Mastering Word of Mouth Marketing with Joe Blackburn

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.

0:41 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners alongside my co-founder and co-host, Brooke Bishop. And we got an awesome guest in the house today talking about business, talking about sales, talking about word of mouth marketing. Joe Blackburn in the house. Good to have you, brother. Hey, man. Thanks. Great to be here. Joe, I'm really excited to dig in with you on a lot of different pieces today. And I think what you have in terms of a framework is so timely and relevant for people. I mean, it has been for years, but I think especially right now, there are a lot of questions around marketing and sales and how do we do it effectively. And I can't wait to dig in on that. But brother, before we even get there...

1:22 I would love to hear a little bit about your origin story in business because you've generated a significant amount of success. And I'd love for you to share a little bit about how you got to where you are now. Sure. Well, I grew up in insurance and financial services. I spent over 20 years there, right out of college. Started going farm to farm. That wasn't exactly word of mouth, by the way. That was just jumping out of a truck, trying not to get shot, trying not to get bit. Done that a few times, actually. It's a skill. So I did that for a while. And then I transitioned to Edward Jones and did door knocking and started financial services and was recruited by Merrill Lynch a couple years later and really got into more of the consultative side of finance.

2:09 And actually, at that point, pretty quick, was asked to start doing some leadership. So I did the sales manager role and ran some of their offices and built my business out over that time period. And then Eventually, I gave up my business, my book, so to speak, and I became a director. And I ran Illinois and Iowa, X downtown Chicago, and X the Northwest suburbs. I have a line as far north as I'll go. And I drew it. I did that for a couple of years. And then a couple of things happened. One, I don't know. There might be some entrepreneurs out there that actually spent time in the corporate gulag, so to speak, where the red tape and the bureaucracy and running someone else's place starts to wear you out. No fault to the corporation.

2:49 That's what they're designed on me, not them. And then my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. I've got 5 little kids. I was on the road quite a bit. And I just started having that moment. Maybe it was something to do with midlife. I was like 42. What do I really want to do? Why am I doing this? And started exploring what it was I really wanted. And I really love coaching. That's why I got into leadership. And I one day ripped the Band-Aid off, called my boss, told him I was out, and took a giant leap of faith and built... My first coaching business, that was 5 years ago on the 29th of May. So about a week from now. Happy anniversary coming up. Yeah. No kidding, man. Yeah. I want to ask, first of all, when you got to a point, what was it that told you, Joe, that you weren't meant to stay in that corporate structure?

3:34 Because I think that's a big struggle for people from a mindset perspective where it's like... Some people see what it looks like on the outside to run a business or to do something of their own. And they either never have the guts to make the decision or they realize that they find out what's really involved and it's maybe not for them. Sure. What was it for you that was kind of the determining factor where I was like, yeah, look, I've created a lot of success, but longer term, this is not for me. Well, you know, I think when you're coming up, especially in leadership in an organization, the status and the allure of the position, so to speak, and the influence. And don't get me wrong. I love developing leaders and coaching.

4:14 But I think what you'll find, especially the bigger the organization, that's not really where you're spending your time. A lot of my time was spent HR, legal, lowest common denominator type problems where you're not working with the people that want to be great. You're working with the people that don't want to do anything. And it just starts to wear on you a little bit. And I came to the realization, and I have this rule today when I work with someone, if you can't control your time, your goals, or your income, which you have no control over those 3 as a corporate employee, it didn't match up with the way I wanted to operate and run my life and run my business. I had a realization that I have no cap and I can go out and do whatever I want. And I didn't need the safety, so to speak, of the organization any longer.

4:58 And quite frankly, everybody, including my boss at the time, told me I was nuts and that I'd thrown everything away and it wasn't going to work. And most people aren't entrepreneurs, by the way. They can't... I love that. Yeah. They can't stomach it. I just realized that there wasn't anything holding me back. I wanted to do what I really enjoyed. And I took the risk. I mean, I gave up everything. I mean... All my income, all my stock options, all my health insurance, all of it. You talked about a book of business. And I know that just in terms of like, you know, the amount of total revenue that your business was bringing in, you threw out a number the other day that was pretty staggering. Well, when I ran Midland, we were doing $120 million with $17 billion in assets.

5:38 So that's a pretty substantial... It's a small number. Well, it's relative. I mean, you're responsible. You're at the end of the day, you have to make all the decisions. You're acting as the leader and the steward of those assets and those clients. And still today, I was talking to someone this morning, they're great advisors and staff people there still. I mean, in the field itself, the people are really great. It's just when you've got someone a thousand miles away trying to decide what tomorrow brings. It just didn't match up. And by the way, again, that's how that thing's designed. Life's trade-offs. If you want the so-called safety and stability of a salary or something like that, then go do that. There's nothing wrong with that.

6:19 I just didn't anymore. I didn't feel like I needed it. And I'm kind of a student of my own game. I'm an old school fan. Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale, all the originals. And Rohn said when it really hit me was, it's all risk. It was risky to stay there. It was risky to leave. It's all risk. So I just... And I don't know. I kind of sometimes go overboard on those things. But I generally take pretty big leaps of faith. And most of the time they work out. Most of the time. I love that. That's awesome. And you know what's great about that, though? I love you say most of the time, but that doesn't stop you from continuing to do it. Yeah. So, I mean, I did a podcast this morning and I was terrible on it and I'm here at one o'clock.

7:03 So, Joe, thanks for getting the shitty podcast out of the way. grateful for that. So now you get into coaching and I'm curious for you. I love to hear these stories from people that transition out of a successful business into the coaching world. I did the same thing and I have had my difficulties and all of that. But What were some of the learning lessons that you took away when you first entered the coaching space? Like, what's a good example of something where what you had done before maybe couldn't have prepared you for something that you ran into when you got into running and building a coaching business?

7:50 Well, there's a couple things that really stick out in my mind. And one of them is you have to deinstitutionalize your mind. If you grow up in lots of rules and regulations and structure, and especially when you start being the real leader and you have to eat the risk, meaning you're on the legal call and the HR call, your brain starts looking for all the risks. Right. You're looking out for things. The weirdest thing I had to go through in the beginning was there were no rules other than ethics. I had to be honest. And other than that, there weren't any rules. So I kept like, it's almost like I would look for something that wasn't there. Some sort of... And that took me a while to get over that and be like, okay, no, I'm unencumbered.

8:33 I don't have to think about those things. I'm wasting my time on this. It's just really thinking through like, hey, there truly is no limit. It's all on you. And it's just getting rid of that. I don't know. It was almost like a hot stove. I almost touch it and then I wouldn't. So getting rid of that because this doesn't exist in this world. And then the other thing is a weird paradigm shift. And I see a lot of people come out of corporate America... thinking they can build a coaching or consulting or whatever it is business because of their success there. Yeah. Here's the problem with that. Those people had to be at your meetings. Yeah. Hmm. So now it's like, okay, now I have to get people to invest in themselves and pay to be a part of what I'm doing.

9:16 Versus before, they pretty much had to show up or there were consequences or they didn't get the resources or whatever it was. I mean, it's just a totally different... It's the opposite. So getting people to pay for your skill set and your experience and your talent is totally different than people that just work for you. And I've seen a lot of people that had really good success. And then they come out here and it's like, no one wants to work with me. And that's a hard pill to swallow. And I've seen some really talented people go right back to the place they hated. And I've seen some people stay in the place they've hated because they're afraid of that. So that's been 2 really poignant ones. I love that, Joe.

9:56 And I think, I mean, to be honest with you, that dovetails right into, I mean, people having expertise and then getting into the coaching world and having a really hard time getting people to pay them for it now. A lot of that, it doesn't necessarily boil down to the fact that they suck. It oftentimes boils down to the fact that they suck at marketing. So... 100%. They're probably good practitioners. Right. Coaching. I mean, coaching is a skill set all in itself. It's just they can't market themselves. Yeah. Yeah. I want to dive into that, man, because I think marketing, obviously, in the coaching world, one of the things that we see with as many coaches that come through our consulting business, our masterminds, the coaches that we've worked with over the last several years, is that obviously there is an obsession around getting clients because if you have no clients, you're in trouble.

10:48 And the fact is that most are not very good at doing it. And if you look at the landscape of what's available to coaches today, I mean, every other ad on Facebook is another lead gen fan. freaking ad. You walk down the street and 15 of them are going to drop out of a tree on your head. And I love that what you are passionate about is word of mouth marketing. First things first, why is that not antiquated? Well, it's hard, number one. You know what I found with it that I think people, especially right now, can't handle? It's an art.

11:30 It's not a science. There's some science to it, but it's an art. It's more knowing when to pivot, knowing how to relate to someone, having your emotional intelligence at the forefront versus your sales cap. And it takes thought. It takes energy. I mean, I spent the first 2 hours of this morning figuring out how to get in front of someone. It took me two hours. I mean, that's not like what you know, you can I call it the punt. You can punt all day and go right at somebody. But you're look, it works. Everything works and nothing works. But if you punt, your odds are zero, maybe point one percent. What is that? Three percent of the population is ready to buy. So 97% if I punt, 97% chance that they are going to just outright give me the Heisman.

12:12 And trust is an all-time low. So it takes more time. You're talking about ads. We are doing some... In connections, it's people you can connect on social media through podcasts, people you know, all those different areas. I was looking at ads, I'm like, that guy's full of shit and it was me. That's why. I mean... Because it's la-la land. Like who knows, right? But in word of mouth, it's coming from someone that already knows, likes, trusts, and pays you. So they're not going to tell someone else about you if it doesn't make sense. Now, be careful in like affiliates and things. I don't count that as word of mouth. That's motive. Like I'm getting paid to bring you to the table.

12:54 That's not the same thing. It's clients... Whenever your problem that you solve comes up in a conversation or a client is aware of it, they immediately think of you and tell that person to come talk to you. That's word of mouth. So you're creating psychic real estate in their mind, a picture of your face or the experience that they've had that like in an instant, they're like, oh, you got to go talk to Brooke. That's who handles that problem. And that's word of mouth. And It's not easy. It's not fast. It's not like stamping out something. So I don't tell people not to do the other things. You can do cold and those things. I think you should. And depending, especially where you are in the game, word of mouth span may be very small, but start there.

13:34 Get No Like and Trust down, deliver for a client, and you can start replicating them faster than you're going to get results really from cold outreach. I mean, cold outreach, the numbers don't lie. It's half of 1% or something. I was fortunate to build my first real consultative business on golfing, eating steaks, and drinking wine. I mean... You get good at those things. I mean, I might've done a little bit of that too. Maybe. So, I mean, but I think that's a lost art. I think that, you know, the technology we're interfacing on is a double-edged sword. It's awesome. You know, you don't have to fly me. I don't have to fly to you or whatever, but there is something to be said about being with someone and you can use it.

14:16 I, I call it a one-two punch. I mean, I do almost all my businesses zoom, but I do in-persons as well. And, I think it's something, especially when I look at our younger people, they don't have even... And I hate how everyone shits on them. Excuse my language. But everybody's like the younger people are lazy. Whatever it is. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that they have the confidence or the knowledge or the emotional intelligence to connect deeply with people in these regards. Now, they have their own circles they run in. They're great. They meet each other on different mediums and date and do all these things. But that's not where people with a lot of money do business. That's not how it works. That's done word of mouth. So ultimately, you want word of mouth. It's the most powerful and it's the lowest cost of acquisition.

14:57 And it's the most fun. I was just going to add to it, just part of my background where I cut my teeth was actually selling for a gentleman named Brian Buffini. So he's in the real estate sector, but very much referral-based marketing tactics was his bread and butter. And quite frankly, it was crazy to me, but they had at the time, they had the largest coaching company on earth. We had 350 coaches. Wow. And we taught one simple strategy, which was ask people for referrals. Wow. That was it. So I love the fact that you're teaching this because I think in our space, I don't know anyone that actually teaches this as a strategy or tactic. And the thing that's crazy, to your point, it is somewhat of a lost art in the sense that everybody's in the school right now of like, you got to go spend money on ads and you've got to go run a funnel, a funnel, a funnel, a funnel.

15:42 And the reality is the highest quality leads you're going to get with the lowest cancellation rate, with the highest potential for revenue. is going to be somebody who edified you and handed you off. So I love the fact that you're teaching this because I think it's such a powerful medium. And I think so many people in the coaching space, they do not have the muscle, nor have they built the muscle. And here's the reality too. Most of the business they probably have actually came from it, but they didn't do it intentionally. So I'd love for you to share more just about your process and just, yeah, what are your thoughts around why they should do it, but also how to do it? Well, I teach something called pillars. So it's pay. So someone who pays me ideally. So if I'm a coach and I'm doing one-on-one or group or whatever, whatever you want to call it, mastermind, I do all of them.

16:25 So I have to have an ideal, an avatar, an ideal client, someone that pays me ideally. That's step one. And if I have zero, if I'm coming out of the gate, I start in what I would consider connections. That could be social media, my phone, old people from the past, email, whatever it is, people who I think I know. And step one is you just announce what you're doing. I mean, I had to replace my salary coming out of work from Errol. I mean, just because I've made a decision to leave, the bills didn't stop coming. We still had to eat and everything. It was weird. But what you do in an announcement and the reaction that you get... So a starting point is, I just let people know what it is I'm doing and who it is I serve.

17:06 Quite frankly, that's pretty cold. But it's not stranger cold. It's not the coldest place in the universe. So I let people know in a bunch of different ways. I announced on LinkedIn. I did Facebook Messenger. I had 1400 people on my phone that I just text out, select like most of them, not all of them, especially the ones that told me I'd ruin my life. I didn't feel like I needed to text them. So there's only three reactions you can get from that type of outreach. And that is, that's great. So happy for you, Ryan. I always knew you'd be a coach. That's great. And I don't really care because I got a family and stuff to take care of. And I'm busy, but I'm going to be nice to you right now because you jumped into my world. That's one.

17:47 Two is I know someone that, Hey, not me, but I know Brooke needs that help. He's a mess. Like he can't run his business or his life. So why don't you talk to him? Yeah. I've talked to Brooke. I figured. Yeah. But that person... So Brooke may be like, I'm fine. What do you mean? So that's a little warmer, but not the warmest. But the fastest then is that's me. You just described me and my problems to me and how you solve those. I told this story the other day. My first client was my insurance agent because before I even left, I had to set up my LLC and get liability insurance. And he's like, I need all that. So I figured if I could articulate it, then it plants something. I've even had people come back that I thought didn't even pay any attention to what I was talking about.

18:27 Out of the blue will say, Hey, I need you to come help me or I need you... And so that's... I call it a boomerang. But that's step one. So you get... It's like a flywheel. I get that going. You have to make outreach. And by the way, as you get colder, you may have to network. And everybody hates that. Robo idea. But it done properly is fruitful. You know, I say networking is one letter away from not working because I've seen a lot of professional not workers. They drink in every chamber. They eat every breakfast. I mean, you know them. They're the salesiest person. But if you go in there and give and really commit yourself and find something you're passionate about in the community or in a charity or something and pay the price and you do it right, there's a whole strategy around it.

19:10 You will eventually garner clients. And I know a lot of coaches go that route or they go BNI, which I've never been in BNI. So I rarely talk about things I don't do. I don't pontificate on opinions. It's only stuff I've done. I have clients who go through BNI. And my only thing with BNI that I can say is it seems like the referrals that are traded are the ones that have no risk. Meaning I will give you my least important, least profitable. But then I start getting clients. And then I can start... Brooke, you talked about referrals. I say introductions because if I ask you, give me 3 people you know, you have to start working. And none of us want to work, regardless of what anyone tells you. I don't want my brain to work. But if I said, Hey, Brooke, you mentioned Ryan a bunch of times, your business partner.

19:53 I really like to meet him. What's the best way? Text or Zoom? Coffee or lunch? I mean, some format like that. And if they're apprehensive, you can say, Look, I'm not going to talk business. I just want to get to know them. I'm in the people business. I mean, there's lots of ways to take someone's defenses down. If you're authentic, I mean, like if you truly help people and I've yet to meet someone who's in coaching that doesn't want to help people. I've met plenty of marketers that could give two shits if you get results or not. So true. Those are two different humans and you know who they are. But then I get clients. And then if I, when I really want to pour gas on the fire and get, I call it the flywheel. If I can take my pillars, the people that pay me, introduce to me, like me, listen to me and give me unsolicited referrals and notice there's no A there because I don't let assholes into my world.

20:36 I don't want assholes in my inner circle. So I have no A's and you shouldn't either, especially if you're a coach. If you want to dread your week, coach two or three assholes and then tell me how that goes. So true. Yeah. Amen to that one. Yeah. So then I want influencers like you guys are influencers because the people that we have clients in common is exponential. It's not one to one. And you have skin in the game. If I embarrass you on this podcast, you're not going to put it out there because it hurts your reputation and your business. So influencers are awesome because they have skin in the game. They also have the word influence. Yeah. So when someone referred, like if an influencer says, go talk to Brooke or Ryan or Joe, I don't shop them.

21:18 I'm like, here, I have this problem. And I was told you can solve it. And they already know, like trust you and pay you. So I'm not going to question it. And by the way, everybody's got skin in the game now. And they better get what you talked about. There's so much magic in what you just shared. And anyone who's listening, go back and hit replay and then listen to it 10 times. But there's something that jumped out because one of my close personal friends, he's actually one of the biggest names in the game of selling from stage. And what's so fascinating, that's his skill set. He was the top salesperson actually worked for me for Tony Robbins. And now he teaches it. He's legit. He is ridiculously good on stage. But here's the craziest part. As good as he is on stage, he's only getting on stages that's... Because he does what you just mentioned.

21:59 He networks more than anybody else that I know. And he knows more people than anybody else I know. And all he does is he goes and he just works the room and he just networks like crazy. And then guess what? He gets put on stage and then he's really good at being on stage. So there's this magic. And I think that in the coaching space, it really truly is an art. Yeah. Right. And it has to be something. It's funny. I was mapping out my outcomes this morning in terms of part of our marketing strategy. And it was interesting because the first thing I put down was my SOI. So my sphere of influence. And it was like my discipline, my muscle that I do is I reach out to five people every day. Hey, how are you doing? What's going on? It's just literally managing that one muscle because it's the quickest muscle to atrophy in the game of business.

22:41 We get used to all the other things that bring us leads, but they'll never be as good as those leads. So I love what you're hitting on, man. There's so much gold that's here. I love the three things that people could possibly say. Would you actually hit those one more time? Because there was, hey, that's me. I need it. There was the... Well, there's the nicey-nice, which is... I mean, everyone... almost all of the reactions you're going to get are what I call nicey-nice, which I guess isn't bad. It's just like, hey, that's great. I'm so happy for you. Most of us are wrapped up in our own thing. I don't have time to worry about what you're doing, Brooke. I literally got a text before this podcast that the drive train on the vehicle my wife was driving said, pull over. Then jumped on this. I got my own stuff going on. I don't want to... She can wait.

23:25 I told her. I said, I got something to want. I'll check you out too. But... I mean, most of us are decent enough on the surface to say, that's awesome, man. So happy for you. I know I got a lot of that. That was the most common thing. There's magic in that though. Because even if they're doing the nicey, nice piece, you've also planted a seed in their brain that you're there and that you've got it, right? Well, I call them boomerangs and that happened to me. Yeah. I love that. I threw that one out and nothing came back. And then all of a sudden, my cell phone rings and it's like, hey, Joe, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, what the Who is this? You know, like, by the way, so there's not a bad one. There's no bad reaction. And then you get the one where it's like, if you describe someone, I help someone with their time, their money, their team, their real estate.

24:10 I don't care what it is. You describe with clarity who you're serving. You conjure up a picture in your head of a person that may need that if that person exists in your life. And you may have to then make a decision. Do I say this to them or do I sit on this? So they may not say anything. They may be like, oh, they may still nice and nice to you, but they have that person. They may see if you make it, by the way. But anyway, so they may say, hey, that's great. Go talk to Ryan. Ryan needs that. Ryan cannot manage time. And you as his business partner, I would assume, can attest. There's a time issue there. But you know intuitively that person. Or if you do a really good job when you're talking to someone and you know them a little bit, you just describe back to them and their problem and how you solve it.

24:51 And it should click in their mind like, that's me. That's how I got my first 10 clients. They were like, that's me. My second client, I was at 53rd Street in Davenport, drove over from Iowa City, Iowa. Dude, I hadn't seen in 20 years. I said, I'm gonna be in Iowa. I'm getting ready to meet a big potential client. So I big-timed him, which was maybe a mistake. But... Met for coffee and I told him what I was doing. And he's like, dude, I'm all in. He was my second client. So what I learned was, you just have to get good at talking about... I think it's more not what you're doing, who you serve. That's important. Who is the person that I'm trying... And that... By the way, that changes all the time. As you grow, they grow. The problems get bigger or different.

25:32 What that does for you, you can make lots of announcements. We have a new platform and a whole new thing we're doing around word of mouth. It's a different avatar than who I started with. So I get to go through this whole thing again, which is awesome because then it's like, oh, okay, that's something totally different. And I'm getting the reaction that you guys have and everyone has. No one's talking about word of mouth because it's freaking hard. Yep. It's not complicated though. You know what I love about what you just said, Joe? I mean, you just summed up business in general. It's hard, but it's not that it's complicated. It's not complicated. Same thing. No. So let me ask, what are two or three of the biggest mistakes that you see people making when they're trying to do word of mouth and they're just not doing it effectively?

26:16 So they lose their patience and go for the sale before the person gives them an impact point to do it as one. So I teach what's called Law of Inverting Sales. And that means the less I try to sell to you, the more you want it. So my job in the beginning, and this could be for a long time. My job is to get to know you and what's really important to you. And if you have a concern, a fear, a problem, whatever it is, and you articulate that to me, then I pivot on a dime and say, you know what? This probably isn't the place because we're a chamber or wherever you are at. But I can help you with that. Would you like to grab coffee on Tuesday at 10? Imagine that. Once you've given me permission. Would you like help? Correct. But the mistake is, hey, I can help you with this.

26:59 I'm not sure if it's your problem, but I can help you with this one. So it'd be like walking into your doctor and being like, cholesterol medicine, because I've seen you eat. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you haven't looked at my blood. You don't know. So that's one of the biggest ones is when you're trying to prescribe and you put... What you've essentially done is in any given instance, whether it's digitally or in person or whatever it is, you put the sales cap on. And the second you do that, defense goes up because no one likes to be sold. And if you're providing service like coaching, you can't sell it anyway. I've sold for coaching. I have. And do you know what happened? What do you think happened like 2 weeks in? They didn't want it.

27:39 I sold it. I convinced them. And that was early in the game where I'm like, you know, needing to feed the family. I got them in an emotional state to the point... You may have heard this on the internet. There's a closing. There's like closing. But if you do word of mouth, right, you don't have to worry about closing. You don't. You're the product. It should speak for itself. If you do great marketing, which is word of mouth. And if you find yourself in a big closing conversation, you've effed up. You've sold back. You have sold back the win you already had. And I'm not saying you don't have to be able to answer questions or articulate what it is you do. But if you're in some sort of closing argument, you're out. How many have you seen one? I mean, I haven't. So the mistake is going for the sale too early, being salesy, being cheesy, being pushy.

28:23 That doesn't mean... Professionals are persistent. You can be professional and you're not pushing someone. If you put a little pressure on them, when you know, be like your doctor, if your doctor knew you were going to die because your habits were ridiculous and they didn't say anything, that's malpractice. So you have to give a little bit of a nudge and the best way to do that's your questions. without being a leading attorney. Try not to be a litigator, but ask real questions. I was taught early in coaching, go to beyond comfort, which I hated because I want... Oh my God. I need gratification like everyone. Same thing. Yeah. So that's the biggest one that I've seen is they just... They do that. And then the second one is, you don't believe it.

29:04 Yeah. How many people have you met that don't even believe what they're telling... I mean, you can smell it on them through the screen, which is physically impossible. Yeah. But they don't believe it. People by belief. I've rarely doubted that I could help someone. Like deep in my heart, doubted like, man, I'm going to sell this anyway, but I can't help this person. I don't know that I've ever had that thought. And then, you know, the nice thing about our profession is that you're a real person. Like if you're trying to deceive someone, that's not that you've got a family. Like I'm assuming you guys have people to take care of. You can't be the thing that gives us a bad name. That's what I that's how I say. Like, I've rarely been questioned because I don't like really.

29:45 I have freaking five kids. I got to go to I got a daughter of cerebral palsy. My wife has cancer. Like, you think I'm trying to pull the wool over your eyes? Like, that's where I think the more authentic you can be and be real about helping people. And I don't even like people. They mostly annoy me. But I do want to help them. And the mistake I see is that they're unsure. I mean, it's like, I have an advantage. I grew up in financial services. So it was kind of like point A, point B gap, same thing in retirement. Same thing coaching. I mean, so the paradigm was similar. So I have a lot of confidence there. But I've seen that where they're too pushy and they don't believe it. So you combine those. I'm pushing something on you. I don't believe you're done. Yeah. And, and I don't mean to go off on a tangent here.

30:27 However, the longer it goes without success, the more desperate you become. I've seen that. That's right. And that's hard. I mean, you can't, I mean, quite frankly, you can't fault someone. What I would like to see in our industry is probably some more realistic like... And I'm not into rationalization or doing... I try to get people to do stuff I never thought they could do. But there are just some people that no matter what, aren't going to be good at this. And I think there's a lot of people out there telling them and selling them. Yes, anybody can do this. I don't think so. No, you're 100% correct about that. We see it every day. There are a lot of people who just don't belong in this game. And it's okay, by the way. There's nothing wrong with that. They're probably better corporate employees than I was.

31:09 Yes, exactly. I mean, they're better. So they're wheelhouse... I talk about wheelhouse or gusher. If your wheelhouse is there, that's probably where you should expand. That's how I see it. Because I've seen too many jump off the deep end and it just... You said in the beginning, Ryan, it is the marketing of yourself. that will make or break this. Coaching's a skill. Yeah. And some people are innate with it and some people can develop it. However, you have to be able to market or you'll die. You'll starve to death. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's the truth. That's so true. I want to pause for just a second and highlight a couple of really important points because Joe, first of all, I love so much of what you just said over the last three to four minutes. It's so much in alignment with what Brooke and I teach on sales.

31:50 And here's a couple of things for somebody listening right now. Three guys who have done a shit ton of sales over 20 plus years and a whole lot of money. Number one, be authentic. Number two, ask more questions. Number three, come with certainty all the time. And number four, nudging when you know it's in their best interest and when you have the right intentions... is not being salesy and pushy. Really important. That's so good, man. I want to make sure that with the time that we've got left, tell us a little bit about what you're doing with how you're teaching word of mouth, marketing, and all of that stuff.

32:32 Tell us a little bit about what that program looks like, how you're doing it. And then I want to make sure that we get people in tune with how to get it. Because I love that you're doing this. I think it's really important. It's a space that is underserved in marketing in general right now. And the truth is that people need something that can be foundational to their business more than anything. And I truly believe that word of mouth marketing can be that. So tell us a little bit more about the program, how you do it and what it's all about. Sure. So in the last year and a half, I started doing masterminds. So I host in person. Our next one is in June. We're going to St. Louis to watch the Cardinals stink against the Rockies from the Hilton ballpark.

33:14 for 3 nights. But during the day, we'll be working. So I realized when I was doing a lot of one-on-one, I was having the same conversation over and over and over. I mean, if you're coaches, you're out there, you're probably having a conversation on Monday that on Friday, that person on Friday should have heard what you said. So I started a mastermind. I took a handful of my one-on-ones, small handful. I brought that business down. I went blind and launched a mastermind, grew it through word of mouth. We crossed 7 figures last Labor Day. So Labor Day at 23. And it's grown completely by word of mouth. It's awesome. We do it on a platform called School. So there's a community, there's a classroom. We do bi-weekly calls with the group. And then we meet 3 times a year in person.

33:56 And that's been awesome. I love it. It's called the Inner Circle. And one thing I found when I was working with my mastermind members, they're salespeople who are good. Like they had, you know, they're the owner. So they're running the business and the businesses range anywhere from, you know, 2 million to 20, 25 million, somewhere in that range. So they're boutique-esque. They're not corporations. They're entrepreneurs. They own a business. They're wearing a lot of hats. It's about maximizing your income, multiplying your wealth. And then really we're family oriented. So it's like building an indestructible family. And what I found with a lot of them is they had salespeople that were really good and good people. They just were clueless. And the owner didn't have any time, quite frankly, to be focusing on development of that, teaching them how to do it.

34:39 And by the way, they were learning this. They were learning pillars. If you quiz my people, they can recite all of our acronyms and everything. It's a culture around pillars. So I took a handful of their people and put them in their own school. And I spent 9 months working with them, figuring out where their gaps were, and where they were weak, where they were strong, what was missing. And these are all different industries, by the way. Insurance, financial services, jewelry, recruiting, coaching, all different industries. And what I found was this group has a lot of synergy and they took to it very quick. We identified a lot of the invaluables. I kind of went back to the 101 of how do you become a great marketer and work on the product, which is you.

35:23 Sales is kind of last. It's not like what you see online where we're doing sales scripts. Because like I said, I don't... Right. I mean, I can do that. But there's a lot of people out there that do that. And we built this platform out and we've grown that organically through word of mouth. And now we're going to take it to a point, we are going to do some YouTube ads, but we operate it similar to what I do in my inner circle. We just don't do the in-person. So they're doing it in a group format. They have the same community. I have the call, right? The call's at 3 o'clock today. So I know you guys want me to stay on for a long time, but at some point I have to go. But it's really cool. It's something we know we can cohort and scale and help a lot of people. That's when I had the realization, this is lost.

36:03 Because these were 25 to probably 40-year-olds in that group. I think I have one 50-year-old in there. And he's a restarter in coaching. In his first 3 months, he's gotten 4 new one-on-one clients. So he's like lightning. He picked it right back up. I told him, if you can do this well for a long time, I'll hire you and you can run one of these for me. And he's a great dude. That's killing. That's awesome. So what I found was that gap was in my face. And now we want to build that and deliver it at a bigger scale. Word of mouth is still my number one. I'd wake up and do my pillars every day. We just want to reach a broader audience. Yeah. And I think we can do it. You're evolving in marketing.

36:44 Yeah. And it's forced me to do... I'm out of my comfort zone. I was joking about YouTube ads. I mean, I'm great on this podcast for anyone who watches it. It's very natural. I'm hilarious. You all think this. You see my YouTube ads and it's like some robot that's lost. They got dumped in a... They're terrible. I want to learn how to... It's kind of like a 2.0 for me. I want to learn how to not lose the integrity of the connection and what we do and do that well. And that's a whole different ballgame. But for now, we really want to find... I call them professionals. So we're looking for a professional. A professional is someone that actually has a skill like coaching and financial services, real estate, mortgage, whatever it is.

37:26 They have a skill. However, to build and run their business, they have to market and sell. That's who we target. There's a lot of kids out there or people out there that sell things. They can sell anything to anyone and they use scripts and high pressure and all those things. And that's probably good for you for your skill set and for your courage. It's just not... You're not a professional. You're a sales professional. You're not a professional in sales. Yeah. So it's called sales assassins because it's becoming deadly at sales. Meaning like if I'm that person I just described, I'm coming right at you. I'm a sales warrior. I'm going to get in your face and try to take you out. An assassin is someone that's unseen. Silent baby. They're deadly because it's not direct. And it's more about learning about people growing the relationship.

38:08 And that's the art I think that's gone is you don't have to take on the world and run right at them. Put yourself in a situation where you can get people to know, like, and trust you. Then pivot to business. That's really good. Yeah. So that's what we're doing now. And we're finding and we've just asked for the first round of testimonials. They blew me away. I mean, like you don't always know what people are thinking. They're smiling at you, nodding their heads and like things are going and you don't know. They're phenomenal. But more importantly, the results are unbelievable. We collect wins every Wednesday. Winds are for Wednesdays because it's momentum sport of it. And people are crushing it with their families. They're making more money. They're having way more fun. They're connected in the group. I mean, it's just something I'm really excited about and I'm proud of.

38:49 And it's not douchey. Sorry, I don't know if that's an appropriate word. No, that's a perfect little drop. I'm excited about it. That's the thing I love about it. That's awesome, man. Dude, this is so cool. Joe, first of all, I want to honor you for doing it. I think it's really, as I said, I think it's an underserved skill set. We're so in alignment in terms of the way that you view sales, marketing, business. I love what you're doing. I know there are a lot of people that you've helped so far and a lot more people that you're going to help. Really quickly, before we get time crunched here, can you please throw out the URL where people can find this so that they can go check out your stuff, brother? The fastest and easiest way is realjoeblackburn.com.

39:31 It's got a link right on the top. Click here. We'll have a conversation. And again, I teach law of inadvertent sales. So you're not going to get put on a call with a closer or setter or whatever the hell's going on on the internet these days. We're going to have a conversation. If what I do is something you're looking for, we'll decide if we move forward. If not, that's cool. Sounds awesome. Well, bro, first of all, I'm glad we got a chance to do this. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you a bit better. And again, love what you're doing. I want to honor you as well. You're clearly a man of great integrity and authenticity, exactly the type of human being that we want to know and do business with and help promote and co-conspire with. So we're greatly appreciative of your time and for all the wisdom and knowledge that you dropped for everybody today.

40:12 Yeah. Yeah, if you want to check out Joe's stuff, and you should, please go to realjoeblackburn.com and have a conversation with the man. He's a good dude and clearly very, very successful and very smart. Somebody you could learn a lot from. So Joe, thank you, Brooke. As always, my man, this was awesome. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation Podcast, and we'll see you on the flip side. 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.

40:54 To learn more about Empire Partners or to inquire about working with Ryan and Brooke, please visit www.empirepartners.io forward slash go.