The Path to Mastery: Escape Shiny Object Syndrome and Build a Legacy Business

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, alongside my co-host and co-founder, Brooke Bishop. Fresh off the Labor Day holiday weekend as we are recording this and fucking fired up to get after it today. You know, we teed up this episode after we had an opportunity to kind of break down Alex Hermosey's $81 million launch day. And I'm super excited to dive in on this because I think it's one of the things that doesn't get talked about enough in business in general. And I also think that it might be, as I alluded to last episode, I think that it might be... If it's not the thing, it's at least one of the top things that causes underperformance in business.

1:23 And in a lot of cases, quite frankly, utter failure in business. And it doesn't show up on a stat sheet. It doesn't show up in your KPIs. And quite frankly, if you don't have awareness around it, it's really difficult to spot. You typically have to have a good mentor, a good guide, some other set of eyes that's looking at your stuff to realize that you're going down the wrong path. I mean, we want you headed down the path to mastery. That's what this is all about. That's what we're here to talk about today. And before we dive into the whole thing, dude, you know, we've been talking about this since the beginning, but there was kind of some stuff that led you to this idea in the beginning.

2:05 And I'd love to kind of start there. Where did this start for you? Because I have my own version of why and where kind of this came into my coherence. But where did it kind of start for you? Well, there's kind of a menagerie of three things. There was a trifecta of sorts. It really started, honestly, first off in the psychology world. So being familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? So that was one place, which then couple that moving over into the world of working with a gentleman named Brian Buffini. Their whole world was structured for real estate leaders to work from a place of survival, stability, success, and significance. Yeah.

2:45 So there's this element of hierarchy within the real estate world of how that plays. Couple that with migrating over working with a gentleman named Tony Robbins, where his whole world is making a commitment to mastery. It was interesting because even with Buffini, I always had this like weird association with significance being the top of the peak, the pinnacle for them. And I'm like, yeah, is that really what we're chasing? Like, yeah, because sometimes it's not for a lot of people. Well, and then I so in the world of Tony, significance is positioned way more as he's got his six human needs and significance is one of the lower level needs that we try and get satiated. So it's more ego driven. Right. So I always kind of left me in this limbo.

3:28 And I really loved his framework and his positioning around making a commitment to becoming a master of whatever it is that you do. Yes. So that commitment to mastery. Yeah. So that was really kind of the evolution in my world as it pertained to that side. But how about for you and your associations to it? Yeah. You know, interestingly, I really would credit the crazy journey that I went on personally from 2015 to, you know, I would say, you know, like 2021, 2022. During that span of time, I think that I saw, number one, I think the first thing is I saw the effects of going wide instead of going deep.

4:13 And when you think about mastery, you know, probably one of the most palpable examples of, you know, the benefits of going deep instead of wide that I can find in my own life is power. And I remember when I was actually doing frontline sales and I jumped on a sales team with your Uncle Mark and I committed to myself at that point. I didn't know what the hell I was doing with my own coaching business. I kind of set it down on the side. And it was in that moment where I just went, OK, I don't know where this is headed. I don't know what I'm doing. But for whatever reason, this feels aligned for me right now. And I am blocking everything out. Everything. I am not. I'm eat, sleep, breathe.

4:54 I literally went to Don the night that I said yes to Mark. I went to Don and I go, honey, I'm just going to apologize ahead of time. I'm locking myself in my office and I'm going to eat, sleep and breathe this shit all day long. And I did. And the growth was so rapid. It was wild. And that was a really key moment for me because there were other times in my life where I did that, but I'm not sure I knew exactly what I was doing by going deep. At this point, what I knew was that going wide was no longer working for me. And so that was kind of that commitment to mastery that I made to myself at that point.

5:39 And the results were really palpable. But the other thing I would say is that through my own trial and error. We're going to talk about this today. I don't want to ruin the entire thing. But man, one of the things that I have been so guilty of when I got into my coaching business, such an interesting thing because I was not this way in a previous business that I built. I really built everything from a foundational level. I came in. I was an apprentice. I learned. I went out in the field. I sold. You know, I made my way up the food chain and learned at every turn. And when I got into my coaching business, I literally got this disease. It's like a disease where I was just like, I just, if you could just give me that fucking magic pill right now, just give me the marketing tactics.

6:28 Just give me the one thing I got to go do. You know, the one thing that would make it all happen faster. And as a result, I didn't realize I was doing this at the time, but I was going and chasing what I was ready for, and I didn't have the foundation. And it took me many years. You know, honestly, I got a lot of this realization through working one-on-one in coaching with a bunch of coaches, individual coaches, and going, whoa, wait a minute. You can't be talking about going and doing this thing when the foundational stuff that you gotta have in place isn't even there, and it was kind of this major aha where I was able to look back at my own journey and go, whoa.

7:11 This is why this was so jacked up because I was just so out of sequence. So that was kind of my history with it. And it's one of the reasons that when you and I started talking about this, I was so in love with the idea because I really think it's a huge component, if not the sticking point. Yeah, no, as you're sharing that, it triggered just a quote learning. Chad Cooper would be very proud right now. Shut up. Our amazing coach, Chad. The quote that jumps out, I learned back in martial arts, right? So Bruce Lee says, fear not the man who's practiced 10,000 kicks one time. Fear the man who's practiced one kick 10,000. Yes. Yes. And in our space, as it relates, it's really tricky because in the coaching space, so many people get into coaching because they want to help people or because they're sick of helping their friends and family.

8:01 And they're like, I should get paid for this shit. Yep. Yep. And and then they get into the zone. They get a coaching certification and they're like, oh, I need to go get marketing and I need to figure out how to enroll people on my pricing. And they just start grabbing all these puzzle pieces. And then they're sitting there going, I've got a franken business. That's yes. Is this set up right? Is this wrong? Did I sign up for the right tools? And it's, you know, if you were going to go set up McDonald's, that probably would be a terrible one. I think you have to come in with a couple million bucks. It's actually way more than that now. But they're going to give you every single piece of the puzzle, right? Your branding, marketing, where you set up shop, how all the pieces. Coaching is one of those crazy businesses where there is no roadmap.

8:44 Yeah, I don't know a roadmap out there that exists. But the other part is there's no governance. So you've got two open ends of like, how do you want your business to be? Beats me. It really becomes this nebulous zone of figuring it out. Now, that being said, there is a roadmap, but we'll get there. There is a roadmap. There is a path. And here's the thing. What I want you to know is that by listening to this episode today, first of all, for those of you that like to take notes, this is your episode. You're going to want to bust out that notepad and definitely take some notes. If you're in your car or something like that, please don't try to do this shit on the road.

9:24 All right. Listen to it once. Yeah. Pull over or, you know, pull over into McDonald's. Okay, maybe not McDonald's. But yeah, come back and listen to it again if you have to. Because here's the thing. You know, my favorite, speaking of quotes, my favorite poem of all time is The Road Less Traveled by Robert Frost. And he says, two roads diverged in a yellow wood. Fast forward, I took the one less traveled by. You guys, here's what you need to know. The truth of the matter is that what we're about to lay out for you is the road less traveled by. It's why there are so few actual masters in the world today and why it's so coveted, because most people don't have the patience and the diligence and the fortitude to go down this road.

10:11 But if you do, and discipline as well, if you do, Lord have mercy, you can have it any way that you want it. You will be able to do anything you want. And, you know, the world is going to be your oyster. So with all that said, let's dive into this thing, man. So let's sort of lay this path out and we'll just sort of start at the foundational level, which is what we call strength. Yeah. So it might help if we paint the first picture of, so yes, foundation 100% is startup. But I want to throw caution to the wind for anybody who's listened to this. If you can relate this to baking a cake, okay, the key distinction here is you might have all the right ingredients.

10:51 You might have all the right tools. You might have all the things you need to make the world's best cake. But if you put the ingredients in at the wrong time, or if you do things in the wrong sequence, to just make this a colorful picture, if you switch the flour and the frosting, in terms of when you're baking the cake, the outcome is going to be totally different. So, Ryan, you and I, I mean, how many people have we talked to where they're like, oh, if I just had my website up, then I'd be making tons and tons of money. And I'd be the number one coach in the world because I just need that one thing. I need my website. Hmm. Yep. At the end of the day, so we're here to tell you, that's not the one thing.

11:31 And by the way, if you're ever catching yourself going, if I just had that one thing, that's your first red flag. Yes. A hundred percent. The magic bullet, whatever it is. Yep. Just that one thing. If I just had that one funnel, so I never had to generate leads again. If I just had that one script to rule them all. Oh, we've been totally deep in Lord of the Rings, by the way, but it's another conversation. Nice. Love it. Nice. But as it relates to this whole thing, so if you can imagine visually, imagine a pyramid that has four levels. So again, Maslow's hierarchy, kind of think of a pyramid, four levels. That foundational, fundamental base level, you're gonna wanna put the word startup, okay? You're in a startup.

12:12 Now there's certain things that you wanna do in your business that we break it down into four buckets just to make business easy, because business is very, very easy and most people screw it up. But within that, you have marketing, sales, fulfillment, or deliverables, however you wanna look at that, and leadership. Now, this might sound crazy because you're like leadership. I'm a I'm a party of one. It's just me. Yes, you are leading yourself. So you need to have really good disciplines and fundamentals that you have in startup. So think of that core, those core four areas. And by the way, these are the same four areas as you ascend through this whole pyramid.

12:54 But you want to you want to double click into any of those just to kick us in. Yeah, well, I would just simply say that basically speaking, one of the biggest mistakes that I see people making is that they get so hyper focused on one area of their business and don't pay attention to the others. And that's the path to mastery is literally the antithesis of that. It's acknowledging like, hey, I've got these four core areas and my goal is to advance each area of my business up to a level of mastery ultimately. and recognize when one might be falling a little bit below the other, because that's the other piece of the puzzle.

13:35 You might be in a situation as you're listening to this right now where you might be at, you know, like a success level in your sales, for example, but your marketing is at startup, you know, so it can kind of vacillate up and down. And by the way, for those of you that are watching this on YouTube, I'm going to go ahead and actually throw up a graphic on the screen so that you can see this and not imagine it. I don't know why I didn't think about that before. But I'm doing this right now on the fly. Okay. We're getting all high tech. Check that out. So high tech. Yeah. All right. So high tech. As you're drawing the pyramid, level one is startup. Level two, as you move up, is stability.

14:15 Level three, as you move up, is success. And then the highest level there is mastery. Now, for those of you that write really, really slow, I'm going to go over it one more time real fast. So we have at the base startup, then we have stability, then we have success. And at the top of the food chain there, you've got mastery. Now, the key distinction, again, going back, anytime we get out of sequence, for those of you that have played the game Shoots and Ladders, If you're in the UK, by the way, I found out they call it snakes and ladders. No, snakes and... Yeah, I think it's snakes. It is snakes and something or other. It's snakes and ladders. Yeah, I think it's snakes and ladders. Is that what it is?

14:55 Yeah. I don't know why they call them snakes, but yeah. So, shoots and ladders for those that use the proper English language. Anytime you get out of sequence, like if you try to hopscotch over going, oh, I just want to find the fast to Ryan's point, the silver bullet. I just want the immediate fix. The one thing. Be prepared to fall back down to the foundation, back to startup. OK, so what does this look like in practical terms? We'll give you guys kind of an example here. One of the biggest things that we see happening in this space, especially in the coaching zone, is technology. Right. Somebody will come in and go, ooh, I like this tool. So I sign up for this one and I like that tool and I'm going to sign up for that one. And I like, and all of a sudden you find that you've got this bloated out thousand to $2,000 a month technology bill.

15:41 And you have no clue how to use any of the pieces of technology. Or maybe you're using just scratching the surface for a feature of each of those tools. And then now you're on the hook with contracts to the tune of $20,000 to $25,000 a year. And you're like, well, shit, I thought if I got Calendly that I'd be getting new clients. Never heard that before. Or I thought that if I had the CRM, I signed up for Kajabi. Now I'm in business. I'm good. Yep. Yep. Yep. When in reality, you've bloated and you probably could have gotten a very different tool or we would have had you focus on some very different activities because guess what? The goal is not to have the perfect tech stack yet. Yep.

16:21 The goal is to have the least amount of technology that allows you to move so you can go get paying clients so that you have more money so you can get the right technology. A hundred percent. I would just say on this dude, a brilliant point and simplicity scales. Complexity does not scale. And it's one of the things that, to be honest with you, we do like, holy shit, I totally did this. Oh, my God. I had the most complex, ridiculous daisy chain fucking tech stack you've ever seen in your life when I didn't need it. Like I could have run my business with my Outlook and fucking Google Drive. And that's the truth is that in order to scale, and honestly, we gum this up, we muddy the water in the beginning most of the time.

17:09 And the other piece of this that I think is really important is that doing this the right way requires something really key, which is intentionality. And going back to you talking about, you know, snapping up the sexy tech tools, it's like, okay, wait a minute. If you're doing this right, it's not, oh, this is cool. I'm going to get it. Or, oh, this is cool. Wouldn't it be fun if I could blank? Yeah. Instead, I run it through a filter and intentionally I go, OK, if it is this tool going to serve one of my core strategies that I'm focused on right now in my business.

17:50 Yes or no. Does it advance that? Yes or no. and is now the right time for me to deep dive on it, implement it? Because here's the other part. To your point, not only do we complicate this, but I was just talking to somebody the other day who's like, I've had X platform for two years now, and I have no fucking idea what I'm doing in there. So it effectively, you know, at the end of the day, go subscription model. They're winning. This is why Planet Fitness, you know, like exists because they got like 95% of their customers that pay the bill and don't ever come in that motherfucker.

18:32 We got to be making those decisions intentionally. So inside of startup, you want to dive into kind of what like some of the components of startup. Are you ready for that? I want to hit on. Yeah, let's definitely do that. And I just want to for anybody who might be aware of disc personality profiles, I'm just going to throw a little caution to the wind because I think it's pertinent. High Ds. So if you have a high D in your profile, by the way, can we put in the show notes, the our disc assessment in case somebody wants to find out what their scores are? That'd be awesome. So disc personality assessments. If you're a high D in your profile, you're going to want to skip the entire path and go straight to the top. Okay. You can't identify with that. What the hell is this?

19:13 This is literally the equivalent of beam me up, Scotty. I don't want to hike. I'm just poof. I want to be on the top of Mount Everest. Yeah. So this might feel like fingernails on a chalkboard, but what we're going to ask you to do is go slower, not slow, but we want you to go a smidge slower so that you can go fast and build sustainability, build a strong foundation so that you can have, you know, what was the old parable, right? Don't build your house on sand. We want you to build it on rock. Okay, so there's certain pieces that you need to do within the level of startup. One of which, which we refer to as the true north. You need to know what is the mission, vision? Like, what is your purpose? What are your values? What is the principles that you're gonna be building your business on?

19:55 It's kind of important. You need to know who the heck your target clients are. This one, by the way, if we were gonna put a star and a heart and a unicorn next to anything, holy hell, the amount of times we see people go, but I wanna coach everybody Mm hmm. How many coaches do we have that will go? I can coach anybody. Therefore, I am not going to market to anyone. I'm going to market to the whole universe. If you can fog a mirror, you're my ideal client. Bad idea. And here's why it's a bad idea, because most people then immediately jump up to like success or mastery as it relates to their marketing. So if you have somebody out there telling you that you should start your business with paid ads as your foundation, like you need to do paid ads immediately, be prepared to melt money.

20:39 If you don't know your client avatar is, if you don't know what their problems are, if you don't know what your messaging is, if you don't have the solutions to what their world is and you go immediately jumping into paid ads, this is the equivalent of switching the flower and the frosting. You will fuck up your cake real quick. A hundred percent. Yeah, totally. And I think just, you know, hammering that point home, ideally, you know, obviously this is an analogy, but. Think about when you think about your client avatar, you know, one of my favorite sayings, aim small, miss small. Right. What's the margin for error here? And if we can effectively speak to one person, we're doing it right. And that's so contrary to what most of us, you know, as people who help others want to do.

21:23 We want to go help everybody and my offer can help everybody, but I don't want to eliminate and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm inclusive. Yeah. Yeah. Stop being inclusive. It doesn't mean you can't work with anybody. So I just want to be really as those words come out of my mouth, I'm like, no, you can work with whoever you want. But you do want to make sure that how you position yourself and how your world is framed up speaks to a very specific person with a very specific problem. Yep. Right. So don't be a generalist as it relates to your solutions. If you're looking at the YouTube version. Which we're not going to do. Yeah. We're not doing that. One thing I will share, if you at the foundational level, at your startup level, if you don't have a solid foundation of building referrals proactively, you're going to be building your house on a house of sand.

22:13 Okay. Yep. So we'll just kind of float that one in there. And then one other piece I will share, if you are winging it with your sales. Here's why this. big ass red flag. You cannot afford to wing it with sales when you're starting a business. Why? Because you don't get as many at bats because you don't have an ongoing flow of predictable leads because you don't know what you don't know yet. And if you think that you're going to go figure it out and you're going to test it out on that one lead that you might get this next two weeks, You have to hit home runs. You have to crush enrollments out of the gates. So I'm just going to float those two.

22:54 So the first one, don't bloat your tech stack. Be really mindful with what technology you use. So that's the first one. The second is you need to make sure your marketing and your messaging is dialed in. And the third one is you better have a system for selling. Otherwise, you're going to burn out your leads real fast and you're going to be up shit creek without a paddle. Yep, totally agree. The one other thing that I would add into this, well, two little nuances. Number one, get very clear. When you're in startup mode, you need to get clear on your pricing. One of the things that we see all the time is people like waffling on their pricing and for crying out loud, they just play, let's fucking, let's make a deal over here. You know, you need to get clear on what your pricing is and you need a hammer at home.

23:35 Find the sweet spot, play with it a little bit if you need to, but be clear about that. That's one of the things that I would say, I would bridge that with your offer in general. Okay. So when we say pricing at startup, you really need to be clear about your offer as well. And it doesn't have to be, here's the big mistake. Most people in startup mode get fooled into believing that they need a complex offer to win. Because they see people that are playing at mastery level who have these incredibly complex offers and they're like, oh, that's what I have to have to win. Quite the opposite. If you try to create a complex offer at startup, you're going to overwhelm yourself.

24:16 You will over promise and under deliver. And at the end of the day, the complexity that you've created is just going to drag the ship down. You need a simple offer, a very simple offer. that you can deliver like crazy on and know what your pricing is and anchor into that. The one other thing that I'll just say, just to hit on one of the ones that you mentioned, you talked about referral, Brooke. We have talked about this quite a bit over the years. And I'll just say it again now. The foundation of your business should be, from a marketing perspective, should be, referral, word of mouth, warm network relationships.

24:57 If that's what you're doing, you will, and you do it at a high level, I swear to God, you will never go hungry. I was just talking to a business owner the other day who has done very well over the years. They've done seven figures, several of the last six to seven years. He came to me because we were having a conversation with, around difficulty with paid ads. And guess what? They built their business on paid ads. And when the paid ads are not working, their revenue goes in the toilet. And we were talking the other day and I've known this guy for a while and he's like, man, here we go again with the damn ads are just not working right.

25:38 And I don't know what to do. And I said, bro, I want, can I be honest with you? Yes. Notice I got permission. Permission. Good man. He's like, yeah. And I go, you went backwards, brother. Like you guys went backwards. You did switch the flower and the frosting. Like you have no way of, you know, you're the only one who ever brings anybody from a referral standpoint into your business. And I'm like, you know, if you're not doing it, are your clients referring people? How many referrals did you get this year? I don't know. That's a problem. But you flip that around and if you build your foundation on referral and relationships and warm network, you will never go hungry.

26:21 You may have moments where you'd like to have more leads and guess what? You use that money to go feed your lead machine with paid ads and stuff like that, which we can talk about another day. But I just want to hammer that home because I think it's important. Can I make a controversial statement? Yeah. Please just do it. Just to piss off anyone who's listening. Yep. Yep. So there's going to be somebody who's going to hear this and they're going to want to argue over this. And I'm so I welcome the conversation, but I want to bring this to the fold. If you are mega averse, meaning if you have zero desire to network, if you have zero desire to build referrals, if you have no desire to get out there and shake hands and meet people and build up your community of people. Get out of the business of coaching today, because if you're not willing to go do that piece to generate the business, you are going to be miserable when you're fulfilling and delivering to those people.

27:13 OK, so we've seen Ryan, I've seen many people that they don't like people. And they'll go, well, I see this opportunity to make money and I have an expertise. And I saw this thing that said I can generate leads and I don't have to know these people. So I'm going to throw money at paid ads. I'm going to load up my calendar with all these strangers. I'm going to go do sales and then I'm going to make all this money. And within six months to 12 months, they freaking hate their life because guess what? They don't like dealing with people and their emotions and they don't like the up and down of sales and they don't like having to deal with marketing. And now they're caught in a space where they're like, why did I get in this business? And now they're contractually obligated and they're stuck.

27:54 If you don't like people and if you're not willing to build a referral as the foundation, you're in the wrong biz. And I would just say, I know we got to move on to the next one, but I would just say that to be clear, I believe that about any service based business. Yeah. Because if you don't want to do that in any service based business, you ought to go make fucking widgets or something or go to work for somebody else. Honestly. Go write code in a vacuum. Yeah, for real. Okay. All right. Let's move this on down the line here. Yeah. Stability. So stability is at level two. What I'm going to give you guys just as a piece of this puzzle, between each of these stages to move from startup to success, or I'm sorry, from startup to stability, or from stability to success, or success to mastery, it will always require two changes in your world, and they're big.

28:43 Every single time you level up, you're going to have to have, number one, a change in your strategy. OK, so here's an example. If you're generating 20 referrals per month, you could probably handle that as an individual. As soon as you move into stability, let's say you start generating 40 referrals per month. You're going to have to have a change in your strategy for managing those leads, for tracking them, for your calendaring, for the technology, for the pieces that are there. Yeah. So the first piece is you're always going to have to level up your strategy every time you level up within the path to mastery. The second one, and this is where the discipline comes in. Every time you want to level up, you also have to shift your psychology. Okay. So to go from foundational level where you're an employee of one, you're the business owner, you're marketing, you're sales, you're legal, you're everything.

29:30 As soon as you go into stability, now you're going to need to bring either vendors in or maybe a virtual assistant, or maybe you hire an executive assistant, or maybe you start outsourcing. That requires you to completely change the way in which you approach your business. Because guess what? When you're a man or a woman of one and you're running your business, you don't have to explain what you do to anybody else. You just do it. You don't have the chances of it being done wrong or low, but you're going to be limited in how far you can go. The second you hire somebody, you're going to have a change in process and you're going to have a change in the way you think. So, yep. I know this is right up your alley, Rye. So what in terms of how you perceive this one? I would just say I would just use psychology and identity.

30:13 It comes down to a core belief of who I am. Every time that I take a step up, I literally have to step into a new identity and then have the psychology that comes alongside that. The other thing that I'd say about that is that. every time you make a step up in path to mastery, it doesn't mean that you have to stop talking to people that are at the level below you. But what it sure as hell does mean is if you want to actually stay at the next level that you're trying to ascend to, you better go find some people who are there with you. Y'all need to be having conversations about similar things. One of the things that's hardest is when you, and I think most people can identify this, especially if you're a high achiever, When you move out of one level and into a new one, and a lot of people are left behind, all of a sudden it gets harder because their problems are not the same as your problems.

31:11 The things that you're trying to do are not the same as the things they're trying to do. So just be mindful of your inner circle each time you take a step up, because that's part of what anchors in that identity for us is we not only have to believe that we are that next version of ourselves, but we also have to be very clear that part of the proof that we are the next version of ourselves is that we surround ourselves with other people who are just like that. Very well said. Yeah, there's... Well, what we see, right, anytime somebody has gone to do their first hire, that's when the usual like, oh, shit kicks in because hiring, interviewing, onboarding, meeting with them, having a meeting cadence, having standards, expectations, all of those pieces come into the fold and it becomes really critical.

32:01 So this is where you usually have that moment where you're like, oh, I'm a leader now. Right. So at the stability level, just be prepared. A lot of the systems that work for you at startup, they're not going to work at stability and you've got to level up. Yep, yep, that's well said. And I think the couple things that I would just mention, again, we would be here forever if we went into each and every one of these that's on the screen if you're watching the YouTube version of the podcast. But the couple things that I would mention here, number one, you'll notice clear branding and strategic website was not part of startup. That's newsflash to many of you. Okay, that comes in instability.

32:42 The other thing is, and I'm really excited about this, there's another episode that's gonna be coming out very soon where I actually had a chance to talk with my buddy Mike Goldman about about proactive referral system, this is where you actually have a system of getting referrals. That's a major step up from just like, every now and again you ask somebody and some folks send some folks your way every once in a while. But you're gonna notice as well that you're starting to get some support around you, okay? So now it's not just you, but you might have a VA, which by the way, if you're at that, you know, if you're at that breaking point right now where you need some help around you, send us an email at support at empirepartners.io and just put VA in the subject line and we'll reach out to you about getting a VA through our Empire Staffing.

33:36 You might even have a part-time coach At this stage of the game, but you're starting to go. We're starting to get out of that. You tying yourself down with all the things and you're starting to kind of get into who not how territory here. Well said. Yes. Yeah. And by the way, if you don't know how to do any of those things, this is why people get stuck. Yeah. They'll go, I don't know how to onboard them. So instead of onboarding them, I'm just going to work 80 hours a week because I'm scared of onboarding or I'm scared of the unknowns. Or what if they decide to sue me or all those fears start to creep in. So just know they're part of why we love doing this stuff is like, hey, here's on a silver platter how you do onboarding.

34:17 Here's how you protect yourself. Here's how you do all the things you need to do. So. Just know, again, people have gone the way before you. Don't let your fears keep you stuck in the stage that you're at. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. All right. Shall we move it, move it on down the road? Move up to the next? Let's go to the level three. So level three is success. I want to hit on one piece just because I think it's pertinent to this whole kit and caboodle. Anyone listening might recognize too. We haven't mentioned any revenues that dictate what stage or what level you're in. That's right. Right. And this is important. So for those of you that were wise enough to pull over so that you're not trying to write notes and traffic, one of the key pieces on the path to mastery is you, as the individual who runs your business, you get to set that threshold for each of these stages.

35:08 It's not us coming in and going, if when you're generating this much revenue, you're at this level. It's not about that. You have your own internal compass as it relates to revenue. And you might be looking at it going, well, if I'm making 10 grand a month, I feel like I'm in a healthy spot in startup. Now here's the little indicator. What allows you to feel stable? That should give you your number four stability. What allows you to feel successful? You can tell who's kinesthetic, by the way. But to feel successful, that's how you're there. And then there should be a number that just blows your freaking mind. That's mastery. Okay, so this is gonna be different for everybody else. Somebody mastery might be 20 grand a month.

35:49 For somebody else, it might be 2 million a month. For somebody else, it might talk to Tony Robbins. If he's not doing 200 million a month across the board of his businesses, that he feels like he's losing, right? So it's all relative. Bring us into success here. So a couple of things that I want to highlight about the success level is now we're moving into heavier stuff with with affiliates and partnerships. Now, I want to circle back to startup where I made the point about relationships. Right. Here's the thing. relationships come back in a big way. You're maintaining, but now you're taking your relationships to a whole new level where you're saying, again, this goes back to the whole principle, and shout out to Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy for their book, Who Not How, but this goes down to not how am I gonna accomplish this big, hairy, scary goal?

36:42 Who has my audience? Who can I partner with to do this? Who could help augment my offer, right? So affiliates, JVs, partnerships coming to play. And that's something we're super passionate about. One of the things, you guys, I think it was Peter Thiel, I think. Don't crucify me if I'm wrong on this. But I believe Peter Thiel said competition is for losers. And I fucking love that. Because I swear to God, you guys, I don't mind being a very competitive person. But at the end of the day, we have made an incredible business out of... finding the right people and partnering with them strategically and doing things together.

37:24 It's more fun. You're going to get farther faster. Trust us on this one. The couple of the things that I would just mention on this front, you're going to notice that you're now starting to get way heavier. Speaking of who, not how. on the people that you've got in your world. You've got teams of people that are helping you with your social content, and you've got your own podcast and a team of people that are helping you with that. You've got probably some salespeople at this point in addition to that. And also notice, I just want to make a point here. Feel free to add anything on this because I know you're super passionate about it, but notice that it is the success level where we make the first mention of a salesperson. It's one of the first things that everybody's so excited to get off their plate.

38:08 And honestly, if we could have it our way, there are very unique circumstances where we would disagree. There are a few, not many, but by and large, you need to be a good ways down the road before you offload your sales. Because remember, that is your life. That's the lifeblood of your business. No sales, no business. And in most cases, you mastering your own sales process is going to be the first step and one of the most important steps in your business is going to carry through all the way up to success. So what else would you mention about this level? Yeah. So there's things that dovetail here. And this is where you can really see the further you get up, you can see where having that foundation becomes critical.

38:52 At success, you've got to have really good handle on metrics. Yes. Right. If you built a Franken business at the foundation and then now you're hoping as you're in success. I mean, how many people have you and I seen that had to go spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on their technology because they got to a level of success and they're literally running their business on Google spreadsheets? Yeah. And they're like, but I don't know what things I can tweak and I don't know what decisions I can make because I don't have data. The more you move up, you have more that you can gain, but you also have more that you can lose. So your liabilities increase. So true. Yeah. So you're going to notice metrics and people. That's the big piece, metrics, people and process.

39:32 If we wanted to kind of really isolate as this thing escalates, but it's really tough if you don't have the right framework set up below you as the foundation, you get into success. And I cannot tell you how many people get stuck there because they spin around trying to recreate their whole business. And that's usually where they fall back because they spend a year or two years or sometimes even longer trying to restructure their business so that they can, again, scale. Yeah, so true. So I would just say to one other little piece on this before we get to the last one is that you'll notice that especially if you see the visual on this. And by the way, you know what? I'll take the PDF of this little like mini slide deck. I'll put it in the show notes for you can grab it.

40:12 One thing that you're going to notice when you look through the visual of this is that it's not that we just start tracking metrics at the success level. You're tracking something from the very beginning. It's just that your tracking gets more sophisticated and more complex the higher you go. So I just wanted to mention that because you got to start tracking from the very beginning, even if it's super simple. All right, let's move this down the road to the final level, mastery. Mastery. Okay. So mastery, the goal here, when you get to the level of mastery is that you should be able to step away from your business in terms of execution. And you should have all the personnel and all the processes and all the strategies and the SOPs.

40:57 Your business should run with you not being there. Yep. Now, all that being said, how many people, I mean, shoot, how many times have you and I seen, if I could just hire a CEO to just run this business for me and somebody's in, let's say, stability, and they think that they just get to go be the rock star and they get to go on their merry way. I actually talked to somebody this last month. They're in stability and they staffed up CEO, CMO, CFO. They put all these people in play. And they're like, my margin sucks. It's like, yeah, because you're paying all your margin to all these high level people because your ego wanted to have the title and present that you have this big company. Yes. Well, you're not there yet, homie. So this one, though, if you go in the right sequence, you go in the right order.

41:40 This is where you're able to have the right reports that you can actually look at your dashboard and make decisions. You have the people that you can hand those decisions off to and those people can then go execute or they have the people they can go hand that off to and execute accordingly. Yes, yes, yes. And all of that leads to putting you in a position where you can be a powerful creator, influencer, where you have an opportunity. It's less in the business and more on the business. You're actually building your business. And you can't do that without the kind of leverage like you see on the screen right now, for those of you who are visually watching this. Yeah. And at this point, I mean, like we're kind of hitting the tippy top.

42:23 The funny thing about this is you look at some of these things like, oh, there's a team, like there's a CEO and a CFO and a CMO and, you know, a director of sales and stuff like that. At this level, though, you need people. Here's where what really shines through at this level of mastery. One of the things that should start shining through is you don't just have bit part players. You have rock star supporting actors that are elite in their unique area. That is what we're talking about when you're truly at mastery. Notice what's really interesting about mastery is that this isn't just about mastering yourself.

43:04 It's one of the biggest mistakes that people make is they believe that they have to go master themselves, which you should. But then I got to go master every single area of my business. Nope. What you got to master is master the things that are your special, unique gifts and abilities. Ball that out and then become a master of finding talent. that is doing exactly that in their level or in their area of expertise and genius. That's when you truly reach a level of mastery. Well, my friend, dude, this has been so good. And by the way, you know, we're going to talk a lot more about this.

43:47 This is really more of us serving up the initial full chunk of the idea of Path to Mastery. But we're going to break this down. It's going to weave its way into lots and lots and lots of conversations. So get ready for that. I hope this has been helpful for you. Dude, any last words of wisdom before we put a bow on this baby? I would just say for anyone who's listening, if you're like, I don't know where I'm at. I don't know what the status is of where I should be. You guys raise your hand, reach out to us. We've got a number of ways to help you identify where you're at on the journey. And we'll be able to help you figure out how to get to that next stage. So you don't hopscotch or do the recipe out of sequence. I just know that there's people that are here that are available to help support you. And sometimes it's big. Sometimes it's small.

44:27 Sometimes it's just those repetitive decisions we have to make that we've got to get back into proper sequence. So, yeah. Yeah. The last piece I would just say is to your point on getting help, figuring out where you are and what you need to do in that level and how to get to the next level. No matter when you're listening to this episode, our next live event is going to be available to you. And you can go and check that out by hitting www.empirepartners.net forward slash event. We'll link that up in the show notes as well. So it's super simple for you. If you got thoughts on this, by the way, if you have any ahas, go hit us up at coaching equation.com and use the fun little voice note feature that's on the website.

45:08 We love getting these voice notes. They're super fun. Come leave us some thoughts or if you've got questions, we'll be happy to weave them into the next episode. With all that said, my man, great stuff today. 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. 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.