge, huge addition to getting your program to function better as well. Thanks so much for being with us and we’ll see you on the next episode.

In this episode I discuss the final of 12 projects to get to 7 figures in your service business. How to build a live conversion event to drive people into your Ascension Offer. We discuss what you should and shouldn’t do while planning a live event your audience.

Transcript

Frank Bria: 00:00 The six to seven figures show, episode 65. Let’s hit it.

Announcer: 00:04 Broadcasting from the Valley of the sun outside Phoenix, Arizona. This is the six to seven figures show, tired of working so hard and having no time. Take your six figure practice and turn into a thriving seven figure enterprise. And now your host, author, speaker, mentor and strategist Frank Bria

Frank Bria: 00:29 Hey everyone. Welcome to the six to seven figure show. I’m your host, Frank Bria. And today we are going to have a special episode, a series of trainings that we are talking about, which are going to be the 12 critical projects that you need to execute in your business in order to hit a hundred K a month in your service business using a high ticket program. There’s a lot of focus that we spend on the design upfront, but we are going to be focusing on one of those projects today. So we’re going to cut over to training on one of those projects. And after the training’s done, come back as hang with us and I will give you a way for you to get a copy of some of this training for yourself and we’ll turn it over to there. Everyone, Frank Bria here.

Frank Bria: 01:19 And we have reached the 12th project of the 12 days of seven figures, which got a little ungated this week, so I apologize about that. But this is the last one we’re going to talk about. We’ve gone through the 12 projects you need to execute in order to hit seven figures in your service business with a group program and a today. We’re going to talk about the last one now. Conversion events are basically in place to help your client move from your Ascension offer to your inner circle offer. Now, people use events for a lot of different things. People do use them, sometimes from your core offered your Ascension offer. But unless your Ascension offer is really high priced, like above 35,000, you shouldn’t have to do that. Just getting good results out of your core offer should get people into your Ascension offer, but getting from Ascension inner circle can often take work.

Frank Bria: 02:13 Some people’s inner circle offers are 40, 50, 60, $70,000, and then that’s the case. You may need an event to make that happen. Now, live events are tricky, okay? This project may be one of the very last ones you actually put together because there’s a lot of risk. Costs can get high, people may not show up. Oh, up. You have to proceed with caution, but having a conversion event between your Ascension offer to your inner circle offer is a great way to get people into your highest paying program, right? First a little bit on events in general, there are two major kinds of events, delivery events and conversion events. They’re different, they’re structured differently, and they have different purposes. Don’t try to do both at the same time. In a event, you simply deliver services to your clients. It’s a part of your overall structure.

Frank Bria: 03:05 In those cases, they’ve paid for the event, in most cases, high prices because they’re going to get value. And you need to ensure that you deliver that value. The event is one of the five building blocks of scalable delivery and so you’ve chosen it to use for that purpose. Even if you enroll people at the event that should be a side gig, a side thing, it’s not the main purpose. In a conversion event, you’re going to use a very particular formula in order to encourage continued work together, usually into your highest priced inner inner circle offer. So how you structure the event, whether it’s two days or three, and whether you, when you decide to pitch during the event is going to be different depending on your offer and audience, but I want to walk you through the major structural components that need to be included.

Frank Bria: 03:58 All right? Step one, implementation. Spend some time during your conversion event to actually implement something. Your clients should walk away with value regardless if they move into your next program or not. So designed something they can do immediately. If possible, move beyond planning into actual action. Get creative, get them on their computers, get them on the phone and have them talk to people. Have them upload something, leverage the time together to do something quick, but that’s a big win with big leverage. So having people feel like they got something done is a really important step of the process and it’s going to serve as motivation for them wanting to continue to work with you. All right, step two, journey anchoring. Now this is a really important emotional motivational portion of the event. Spend some time explaining the journey from here. Done correctly. You’ll have folks in your Ascension offer at some point during their 12 month journey or similarly depending on what your offer is.

Frank Bria: 05:06 Okay, what comes next? That’s the fundamental question that people need to understand. So anchoring means outlining details and getting people emotionally hooked on that outcome. You want your attendees mouths to water over the three year journey milestone that you’ve laid out in your customer journey map and you do that using three important techniques. First, motivation. You need to ask the question, why is this journey the right one? Why is it important to you? Why should it be important to them? They need to understand why the next step is the one that they need to take to proof use case studies, leverage attendees at the event if possible. Especially those who have [inaudible] already been there. Use them as panelists or speakers. Get people up on stage who have been through this before so they can talk firsthand about what that’s like and three urgency. Explain the cost of inaction, what’s at stake.

Frank Bria: 06:07 If they don’t go on the journey, where will they likely end up instead? I’ll give you an example. One exercise that I like to do at live events is to have people write down what they want to make over the next 12 months and then write down what they would do if they actually hit that goal. They write down the things that they would buy, the things they would do. Then I have them basically cross all of that stuff out physically on the piece of paper and tell them that that’s what’s going to happen if they don’t take action in the next 90 days. All that stuff goes out the window. So it’s a pretty jarring experience for people. But it’s really motivating. Step three, offer your inner circle. Offer should be a natural opportunity to continue to work with your clients, but don’t fall into the trap of making this a hangout mastermind, okay?

Frank Bria: 06:59 Those things rarely scale because they rely basically on the star status of the entrepreneur rather than the value that they generate. You can’t pull it off more than once or twice. There’s just no way. You can’t get people to fans status that fast. The offer should be limited. It should only be a few spots. It should be highly intimate, but don’t sacrifice on the processes needed to get your client the outcome they want. Make sure you connect the dots for them between the offer and the outcome. All right. Step four. Resolve concerns in any high level investment. They’re going to be a lot of people who are sitting on the fence. They want the offer, but they’re nervous. They’re not quite ready to make the decision. Make sure you take time to speak to those folks. Now, some attendees are going to conclude the offers, not for them.

Frank Bria: 07:48 That’s fine. Those are not the ones that you want to focus on. Keep in mind that concerns really only fall into three major buckets. Program isn’t clear, you’re not completely credible or the client isn’t sure of themselves. Those are really it. Questions about affordability are kind of broken down into two categories. You either have the money, you don’t want to spend it or you just don’t have the money. There’s literally not a lot you can do about the second group, but the first group concern isn’t about money. It’s about the three objection areas I just covered. So have Q and a sessions for those people who are on the fence, let them ask their questions and make sure that you redirect and re anchor the questions back to one of those three areas. Find out which one really is the issue, so ask them follow up questions and dig in.

Frank Bria: 08:35 Do some spot coaching with people who are on the fence. For example, questions about program details like someone says, how many meetings are there? All right. That’s really a question about whether they understand the program and are convinced it works because if they really thought the program worked, they wouldn’t really care how many meetings there were, they would just sign and worry about that later. So don’t just answer the question that’s asked like how many meetings there are focused on the big picture. In other words, does the person truly understand how the program works and how you’ll get them the outcome that you want? Step five, close in real time. It’s kind of Ahmed for high ticket programs to require some kind of strategy sessions. So don’t take applications for strategy sessions here at the event. Take deposits. Now you should try to screen in real time at the event so that you get things kicked off as soon as possible.

Frank Bria: 09:30 If you really have to do some kind of post event session, then get into deposit and refund it. If the strategy session doesn’t go well, but ideally your inner circle offers should kick off towards the end of the event. For example, do a special lunch on day three or add a bonus day at the end for the people who join the program, that creates urgency for those who are [inaudible] in attendance so that they’ll take action quickly. All right? It’s a ton of different ways to create an event. There are strategies and scripts for various techniques and LP and psychology. They will all generally work. If you build in the five processes that I talked about, it’s less important, you know, the logistics, how many hours in the day do you keep them till 10 o’clock and get them exhausted? Or I’m something gals, as long as you actually get real work done to motivate content continuity to continue to work with you and that you can show how that’s going to work design your event, right?

Frank Bria: 10:34 And you’ll have a great funnel basically to put people into your highest end offer. Alright. That is it that I’ve got for ya. Version events. I’ll put the notes to the training here as a comment and that’s been it for the 12 days. Now here’s a special bonus. I’m going to do one more training later today on content as a bonus. And we’re going to talk about the different content areas that you should be including in your marketing based on the psychological positioning and journey of your customer. But that’s it for project 12. Hope there’s been useful. Let me know in the comments if you’re planning on doing an event sometime soon and we can talk through the strategy. All right, everyone, take care. Talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.

Frank Bria: 11:19 All right, everyone, that’s it for today. And two things that you want to do. Number one, if you have not had a chance to join our Facebook group, you need to be able to do that. This is really where we’re going to be discussing a lot of this stuff in detail. You can actually in the Facebook group get written documentation of the project that we just discussed. So where you want to go to is facebook.com/groups/high ticket program altogether. In one word, no breaks, no dashes, a high ticket program. So facebook.com/groups/ticket program. That link is below the video or in the show notes page. If you’re out and about listening to audio, come on back to click on through and join absolutely free. Other thing that we want to offer you is called our 12 week high ticket program black book. This is over 60 pages of standard operating procedures for designing, launching, executing your high ticket program. The way you get that is you go to Frank bria.com/blackbook again, the link is below here for you to grab that. A high ticket PR program is our Facebook group. The black book is our free 60 page standard operating manual for how to run a group program. Go get that at [inaudible] dot com slash Blackbook and we will see you there. Thanks again for so much for being with us today. We’re going to have great content again

Frank Bria: 12:42 Coming up soon. So stick with us for our next episode and we’ll see you soon. Alright everyone take care. Bye bye.