From Management Consultant to Million-Dollar Coach: Mike Goldman's 20-Year Journey from Financial Hell to 7-Figure Success

0:01 Welcome to The Coaching Equation, brought to you by Empire Partners and hosted by Ryan Lang and Brooke Bishop. Our mission is to help you build a profitable and impactful coaching business by cutting through the noise and all the expert advice to deliver tried and true actionable insights that you can deploy in your business today. Each week, we bring on expert guests, unveil cutting edge tactics and strategies, and share the secrets and stories that we've gathered from working with the most successful coaching companies on earth. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation podcast.

0:42 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners. And Brooke Bishop, not with me today. I've got a special guest in studio, Mike Goldman. Dude, welcome. This has been a long time in the making. Super excited we finally made it happen. Yeah, yeah. I'm really looking forward to doing this, Ryan. Thanks for having me on the show. Likewise, man. So I have so many different directions that I want to go. I honestly think we probably could fill up about easily five episodes of content together. But I'd love to kind of start by talking a little bit about your origin story. First things first, you know, I mean, you didn't start off in coaching and consulting.

1:25 So let's back up just a little bit and talk about some of that early experience before you got into that side of the business. Yeah, I actually did start out in consulting, but not coaching. So I was right out of undergrad back in 1987. So I'm old. I just turned 60 this year. But right out of undergrad, I went to work for a management consulting firm, what's now called Accenture. But back then, they were still the consulting arm of Arthur Anderson and Company. So the first half of my career, about the first 15 years or so, and I've been at this over – God, you know, it's many, many, about 35 years.

2:10 But the first 15 years or so were management consulting, part working for Accenture, then working for a company called Deloitte, two big management consulting firms. Traveled like a lunatic. I had two small kids, one with special needs, and the travel just got to be too much. And I said enough. And then – went and started my first business back in, what year was it? Back in 2004, decided, hey, I'm going to stay home and start my first business. And I bought into a franchise, a staffing and recruiting business. So I went from management consulting to staffing and recruiting.

2:52 And that business over three years was a horrific franchise. failure. It was a three-year business that should have only been a one-year business if I listened to my wife, but I kept saying, I'm going to make this work. Those three years put us in a real financial hole for about seven years. But- Long story short, what happened is towards the end of my, you know, my stint in that business, I said, Hey, I'm, I'm strategic, man. I was a management consultant for many years. So what I'm going to do instead of selling the way all these other staffing and recruiting firms are selling, I'm going to be strategic.

3:35 I'm going to start doing workshops focused on employee retention and productivity. And that's going to help me build my staffing business. Well, I was partially right. The workshops were really good. People loved them. It did nothing to build my staffing and recruiting business. But when I finally decided to walk away from that business, I said, this workshop stuff is pretty cool. I love doing it. I think I'm good at it. People are getting value. Why don't I just do that? I don't know whether I'm a coach. Am I a consultant again? Am I a trainer? I don't know what I am, but I'm going to do that. And that was back in 2007.

4:15 And over the last, what, 18 years now, I have zigged and zagged and built that into what my coaching business is today. Oh, man. Oh, it's first of all, there's so much of what you just said that resonates so deeply with me. We have, you know, some definitely some parallel stories in certain respects. And I'm curious, you know, that there I remember what it was like when, you know, I built help build an eight figure company in the energy industry before I ever got into coaching.

4:59 You know, one of the things that we get a lot, we have a lot of people that listen to this show that are, you know, doing a little bit of either double duty right now where they're trying to build a business on the side and still, you know, doing their thing, working for somebody else right now, or they're in a spot where they're in a business. you know, they're still working for somebody else. And the other thing is still kind of a dream. And there's a little bit of that, you know, that leap. So I'm just curious, what was the leap like when you left? I guess at the time it would have been Deloitte to go start your own thing. What was that leap like for you? Well, when we made that decision, my wife and I had, Saved up a whole bunch of money, which included refinancing the house at a lower rate and pulling some money out.

5:49 And we were all set. We were going to redo the kitchen and a whole floor of our house. And we had the money put away. We had the blueprints. And right before we were going to pull the trigger on it, I said, wait a minute. We're going to go spend what would have been about $150,000 on redoing a whole big part of our house. And yet… I'm still going to be traveling every Monday morning to the West coast to do consulting. You're going to be here working full time with both kids and my son, you know, special needs. I'm like, you know, this is going to make us happy for a moment. And then we're going to be back where we always were.

6:31 Maybe, maybe this is the time to take a shot. Maybe we take this money, keep it where it is, and we try to change our lives. So that was the point when I left Deloitte. It took me a while to figure out what business I wanted to start. And with all that investigation, I picked the wrong one and picked a business that was horrible for me. But it was – easier to take that shot because we had some money put away. Now, I still ended up digging us a seven-year financial hole, but I say we had the money put away because I have talked to coaches that want to start a coaching business.

7:12 And they're talking to me about how I started and what I did. And one of the questions I ask them is, how many months of expenses do you have in the bank right now? And I get people like, well, I'm doing pretty good. I have three months of expenses. So I quit my job last week and I'm ready to start this coaching thing. And I'm like, oh, crap, you're in trouble. Because the biggest reason why people – fail at this kind of thing or, or quit this kind of thing is because they run out of money before they're successful. So true. So I was, you know, you know, I was in a situation where I had a little bit more runway and I still got to the point three years in where, where we were really trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage and I had runway.

8:00 So the, the leap was actually pretty easy for me. But the funny thing is what I tell people now is if I knew then, right. how hard it was going to be. And by it, well, I'll say it this way. If I knew then how hard it was going to be and the financial struggle and everything I need to learn and all that, I never would have made the leap. I really wouldn't have. However, it's now 21 years later from the time I started that staffing and recruiting firm and going out on my own, And becoming an entrepreneur was absolutely the best decision I have ever made in my life.

8:41 I thank God I didn't know how hard it was going to be. Yes. Because it would have freaked me out. I never would have done it. Oh, my God, man. That's exactly the same thing. I had it in my head when I quit my partnership and my previous business. I had it in my head that I was just going to walk out the door and everything I touched was going to turn to gold. I mean, I just had it all figured out, except that I didn't. And similarly, just wrong business right out of the gates and the big hole in the whole thing. I think, though, one of the things that I want to hit on, and I love that you mentioned this. This is so important.

9:23 like every, I think everybody wants to believe that when you make that leap, you're going to do exactly the right thing. You're going to make exactly the right choice. We're going to go exactly the right direction. Everything's going to be hunky dory. And the truth is that's not how it goes. And I love what you said though, because I think that's, I think that's what, what we need at the end of the day is less. I think there's an, and talk about this if you will, but, I think there's less importance that we should put on it being perfect right out of the gate and more importance that we should put on the actual choice to go and play the game.

10:09 Because if you'll go play the game and simply decide that you're not going to quit playing, you will win eventually. Yeah, absolutely. And you're not going to get everything right. In fact, if you're anything like me, you will get way more wrong than you will get right. I mean, I started my first business in 2004, walked away from it in 2007, started coaching. It wasn't until 2012, 2013 that that I really came upon a business model and a way of marketing that business model that worked for me. That's kind of the point where I started building the business I'm so proud of today. And I'll say another thing that's super important that not everybody has.

10:54 And in the teams that I work with, I don't see this as often as I'd love – The saving grace for me, the reason why I didn't quit and just go get a job. That was about to be my next question. Why not? Yeah. Is I married really well. And I got to tell you, you know, I am very entrepreneurial and I'm always thinking optimistically future vision. My wife is a little bit more cheap with the money and, you know, and, and, and, you know, and, and we got to pay this bill. And when I started my staffing firm, I had this long-term vision of what I was going to do. And she's like, Staples is having a sale on paper.

11:35 You should go get paper. And I'm like, I. So there's a lot that like I was worried and, and there were in during those seven years of financial hell, there were three times that, you know, I, I, I was the guy who paid the bills every month. And that was the worst time of my life. Every month was sitting there and juggling what could I pay and what am I not going to pay? And do I tell my wife? Because I just knew if I told her that I wasn't sure how we were paying the mortgage or I wasn't sure how I was paying the phone bill or any of that, she would say, Mike, cut the crap, go get a job.

12:19 And there were three times where I got to the point where with tears in my eyes, I had to go back to her because I had no choice and say, Ang, I don't know how to do this. And I feel like I feel that emotion coming back even when I say this. I don't know how to do this. And instead of saying, you know, cut the shit and go get a job. She looked at me each one of those times and said some form of Mike. you're doing the right thing. This is going to work. Here's what we're going to do. We could get rid of the landscaper and have our son start cutting the lawn and we're going to save money this way. And we're not going to buy this anymore. And she'd come up with a way and be incredibly supportive.

13:05 Thankfully, she also had a good job or we never would have been able to pay the mortgage. But having a supportive person, spouse, a supportive family of what you're trying to do. To me, that was everything. And I see entrepreneurs all the time that have the opposite of that. And man, it makes it a lot tougher that way. Oh my gosh, man. You're preaching to the choir. My wife and I talk about this all the time. I literally said to her just, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, like, doggone honey. Yeah. Thank God. I mean, he knew what he was doing when he figured this out for the both of us.

13:46 Because I talk to people all the time. I know you do, too, where they've got a spouse, whether it's male or female, they've got a spouse that just doesn't get it and doesn't sit in support. And if I had a nickel for every time I broke down and had that dark moment of the soul, as we all do as entrepreneurs, if you're doing it long enough, you're going to have a lot of them. Uh, and she just similarly patted me on the back and said, I don't know how we're going to do it, honey, but you just keep going and we'll figure it out. And I'm cool. Um, that's that. I think, honestly, Mike, I love that you bring that up because I think on some level that is, it's kind of a superpower when you have that, like you got a cheat code.

14:29 that a whole lot of other people don't have when you have that. So if you got it, Lord have mercy, be thankful for it. It's everything. And I guess we're you and I both are very lucky or very skilled at finding the right person. Right. Yeah. Very good persuaders at the end of the day. I love that. So, all right. So, so you started your coaching business and at this point, you know, uh, uh, you've got a very successful business. So I'd love to, I'd love to walk people through this because I think there are a lot of people that are significantly earlier on in the journey or haven't made it quite as far as you have, um, in terms of the financial success of their coaching business.

15:10 So tell, let's talk a little bit about that journey. Okay. When was the point where you sort of discovered what you referenced as this business model that really started working for you? Yeah, so I was doing from 2007 to probably 2010 or 11 years. I was doing more, I'd call them leadership development programs. Okay. I called myself a coach, but I was probably a little bit more of a trainer looking back. And, you know, you know, at that point, thankfully, you know, paying the mortgage, you know, I had, you know, I was doing okay.

15:50 Not, not great, maybe not even good, but I would maybe almost good enough to, But the problem was in that model of going out there and doing these leadership development programs, I would have a good month. and a bad month, a good quarter and a bad quarter. If I sold some great new client, a three month leadership development program, that was beautiful. That told me nothing about what, if anything, I was going to sell next month or the month after that. And trust me, I went through some real droughts early on. So, so I did that and, and I was getting by, um, and then, you know, did that, you know, 2007 to like 2011 or 12 actually.

16:33 And then You know, there was someone I knew really well who was in this coaching organization that I was a part of where I got some of my intellectual property at the time. And all of a sudden, I stopped seeing that guy. And I asked somebody, I'm like, where'd Marco? Like, where is he? Oh, you know, he's doing gazelles. Like, what the hell is that? And it was this other coaching organization that was based on this book called The Rockefeller Habits, you know, way, way back when. And it was a very different kind of coaching where it was we're going to go out and instead of doing leadership development programs that I'm selling to like the head of HR typically.

17:21 Yeah, it's it's I'm going to go work with leadership teams and work with them throughout the year and a more strategic way. Sit at the right. hand of the CEO and help them work on vision and strategy and accountability and structure of the team and assessing talent. And that all sounds wonderful, but I hadn't done it. And I did go check out this organization and become part of this coaching organization that taught me how to do a lot of it. But frankly... I didn't have a ton of confidence that I can do it.

18:01 To do something like that, I had to raise my prices, which sounds like a weird way to say it. I had to raise my prices because what I was charging and how I was charging for leadership development, for a CEO to hire me, you almost have to be charging more or they look at you like you can't be any value for that. Yeah, absolutely. And I was charging like hourly and I stopped charging hourly. So I did that, but... But man, I thought I was really expensive. So I became a really, really bad salesperson because people would say, well, that all sounds good, Mike. How much does it cost? Well, you know, let me work on a proposal and I'll get back to you. But...

18:42 And it's, you know, it's only them. They got to the last page of this proposal that it would show them the price. And that's just not the way you do it. And what changed for me, and it took some time, is finally got my first client doing it that way around, you know, somewhere in 2013, got my first client doing it that way. We're still doing some of the leadership development stuff, but got my first client and I saw the value I could add. And I said, you know what? I'm worth this. I can do this. I'm really good at this. And all of a sudden, I slowly started, a couple of things happened. One is I started building confidence in what I was charging.

19:23 So people would say that it got to the point where people would say, well, you know, how much is this? And I would say, it's really expensive. Like not everybody's right for this. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it's like, that's the kind of confidence I had. And, you know, so, so what is I started building confidence and I also learned a really cool technique every time I brought on three new clients. And for me, a client is not one person. I work with leadership teams. Every time I brought on three clients, I raised my price. So what I'm charging now compared to what I was charging in 2013, I'm charging about 4X what I was charging back then.

20:06 So part of it was confidence and having the model and building my own IP around it. The other part of it was learning what kind of marketing worked for me. Yeah. And just because it works for me doesn't mean it's going to work for you or anyone else. But what I learned kind of early on that there is that there were two types of marketing that worked for me. Neither of them were the traditional marketing of, you know, social media is going to bring me clients, right? Sure. You know, what worked for me are two things. Number one, of course, was proactively asking for referrals. Amen. Yes.

20:46 That almost goes without saying. Oh. What worked for me and is still my number one marketing tool these, you know, 13 years later is speaking. You know, just getting out there and adding value to a group of CEOs or a group of leaders and having them say, wow, if that's what he can do in an hour and a half or that's what he can do in three hours, how do I get some more of that? Yeah. And what I started doing is a lot of workshops where I get paid nothing or get paid very little.

21:27 But I would do a workshop for EO or YPO or Vistage or whatever it is. I would do a workshop and my call to action at the end of a workshop was I offered up a complimentary coaching call. And a complimentary coaching call for me is the best sales meeting I could ever have. Because the other thing I realized is the best way for me to sell is not to be a sales guy. The best way for me to sell is for me to coach and add value and then say, how open are you to Continuing this. Yep. Yep. You know, so, so that was really it for me. It was, it was that change.

22:09 And, and by the way, that change in business model wasn't just now I can charge more and work with CEOs and leadership teams. That's a part of it. The bigger part of it by far is I went from three month leadership development programs and six month, you know, manager programs to annual agreements. There you go. I am in every quarter working with the leadership team, every month working with the CEO. I literally just got off the phone right before this with my longest term client. She's a CEO. I've been working with her and her leadership team. We are in year 10 working together.

22:49 That's so cool. Knowing what, knowing right now we're here, we are sitting here when this, when we're recording this, it's August of 25. I could pretty much tell you at the very least what my revenues and my cashflow will be throughout 2026. That's incredible. Because of this annual agreement model, that was gold for me. Man, holy cow. There's so much. There's so much I want to unpack here. One thing that I'm curious about, because I love the way that you talk about kind of marketing that works for you. And essentially at the end of the day, you know, speaking, one of the things that drives me a little batshit crazy with all of the different, you know, whiz bang overnight marketing tactics that we've seen over the last 10 years and they're not slowing down either, sadly.

23:41 Um, Is that I think there's been a true loss of focus on a customer journey on like actually spending the time to cultivate a relationship with somebody so that it's not the equivalent of like I like to say, walking into the bar and going up to the hot chick and saying, hey, baby, I know we just met, but you want to get married. Um, it's, it's taking the time to actually warm somebody up a bit and teaching them what you've got to offer and who you are and what you stand for and all of those things. What, and, and that's essentially what's, you know, that's speaking as one mechanism for being able to do that. One thing I'm very curious about just because I want to prove a point here is.

24:24 Whether it's been recent or over time, I'm sure you can remember a time of speaking to somebody that had never seen you speak before ever. They didn't know who you were. It was a cold lead in some way, shape or form, even if it was a bit of a handoff. But they had no experience with you, your speaking, your content. Yeah. What is the difference for you between a conversation like that and a conversation with somebody who just saw you on a stage three days ago and is on fire to have a conversation with you? More than anything, it's about credibility. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's what it's about. And again, I can only talk about my experience.

25:07 You know, as you're listening to this, you you might sell to very different people than I do. I sell to CEOs of mid-market companies. Those are the folks who hire me. Those folks don't hire because you've got a great funnel out there. And trust me, I've tried it over. I'll figure out a way to get it to work. They don't buy because of a funnel. Now I say that again, that's, Because that's who I'm selling to. There are absolutely people who buy because you've got a great funnel. I'm not saying funnels don't work, but you have to understand who you're selling to. And when I sell to the CEO, credibility is everything.

25:52 And that's why the speaking is so important. That's why getting getting a really warm referral is important. Not just, hey, I met this guy. You may want to talk to him. But, hey, this is a coach I've been working with for five years who's helped me double my business twice. You've been complaining about your business. Why don't you why don't you talk to this guy? Like there's credibility there. I don't have to give somebody a concept sale on, you know, why talking to me is important. I don't have to do a hard sell. I could be a coach and ask them questions. So to me, it's all about the credibility because CEOs, again, who I'm selling to, CEOs don't buy because they're, They saw some great funnel.

26:39 They don't buy because you've got a great social media post. Yes. Although I will tell you for the first time, so I've got a podcast called The Better Leadership Team Show. I think I'm up to about episode 135 or something like that. Nice. And, you know, sometimes you do it and, you know, you're doing it to build your brand, but you're not sure if it's really having the impact you want. And for the first time, I got a lead from my website that I hardly ever get. Got a lead from the website, which I normally think. This is somebody kicking the tires. It's never going to go anywhere. Got on the phone with him and his leadership team who joined the call. And I said, how'd you find me? They said, well, we knew we wanted to create a better leadership team.

27:21 We were looking for ways to help us out. We came across your podcast. We listened to 30 episodes. Love it. So we really want to work with you. And that's my newest client. Oh, that's awesome. Sometimes it comes from other ways. But the idea of speaking or the podcast or I'm about to launch my third book or having a book, you go from just some schmuck trying to sell you something to, oh, this guy must know what he's talking about. Oh, 100%. So it's about credibility. I love that. And I think it's, first of all, congratulations. And we've actually had a similar experience. We built our business on warm network, on referrals, on relationships, and giving presentations.

28:09 And similarly, we've had people who have binge listened to our podcast and shown up on our doorstep. And that sounds awesome. And shout out, by the way, to our in-house podcast boss, the amazing Alison Hare, who helped us launch our podcast. And if you want to do the same, you ought to go check her stuff out. She has a wonderful podcast called The Reinvention Room. Um, but, uh, you know, one of the things too, that I want to, I want to hit on a specific word that you said where you're describing your marketing, when you said referral, you didn't just say referral. You said a really important word for me and Brooke and I talk about this all the time. Proactive.

28:51 Tell me about that. When, when I was young and dumb. I thought, which wasn't too long ago, although I look old, it wasn't too long ago. I thought, and I think most people think if you do a really good job, people will refer you. Yep. And it sounds so logical. It does. And certainly the opposite is true. If you do a really crappy job, no one will refer you. So you've got to do a good job. Yes. But. But when I think of the clients that love me, where I've helped them double their business, where I've helped them triple their profitability, they could now go on vacation. And like, if I don't ask them, they've got 175 things more important than thinking, who can I introduce Mike to?

29:41 But when I call them, And say, or better yet, I will, you know, text them and say, hey, would love to talk to you. You know, what I do with people very often is I'll say either by phone or text or in person is I'll say, hey, you know, You know how important my business is to me. You know, I really have some exciting growth plans. Best way for me to grow is by, you know, adding great clients like you that know other great clients. You know, if you're free next Tuesday at 10, would love to buy you a cup of coffee or virtual cup of coffee.

30:24 And just run through some people, you know, who you might be open to introducing me to. I love it. Now, now notice what I did there. I didn't at the end of a coaching call say, Hey, don't keep me a secret or the, or, or if you know anybody, I'd love to, or do you know anyone? I schedule specific time where they know Tuesday at 10, um, I'm wanting them to run through some people they know that they might be open to introduce me to. And what winds up happening, and I never have any of my clients say no to that. Some might say, I'm not sure I know anybody. And I'm like, that's all good.

31:04 Let's talk on Tuesday and we'll talk through it. But more often than not, what happens is as soon as I get on that Zoom call with them or we meet for coffee or whatever it is, if they know they're meeting with me at 10 in the morning and I'm looking for some introductions, what do you think they're thinking about the night before? Oh, shit, who can I introduce mine to? So as soon as I get together with them, they're like, okay, I got two people. And I'm like – Now, of course, I've got in my hip pocket, hey, I know you golf a lot. Who do you golf with that also owns a business? Or I know you're a member of YPO. Who do you know? I've got those questions hip pocket.

31:44 But I'll tell you, being proactive and scheduling a specific time to talk through that is so much more productive than, by the way, don't keep me a secret. That stuff doesn't really work. Oh, man. I love this. So I just want to recap this for you. So basically, number one. Don't beat around the bush. Just go ahead and make a genuine ask. And I love also the reciprocity that's involved, even in the statement. Let me buy you a cup of coffee. Let me, can we, you know, if you're in the same town, can we grab lunch, you know, and chat for a little bit, whatever. But I love that you put it out there because I think oftentimes, you know, as somebody who's, you know, highly involved in sales, a lot of times when people have shitty reactions to stuff that we put out there, it's because we won't just come out and ask for what we want.

32:33 It's like it's, you know, we're trying to like shove the pill inside the candy bar, you know, just tandem the pill, you know, at the end of the day. I love that. And you'd be amazed. I've done it. I've actually had some clients go, oh, I didn't realize you were looking for more clients. Right. And there are times I'm like, well, duh. But you know what? They don't know that. They don't know. Of course everybody knows we're trying to grow their business. Yes. Don't assume that. Yes. Don't assume that. Ask. I love that. I love it, man. And I think that one of the things that I love the most about this is that referrals and relationships do not break. That's one of the things. It's why I believe that I think paid advertising, if you're in a semi-traditional coaching model, especially if you have any kind of volume, I think is good and necessary.

33:24 Affiliate deals are cool and all of that stuff. But if you make a bedrock foundation of warm network and referrals and relationships and actually be proactive, like Mike is talking about right here, I promise you, you will never go hungry ever. And the other part about this that I love too, Mike, in your business, it doesn't make a significant amount of sense because of who you, who your clients are and who you're selling to. But, you know, so often people get to the spot where they think they want to run paid ads, for example, and they're trying to find ad budgets for it and that kind of thing. If you have a foundation of referrals, warm network and relationships that is strong, that is exactly what's going to fund your ad budget.

34:08 So absolutely. I love the way that you built your business that way. So I want to kind of transition. here because I don't want to lose the chance. We may need a whole episode to go deeper on this, but I don't want to lose the chance to really tap your brain on something that I know you are an incredible expert at, and that is building quality teams. A lot of the time we talk to our clients, we also work on an annual basis with our clients and the main reason, like the businesses that you work for, like business is not done in the vacuum of two weeks or four weeks or six weeks or whatever. It requires at least a year to get some good traction and make some progress.

34:53 And one of the things that we consistently work with our clients on is, okay, first let's create a profitable, repeatable business model like you did. And if they feel so inclined and some don't, by the way, which is 100% fine, but we have people that really feel inclined to say, hey, you know what? I want to learn to scale this now. And and we get them in tune to the idea that if they're going to do that, it is definitely a who not how conversation. They got to get the right people on the bus. They're confused about who to hire, who's the first right hire, how to actually cultivate a good team. And many of them, honestly, Mike, have been have come from situations where they may not have been in a leadership position before.

35:50 So, first of all, I think there's a lot we could unpack here, but let's just start here. Let's imagine for a moment that somebody basically, they're a solopreneur, they realize they're hitting that constraint, they want to go farther, and they're going to make that first hire happen. In your estimation, where do they go first and what's the right way to go about doing that so that they can not just get the right person, but also get somebody and then cultivate a relationship and start building a culture so they'll want to stay? Yeah, I think as a solopreneur, it's critical to understand where your natural talents and strengths are.

36:36 Because your first hire is probably going to be someone who's got very different strengths than you. For my business, now I work all day every day with leadership teams of mid-market companies and they're building full leadership teams. But when you're talking about a smaller business and using mine as an example, for many years it was just me. And then I decided the only time I was doing my bookkeeping, obviously I was invoicing and collecting, but the only time I was going in and looking at my chart of accounts and putting expenses in the right place was when taxes were due. And I had this big pressure on me in like February and March to say, I don't know what you're talking about, Mike.

37:21 Oh my God, it was ridiculous. I had no idea what. So, so the, my first hire and it wasn't a full-time hire was say, I need a bookkeeper. Yes. So I did that. Then I got to the point that I was doing more speaking and I was doing more, uh, uh, you know, and, and I had more clients and, and all of a sudden my schedule and my travel got a little crazy and I had a few other things going on. I said, I need a virtual assistant. And I hired a virtual assistant who has probably started out working 10 hours a week. And then I started my podcast. And it turned out my virtual assistant was very good at learning new technologies. She now edits my podcast.

38:02 Awesome. I then decided I needed some help with social media. And by the way, all these things are things I'm not very good at. Right. I want to focus on coaching and speaking and writing. And if that's what I can do, I'm good. So I hired the bookkeeper and the virtual assistant and someone else to do social media. I'm at the point now where talking about scaling, you know, part of what I'm working on, because let's the coaching business. Coaching and speaking is incredibly not scalable. It's me. It's not scalable and it's not sellable. So what I'm doing, one of my focuses right now, along with launching the book, is I'm building some products.

38:49 And I don't mean I don't mean video training programs, which don't work real well for my audience. But technology, I've got something called an Ask Mike AI that I'm working on. I got to go try this thing, man. It's super cool. I already have one of my clients tell me the AI was already smarter than me. So I said I would have my developer dumb it down because I didn't want to be fired by my client. Yeah, that's right. I love it. But I've got this Ask Mike AI. I've got, you know, my new book, Strength of Talent, it's this framework for assessing performance and coaching performance. Yes, yes. Making the difficult decision on when someone needs to be coached out versus up. Yes. I'm building a web-based application to support that.

39:32 And my vision is that... that technology piece is incredibly scalable. Heck yes, it is. That if I get the technology piece going and I call my framework the talent density system, I see in the future having talent density certified coaches that could deliver this content and sell the software. So all of a sudden I go from a coaching and speaking and writing business that is zero scalable. Like, yeah, I could hire some people to help, but it's not scalable. If I am... bringing on technology products and certified coaches, all of a sudden, I not only have a scalable business, but at some point, and I don't ever see slowing.

40:17 I turned 60. I haven't peaked yet. I want to keep going. I don't ever want to retire. Dude, you're on fire. You're on fire, man. You got plenty left in the tank. But if I ever want to sell a portion of my business, now I'm building something that could be sellable. So very different than when I teach my clients, which is building these true leadership teams of mid-market companies. That's the way I've been slowly working towards building something that's scalable from being a solo entrepreneur and not scalable. I love that. First of all, that's exactly how you do it. I'm not only in 100% agreement. I love that you've built it in a way where it's been step-by-step.

40:57 It's been sequential. You've known what you needed at each turn, and you've gotten it. I want to spend the last couple of minutes that we've got, as we're on the subject of hiring and our teams and talent and stuff like that... I think a lot of people, especially as they start growing into leadership, they bring on teams and they have a belief that, well, I'm hiring these people to come work for me. They're just coming to work for me. They're almost disposable resources. Even the title of this book suggests something significantly different that we owe it to the people that we're bringing on to our team to pour into them.

41:38 And the title of the book is The Strength of Talent, How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Profit. So tell us a little bit in the limited time that we've got, Mike, about the book. And what does it mean to really pour into and grow our people so that we can grow our profits? The kind of umbrella philosophy of the whole book, and really the umbrella philosophy of everything I do with my clients, is that the number one driver of profit growth is people growth. It's not a new strategy. It's not a new market. It's not a new technology. All those things are great, and I work with my clients on all those things.

42:20 But as a leader, your number one priority needs to be growing your people. I have seen, and Ryan, you've probably seen, companies with great strategies, but the wrong people. And they fail every single time. If you have a mediocre strategy with a bunch of great people, those great people find a way. Hell yeah. So it's all about people and the mistake a lot of leaders make. And especially when they label people like a player, B player, C player, which used to be used to be labels that I use. But the problem is when you label someone a B player, it sounds like that's who they are.

43:00 Like, I guess I gets hired wrong. I hired a B player and I called bullshit. Yeah. You know, that person, you know, 35 years ago, the doctor didn't come out and say, Mr. Lang, I'm terribly sorry. Your wife has given birth to an eight pound, two ounce B player. You got a B player. You hired this person. Your number one job as a leader is to coach and develop and challenge and hold them accountable. And you need to work to help those folks grow. So when I talk about growing your people, it's not more people. It's what are you doing to coach and develop people? And what are you doing to determine who can be coached up and who needs to be coached out?

43:44 And how do you, you know, put your big boy pants on or your big girl pants on and make those decisions? Because I have seen so many organizations that have folks toxic to the organization that have been around for years. Yes. Yes. And it's like, what is going on? And, and so, uh, a lot of organizations say, well, people are our greatest asset, but they don't, they don't really live that way. And this book is, is about living that way. I love that. Quick hitter. I know there's probably a much longer answer to this question, but the CliffsNotes version of the answer to the question, if we're in that spot where we know speed to decision is vital in business, we are thinking like, ooh, I don't know if this person is working out or they're not.

44:31 Do you have a simple framework that you can give folks on figuring out how to, you know, whether we either coach them out or we coach them up? Yeah, I think part of it is I, in my framework, we assess performance on two different dimensions. Productivity. And by the way, productivity is not how long and hard somebody is working. It's about results. Someone may be working long and hard because they're not productive. So one component is productivity and the second is culture fit. And the simplest way to think about culture fit is, is this person making the people around them better or worse? Are they adding to this environment, this culture you want to create?

45:14 Are they subtracting from it? Are they living and breathing your core values? Well, here's kind of the little shortcut on whether you can coach someone up or out. If someone is a great culture fit, but they're not as productive as you want them to be, those folks tend to be coachable. Now, coachable to get where you want them to get to? Not always. Maybe they don't have the capability, but they tend to be coachable. but they're a bad culture fit. nine out of 10 times are not coachable because trying to coach someone to live your core values when they're not already living your core values is like trying to get someone to become someone they are not.

45:56 And while if you put them on a 90 day pip and threaten them with job security, they could fake it for 90 days. After that, they're going to go back to who they really are, which is not a bad person, but it's a bad fit for your organization. It's a bad fit for you. Oh, man, that is so good. That is so good. I'm so sad we're out of time. Okay, well, listen, we'll commit to coming back and doing another one of these. I would love to. Mike, thank you. First of all, brother, I want to honor you. In the time that we've known each other, you struck me the minute that I met you as somebody who really has cultivated over time such important thought leadership. I love the way that you go about what you do.

46:38 I love what you stand for. I love, you know, the way that you're so passionate and you pour into your clients. You are a force of nature on stage, having seen it myself. And I'm just grateful for the work that you're doing in the world, man, because we need it. I think we need more than anything. More than any other time, we need strong teams right now. People need to feel that connection and feel together. And I want to thank you for that. What I want you to do as you're listening to this right now is I want you to pre-order Mike's book. It's called The Strength of Talent, How to Grow Your People to Grow Your Profit. You can go to www.strengthoftalent.com to pre-order your book. We'll link it up in the show notes. And thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation Podcast.

47:19 Until next time, take care. Thanks, Mike. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coaching Equation. Please hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you got value out of this episode, we would be so grateful if you would share it out with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes or your favorite platform. To learn more about Empire Partners or to inquire about working with Ryan and Brooke, please visit www.empirepartners.io forward slash go.