The Art Of Playing The Job Recruitment Dating Game With Evan Marc Katz

I want my life back. The whole point is that you build a business that's. That's your baby, that's your love, that's your passion, and then your business ends up running you. Yeah, I just want to be like, hey, I got another book to write. Like, there's. There's like a thing I want to do. I love to go to a conference without worrying that my business is going to grind to a halt while I'm away for four days.

Evan, you have to replace yourself. I know you love coaching. You can still do it. But if you don't shift to a more scalable model like a certification or replicate your talent with a team, and I'm talking about the delivery of your offering plus the back end, you will not get that time. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Scale up Method where we teach you how to reach the next level in your business. Build your dream team and scale beyond eight figures. Now, too many business owners are stuck trying to do everything themselves, and their businesses are suffering as a result. And I don't want you to be one of those people. I am Alison Maslin and my company, Pinnacle Global Network, has helped thousands of business owners scale their companies using our framework, the Scale it method. All business owners face similar challenges when it comes to growth. So on this podcast, we are delivering the tactics you need to finally reach the next level in business. Build your dream team and scale beyond 8. 8 figures. Now, what I've been doing is a little different than what I've been doing over the past several years on this podcast is I've actually been bringing on some incredible business owners who are sharing the amazing things that they're doing in the world. And I'm also coaching them to scale to the next level, which is exactly what we do every single day in Pinnacle Global Global Network. Our mission is to help you break through to the next level. And so we're going to do that today. And I'm so excited to introduce our guest. So build as a personal trainer for smart, strong and successful women. Dating coach Evan Mark Katz has been helping singles since 2003. He's the author of four books and has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including Today, the New York Times, and CNN. Since 2015, Evan's blog has had over 35 million readers. His podcast has over 2 million downloads and 13,000 women have graduated from love you, his six month video course that helps women understand men and finding love. He is also happily married and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and and two kids. And we were just Chatting here before we started and so excited, Evan, to have you on the Scale it method podcast.

I am thrilled to be here. Excited to see what we could learn today.

Yeah. Thank you. So why don't you first share a little bit to everybody, a little bit of background. I did a little bit. But you know how you got into helping women to find their soulmate?

I was a screenwriter who lived in Hollywood, couldn't sell a screenplay. That was my entire twenties. Was pursuing my artistic dreams. And then I realized I had a pivot. I didn't want to be the 40 year old guy not selling a screenplay. And so I went to grad school, I went to film school. And to put myself through film school at ucla, I got a job answering phones at an online dating company. Just customer service, getting yelled at by strangers. It's not suitable for my temperament, but it's what I did. And after a year that I was like, oh, my God, I should write a book about this. And when you're a writer, writing is the easy part. Everything else is the hard part. So I wrote a book about online dating in 2003 called I Can't Believe I'm Buying this Book. A Common Sense Guide to Successful Internet Dating. And unlike my Hollywood career, my timing was really good and the book did well. And it got positively reviewed in Time magazine. And the next thing I heard, they were doing features on me in USA Today. And I was the same penniless screenwriter I was before, but I had a successful book and I didn't have anything to sell. Books don't make you money. Books give you credibility. And so I started a business called E Cyrno, Writing people's online dating profiles. I was the only guy doing it. I had success, and the demand for the service was greater than I could handle. And so that's where I really needed you to figure out how to scale that business. But that was 20 years ago. I never quite succeeded. I got a bunch of freelancers off of Craigslist, started this profile writing business, and people would say, oh, my God, this profile is getting me all this attention. What do I do now? I said, well, you go on match.com and you flirt. I don't know how to flirt. Okay, well, let's log in together. We'll check this out. And I just expanded my suite of services to meet the needs of my clients. All these years later, I've refined it like anything you do for a really long period of time to be a dating and relationship expert, holding women's hands through the process of Choosing better relationships. And it just started from, you know, online dating profiles 20 years ago.

Wow, that is such a great story. I have to say that's one of the better stories that I have heard and how you got into your business. I actually met my husband on match.com.

Sure.

And this was 17 years ago. And the funny thing is that he had reached out to me like four times and I didn't respond because he had all these misspelled words in his request to get together with me. And I'm like, what is this guy's issue? He clearly I was a grammar snob. Let's just put it bluntly. But luckily on he, he was persistent. So I have to say I was impressed with his persistence. And the last time he just said, hey, let's meet coffee. You know, I really, really looking forward to meeting you. And you know, he didn't spell anything wrong. And so I thought, okay, I'll give this guy, you know, poor guy a chance. And, and that was history. But you know the interesting thing about that Evan and I've told people and I wonder what your thoughts are and then we're going to get dive into to coaching you.

No, I'm much more comfortable talking about you and your love life than I am talking about with the failings in my business.

No, but it was, it's interesting and I think this really applies to business too because you said something that was, was interesting to me is helping them make the right choices. And as we know, the choices we make create the outcomes that we get. And so I was not good at making the right choices. And that's where, you know, here I was at 42 and single. And so when I finally decided I was going to get on match.com at the time, I just wrote everything I wanted in that profile. Like, I want my soulmate. I'm looking to get married. Like, I, I did not mess around. I said like, and if that turned people off, great, because I don't want to waste my time with you. And so anyway, I do think sometimes we tip, tiptoe around things that we want in our life. You know, we're, we're afraid to just go, go direct and ask for it.

I agree entirely. I've, I've definitely one of the, my enduring legacies on this earth is that I've perfected the art of online dating profile rating. And so I agree there's a way to state what you're looking for and what you bring to the table for the other person, which is what most people Do. They don't really market themselves. Right. They don't explain what their partner gets out of them, which is kind of marketing 101.

Oh, yeah.

We put all of these elements into a short dating profile where someone can get a real sense of who you are. So when you show up in person, you are exactly as advertised. Most people, left to their own devices, write lists of adjectives and activities and cliches. And so we, we try to do it a little bit differently. But again, that's not what we're here for today.

No, it's not. But you know, hey, for those of you that are listening and you're single, like, I think this is fantastic. So let's talk about, you know, where do you feel like the biggest challenges have been for you? If you're looking, you know, here we're in New Year, you're ready to get to that next level. What do you feel like are the biggest gaps for you?

I think I had a psychologist once upon a time who said, evan, life is a hunk of Swiss cheese and all you do is look at the holes. And sometimes that's the way I feel about my business. All I do is wake up in the morning and figure what fires do I have to put out? What rock am I pushing up the hill all by myself? I think I built a business to get me to where I am now, which is no full time employees, six or seven fractional vendors who get X thousand dollars a month to provide services, SEO, social media, tech, et cetera. And there's only so far they could push it. It's not their fault. I'm one of 20 clients they're servicing. And so this business doesn't get enough oxygen from any of those vendors to really start to soar. That's one thing. We don't have full time employees who are completely invested in this. And which leaves a lot for me. So I'm juggling many things. Not an unusual thing. What's unusual is that, you know, I am the service. My business is Evanmark Katz dot com. I'm doing the sales, I'm doing the delivery. I do have someone providing customer service and admin and stuff like that, but it's still everything sort of rests on my shoulders and flows through me to the point that I become the bottleneck. And then the lead gen has changed a lot over the past 20 years. The thing that you mentioned in my bio that used to be my superpower was I had 35 million people come to my blog over X number of years that's a true statement. That's not exactly the case anymore. The million people a month that I had back in 2016, Google keeps on changing its algorithm, eroding my traffic. So my business is a little bit like the mall. There's nothing wrong with Victoria's Secret, but if nobody's going to the mall, there is something wrong with Victoria's Secret and they have to pivot. So all the organic traffic that I got led to, you know, 3,000 organic emails a month, right. That has now turned into closer to 300 organic emails a month. So I have to make the same revenue with fewer leads, which means I have to do more high end coaching, more sales calls. So it becomes more of a grind. We don't have real passive revenue. And so lead gen has changed. And we've never had to do heavy social media, heavy advertising. We've just relied on organic because why pay for leads when you're getting free leads? So we're in this transition phase where we have to adapt to the new economy, spend more time on social media, figure out how to make paid work for us, and, you know, put pieces in place so that it doesn't all flow through me. So that's a lot of, lot of change to happen at once.

Yeah. And you know, it's, it's interesting because, you know, one gap in your business is creating another gap and another gap. Like everything is connected. You know, it's like when we say that if somebody is sick and they have chronic illness, I'm not saying that's what you have, but you can't just treat the symptoms and put a band aid on them. You have to get to the underlying core of what's going on to truly heal. And so when I'm, you know, thank you for sharing that first of all. And I feel that, that this is, these are common issues that a lot of business owners struggle with. And you know, because let's say your reach has gone down because of all the changes that have happened with algorithm algorithms, a lot of businesses have been impacted by that and we, we have to change things. That means that's bandwidth from you. And because you are the personal brand, you are the expert, you are the thing that people, you know, the person that people want to talk to. Then, you know, how do you split that up, right? Because you're coaching, your, your time is pulled from that, which means that you can't really get out there and market and speak and so forth. And so you're constantly, you know, you are the supply and the demand you are the five man band, even though you have some benders and so forth. And so, you know, there was a time where it was all about the personal brand. Like, that became, you know, the thing to really have the personal brand. And I'll just give you my philosophy on why this is a challenge. Now, there's nothing wrong with having a personal brand. I have a personal brand. But people are. If it's Alison Maslin coaching, then everybody would want to just coach with me and I wouldn't have time to be on this podcast or, you know, speak at an event or live in Mexico like I do now, like four months out of the year with my husband. And so I think that the first thing is just kind of thinking this through. Evan, is if we're going to redesign your business so that you have more of a team managed company, meaning you have more people out there getting business in for you, supporting your clients, you know, you're not the, the rainmaker, the decision maker and the everything maker so that you can have your life separate and actually help a lot more people than then you need a champion brand as well as the Evan brand. And so what we want to do is to start focusing more on the champion brand. So love u, you love University or whatever you're calling it, that really becomes the brand that you want to be promoting. So I'll give you an example. You know, when I Pinnacle Global Network is my 10th company. And when I started, I started this company because over the years so many people would ask me, hey, Alison, can you help me build a business? And so forth. And so I started coaching and like you, I found myself, you know, seeing several clients a day and just not having a lot of time to do anything else. And I loved the work, but I thought, wow, you know, I really need to scale this. And so then I thought, okay, so if I'm going to have other people coach my clients, who, who would I want to do that? And I thought, I want other very successful business owners like myself that have been there and done it to coach our clients. So now we have about 30 mentors that have all built multimillion dollar businesses coaching our clients. I'm. I'm telling you this for a reason. So I promise you this is going to come back and make sense for you. But I just want to give you a bigger picture. Within Pinnacle Global Network, we have a scalable model, which there are 15 scalable models when you're scaling a company. And one of them is to replicate your talent, which yours is helping women Find their soulmate. So replicate your, your talent, your offering, your, your signature process with a team that delivers what you do. Now, there are many ways to do that, and I'll kind of go through those today, but, you know, that's what we have. So right now, while you and I are here, we have hundreds of mentoring sessions that are going on with our mentors and that I have zero to do with at this point because they're all trained. They know our method, the scale it method. They have years and years of their own business experience. They're super, super smart people. And our clients aren't like, hey, can I be with Allison? Because they are already taken care of. They. They're not thinking, oh, I need to coach with Allison, or this isn't going to work. Because the way we've branded everything from the get go is you're going to be with our incredible team and a lot of them are smarter than me. So, you know, you're really, it's a, it's really a blessing to, to be mentored by this team. So do you kind of see where I'm going with this a little bit?

I do. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share.

Yes, please do. And I will help you piece this apart, but I just wanted to give you a bigger picture of that and then we can dive in deeper. But what's coming up around this for you?

Couple things. And again, it's nothing you haven't heard before, but it's relevant to me. One of the things I actually love doing is coaching. I know it's. I know it takes up time, but it's the thing that I'm the best at and it's the thing I'm the most passionate about. Right. So I don't want to just divest myself of that in service of being the chief evangelist. Actually, like coaching, there's different levels of scalability, as, again, you know, far, far better than I am. The main thing that's troubling me at this point is not that I don't have other coaches working for me. Right. It's that I don't have anybody running the business so that I could focus on the few things that I really do love to do, which is to coach, speak, create content. Right. The things that are. That are uniquely mine. Right. My business model can support me doing, you know, group coaching, small group coaching, large group coaching. And if it got too big that I needed other coaches, I'd be glad to do that. But my real challenge, at least as I See it for today. Certainly not to push back against you is is not man, I need a whole bunch of other coaches. It's man, I need some people to free me up from the business part so I could focus on the things that I do well. Does that add to some shading?

A hundred percent. And I'm just going to say that I love coaching too and what this does because I have the team, it frees me up to be able to jump in and. And reach out to any of our clients at any given time. Because my day is open and I can jump in and do a VIP day or do different things where it's that the. If I don't do it, the business continues to grow and thrive and I'm able to help more people and then I'm able to then coach our mentoring team. Right. So they become better and so forth too. So just. Just a perspective there because. And then we'll get to the internal business team. It's more about this idea and I know a lot of people struggle with that of being that they feel that if it's not them that they're going to lose their clients. Like this is a big belief that a lot. And maybe that's not your concern, but a lot of people feel that if it's not me because my name is on the book or, or. Or whatever that the clients won't come. And I'm just want to really distill that belief that that's just really not true. If your clients feel taken care of and supported and they're getting the results they want, they will love it and continue to tell other people. So I think that's, you know, you've got the external part of your business and then the internal part of business. But totally here what you are saying. So tell me Evan, what has been the resistance for you to get the internal team? Let's just say the. I'm just going to give some different positions like having the. I know you have the vendors, but I'm just saying like internal actually working for you full time. So an assistant, maybe a marketing person, operations person, you know, customer service. What has been the resistance of bringing those people in? So then I can support you with that further.

Sure. Yeah. And please allow me to give more context. My assistant provides customer service from the back end from. From the tech side. I have a former graduate of Love U who does customer service and checks in with clients. And I've tried many things on for size. It's not so much that there is a resistance. It's that I haven't had much success. So I actually very much like paralleling my situation with my clients. I work with smart, strong, successful women who have everything but the man. College education, six figure earners, can't seem to choose a husband. Right. And they've read books and they've gone to therapy and they've watched thousands of hours of YouTube videos and they can't get out of their own way. And that's kind of how I feel. This isn't, you know, me not wanting to change because I'm so stuck on the old ways. I'm here bearing myself to you because every time I've made a hire with an operations person, an online business manager, I just tried a fractional growth lead. A team that does specializes in taking former C level people and giving them to your team. Nothing.

What's been the disconnect? Like, give me. You don't have to share names. No, it's okay, obviously, but like give me a scenario of you hired this person and you were hoping for this, but this is what happened.

I think in any situation there's two things going on. Right. Again. And that's why I like comparing it to dating. There's his version of the story, it's her version of the story. So I think in any situation there's two things going on. My flaw in this model is because this is my business and this is my baby. Right. It's all my intellectual property. It's my heart and soul. It's self funded. Right. It's, you know, I'm the one who's taking care of my whole family. No one else is a shareholder in this business. I'm probably anxious and micromanaging to the point where that will stifle people coming in. That's me taking responsibility for people's experience, probably working here to some degree.

Okay.

Similarly, I think I've hired largely out of desperation. Again, very much like dating where you just. Someone comes to you like, I'll take it. Like you're willing to work for me, I'll take it. And I don't know that I've gotten a level people to invest in this company. The last go round, which was a couple months ago, these are the fractional people, but they had experience. They'd scaled businesses before. Really again, without throwing anybody under the bus. A distinct lack of leadership and a plan. I really wanted someone to come in and ask me a whole bunch of questions and look at all the data and say, all right, here's what we're going to Do. Let's execute the plan. And this guy came from some Silicon Valley background where he's like, well, we do, you know, rapid test cadence, da da, da. So we're going to change one thing on your website every week and, and we're going to iterate and we're going to move fast and break things. And we could test one little thing on my website every week, but that's not a strategy to run a business. And I don't have enough volume on my website to make any a B test even. So we spent two months spinning our wheels and I was begging for more communication, begging for a plan, right? I'm not a great businessman. I hate to say it. I'm a great dating coach. I'm not a great businessman. I'm adequate enough that I've built a seven figure business by myself. And I as a writer with no actual business skills.

So I'm good enough, which is amazing. Which is amazing.

My point is I'm good enough that I'm one of the more successful people in my industry, right. And the first dating coach. I'm also the first person to do this. So I'm really proud of some of the things I've accomplished. But the thing that gets me, Alison, and the reason that I'm here talking to you today is that I'm severely underperforming relative to what I can do, the number of people I can impact. Right. I am not feeling like I'm living up to the potential of this business I've created, which has great value to women who are single and struggling. There's not enough people who know about me. I say Coke advertises, right? Everybody knows what Coke is and they advertise. I'm not in people's faces as much anymore, and I can't be if everything's flowing through me. So it is that sort of spiral. And I am willing to hire. I just don't have a great track record and I don't exactly trust my judgment. And I got to put those pieces in order. Last. Last thing. I got to put the pieces in order because lead gen is down. I can't just hire, you know, four six figure people. Right. That. That has to pay off.

Yeah. All right, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk you through this. Okay, awesome. So thank you for sharing that with me. And it is a little bit similar to the coaching that you're doing with the dating. So let's kind of back up. And you know, there, there is a saying, hire slowly, fire fast. Right? And so, you know, just like in dating, like I told you, I wasn't very good at choosing the relationships until I stepped back and got super clear on what I wanted and what was going to be the right match for me. And this is a big mistake that a lot of business owners make is you start. And even when businesses start growing into the multiple seven, eight, even nine figures, is that you just start putting people in positions before. You have to get clear first on what does success look like for the role. And getting super clear benchmarks and metrics before you even place the ad. Because there's no way for you to measure success or for them to understand what the expectations are until this is completely outlined. You know, one of the tools that we work with with our client is called hire for growth. Every single hire, I don't care if they're, you know, a leads expert or an operations person or customer service should be driving in three to 10 times what you pay them. So if you are paying them $100,000, they should be bringing in 300 to a million dollars, or if you pay them, you know, $50,000, 150 to 500,000 in. And so then you to your bottom line. Now, it may be that they're doing sales, okay, that's super clear. It may be that it's in retention because their customer service is so great. It may be that they are, you know, saving on your budget an extra $300,000 because they know how to negotiate. But you have to get clear on what those metrics are so that you're able to measure them month by month and they know what their target is. Every single hire and every department in a company, if you have a bigger company, has to know the metrics that they are reaching for. Not just to get this stuff done, it's to get this stuff done because we have to hit X target and that could be, you know, X number of leads. If we're talking marketing that's coming in per month, this is what success looks like. And this is what has to happen on a monthly basis so that we know. And so with the hire for growth model, you get clear on this stuff before you even hire, then everybody knows what expectations are. And so actually you are losing money by not bringing these people on. Once you actually pencil it out and, and do the math, that's the first thing makes sense.

It does invite, it invites more questions, but it makes sense.

Yeah. So, so, and then we're going to dive in. So I want to just give you the two important pieces and then we'll get to the next. Because everything you're sharing, Evan, is such common, common challenges that business owners face. Especially once you get into the seven figures, it really becomes all about team because there is no more time in the day. I mean, there's just your stretch. The fact that you got to seven figures, you know, in managing so much on your own, I know you have some vendors is quite astounding, actually, and wonderful. But you know, you hit a ceiling. The second part of it is we are creatures of habit as human beings, we do what we know. And you started this business, you had a knack for it, it began to evolve and you operate in your business as you have. So once it starts to grow, our role, even if you're going to continue to do some coaching, has to change. And when we bring people on, we have to shift from being a boss to being a leader. And so working on the leadership. And I'll just tell you, it's not easy. I work on my leadership every single day and I'm far from perfect at it. It's that the shift has to happen when you bring people on. Okay? And this is whether it's a vendor or a full time employee, it's not about telling them what to do. It's empowering them to own it and take the vision and run with it. And that comes through helping them see their part in your big vision. Now the vision, which is one of the five pillars of the scale it method, it's the first pillar, strategic vision. You have to live in vision and purpose. As the CEO of the company, like if I'm meeting with an employee or I'm meeting with a client or a vendor or whoever, or I'm meeting with the team and we're having a team meeting. It's all about vision. Like, it's my job to get people in that space of vision and inspiration and excitement. And for you, all these amazing women that you are helping, because once you get them what they want, like the ripple effect is incredible. The number of lives that you're changing. I mean, women want, you know, I don't know, but you know, most of the women you talk to, I'm sure finding my soulmate was like numero uno for me. So. So it really is that leadership. And it doesn't mean I don't have anxious moments. It doesn't mean that stuff doesn't hit the fan. You know, we have close to 50 employees. We have a lot going on at any given time and a lot of things are out of my control. However, how I show up when things don't work or challenges with these team members is everything. It's everything because what it does is it raises them to a higher level and they don't feel like they're being told what to do. They feel like, I really want to do this because I am so invested in the success of this company because we're helping so many people and I feel like I have a purpose. Do you get what I'm saying? So it's like I do and I.

Appreciate the many parallels. I set a culture in Love U right. There's a feeling for all the women who take the course that I could bring to them this way. I'm sure you do for your clients, right, where everybody feels like they're on an upward trajectory and, and there's a whole bunch of people behind you, moving you in the, in the proper direction and the failures don't faze us. And we, we focus on the small wins along the way. And there's, there's a huge parallel and it's, and that's part of the maddening part is how I could show up and it's been maddening for my clients who are so successful in business and so unsuccessful in love. I, it's, it's. I don't know if the word's ironic, but I know exactly what it is. I, because I'm juggling so many plates, don't even feel like I have the bandwidth right. And again, I'm not trying to make built in excuses. I don't even feel like I have the bandwidth to figure out how to hire, where to hire, like where to recruit top notch talent, how to interview. Like it brings up so many downstream things where remember I'm still doing everything for my business that hasn't stopped. So it's easier, something easier to say I'll keep my vendors and just chug away. And I'm trying to break through that right now.

And that's your golden handcuff. Because it's kind of like, you know, when a business owner, even if they have employees, they're like, you know what, I'm just going to do this. It's, I can do it faster. And you know, let me, let me just take 10 minutes because I'm going to do it. By the time I go and explain it to them, it's just going to take too much time. And then you do it again again and again and again and again again. Where you know, you could systemize it or, or hand it off. So it's. It's one of those things where that will always be the case for you, Evan. You will always be with that hamster wheel until you stop for a second and say, my focus for the next three weeks is that I'm going to bring on one to two Rockstar team members, and I'm going to walk you through some steps to find those people in a second. Because when you do, then you can really start, you know, to take a breath and do the things that you need to do to bring in more clients, support those clients, and all of those things. But in. And it's when you slow down to speed up, that's the higher, slow fire, fast. You will actually save so much time because we get desperate. You know, just like in dating, we get desperate and we're like, you're hired. But the person hasn't put any effort and or really prove themselves that they're worthy of the position if they got it so easy. And so even if you know you really like them and want them, don't hire them on that first interview at all. Like, make them jump through hoops. I want to see how much someone wants this position. How do they show up each time? Do they show up on time? How are they dressed?

Allison, I want to give you a hug. I mean, what you don't know is that the central metaphor of my love. U course I tell women you're the CEO of your love life. Men are interns applying for a job with you hire slow fire, quickly.

Yeah.

Does he come in early? Does he stay late? How bad does he want the job? It's not what happens on the date. It's what happens in between the dates. I literally say the same crap. So. So, you know, it very much resonates with me.

Yeah, but you're. We're so close to our business. We're so close to our love life. Right? Like. Like we it. And that's why having a great coach, as you know, and why you're so good at what you do is just that we don't see what we don't see. And it's like, you know, you can't read the label when you're in the jar. So if I'm talking to you and I say, you know, Evan, you know, if you bundle this over here, or you, you know, post your ad over here, or you say it this way, you know, then things are going to start to shift for you. But you can't see that because you're so used to seeing it the way it's always been, and it just keeps creating that same pattern over and over. You know, it's relationships. Whether it's love relationships or it's people relationships. In business, it's the same thing. But again, we are just so close to it, so we can't say I'm. I'm the same way. That's why I have a mentor. After 40 years in business, I am in a mastermind myself. So everything when I tell people, join us in pinnacle global networks, we can mentor you, it's because that's what I do for me and has worked all these years. So, you know, I'm not immune to any of these things either. And when you get those right people on your team and, you know, for us, many of our employees have been with us year after year after year. In fact, a lot of our coaches have been with us six years, seven years, eight years. Because, you know, we live in vision, because we come from a place of inspiration, really taking care of our clients. You know, I don't think culture is pizza parties and, you know, ping pong and all that kind of stuff. It's really relationships and connection and making people feel important and that they matter. But when we're coming from a place of anxiety and we feel like everything is these people that you've brought on is impacting your future, your marriage, your family, it brings up a lot of intensity and so forth and pressure. And when people feel under that kind of a pressure, they don't necessarily perform the best, you know?

Indeed. And that. And that's, again, I own that up front. And I feel like if I were to answer my own question, there's a feeling, I tell women clients, there's a feeling of ease. There's a feeling of comfort when you're dating the right person. It's not necessarily butterflies. It's a lack of anxiety. I want to have a hire where I can feel comfortable taking my hands off the steering wheel and being like, okay, I trust you to drive. I haven't had that feeling yet. Which leads me to believe it's not that I've lost great talent in my time here, it's that I haven't made a great hire. That allows me to relax.

Yeah. And when you do make that great hire, it is heavenly. You know, you just feel incredibly supported. You know, we have a woman on our team. Her name is Tiffany Fitzpatrick, and she's been with us, I don't know, maybe about four years. She's in client care, and we have an event coming up, and One of our members who's been with us a while, she is a chef, call her the Sauce goddess. And she wants to surprise her on stage. So I, I've got to show this podcast after our event because I don't want to blow the surprise. But she's actually going to come on stage and she's going to give her all these different, you know, she's like the Swiss army knife. And so she wants to celebrate this woman, Tiffany, because she's, she helps so many people in our community, you know that she is the spatula and she is, you know, the fork. She's, she's all the things that, you know, really help everybody out. And so it is just beautiful when you can have this marriage, no pun intended, of, of people all working together. And I'm sure the work you do, if you come to it from a place of vision, of all the people you're helping, and I'm sure you will attract some amazing people, you know, and.

Again, I actually have, like, I, I've had, I have, I had business partner, two business partnerships for like seven years with tech guys, you know, working behind the scenes. I've had my current assistant for five years, previous one for seven years. So I do engender loyalty. What I haven't done is replace me as CEO, hands on operations. And that's, you know, right now I'm inclined to say if we get operations piece down and get someone to do growth, right, just lead generation, being responsible for that, then we'll have enough cash flow to figure out how to hire other pieces around it. Um, but two people, these are the.

Two positions that I'm seeing that you need. You need like an operations manager in house full time and you know, you need probably a marketing manager. But I think, you know, marketing is so vast these days. It's changed so much. I think, you know, marketing is so vast these days. It's changed so much. I used to own an ad agency years ago and we would, you know, buy, you know, space on television and radio and magazines and all that. Now, you know, under one roof. Now you have an expert that's an SEO expert and you have a TikTok expert and you have, you know, someone that's buying paid ads, you know, online and so forth. So let's just back up and say, okay, we're looking for these people. How do we go about doing it? That's where a lot of people struggle. So I have something called the rule of three. That means that you are going to interview three people minimally Three people, even if you find one you love, you're going to do at least three and three different people are going to interview these people. Even if it's a great client of yours or your spouse or you know somebody, because you're so close to it that you're just seeing what you want. I used to own an ad agency years ago and we would, you know, buy, right? It's like dating. We don't look at those red flags. And if this is an in house position, then it would be at three different locations. So when I am back home in San Diego, you know, we definitely have several members that are right there in San Diego because I need someone that can go pick up stuff for me and be there at a talk or whatever. But depending on what your needs are. So it's three people, three different people interviewing three locations. And so, you know, you really are taking the time to get to know these people. And in fact, on our team we, when we bring on a mentor, they have to actually be interviewed by the entire panel of our team, our mentoring team. Because we have such a strong culture, we want to make sure that they align with that as well. So that's the other thing. Like you're really slowing things down. When you, let's say you're going to post to ad an ad, that's obviously one way to find employees. So let's just say you've got a lot of people out there that are looking for an operations person. So before you, in your ad, before you even get to what you're looking for and the skills and requirements and so forth, a third of your placement needs to be about culture, vision and purpose. You have to remember that when people are looking for, for a job. So before you, in your ad, before you even get to what you're looking for and the skills and requirements and so forth, a third of your placement needs to be about culture, vision and purpose. You have to remember that when people are looking for a job, they're looking for a place to live because they're going to spend more time working on your business than they are with their family. So it needs to be a place they can call home. And so when you shift your ads to culture first, then you start attracting those people that really do align with all of the things that are important to you. And then of course, you do need to look at skill and all the different other things too. But you're going to get people that come to you, that are more passionate, that are willing to go the distance. And so Then, you know, prior to even hiring them, you have to get super clear on, okay, you know, I'm interested in hiring Susan, but I've got to get clear on what are the benchmarks? Like, what does success look like? That means, you know, I want 300 new leads a week. I want 10 conversations, you know, 10 booked appointments, 70% show up three or four new clients a week or, you know, whatever you have to get super clear on. And it might not even be customers. It could be, you know, I need. We need to systemize our. Our business this year. So that's going to free me up. An operations person should be freeing you up X number of hours a week. I want 20 hours per week back so that I can, you know, whatever it is that you need to do. So. So those are really important things. And this is what we help our clients with every single day. Is this hiring piece. Because so many people get stuck with that. Is that resonating with you?

Yeah, I mean, it's. Every question leads to five more questions. Right. I mean, it's the very nature. Ask away of that. Yeah, I am. I have just so, you know, new information. I have an operations person who has been with me and has built my trust over the course of the past two years. She's never been full time. She's. She's done this for other companies, but she pretty much just works for her for herself. Hourly, you know, reasonable hourly wage. And just yesterday, I offered her the opportunity to be. Be full time. And so what I'm trying to figure out is how to set her up for success. This happens to coincide with. When I was meeting you. We agreed, hey, let's. Let's make this happen. Like, she believes in me. And you can't teach someone who cares. That's one thing I know she cares.

So.

So how do I set her up for success? And what are the exact metrics for someone who's taking an old business? Right. With six fractional vendors of varying quality and steer us towards a more scalable business with people who are bought in full time. Again, I know where I want it to go, and I want to. I want to set her up for success and also get out of her way.

Right.

Because that hasn't been.

Yeah. So. So first of all, great that you're bringing her on. I would sit down with her because she's already familiar with your business. And I would say, okay, well, actually, before you even sit down with her, I would get super clear on what your goals are for the year. Like, where do you want to end up number of, of clients at how much, you know, whatever your pricing is, whatever your revenue streams are, how many people sign up for your course, like, let's get clear on what, what that is. And if you were six months in working with her full time, what would just make you over the moon excited? Like what would just fire you up? Yeah, she's amazing. She did this, this, this, this. I feel so free. I feel, you know, whatever it is, then I would sit down with her and I would say, okay, this is really where we need to be. This would make me super excited. Let's brainstorm together on how we are going to get there. Okay. And you know, this is basically what we do in Pinnacle Global Network when we work with our clients. We look at the end in mind and then we reverse engineer it and then we put a strategic plan together on how to get there. Because when you are, you know, you have that clear North Star and you know what you need to do every 90 days, every 30 days, every week, the likelihood that it's going to happen will happen. You can be add, your team can be add, but if they know that clear North Star that they're reaching for, then every decision is like, well, is this going to take us closer? Okay, if it's not, it's not a priority. So a lot of it is the choices that we make to get there. The other thing though, I just have to slip in here and I know we said earlier you really love the coaching, which is great, but a scalable model means replication and multiplication. And when you are the one that is still the one delivering your product or service that is not scalable doesn't mean you can't coach. But if you don't have a multitude of people or however and you, I know you said that you have some, but I just want to be clear, a scalable model is not just having employees, you know, that definitely is going to free you up, but it's the delivery of your product and your offering has to be. And if it's digital, that part is scalable for sure. But it has to be a one to many model. Right? So considering that as you are reaching for your goals as well.

Yeah, the, the main offering I have is, is a group coaching program. Right now there's 30 plus people on a regular call runs for two hours on Tuesday night. Private clients who get one on one time also get access to a group call on Wednesday, but it's a more intimate group call. There's going to be a point where there's too many people to be able to ably service everybody. And I don't know what, what that looks like because as it, as it currently exists, it is, you know, every, everything is about access to talk to me. So it's not that I'm, you know, stubborn or prideful about that. It's more I don't exactly know what it looks like, how, how that's how you, how you charge for that, different paths for people because this is a phone sale, how people apply. So I'm just, I don't know the mechanics of it. I do know I have six years of graduates who are disciples who would love to be coaches here. Again, it's just another thing I got to figure out here.

Yeah, well, again, getting the support to create the scalable models and do the things that you want to do. And I'm not just talking to you, I'm talking to anybody that's listening. Having to try to figure these out when you haven't done it before is just, it could take years and years and years. Rather than someone saying, okay, this is what you need, need a certification program. You already have a signature process. You already have it, you've built it. And like you said, I'm sure there would be a ton of amazing people you've worked with that would love to step in. And again, it's about the results. You know, it's like people are not expecting Richard Branson to be flying Virgin Airlines. You know, when Mary Kay was alive, they weren't expecting that she was going to come to the door and put on your makeup, but they still loved it and they bought it. So it's still your signature process, like the scale up method. I developed that over 40 years of building companies, but I don't have to be the one that's delivering it to get the same results. In fact, it can even be better with better results because this frees me up to actually make the method even better because my mind is clear and I can create the tools like the hire for growth that I was just sharing with you and so forth.

I recognize that and my mind is certainly not clear. I think that's the thing that I want the most. I try to explain this to people who in my life is. And again, this may be the worst thing you could say on a business podcast, but I'm not really driven by money. I want my life back. The whole point is that you build a business that's your baby, that's your love, that's your passion, and then your Business ends up running you, and I just want to be like, hey, I got another book to write. Like, there's. There's like a thing I want to do. Yeah, I love to go to a conference without worrying that my business is going to grind to a halt while I'm away for four days.

Evan, you have to replace yourself. Period. End of story. I know you love coaching. You can still do it. But if you don't shift to a more scalable model, like a certification or replicate your talent with a team, and I'm talking about the delivery of your offering and plus the back end, you will not get that time. This is why, like, I. I started taking one week off a month several years ago. Now I take two weeks off a month. We live in another country four months a year. The business runs without me. I was a coach, you know, coaching just like you. I had no financial support. I was a single mom for 12 years. Everything that I am sharing with you, you can absolutely do. All right now, I'm just saying it is working with people that that is what they do, that they build scalable models, that this is. This is what they've done. If you want to get there at a fraction of the time. If I had tried to figure this out on my own, we would not be having this conversation. It's me having the support from people that built scalable models all these years and a decision that I made, you know, 30 years ago that in my first company, I didn't. I was that person. Like, I was working night and day. I had no life. And this is how millions of business owners live. So this is a common, common issue that I'm really passionate about fixing. And we have to get out of our own way because we are usually the bottleneck of the situation. But it sounds like you're starting to make the shift. You're bringing this person on. I would just really want to set her up for success, get really clear on what those benchmarks are so that she knows what her, you know, what she's reaching for every day, how she can best support you and so forth. And you know, you will make that money. Like, I know it's scary sometimes bringing someone in full time, but when you're freed up, you're actually. The business grows faster and, you know, the revenue comes in to be able to pay. You know, I don't look as at our employees as expense at all. I look them at them as a driver for growth. So once you're freed up a little bit, then it's Time to shift to a more scalable model. Get somebody else in that can help you lead the group coaching. I promise you, the clients will be fine. They want to learn the method. And then, you know, you can even have people do your one on one and, and things like that. And then when it's. You either it's a much higher price or you're able to do VIP days or, or things like that, it's. It's all how. How you set it up.

Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, you said there's 15 different models or something like that. I. I don't know them. Because I'm right. I'm singularly focused on keeping this business afloat. I. So there's a lot of people who are like, oh, I subscribe to this person. I don't got time to subscribe to anybody. Right. I'm just so, so focused on just what's in front of me that I don't have much bandwidth to even learn what I'm missing.

Yeah, I know. That's why you need to. You need to join us in Pinnacle Global Network. I'm just going to put it out there, Evan, because I'm just telling you it's truly life changing to the point where we literally have had thousands of people and over the years they say, I don't know what to do with myself. I have all this time now. I like, this is just bizarre, you know, and it truly is life changing and it happens fast. But again, we are. We don't see it for ourselves. And so, but anyway, this really has been awesome connecting with you here. I am excited for you. I really feel like, you know, you're right there to make those changes. It is just making sure you're not going to be slipping back into the way that you've always done it because it's just. You're just going to keep hitting that wall. I'm sure your family wants to be with you and have you be there present with them and not thinking about your business when. When you're spending time with them. So obviously that's a super, super big value. So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for your time and attention today.

Yeah, absolutely. And so for those of you listening, thank you for listening to another episode of the Scale it method. And if you want to build a scalable company like I've been talking to Evan about that can thrive without you and you're ready to get the support you need, apply for a complimentary scale session with one of our lead strategists at Pinnacle Global Network. And during your time together, they're going to do a deep dive into your business. Kind of look like what I've done here today with Evan. Figure out your gaps that are holding you back. And on this really powerful call, they're going to give you the solutions you need to overcome those gaps specific to your business. So all you need to do is go to my scale session.com and until next time, make decisions from where you're going and not from where you're at. Bye, everyone.