Our clients are in town for the next two days so I wanted to give you something special.We hold these events 3 times a year (4 next year).The next 3 episodes are going to be videos taken directly from one of our clients favorite sessions of the two days.In fact, this is a 3 part series that will be released over the next week or so….It’s called “The Fireside Chat” and I share…Our biggest lessons…Our own mistakes…Learnings from our previous 90 day sprint.And…principles that we’ve applied to our business that have worked.Because the session is 90 minutes, we’ve broken up this episode into 3 parts.So, dive in and watch the first few lessons from our Q2 sprint.
Transcript / MP3
What’s good, everybody. In this episode I’m going to be doing something a little bit different and this is going to be a three part episode where I actually bring you behind the scenes inside the room at one of our two day intensives that we hold for hour leverage coaching program. Our clients come into town three times a year for two days and we are working on their business and in that coaching program we really focus on helping them identify their biggest bottleneck and providing training and coaching specific to solving that bottleneck over the course of the next 90 days. And so each and every client comes out of every intensive with a personalized 90 day game plan that we then hold them accountable to and then the community holds them accountable to as well. And a part of that, we actually run and operate off of 90 day sprints as well.So something that we started doing early on when we first launched this program was having a little fireside chat where we share some of our biggest lessons, mistakes, things that we learned over the course of our last 90 day sprint. And share that with the group and have some kind of round table discussion around that. So these next three episodes are going to be the 10 lessons that we shared from our last intensive, which was in July. Broken up again into three episodes just so you can not sit there for, for a full 90 minutes. And we’re gonna have each episode have a handful of those lessons. And again, these are lessons that we learned in our business over the course of our previous 90 day sprint, leading up to the end of the July intensive for our 12 month coaching program clients. So again, a little bit, something different here. I hope you enjoy this style of episode. Leave a comment below, let us know what you think and if you have questions about the program, uh, if you’re kind of liking what you’re seeing and you’d like to learn more than definitely comment below and I’ll reach out to you and we can have a conversation. So without further ado, let’s jump in.… three years, my agency built funnels and automation systems for the biggest names in marketing today since then have transformed that agency into a hyper profitable training and consulting business. While everyone is out there talking about scale like it’s some sort of destination, we’ll be asking the real question, how do you transform your business into a more scalable model using the knowledge, skills and expertise that you already have? This podcast is here to give you the answer. Join me and follow along as I learn, apply and share the strategies I’m using to build my multimillion dollar business. My name is Greg Hickman and welcome to scale.We’ve kind of distilled our last90 ish days into think 10 lessons. And so I’m going to share the lesson and I’m going to share kind of the story slash kind of like a high level thing of what believe it meant for us and what we learned from it. And then I’m going to throw each and every one back to you guys and feel like, where do you feel like you can improve as it relates to this lesson? Or how might this lesson apply to you? So again, it’s going to be interactive. And actually with that being said, I should probably activate the catch box on the why. Just turn that off. Um, but that’s how we’re going to do it, right? And this is, we’ll see how it goes. I mean, this is literally a byproduct of us asking what would make it better. So please, like I said yesterday, if you have things that you think would enhance this entire experience for you and your team, like we want to hear about it.So that being said, um, the first lesson is to get elite, get elite at shipping. So, um, kind of the, the background was, uh, you know, I felt busy. I felt like the team was busy. Nothing seemed to really be moving forward. Um, we would talk about planning and strategizing the training that needs to be done, but like getting caught in the whirlwind and in this like needing to decide on things mode, but like never actually deciding. Um, you know, we, yesterday we talked about getting better at making fast decisions or at least at my table we did. Um, and you know, I think the kind of the lesson is like, I think there’s a common mistake, um, for a lot of us, I mean ourselves included like that we trick ourselves into feel like trick ourselves into feeling like we’re, we’re, we’re moving forward.Like, but I think motion is different than action and it’s like motion. Like we could keep going like, Oh, we’re thinking about what we’re gonna do. We’re making the plan and what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna, you know, strategize. We’re going to document it. But like, you never actually just do the thing, right? And so like I don’t, don’t, don’t trick yourself into thinking that motion is forward progress because in many cases probably not. And so like start figuring out how you can just create shit and release shit and it might not be perfect. I mean we launched a new webinar, we have ads going to, it shit’s been broken. We’ve relaunched ads three or four times since I’ve launched the first one. Like, but we wouldn’t have known any of that if we didn’t launch it. Like we tested it, it worked. People are going through it.It’s not, we gotta make a move. We gotta we got to fix something. Right? Like we would have never known that if we just didn’t publish the damn thing. Right. So I guess in our last 90 days, and I think kind of, we did a much better job of it in the last 90 days. But looking honestly back the 180 days prior to that, a lot of like our struggles came from like that motion but not actually ever taken any action on it that would like put us out into the market and force us to make the next decision. Right. It was like, what’s, how are we gonna do this? When are we gonna do it? What’s it going to look like when it’s done? Like trying to make it perfect and like the talking about it like trick me into feeling like, Oh yeah, we’re gonna, we’re getting there, we’re getting there, but we never actually did anything.So I want to throw this back to you. Like where, where in your business right now? Do you feel like you just need to start fucking releasing some shit? Yeah. I’m, I don’t know if any of you guys follow, uh, James clear. Um, he wrote a book called atomic habits. Really good book. You should check it out. He posted this image on Instagram not too long ago that kind of sparked this notion of motion versus action and he’s like, this is motion and this is action, right? Like you’re going somewhere. When you’re taking action, you’re not always going somewhere when you’re just in motion. So like be taking action, don’t just get stuck in motion.Look, I’ve spent probably too much money on coaching and consulting, but it’d be easy for me to be like, Oh yeah, that 10 grand over there. Like that was, that was a waste of my time. But like if even if it didn’t get me the result that I wanted, I learned more of what not to do. Right. Which is almost often a better lesson, right? It’s like, man, like I really thought I wanted that thing and now I’m in there and now I realized, shit, I’m not going to go pursue this for the next 90 180 days of my life. It’s like I got what I needed from it and the biggest takeaway was that that’s not what I’m going to do. And like, knowing what you’re not going to do is almost, I’d say arguably even more powerful than knowing what you’re going to do, right?Cause you can do tons of stuff. So like picking off the things you don’t want to do and aren’t going to pursue, makes choosing the thing that you’re going to pursue a lot easier. So like this is a message you probably want to instill into some of your clients too. Like starting to reprogram how they think about the investments they’re making. Like some people might spend 15 grand on a funnel with you guys and like not get the result that they are hoping for, but they learned that maybe something within their funnel isn’t going to work for them. And that’s like they had this fantasy that it was, that was, but now they have data that it’s not like that’s powerful, right? Because now they can make an educated decision to move on to the next thing. Right? So all right. So the second one was you will never save your way into wealth.This is the Dave Ramsey one that’s, uh, we have a little brief brief jam session on Dave Ramsey. But um, so look, it’s just going to go wrong in your business. And you know, this story is like if you’re at my table, like when we stopped selling foundations, we merged foundations with leveraged and we, we realized that, you know, we shouldn’t have done that. Um, or the way we did it wasn’t correct and we decided to bring foundations back and all that stuff and we just made a lot of changes too quickly and it kind of, it threw us off and uh, both ad spend went upside down and stuff like that. And I literally went into this mode of like, we need to save, like we need to figure out where we can cut stuff. And it was like, cut, cut, cut. Like how do we reduce the costs here?How do we like eliminate the cost there? And like, I think you should always, I think you should always be looking for ways to, like if you’re spending money on stuff and not utilizing it, like, like software, which probably there’s many people in this room that have software that we don’t even, we don’t even use that you’re still paying for. It’s like, I think reviewing that and cutting some of those things, like yeah, that makes sense. But like, that’s not gonna make you a ton more money. Right? And like that’s not where you’re gonna you’re gonna find your growth. And I think it’s very easy to get stuck in the, Oh, like I don’t need that employee or I don’t need to hire someone for this. Like I’ll just do it and like I’ll have more, more for myself sort of mentality. And like if you want to grow, it’s like you literally need to invest, like invest in yourself, invest in others.Like the more that I can offload stuff, like the faster we grow, the more that I’m willing to and confident in my message to start putting dollars behind my message, the faster we’re going to grow. Right. And the faster we’re going to get the feedback that we need from the market in order to grow. So, um, I don’t know where this might apply to you. I’d love to hear from me from a couple of you, but like I honestly can say like we went through a little patch where it was like all we were talking about was like how to save and how to cut and how to eliminate when the conversation of what do we need to invest in, what do we need to double down in what to, where do we need to be spending our time? Who do we need to hire next?When should we be spending money back on ads again, like that conversation wasn’t happening. It was all the how do we save, how do we save, how do we save? Right. And like you just, you know, you want to get X number of clients. Like if you watched the LTV training and you’re not getting that number organically, guess what? You got to pay to get clients. And like that’s an investment. It’s not an expense. Like, yes, in the beginning you’re going to have some, you know, ad spend that is, you know, research and figuring out, we’re going to talk about that at lunch, but like you investing in ads is an investment into growth, right? And that’s literally like, we just lost that mindset for a little while and like once we got it back also is I think a factor for how like we are.When we realized that, it’s like, all right, like I started, like my mindset changed. I was like, all right, like I want an office space. Like I want clients coming into our office, like, like almost unlocked up, like the next level. I’m like, I don’t know how I’m going to fucking get this office or how we’re going to pay for it, but guess what? We guess what we need to figure out now. How do we generate enough revenue to be able to afford to do this thing that is going to help our clients? Right? And like now we’re creating strategies on like, how can we get to this thing versus like, what can we cut? What can we cut? So I can honestly tell you that I definitely have my own stories. I would gather that most of you have your own stories around money that probably are unhealthy.Um, I’m not, like, I can’t say like I’m a mindset coach to like really power through on that. But like money’s a tool, right? Like if you start looking at money as a tool. Um, I was listening to a podcast, um, not too long ago. Uh, and one of the things that they said was like, you know, when you think about how much money you want to make and you know, everyone in this room has a different levels of revenue and paying themselves different things. But like when, you know, when I get on a sales call and someone’s like, you know, I just want to make like 10 K a month, that’s like all I want to make, like take home like in many ways like I’m like, man, that’s selfish as fuck. Like, like yeah, you can, you can give like your time to other people.But like imagine like the amount of impact you can make. Like when you could like give away a lot of money, like to the causes that are important, right? Like I want to make a lot of money cause I can have a bigger impact utilizing that money as a tool to like build people homes, like get people help. Like if all you’re trying to do is make enough to survive yourself, like that is selfish, right? Like how can you make enough that you can literally like invest back into your own community? Maybe other communities, I don’t know what you, what you find to be interesting but like, I dunno, it was just really fascinated with it man. Like there definitely have been times where I was super selfish only thinking about the money that I wanted to make. But like the more money we make, the more that like our team can impact.Like Lisa can go into her community and do more stuff. Same with Megan, etc. Like, so I love that Brown. So the next lesson, um, is let failure be a teacher. So kind of the story here. Um, like this is on me, like with some of us talked about like managing tasks versus managing outcomes and kind of, and again, you guys can chime in back there. Lisa, Megan on anything that you want to add to any of these? Um, like I was delegating a lot of tasks to Megan and really like, it just kept bringing stuff back to me. Like, Hey, like I need to prove on this, so like I need that. Or like, can you review this when you have a chance or yada, yada, yada. And like, again, this is still something we’re working on across the board, but like that doesn’t help us move much faster.And also it just continues to make her more dependent upon me, which like is again, handcuffs, right? So like, be open to the fact that like, all right, like if I let her own this outcome, there’s probably a good chance early on that she’s gonna fail. Right. And like, but that failure is going to be the best teacher for her to like understand like what’s at stake. Finally take ownership and responsibility of it to then like, not make the same mistake again, but like if I’m like always watching over to make sure she doesn’t make a mistake, then like she’s never going to grow. Right. So, and this not just, this isn’t just like Megan only like this is all of us, we do this to ourselves. So like as long as you’re managing tasks, like for those around you, like you’re not getting full utilization utilization of your team and I think you’re preventing them from like actually growing into like their own leader within the company that like will take the, like feel confident to take the things off of your plate.Right? Like they come to me now and they’re like, I got this, I got this. Like I got this, you know, and like if I’m always like, yeah, you got this. But then I’m like watching over like, do you have this? Like, are you sure you got this? Like I just need to let, let it go. Maybe they won’t fail. But like, you know, maybe they’ll do it and I’m like, I didn’t like the way you did it that way. Like, let’s talk about that. Like, you know, which is, you know, ironing out the process. Right. So find ways where like if you haven’t been handing stuff off, like that’s the, that’s the example of how this lesson applies to us. I don’t know if you guys have anything to add on that from Megan on the other side.Yeah, I was gonna say, um, I think it was a Tod cast of, into, from Alice sharpen and like Greg was telling us to listen, you know, more podcasts and stuff. And a big one for me was like empowering your team. And so just to go along with Greg, like I was like, I’m not the entrepreneur. Empower your team because like, if I, if your, if your team doesn’t feel empowered, like that was hard for you. I mean, like, that’s why I kept getting in trouble. I don’t want to get approval that, you know, hinders me as well. Um, you know, I, I’m a national board leader myself, so it’s like I just want to go, I want to do it. And so, um, I love this lesson. It’s just so like empower your team, let them fail, let them do with themselves. You know, it’s scary, but like you might not know that. Like he didn’t know, I didn’t feel empowered. You know what I mean? It’s like, Oh man, I think I got this, but I don’t know. So I keep going to him and like, that makes me feel like that doesn’t make me feel great. Right. So make your team feel empowered. It’s huge. It’s huge. You have no idea. So yeah,you don’t have any insights on that or anything you want to share? Add maybe something that you might want to change? Uh, should I tell the story? Can I tell the story? I don’t know if this is actually applies to this, but we were talking about it when we were walking to dinner. No walking somewhere. When I was talking about when we hired Annie and like I heard one thing from you and then she’s like, what are you talking about? [inaudible] is that like apply to this thing? So, um, as we were making the transition from like done for you, like Lisa was managing accounts, she like had her, you know, own client relationships, but she was also like doing a lot of the actual building of campaigns and funnels and stuff. And, um, I have a friend, her name’s Annie and she like is kind of a product of like roommate Satie and like she was like the ops manager for AppSumo behind Noah Kagan and like, so she’s been behind some, like big, big names, have built big companies fairly quickly.Um, and like her, her specialty is like making sure the right people are in the right seats sort of thing. And so we brought her on as a consultant for about three months. Um, and like honestly like no joke and I feel comfortable saying this cause I decided the other day to and Lisa knows like I was like man, I before, like when I brought Annie on, like I had a conversation, I was like, I want Lisa to be like integrator. Like I feel like she has everything that we need that every time I am I embark on that conversation. All I hear from her is that she never wants to not implement like, like, which in my mind I was like it’d be an infusion soft build stuff and tinker like, and I was like, man, I’m like well maybe she’s just always going to be like one of those people and like she just doesn’t want to evolve into that.Like that’s what I was hearing time and time again. Like we’d have conversations. I was like, I really, I’m like Andy comes back and she’s like, I’m Lisa’s your integrator. I’m like, what? She told me she doesn’t want that. And she’s like, what are you talking about? I was like, she always says she wants to blah, blah, blah. She was like, no, this is what she told me. And she’s like, you’re just not fucking hearing it. And I was like, what? And so like we finally like started and it was a, it still took a while. But like having those conversations of like, Oh like this is what you mean by like implementing like this is what you like. I just couldn’t see past how I was hearing it and like it took an investment into a consultant that was not cheap for three months to like help kind of come through and be like this is the right person.I mean like the people that are on the team were all the, this is the right person. Like keep going like and but like you got to give these things to that person. Right. So like it was truly eye opening and like back to that like if you don’t give them these things, like you won’t see what they’re capable of. And like once that block was removed from me, like the Holy shit, like Greg can spend time over here on things that are going to help us keep going. And like, things aren’t gonna just fall apart because like Lisa has it right and like she wants it and she will take it right. And so, um, it’s just kind of an interesting thing. It’s like if you’re, if you’re a, if you want to, to meet Andy, I don’t know if she still does this, but they want to auntie, I can just introduce you to Annie, but I would just say like, Hey owners and or number twos, like if you feel like you’re not being heard or they’re not, whatever, like try saying in a different way, like don’t let up and owner’s like maybe revisit some conversations you have been having or haven’t had because of some false assumptions you might’ve made to like unlock some things that are literally sitting right in front of you.Uh, each and every single day. If I give you five to 10 new clients, would you or your agency break if so, your current agency model is broken. I struggle with this too, until I found a better way by adding online programs, training and coaching to our agency, we doubled profits without adding more hours. If you want to work directly with me and my team to transform your agency, visit my scalable business.com to learn more.
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