Our Event Strategy Shift: Steal These 4 Secrets Now

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, you know, Brooke and I had the opportunity to sit down now that we're back home from the craziness of our most recent event in Central Florida. It was absolutely incredible. But we had an opportunity to sit down and just chat a little bit about some of our biggest distinctions, some of our biggest learnings from the event. We wanted to deliver that to you so that you can implement these strategies for yourself in your own events or at bare minimum, give you something to think about as you're potentially building events or thinking about doing an event. We wanted to share those learnings with you. And in addition to that, in this episode, we actually take you behind the curtain and give you a couple of the top strategies and pieces of content that we delivered in our workshop style event.

1:34 This is episode 45 of the Coaching Equation Podcast. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners, alongside my co-founder and co-host, Brooke Bishop. Hey, buddy. What's going on? Hi. Well, here we are back in a beautiful springtime here in Colorado on the heels of our amazing, amazing event in Central Florida at the Reunion Resort just south of Orlando. You know, there were so many different learnings from this event. And what we kind of wanted to do in this episode was to take some time and just discuss, like, the things that we pulled away from the actual doing.

2:19 And a few of the pieces that were big takeaways for, you know, the clients that we had that were there that we know – you listening to this right now are going to benefit from as well. So even though, you know, you may not have been in the room, it's our little opportunity to, you know, bring you back to that magical event. I'm bringing the room to you. Yeah. Indeed, indeed. So, man, I let's kind of start. I'd love to start this by just talking a little bit about something that we've shifted to doing in the last two events. Now, you and I together collectively have done a lot of events and.

3:03 Yeah. We've done them a whole lot of different ways, whether they were virtual, whether they were in person, whether, you know, it was just an event for clients, whether it was an event where we brought people who are non-clients and we sold something and everywhere in between. And one of the things that we wanted to share with you is... How we made a shift that has really been very, very well received by the people that are in our ecosystem, both those that are current clients and both those that are clients. that are not currently clients or that are guests of somebody or, you know, that are coming to something for the very first time.

3:47 And that shift initially, I mean, for all intents and purposes, basically what we've done is we've said, look, we're going to allow people from, first of all, as, as members of our mastermind, um, we have various levels of our mastermind and the higher levels of our mastermind do not pay when they come to events. Um, some of the lower levels do. Um, and then we started to allow guests to come to the events. And, uh, while there isn't necessarily something to quote unquote pitch every single time that we've got an event, what we've done is, is, uh, not really pitch. It's been more so to, you know, get everybody together and to allow those people that are not currently a part of our program to come and actually experience what we have.

4:38 Um, and, and, and to get comfortable with who we are and what we're doing and actually just dig in and do the work and feel comfortable that they're not going to get, you know, hit over the head every 15 minutes with a sales pitch. Um, And, wow, have we gotten a lot of incredible feedback and comments from that. Number one, there have been a lot of people that have decided to join the various ranks of our programs that are not currently in our programs. We've had a lot of people internally that are inspired and decide they want to upgrade their level of membership. inside of the mastermind or work with us in a different capacity.

5:19 And I think the comment, I don't know about you and I want to hear your, your take on this, but I think the comment that I, that I have received more than anything else in our past two events is like, I mean, I know you guys told us what was available. But I kept waiting for this big pitch to happen and it never came. And it felt so good and I felt comfortable and I felt like I got so much value. I felt compelled at the end of it to want to be a part of something like that. So that's some of the feedback that I've gotten from that. And I want to hear your take on this and also any thoughts, feedback that you've received from people since we did it.

6:00 Yeah, I think there was two things that really stood out with it. And the first is we really hyper focused on connection over conversion. And there was this dynamic distinction. How do we create? Yeah. How do we create magic moments of connection, not just between us and our clients, but between our clients and each other? between our own coaches and our internal staff and the people that were there between, you know, even at the hotel in terms of being really mindful of like, how do we structure this event? So that connection moments were always happening, whether that was the mixer in the beginning, whether that was doing certain, you know, stretches that we had in the middle of the event.

6:41 I'm just looking for really way more ways to create connection. Versus having this crescendo moment in time of trying to convert. I think what people forget, especially in the wake of, of, you know, the pandemic world where everyone got isolated. We're now in a space where people are craving connection more than I think anything else. And live events are very much back in full swing. And so if you can create that bubble of connection, well, guess what people, their brain naturally goes into. Well, shit, I don't want to lose this. These are like lifelong connections. These are incredible connections. Like, I don't want this event to end. And I think that's a huge piece of what we also heard was like, my God, I wish this was two or three more days.

7:25 I don't want it to end. Right. And that's the magic that creates people who go, how do I stay? Right. So the second thing that I think was huge, you you made a very bold claim that I've never seen or heard anybody do at any event at any other point in time. So somebody asked about the memberships and what they you know, how they could participate. And you prefaced it with if you cannot afford this for at least six to 12 months, do not join. And it was like literally you could have heard a pin drop in the room where it was like, wait, what? Did he just basically tell us not to sign up if we can't afford it? Which is literally it's like the anti-sale.

8:05 It's the opposite of what everybody else in the space who says, go leverage your house, go mortgage your rental properties, go cash in your 401k, whatever it takes to get in. Go bleed out so you can join our program. You spoke from your heart and you spoke truth and authenticity. And I think that literally – and I shouldn't even say I think. I know because we had people who stood up and literally applauded you on it. You were so real in that moment. There was no way for people to go, oh, these guys have ulterior motives. And I think that was another huge piece of that puzzle. You know, I think what's really funny about that is that I – I think I'm so, I am legitimately so sick and tired of hearing about situations where, you know, people have almost nothing, uh, right now.

8:56 And by the way, if you're in business and you haven't gotten there yet, just wait. Like you probably will. Some point or another, hopefully it's not down to quite that. But I mean, it's like you're really pinching pennies. You know, if you've been an entrepreneur for any stretch of time, you've experienced that at some level. And I'm all about doubling down. But, you know, one of the things that we're very clear about around here is that we're... We don't have there is no easy button. We don't have a quick fix solution. It's not like, oh, just give me your money. And 30 days from now, everything's going to be cool. Like, no, it might take six months. You know, we set this up as a 12 month inside of our mastermind.

9:36 All of our programs are 12 months for a reason. Because business is the long game. And I think that honestly, in that moment, I was just so, so sick and tired of hearing stories about people who doubled down on something when they had nothing and got taken to the cleaners for it. And I think that, you know, the interesting part about that is that you talk about connection. And I think that. There is a level, you know, in sales, we talk about this a lot and at events, you know, do we sell things? Yeah, sometimes we do. And by the way, this one in particular, we happen to sell something that we absolutely had. We literally had never told anybody about it. So we had to sell something.

10:18 And yeah, we'll unveil that in due time. But yeah. I think the thing is that it boils down to integrity and also going back to the point of connection. I think it's it's literally just it's it's relying on being able to have good human conversation with someone. And, you know, in order to. put you and them in a situation where you figure out whether you want to do business or not. And, and that's, if you do it right, something that feels really good on, on both ends. Let me ask you something when you're thinking about, when you're thinking about creating connection at events, I mean, we talk about connection versus transaction.

11:01 I mean, outside of just like gross vomit pitching constantly, which we get, um, What do you think people – like what do people do wrong there that we can help them shift? Yeah. Is it just not being intentional about it? But we could probably do a whole episode on that. We could. So I think 100% intentionality is huge. I think what happens oftentimes, people see their events as their vehicle to sell before they see their events as a vehicle to add value. And so because of that, that rearranging of outcome – They go into the event with everything reverse engineering off of sell, sell, sell, sell.

11:45 So they walk out, they anchor immediately. They're doing the NLP tricks. They're doing the hypnosis tricks. Everything's set up from a sales outcome versus I'm going to transform this person's life outcome. And we, with the way we've structured our events, we built them first as a delivery mechanism for adding value for our members. Yes. Yeah. Right. I think that's important to know. And when we opened it up, because we had so many of our members that were saying like, hey, I want to bring somebody who's not a member. Is that an option? And we didn't really think about it that way in the beginning. And then as we got the request, it was kind of like, you know what? I think we could actually do that. But we didn't want it to be this dynamic for our members where they're like, I'm already a paying member.

12:27 Why am I getting pitched the whole time? It forced us to relook at things in a different lens and a different structure. So, yeah, I think. And here's the other piece. I think everybody's sick of having the same damn pitch. And, you know, who's the author? One to many. Right. As Jason Flatland, I think. Yes, yes, that's right. So I think there's so and again, his content is fantastic. So if you're running events, definitely check it out. But I think so many have just run a rinse and repeat model of the same deal that it's not authentic anymore. So I think I think you've got kind of these dynamics of sales being the primary focus, which is value add.

13:12 I think you have people that are just running what they think they're supposed to do to try and hit numbers. And then you also have, you know, the Russell Brunson model where everyone's ready for to see the same exact webinar pitch of things in the same stack and running running gun model. People just now kind of go up. Here it comes. And they they turn off and you'll literally see people walk out of the room because they know exactly what's about to happen. They know what's coming. Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that I will say, and I think there are lots of different ways to do events. I do want to be clear about that. I don't think that this is the one way, the only way, anything like that. And by the way, we're talking about live in-person events.

13:54 I'm not talking about virtual. I'm not talking about doing a one-day challenge or anything like that. Lots of wonderful marketing strategies where you do this a completely different way. But... one of the things that I will tell you that I, that I've found to your point to be very, very valuable is the value of saying, you know, I remember, I remember being on a private training with Andy Frisella who, if you don't know who he is, he's got a, you know, like super famous podcast, MF CEO. And then he's got, he's the co-founder and CEO of first form and, you know, I remember Andy sharing his, his customer model in a private training.

14:37 And one of the things that he talked about was sampling the product. And they do this, by the way, I am a customer of first form. And every once in a while, like they send me a protein bar or a shirt or something else, you know, and son of a bitch, if I didn't put on, you know, one of their t-shirts once and go, God damn it. This is the most comfortable thing. Now I feel like I got to go. Now I'm shopping on the website and I'm, you know. But point being, the way that we've shifted is basically to say initially we said members only. And then we started to get to a point where I was like, listen, you know what? We're going to do this new thing where we're just going to say one and done basically.

15:20 Yeah. And one and done, meaning that we want you to come. Come experience this for yourself. You see. You see the other people in the room. You get in here, do the work. And by the way, that's another thing that we do at our events. It's not just let us spit content at you the entire time. Our live events are specifically – designed to be workshops because we have our clients there and we use them to get work done. Again, it's not to say that that's what you should do or shouldn't do with your event, blah, blah, blah. But one of the things that we found to be very valuable is that, you know, more often than not, when we get introduced to somebody, we usually have a good sense for whether or not they're going to love being a part of what we do.

16:04 Um, every once in a while we're wrong. Um, but more often than not, it works out. People come in, they sample the product, they get the protein bar, they put the shirt on, you know? Um, and by the way, you might, you might get a protein bar at RFA. In fact, you probably will. Um, but they would have gotten a Gator. Several of the last one. Indeed. Yeah. That were pretty freaking awesome. Gator jerky, not a joke. So, well, I think needless to say to land the plane on this man is, you know, it is connection over transaction and really allowing the connection and the conversation and the energy in the room to fuel somebody, to fuel the conversations that eventually could happen.

16:50 uh, end up in a sale and starting from that place where you're intentional about the value add. I love that. Great pieces on that, dude. Um, yeah, I want you to kind of touch on this because one of the other things that we, uh, that we actually unveiled, so you get a little peek behind the curtain here. One of the things that we unveiled at this event, uh, was our funnel XP calculator. So talk a little bit about that and what that's all about. And, and we can kind of geek out on numbers for just a second here. Yeah. So for anybody who doesn't know what our events like the core ethos around our events. So we have our in-person events every single quarter. We do that intentionally.

17:31 Right. Because for us in the coaching game for us in the influence consulting game. We come together every single quarter and we plant door quarterly planning. So it's our opportunity. It's our weekend escape to go carve out that time and workshop and get really, really clear about great this next quarter. Where am I going? What am I doing? What's mission critical? And a huge piece of that is knowing your metrics, knowing your revenue target. And so there was a process that I learned back in this was 2010. So it's the first year that Tony Robbins did a business mastery event. And so on way back in time, he brought this gentleman in. I can't remember the guy's name, but he he spoke about this concept of compounding as it related to the business.

18:18 He delivered it in a way that was very, very confusing. About half, I think it's actually more than that. It's probably about 75 percent of the room literally walked out of the event. I was going to say, like, ways to kill your event. Talk about compounding. compounding mask. He put up a huge spreadsheet. Like it just got real confusing real quick. And literally Tony, I was actually backstage when it happened and Tony went like marching. He was freaking out cause he saw everybody walking out of the room. So he went out and started yelling at everybody. Anyways, it was, it was an experience. Yeah. But the concept that this guy taught was so freaking powerful. And what he basically broke it down to was knowing those KPIs, those core metrics in your business, if you track them and if you give attention to them, when they combine, they multiply.

19:05 And there's this compounding effect that happens as it relates to your revenue. And so what we put together is this really cool tool called Funnel XP to really understand those core components of your business funnel. And you gain experience and or you get the multiplied effect in your gamification of your business. And so, yes, we unveiled that. It was really cool. It was I mean, you tell me, too. I mean, there was so many light bulbs going off of like, wait, these are the only things that I focus on my business. And it grows. I mean, what were some of the percentages you saw if people tweaked like four or five areas of their business? Well, yeah, I mean, you you saw 30 percent growth, 50 percent growth.

19:49 I mean, one of the things that and to that point where you just said something I want to hit on is very important, is that. And really the magic and the beauty of this calculator and seeing it for the first time and understanding it when it's not some kind of crazy complex format. And this is not, by the way, it's very easy to understand. Is most of the time when we talk to people, what is the most common response when we talk to people and go, what do you think it would take to double your business? Well, there's two things usually come up. One is I can't spend that much money on ads. I don't have enough leads. And then the other one is usually it falls into I don't have enough time to do that.

20:31 Yep. Was there another one you're thinking of? Is there another one missing? Well, no, no. You hit on both of them. But the crazy thing is that typically the view of this – and by the way, like I think you and I could be – could have been put in this category before we started to understand it. The view of it is that some huge thing has to happen. You use the words like double my business and it's like, oh my God, you know. And what's so beautiful about this where I really loved looking around the room and seeing the ahas was when people were tweaking something by like – 4%, 5% over here, you know, just a couple more leads over there, you know, oh, my conversion rate gets a little better over here.

21:23 When you, when you can turn the dial up just a little bit on multiple components. Um, it creates this compounding effect and it's insane. I mean, people, honestly, what was so cool about it, man. Um, and you were in the front of the room, I'm sure you saw some of this, but you know, walking around the room, what I loved about it more than anything else was the way that people got excited. Um, Around realizing that it's it's not that this is I don't think either of us would want to paint the picture that this is, quote unquote, easy, but it people think it's way more complicated than it actually is. And it's just not that complicated. No, they think they got to do 500 things when in reality there's five areas of this thing that you've got to give attention to if you're even focusing on all five.

22:10 And then it just allows our brain to go, oh, I can do that. I think that's one of the biggest pieces is when people go, I can 300% grow my business if I just focus on these core areas. Like, holy crap, I can do that. And then we had somebody in there. It also, by the way, another interesting piece. It did shine a big bright light if people didn't know certain metrics. Yeah. We had somebody in the room, family business that has been around for over 100, I think she said 121 years. And one of the metrics, how many leads are you averaging generating per month? She's like, we've never tracked that. Right. So here's been a business for 121 years.

22:51 And it was interesting because at first, I think for her, she was just like, oh, my, like she had this like judgment, self-judgment moment. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, wow, if you just got that on lockdown, how much does that change the game for you guys? And then here's the other cool piece. It gave a lot of grace to everybody else in the room because like, well, shit, if she's been doing it for 121 years. I've been in business for three or four years and I haven't been tracked. Like it just, it just opened up a lot of that, uh, camaraderie within the room. And yeah, it was just, it was cool seeing the light bulbs turn on for sure. I agree. And I think the other part that was really powerful was kind of putting it together. You know, our, uh, our, our chief business strategist, Mike Farrell did a fantastic presentation on strategic thinking as opposed to tactical thinking and, uh, and planning.

23:38 And it's, it's a major, major, major distinction. But to then for what was really cool is like the light bulbs went off in terms of possibility, but then for people to be able to take what they got from that and go into, you know, the workshopping component of understanding how to think strategically and now going, okay, from a strategy standpoint, um, Like I know what I know what's possible now if I turn this dial from a strategy standpoint, how can I think this through so that I can do it in a way that's really going to fit my overall vision for my business, for why I'm in my business is my calls at the higher purpose vision.

24:19 And how can I lock in the strategies this quarter that are going to get me to the point where I can actually see those dials move in the way that I want them to? That's that's very exciting. Coupled with that, and this is part of the brilliance of what you've brought into the game of this thing. So what I would say is probably one of the most biggest challenges that we see business owners face is the ability to make decisions. Yeah. And you've put together such an incredible way for these guys to come up with all their ideas and to be able to isolate, figure out how to make those decisions. And it's not just like a one and done. Yes, big decisions can be made at the event, but you actually are giving them a tool so they can be better decision makers when they when they walk out of there.

25:04 And so just the dynamics of what you've built in that is just freaking amazing. Yes, it's a spreadsheet to some extent. And yes, that can make people freak when they go spreadsheet. run but no but it just it just makes it so easy like the thing i loved is every single person that walked out of there raised their hand going i know what my outcome is for the quarter i know how to get there i have the strategies and i have the tactics but it literally came down to plugging those pieces into your your formula Yep. Well, and I think one of the things to point about that is that more what became really beautiful was it was the dot connecting.

25:46 First, it was the light bulb of, whoa, if I just turn the dial a little bit in this area of my business, this is what could be possible. Then connecting that light bulb to, OK, what are the strategies that I could use to actually connect? tweak the dial that, you know, turn the dial that much. What would get me those outcomes? Oh, okay, cool. You know, then what are the actual tactics that fall underneath those strategies? And the problem is where most people are going wrong is they're missing the entire front side of that equation. Like there is no light bulb moment on what area of my business I'm going to turn the dial, how much I need to turn it and what the outcome could be if I did it.

26:26 there is no strategic thinking. They just skipped right to the tactic. And that is true. I mean, it's certainly true in it's rampant in the coaching industry and it's true in business in general. I mean, I think that it's, it's pretty true of entrepreneurs and business owners that we have a tendency to kind of chase tactics and get that shiny object syndrome. And that is not a suitable alternative to actual real business planning where, uh, you know, you understand the outcome that you're after and then you develop the strategies and then come, you know, the tactics after that. So, uh, yeah, and I totally agree, man. And look, yeah, people take, take a, take a fucking Benadryl and do your spreadsheet.

27:09 Okay. It's okay. It's all right. I mean, you'll avoid the highs. Just hit a coach. Yeah. One better guy. Yeah. Uh, all right. So this is another one where we, you know, we, we have talked a lot about, you know, I remember you and I having a conversation at the very beginning of deciding to even do, uh, you know, have a mastermind side to our business because some, you know, you might be listening to this right now and you don't know that we ever, you know, started without that. We started purely as a consulting firm initially. And, uh, One of the things I remember talking about when we first started this was really wanting to try to create an environment that was sticky.

27:54 And that didn't come from a place, again, back to intention. It wasn't coming from a place of like, oh, how do we just get people to stay just so that we can have the MRR? It was more so we started this company at the beginning because we saw business as a long term game and we knew people needed help with the actual business. And, you know, when we think about making an environment sticky, if our internal environment isn't sticky, we're going to be a big deal. It none of it works because literally you can't just come in here and do what we teach you to do for like two months and then like peace out. And it's like, oh, I'm good now.

28:36 It doesn't work that way. And so for us, this has always been something that's really, really important. What were some of the takeaways that you found after this last event around kind of the stickiness of the environment and some things that maybe we could give the person listening to this right now that would be helpful? Yeah, no. So there's a lot that you can do to make sticky. One of which was something that you've owned for us, which is sourcing really good venues. Right. Really good venue, really good food, really good accommodations. And we're also paying attention to the pricing. I think that's an important piece for a lot of people.

29:17 That might sound like a weird place to start as it relates to stickiness. But how people feel. So how people feel when they come to your event and how people feel when they leave your event, it's almost – here's the crazy part. They can actually feel like shit in the middle and that's okay. As long as they feel good when they get there and they feel good when they leave, that's the critical piece. So the first part, you sourcing really good – Stop for one second there. I want to know why. Why? Why is it OK that they feel shitty in the middle if they feel good when they start and they feel good when they leave? Explain. Expand on that. So taking some words out of Tony, Tony Robbins lane, right?

29:58 Progress equals happiness. Yeah. So if they feel shitty in the middle, it can be for a couple of things. A, they might feel stuck or they might be frustrated or they might have had expectations about coming into your world and having it go a different route. If in the middle, it doesn't feel all hunky dory and amazing. That's OK. But what you do want to make sure is when they leave, they feel like they're on fire, they have clarity, and they've got the willpower to go out and integrate and implement. And so that's how you know you have a really good event is that if on the back of it, they go, I know what to do and I'm ready and I'm equipped to do it and I'm going to do it like it's happening.

30:40 Where there's a lot of events that people just hammer them with so much information. They go for information versus transformation. So I guess that'd probably be the easiest way of recapping that. And part of transformation is not always fun. It can feel uncomfortable in the middle. So, yeah, that's a huge, huge piece of it. I think that's a I. Wow, dude, that's a major distinction because we talk a lot about information versus transformation. And certainly that's one of the things that we always look at as we're putting an event together is how do we create a transformation in this event and not just give more information. But that's a really great distinction. You know what? I've never thought of it that way. I mean, I've certainly been to events.

31:21 When I go to an event and I'm only in information gathering mode, you're right. Like there is no moment where I like feel shitty. I'm just like, oh, you know, let's all this is great. Oh, my gosh, this is amazing. And I got like 18 pages of notes and I leave after like four days of all day events and like 35 speakers and I do nothing. And on the flip side of that, when I've gone to events where I'm forced to do the work, ooh, like I have had moments personally where it didn't feel awesome or I felt underprepared or I felt inadequate compared to some of the people that I was with or I came face to face with like, damn, I'm not.

32:05 you know, I do have a bigger jump to make than I thought I did or something like that. That's really true. That is an absolutely brilliant distinction, dude. Really, really good. You dragged me to an event. This was what, two years ago, three years ago now? Yeah. I was kind of like, do I really need to go? And you're like, you're coming. But dude, we spent a few days. We spent three days at a table working on one thing for three days. And I think for me, it was a light bulb moment where I'm like, ooh, this had way more effect versus volume of info. And when you and I were originally putting all this together, we took a page out of that and went, okay, how do we incorporate that into what we're doing?

32:46 And I think it's had a very, very positive effect in making it super sticky. I think you're right. So circling back to this, we talked about venue selection, really content wise, making sure that it is true transformation, not information. One of the things that I would also say as well is being willing to be very selective about who is in your room. When you talk about a sticky environment, oh boy, there is no faster way to get people to bounce out of your world than to have a bunch of assholes in, you know, in your event or in your community.

33:28 And one of the things that we instituted, I think, well, yeah, we did it at the tail end of the last event, but it was in full force and effect for this newer one, which was an application. We didn't just say yes to anybody who had a pulse and a credit card. And we've always taken, you know, some we've always brought intention into that in the past. It's just that we did so many things. our margin of clients versus non-clients was very different in the past. And when we started to open it up to non-clients, we wanted to make sure that if somebody is going to pay money to come to our event, number one, we want to make sure that we can serve them.

34:12 Number two, we want to know what they're going to bring to the room, to the community. And in fact – That's one of the questions that we ask on our application is, okay, if we approve your application to come to the event, what do you bring into the table? And it's funny the way that people react to that because some people are like, oh, man, I'm this and I'm that and I can do this thing and I really love blah, blah, blah. And then other people are like, I don't think I like that you asked that question, you know, at which point it's like – Yeah. Bummer. That's, that's an easy no. Um, you know, but I think that's one of the biggest parts is having an environment.

34:57 It's not about so many people could look at a question like that and feel like it's posturing and it's not, it's not posturing. It's not, this is not like doctor frame here. What, what it is, is it's saying, look, I really care about the people that are coming to this thing. And I want to make sure that you're a giver and not just a taker. Because if you, if your people, I was just going to say, if your people are walking in the door, whether it's your program or your event, and they're just going, what are you going to give me? they are in a taker position and they will show up that way. And there's usually disappointment and hysterics and sometimes refunds and all kinds of crap.

35:41 So anyway, you were going to say, buddy. No, I was just going to say that they're already unhappy before they even get there. Exactly. Exactly. And, and I mean, obviously you were there to, to witness this. How many people came early? How many people stayed way late? I mean, the last day people were with us until like two in the morning because they didn't want it to stop because everyone was still pouring into each other and still in that, that energy. And I mean, you're spot on in terms of the quality of who's there. Cause here's the reality. You get what you tolerate. A hundred percent. Leveling that standard up was, was massive. Yes, I totally agree. So before we before we hit on the last one here, what anything else that you would add just relative to making the environment sticky?

36:30 Because just just as a quick recap, basically, you know, it's number one, like select places that people want to go, that people feel good. Um, that are, you know, environments that are comfortable where, where, you know, uh, people can be without being, you know, distracted and really be enveloped in the environment. It was, you know, making sure that it's not just information, but your true transformation that you're delivering, uh, at your event. And then it was, you know, really making sure that you're intentional about getting the right people in the room, not just bodies in the room. Anything else that you would want to add to button that one up? The only thing I would add stickiness or in terms of the whole overarching umbrella stickiness.

37:13 Oh, stickiness. Yeah. Those are the key pieces. And be willing to connect with your people. That'd be the only other one. We've just seen so many people that run out of the room or they've got security or they keep tables or risers between them and their members. Be willing to get down in the dirt and dig in with your people. That a hundred percent. And that circle, you're so right. And that circles right back to the idea of having an environment where you're selling without selling. Right. It is, it is that connection, the willingness to do that and be present and give of yourself. I love that, man. Well, I can't think of a better way to polish this one off by talking a little bit about can I.

37:54 So first of all, what what is can I can I talk about it? It is it is an acronym. Can I not can I? Yes. What is it? A.N.I. C.A.N.I. stands for constant and never ending improvement. So one of the biggest fears that we have as human beings is the fear of being judged. And what can happen, especially when we have these high, just more intense experiences. When you have an event, you've got time timelines. You've got to hit. You've got big money that's on the line. You've got you just have a lot of variables and you have a lot of eyeballs watching you. And so that can create a pressure cooker. So can I actually something I learned with Tony Robbins back 20 years ago?

38:39 It was a process so that we could capture what was working well with something. And then what were the areas that we could improve upon? And this way it took it out of a judgment conversation and it just moved it into what could we do better next time is really what it gets down to. And so what we do in our in our world, a huge part of that is every day or every event we have, everybody's capturing what worked well, what can be improved. And then we have a big meeting after we come back and we go, great. What's everything in the can I? It's not about being judged, just getting defensive. It's about how do we make it the best fricking thing possible that we can. And this event, we implemented every single thing that was on the list from the previous one. And it made a huge impact.

39:19 And guess what? It was funny because coming into this event, I'm like, oh, if we put everything else in play, we should have nothing on the list. Yeah. 16 times every time right so you've gotten to witness some of the effects of this too because it's not just our events we obviously apply that everywhere Yeah. And I will just say this. I mean, as somebody who is really adamant about assessment and evaluation, I had never heard of the exact way that you kind of put together that process. I loved it from the get go. And I think it's insanely valuable. And I think that if we're just willing to...

40:00 to be curious. It comes down to curiosity. It's not about, you know, whacking yourself over the head with a judgment hammer when you get done. It's literally about going cool. Like what, what was awesome? What could be improved? If we're constantly in that headspace, we just keep getting better and better and we can't help, but continue to expand and grow and serve our people at a higher level. Um, so yeah, that continues to be just a, a really, really good component of our post event wrap up. And something that we would definitely recommend that you put in play as well. So with that, my man, dude, this has been great. What a great episode. What an amazing event. And by the way, if you're listening to this right now and you came to the event, you were a part of this magical thing.

40:42 Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. It's our privilege to be able to serve you. And if you're listening to this and you didn't get to come, you need to be at the next event. And in fact, I'll link up a link to join the waiting list for our event in Vail. That's the next one is going to be June 5th through the 7th. It's going to be absolutely incredible. So we'll put a link in the show notes so you can go do that. And with that, my good man, let's put a bow on this baby. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation Podcast. Until next time, take care. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coaching Equation. Please hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.

41:24 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.