ALLISON MASLAN Shares Her Top Success Secrets on Business Rockstars

This is Business Rockstars. I'm Mark Lack and we're here to inspire, inform and connect a community of entrepreneurs. Alison Maslin is joining us. She's the CEO of AMI and the author of Blast off, the Surefire Success Plan to Launch youh Dreams into Reality. Tell us about the book, what inspired it and why'd you write it?

Well, I have a passion for business and I have a passion for business owners. And my gift is helping individuals put their greatest work out into the world. And I feel like there's no better way to do that than business. So this Blast off is the culmination of my years, my life as a business owner, serial entrepreneur and helping people put a plan together. Because entrepreneurs have this disease I call E ADD Entrepreneurial ADD they're all over the place. So it helps you to really clarify your big picture vision, where you're headed, what you're creating, and then break it down into small steps I call mini feats, which are bite sized steps of accomplishment. And once you get going, just making sure that you really stay on path towards your big picture vision.

So it's not like the big mistake that most entrepreneurs and people in general make, which is I'll be happy when I achieve this long goal down the road. And then inevitably we always get there and we're usually not as happy as we thought and we have emotional overestimation of how we thought we'd feel when we get there. And then we get there, we're like, this is it. That's all this was.

Well, I think that as human beings also as business owners, we need to have a sense of accomplishment. And so it's really, you hear, it is about the journey. I mean, this is our life right now while we're living. So you have to love what you're doing along the way.

Don't just live for those accomplishments and destinations.

Right. And I think we always need to be challenged to go to the next level. I mean, even for myself and with the many, many business owners that I work with, even though we achieve a level of success, it's like, okay, I'm here to grow and learn and evolve and if I just stay stagnant at the same level, I don't feel like I'm living.

So how did you get into this space? I mean, I know everyone kind of gets in their own different ways. I'm curious how you got into it.

I never set out to be in the business coaching world. I am an entrepreneur first. I've built 10 companies of my own from the ground up, since I was 19 years old.

Started young.

I started young and I couldn't hold a job for more than two weeks. So I figured I have to figure out this entrepreneurial thing or forget it. And I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family. My father built the largest chain of women's clothing stores in the United States that were privately owned. And he had such a passion for his work. So I said, you know, I want to do that. And so I've just been building companies for over 30 years, and people started asking me, how do you do this? Can you teach me? And so one thing led to another, and now I have a whole team of coaches. I love it. Yeah.

Now I read this, I take away one or two things. What do you want those one or two things to be for me, what are they going to be?

There's so much in the book, of.

Course, that's why it's a tough one. You're like, I got 50 things I.

Want you to take away. I mean, I talk a lot about thinking much bigger than we normally do and take the big leaps. You know, we help entrepreneurs get into the million dollar range, into the multimillion dollar range. And to do that, you have to. You have to develop the unseen and turn it into the seen. So you have to help others believe something that you haven't even created yet. Right. And to do that, you have to think magnanimously, is what I say, and take those big leaps, even though you don't see the path. And that's hard for people oftentimes to grasp. And so I walk you through that process in the book because I truly believe, and I'm sure you know this, the bigger leaps that you take, the bigger results, right? And they're usually the ones that are the scariest. You know, where you kind of have to close your eyes, grit your teeth and just jump where you get the biggest results financially, emotionally and spiritually.

I love what you're saying because it's a mindset shift. That's it. Like you're just asking for it.

You're opening the space for it and self worth. Because a lot of people holding people back is, am I offering enough value? Right? And so to be able to stand up and ask for what you're worth, people are going to respect you more. They're going to be much more committed. I know for myself, I invest myself a lot in my own involvement, and if I'm investing, I'm going to show up.

And I love that because when you make the investment in yourself. You're committed that much more to your vision, to your dreams and to those results. I want to talk a little bit more about how you help clients. Earlier we were talking about some of the biggest things they struggle with. What about for sales and marketing? That's like the big focus I feel like that you help companies with because that's how companies grow. You help them build and grow companies. You also help them scale break down. First, what some of those you have, what do you call it? Templates, blueprints, formulas.

So we have two different blueprints depending on where people are in their business. As you're getting up to the seven figure level, you're in building and growth and then beyond that you're in the scale range. So all of the components of business are important, from revenue streams to marketing to sales to team to time management to systems to leadership. And so first we have to figure out what are the best opportunities in your revenue streams to capitalize sales. You could be great at sales, but you're missing out on a lot of complementary opportunities. Upsells, cross sells. And then we help them lay out their marketing plan and online and offline because there's still some good offline, believe it or not, opportunities as well. And then sales. How do you have the conversation? And it's different whether it's a consumer or it's B2B. And how do you build that relationship? It's not about having a one time sale. It's about having, you know, I have clients that have been with me for 20 years. You know, you're part of their family. And then it's about how to build the team. It's one of the biggest frustrations of business owners. So we really help them to get clear on the role that they're filling, how to fill out their org chart. And on any budget, most don't know.

What an org chart is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. To help determine who do you need around you? I mean if you were to make a dream list of all the positions around you, let's put the intention there. And how do we find these people and make sure that they're the right match to move your vision forward?

What about for cash flow management? I feel like some companies, they don't even know when they're profitable or if this month was profitable or when they spent money over here, if it even brought any money in. I see companies all the time that I work with that struggle with that. They're not tracking and measuring all of the numbers in their business. The finances going out and in. And at the end of the day, they don't really know how profitable they are.

Yeah, it's so important. And I work with business owners, 10 years, 20 years in business, and they have that same issue. You want to be able to get a cash flow report on a weekly basis so that you know where you're at. But also, if things aren't categories categorized properly, then you're not really getting true numbers. And we need to look at your margins. I mean, what is it really costing you to get your product or service out there? And maybe you're spending too much on overhead or maybe you're not not charging enough. You know, if I find that someone's working really hard and they're super busy, but they're still struggling, they're usually not charging enough. But it's also a balance of, you know, when are you bringing money in to when is money going out? There's a lot of tricks that you can do as far as spreading out payroll throughout the month or, you know, working with your vendors on, you know, getting net 30, 60 and things like that.

So I love that you talked about like, cross sells, upsells down sales. Because that's one of the biggest mistake, I feel like most businesses do is they go, well, yeah, that'd be great. But we don't have those products or services. We can't spend the money to go out and make those or create those. And I'll let you kind of take it over. But you've got host beneficiaries, strategic alliances and partnerships, joint ventures, affiliate. There's so many different ways that you can find a synergistic product or service, partner with somebody, white label it, repurpose it. How do you help companies? Because, I mean, that's probably something you've heard as well. It's like, well, we don't have that product or we can't. We don't have the money or the budget to go and make that.

Well, what we do is we run the numbers and we show you. Look, you just sell five of these things, you've paid the widgets, right? So let's say that you have a bookstore and you're gonna attach a book light to it and you're gonna upsell the book lights with all of the books and it takes you and maybe even a bookmark or something ridiculous as an example. And now you have like, we've helped many clients create auto ship programs. One of our clients, Dog is good. And they're for people that love dogs. And their products are all about helping you feel that feeling that dogs give you. So now they have an auto ship program that they've developed for retail stores across the country. And the stores are loving it. So it's really taking what they already have, but then disseminating it in a different way where it's on demand all of the time. So you just run the numbers to see, okay, how many do I need to sell to pay back my investment? It's usually not that much. So that's where you. Working with a mentor is so important, but just to start getting out of that. Yes, but mind frame and know that you have to invest in yourself and you are your most important asset.

Well, you've helped so many companies. You've built so many different companies. I'm curious. I know you have an event coming up. What's next for you? Is it another book? Is it a new company? What's next?

I promised my husband that there's no more companies right now. Now I just get to pay it forward and help other business owners grow their business. And we have a mastermind called the Pinnacle Global Network, and we've been running it for seven years. We have business owners all over the world, and it's an amazing opportunity to work side by side with a coach to hold your hand and guide you to success. And then I have. Our biggest event of the year is coming up. It's called the Blastoff Business Breakthrough. It's in San Diego.

Beautiful, sunny San Diego.

I know. And it's, you know, we have about 500 business owners flying in from all over the country.

That's not easy to do, by the way, to get 500 people in a row.

It is. We work on it very hard. But we have so many people that come back every year. This is an event where you take three days. It's like an interactive workshop where you're literally working on your business. And when you go home on Sunday, you have in your hand a full business blueprint for the entire year so you know exactly what to do step by step for your revenue streams, marketing, sales team, time management. And so your confidence goes way out, your clarity, and you're just ready to hit the ground running.

So besides me, other people out there say, that sounds awesome. I want to be a part of that. How can they get in touch with you or learn more?

Definitely, just go to my website, which is alisonmaslin.com and then I also have a gift to give away. Yeah, this is brand new. I'm actually pretty excited about it. And it's our millionaire CEO Blueprint. And it's a series of five videos where I do some very in depth teaching, some of the things we talked about, but more in depth handouts and all of that. And you just go to alisonmaslin.com CEO Fantastic.

Well, I'm sure our audience is going to appreciate that. They'll plug that in here somewhere. But I appreciate you coming on the show.

So great, Mark. Thank you for having me.

You're very welcome. I'm Mark Lack. This is Business Rockstars. We connect a community of entrepreneurs. You can join us on Facebook, Twitter and online@businessrockstars.com.