How To Scale TEFL business to 7 Figures using the Flywheel Method - ft. Michael Ross Maitland TNS 13

We are live, we are live! Hey, internet entrepreneurs, let the flow come in, let the flow come in, let people join, let my— all of my internet entrepreneurs join the show. So guys, everyone who is inside the group, just join the live right now because we have a boss, we have a boss today for sure. So it's going to be a bang with value for sure. So make sure everyone join the live. Hey guys, welcome to another live interview, interviewing session with one of the 7-figure business owners out there who literally killed it in the TEFL industry. So let me welcome all of you guys. Let people join, let people join. So guys, first of all, I hope you're having amazing time in these hard times. I hope you are safe inside your home. So welcome to the Internet Entrepreneur. This is again the live session with 7-figure business owner, right? So today we are going to have a blast when it comes to value bomb because literally this guy is man of value. So you not worry. So let's welcome Michael Ross Mitterland to the show Internet Entrepreneur Freedom.

Hello.

Hi brother, how you doing, man?

Doing good, glad to be here.

That's awesome, bro, that's awesome. How was your day so far? So let me explain what did Michael do, who is the CEO of Spectrum Mastermind, and as well as he literally killed it in the travel industry. He is also the CEO of Travel Heaven, and he is a hardcore traveler. He loves to travel, and yeah, I think he's in Thailand right now, right?

That's right, yeah, it's very late.

That's awesome. So brother, first of all, thanks for having, uh, thanks for joining the show first of all. And brother, let's not waste any time, let's directly get into the point. So I would really love to grasp a lot of value from your story because I really understand what's behind the scene. Because if I see what's happening behind the scenes with you, literally all of my internet entrepreneurs who are watching this live will get a lot of value. So I would definitely recommend you, can you please start like let us know about your backstory? How did you get started? What was the situation situation back then?

For sure. So I started my business way back in 2007, so 13 years ago now, and I'd just come back from teaching English abroad in Thailand. And I said to my boss, hey, I'll do some recruitment for you. Can you give me some money if I get you some guys to come to Thailand to teach English? And he said yes. And so for 2 years, I put up a tiny little website and I put out some adverts and I just started recruiting people to teach English in Thailand on a very, very limited basis. So I wasn't really doing much. I just wanted to get business skills. I didn't actually have a plan to build a big business out of this. I just wanted to get some skills because I felt like I didn't know anything about business. And then after a few years, the market told me to change my offer. Okay, so I'd been in there for a while, I'd made a couple of thousand pounds, but not much. And then someone in the market said, "Hey, you should change your offer to this." And I was like, "Whoa, I don't want to do that because I've never done that before." And the guy was like, "Well, if you do it, then I'll give you X amount of money to be my partner." So I was like, "All right." So I tried it, changed the offer a bit, So instead of just recruiting people to teach English, we would train them. So we'd offer them training on a paradise island in Thailand. And so we did that, started selling it, and it became a success and it developed over 10 years. And last year, 2019, we got the Two Comma Club Award for making over $1 million in the funnel. We actually made almost $5 million generated for us and our partners. But yeah, so we made it to that point and yeah, it's been a crazy journey.

Yeah, that's a long journey. It's really amazing that you've been into this industry for 13 years. That's a long frame, right? That's definitely amazing. And yeah, teaching English and also hitting 7 figures in this very niche-down business model is something crazy stuff. I'm really amazed. How did you scale that business to the next level, like 7 figures and beyond. And also, like, I would like to ask you this one question: how did you start your TEFL business? Like, how this all started? Why did you get this idea to get into this business model?

So like I said, I didn't really plan to— I didn't really plan like some entrepreneurs do where they have a list of like niches and they're like, I'm going to do that niche. Like, I didn't plan that at all. I just went ahead and tried something to get skills. I didn't have it— my heart wasn't set on building a TEFL business. It was just set on getting some skills. And then when I got better, when I actually was in it for a few years and actually got better skills, I started making more money. For example, that, that time where I changed the offer and then suddenly a lot more money came in. Like when we did that, I think we, we 10x, we literally 10x our business the next year because the offer was so good. And then it became a proper business. Then we were like, oh, like, let's pay attention. Like, up until that point, I didn't really care. Like, I didn't care. I was just doing something and making a little bit of money. I didn't care about that. But as soon as the money started coming in a bit more, I was like, whoa, whoa, what is this? Let's pay attention. So that's basically how it started. I invited my mates to be my business partner. He started doing calls and we started using the application funnel, which is basically what we've used for the past 10 years. And that's a really effective way of getting clients and how it scaled, like, because that's what you asked as well. Like what people don't understand is that business growth is exponential, a little bit like COVID-19 is exponential. So COVID-19, you notice that the numbers, they start off small, small, small, and it doesn't gradually rise, it doesn't gradually rise, it shoots up. And the reason for that is because it's doubling and doubling and doubling, or even tripling and tripling and tripling. And that's what happened with us. Like, we started off small for many, many, many, many years, but because we've impacted so many people's lives, They then came back from teaching English abroad and they would share their stories with their friends and their friends would be like, oh, that's amazing. Who did you go with? And they'd be like, TEFL Heaven. And then suddenly it was kind of like COVID-19, you know, like we, they just infected and infected and infected more people until we got exponential growth. So that's, if you serve people well, if you have a good business, if you're in it, not for the money, if you're in it to help people have a great experience and a transformational experience, then you will experience exponential growth. And when it comes, it will be unexpected. Because you're like, wow, like, we doubled our business last year. Like, how did that happen? And yeah, so Yeah, that was literally crazy.

Like, yeah, like what business people do actually, the mistake is they try to do random stuff, but the main key is to double down what's actually working. And yes, this is the true passion. Like, the money should be the secondary part. The true passion is to help people genuinely who are doing some transactions with you, who are your clients, right? So if you mainly focus on giving the service, then definitely you're going to be crazily scaling like you did in Temple Heaven. That's something amazing. And Bro, I was really amazed by seeing this keyword like flywheel strategy. Like, I'm a mechanical engineer in core, so I was like, okay, I'm very familiar with flywheel. Like, you bootstrap everything with the energy you have. So like, I would really love— like, even my internet entrepreneurs would love to listen to what's your flywheel strategy. Just give us an overview of how your Spectra Mastermind works and how this flywheel strategy works.

Okay, so there's two types of growth. There's external growth, which is marketing and sales, and then there's internal growth, which is powered by one thing, and I'll just say one word, leverage. And so many people will spend a lot of time on marketing and sales, but in order to support the marketing and sales, you need to have internal leverage, that is operational systems, trusted staff, trusted managerial processes. And basically it's your processes. Like it's the structure of how you build things. And if you have leadership problems, which I've had in the past, by the way, 'cause we had like 2 leaders at one time, it's a long story, but like if you have leadership problems, then the flywheel won't go. But if you have your operations down, your leadership down, and your staff well chosen, then you literally can spin it and then just let go and it will continue to make money. So TEFL Heaven right now, I could leave it for 6 months and it'll still make money. Not as much money right now because of COVID-19, because it's a teach English abroad company, right? Without COVID-19, it runs by itself. I don't need to do any sales calls. I don't really need to do any managerial things. Like, I'm a business owner there. If I do get involved, I'll make it spin faster, but I don't need to spend all my time in it. And that comes through leverage. And so the more that you can leverage people and systems and technology and managerial processes and all that stuff, then becomes a flywheel and it powers itself. And so you need to learn how to set KPIs and then have your staff look at those KPIs and push themselves to, push them to, push themselves to those KPIs, which then builds your business basically without you. So that's the flywheel.

Wow, that, that's insanely done. Like, exactly what, like, what a lot of people think wrong is, yes, they do, they do marketing, they do, they do work on the product and service is, but they don't really leverage the system and process. They don't have organized way to do the business, right? Like, if you see super successful entrepreneurs, they always have systems and processes in the place because they can't scale it without them, right? This is the way you scale your business, and you're teaching other people how to scale the business by using the flywheel strategy. Insanely done, insanely done, bro. And I would like to ask you a question, like, a lot of business people who are Sorry, can I add to that as well?

Can I add to that? Because I think—

yeah, sure, sure, sure, definitely.

For some people that might, that might be struggling with something here on, on the leverage, like, I leveraged straight away. So as soon as I saw the change, you know, when I said I changed the offer and we saw that more money was coming in, I wasn't available. I was actually doing a teacher's certificate at university. So I couldn't do the sales. And so that's when I said to my friend, hey, why don't you come on board and be part of my company? I'll give you some shares. Can you go and do the sales calls? Because I knew that he was an accomplished salesman because we'd worked together in a sales business before, selling American Express foreign exchange payments. And so I knew that he was good. We were a salespeople together. And so I leveraged straight away because he then did the sales calls. I did some of the emails, but then I was also just learning to teach at university. And then when I finished my university course, the last 2 weeks of university, actually, there were so many sales calls coming in every day after university, I would go and I would do sales calls and money would be coming in. And I didn't even make a decision about whether to be a teacher or not, because I would have had to say no to money. So I just didn't say no to money. I said yes to money. And then I continued to build that business, but I leveraged straight away. And the reason why I wanted to emphasize this is because One of the most common problems that I see entrepreneurs doing is not thinking about leverage, and it really burns them out. It weighs them down. It presses upon them all the many, many tasks that you have to do. And believe you me, I know what it's like. I've worn all the hats. I've been the sales guy, I've been the email guy, I've been the admin guy, I've been the operations, I've been the— done the hiring, I've done the firing. Like, you get burnt out, you get burnt out. And I had to learn this lesson over and over and over again because you're always the best at all these tasks. Like, you're the one that's worked on the sales, you know how the sales go. You don't want to give it to somebody else because they won't do as well as you. And that's the truth. But if you don't, if you don't give it away, you're never going to scale up because you'll always be working on a little clog and there'll only be so many clogs in the business and you need to get away and be like the electricity that pushes all the clogs around and you need to start hiring clogs and setting clogs in motion. So I just wanted to say that because if you're struggling right now as an entrepreneur, it may be because you're not looking at ways that you can leverage your time. You only have a certain amount of time in a day. If you don't look to leverage it, then you're not going to scale. You're not going to do as well.

Well, that, that's, that totally makes sense. Like a lot of solopreneurs actually relate to this situation. A lot of people do all the stuff together themselves. They really forgot the true vision. They can't scale by being a solopreneur. They definitely need a good team who are actually accountable to the growth. And that's where the actual growth starts. That's the real growth. That totally makes sense. And I would like to ask you this one quick question. What are the most influential books like which change your life? Like I've seen a lot of people who are mainly influenced by books, like that's how they start their journey, or that's, that's a turning point of their life, or maybe they have some special picks. So what's your special book? Like what's the book you'd be like, oh, that's my book?

Uh, good question. Um, you know, I never even— when I started my business, I never read anything. I never, I never knew there was coaching out there to help businesses business people like me, like I had to work. It probably took me so long because I didn't, I didn't read books and I didn't seek out coaching. If I'd sought that out a lot faster, I definitely would have went a lot faster. And so there's nothing from the early days that kind of inspired me, but my favorite book right now, or probably the most useful book right now has been Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson.

Yeah. One of the best ones.

It's the most useful because the Epiphany Bridge script in there, the way that you tell stories, has really influenced the way that I think about delivering content. And I also become an expert story coach, and I've broken it down. I've got my own framework now that is easier to apply, I believe, than Russell's. But it took Russell's framework for me to understand that. And I've made like tens of thousands of dollars from that little framework, like that little framework.

Wow.

It's so powerful because it brings out the emotion and it helps you know what you can say in a video. And because the book is so thick, I mean, it's not that thick, but because it's so thick, it's full of so many principles. So many people miss out that little framework, that Epiphany Bridge framework, and that's the most powerful part of that entire book.

That's, that's totally makes sense. Like a lot of people who are like, who already are 2 Comma Club Award winners, they give a lot of credit to Russell Brunson, especially the script inside the Expert Secret, because it, it, it gives a complete vision to the script which we are going to speak on the webinars or maybe the live sessions which you are going to speak. Like it completely changes the way we speak, right? That's superly done. And also, brother, what do you think are the main 3 skills which, uh, a person who is normal person need to be a successful entrepreneur, right? What would be your 3 top skills?

Yeah, so 3 skills would be, um, conscientiousness— like basically being aware of everything that needs to be done at the right time, um, and being diligent enough to get that done. Resourcefulness— so knowing who'd like— resourcefulness covers a lot of things, but knowing who to put in the right place, or knowing where to go, or knowing how to get the answers that you need. And I would say, like, a way to break free from the grind. So The skill of relaxation, basically.

That's so important. Yeah, like a lot of people will get burned out but they never realize themselves.

Yeah, the skill of being aware of— just, just awareness, like awareness of how much you're putting in and when you need to take a break and stuff. So, uh, self-awareness is also top high. Very important.

That's super cool. So yeah, guys, I hope you're getting amazing value through this session. And also, let's really quick go to the next question. This is so important. I saw your story and I was like very conscious of your story. Like even my people are watching you right now. So you did a lot of mistakes in the early careers if I remember, if I'm not wrong. So what would be your situation or like what would you do if you're just starting off, if you go back into your 20s or something like that?

Yeah, so I'm always amazed that like young entrepreneurs, I'm always like, man, how are they doing? So well. They're like so young. It's just that it's the day and age that we're in where you can be young and you can make some money. If I was giving some advice to a 20-year-old, I would say read and apply as much as you can, but don't care so much about like care more about making your character and your skills better rather than like the outcome of, of what you're doing. So what I'm trying to say is that you really need to be a certain man or a certain woman with a certain skill set to do a certain thing. And sometimes we try and take on too much thinking that we're going to be able to do it and we won't do it. But we have to make a lot of mistakes along the way before we actually get somewhere. The fastest way that I've found to increase our speed is to get coaching and mentoring and training from people that you know have already walked the path that you are gonna walk. Because life is all about overcoming the mistakes and overcoming the obstacles. And if someone's already done that for you, why would you wanna make the same mistakes if they can just turn around and be like, yeah, avoid that, avoid this, think about this. Like, it's much, much easier to stand on the shoulders of giants than it is to try and be a giant at such a young age.

So, wow, that's insane. So yeah, like, you should be having someone who is already, like, who is already in your end goal, like maybe like mentor especially, right? Like, your main thing would be you should be getting some mentor when you're just starting off because that would literally help you to have a spike inside your complete journey. Like, it will give you a huge advantage, unfair advantage, right? And brother, I'm definitely sure, like, as you already scaled your business to 7-figure and beyond, as you are already a 2-comma club winner, you would definitely have some, like, biggest achievement, that sparkling moments inside your life, your whole journey. Like, if you want to share, like, what's your biggest achievements and what's your next goal? Like, definitely, I guess your next goal would be to X, if I'm not wrong. Other than that, what would be your biggest achievements and what would be your next goal?

So my life's biggest achievement is marrying the girl of my dreams, like chasing her for over a year, and then finally she decided that she liked me, or I persuaded her that she liked me. And then I'm learning hard and building building our family together. I've got 5 kids, so that's my biggest achievement. And the next goal for me is really to influence more people's lives through business coaching. So I want to help other people to rise up and, and make an impact and to make an income through my business coaching. So that, that's it. I don't really have a monetary goal for that, like, um, As long as I'm okay money-wise, I'm fine. I'm not really dying to make like tens of millions of dollars or anything like that. But I do want to influence a lot more people and I want to be on a lot more stages. And I really want to be like a fit— I'm doing some weightlifting right now— I want to be a fit, mentally strong, physically strong, spiritually strong person.

So, well, that's a great vision. That's a great vision. Like, literally helping someone else, like genuinely helping someone else to get— be result-oriented is your end goal, your next goal. That's something insane, bro. And I'm definitely sure throughout your journey to hit like 7 figures and beyond, you definitely made some mistake, if I'm not wrong, right? If you would like to share, what's your biggest mistake in your life which you regret and which you say like, oh, if I would not do that, I would be able to position, something like that.

Biggest mistake, um, I mean, I've made a lot of mistakes. I'm not sure if I regret too many of them, um, but it's, it's, it's, it's a tough question. The biggest mistake.

Yeah, you can state any mistake which comes to your mind on spot, like Maybe, maybe something you did like 2 months ago or maybe recently, yesterday, today?

Well, I can't really think of— I try and, I try and keep my— I mean, my biggest mistake probably, but I don't regret it, but maybe, maybe it could have been different, but I wouldn't change the way that my life has run. But I did used to take drugs when I was 15. I was 15 to 18, I was, I was taking a lot of cannabis, ecstasy, drinking every weekend, concoction of drugs and drink, and really didn't pay attention to my family, didn't really have proper friends, or I thought they were friends, but they weren't. And so my biggest mistake is probably like not realizing what I was doing there. But then I realized that 18 and a half haven't, haven't had any drugs, drink, or alcohol or anything like that, or even, even cigarettes since 2000, the year 2000. I'm coming up on 20 years now. On the 26th of December, 26th of December 2020, I'll be 20 years sober. So, but yeah, that's probably, that's probably my biggest mistake. Um, but you do.

Yes, that's cool. Yeah, that's something really great that you, you overcame that thing and you're super successful these days, right? And yeah, bro, in throughout your journey, you definitely have some people who literally strived for your success. They are like main key people who are involved. So if you'd like to share who are your inspiration, like maybe your visionary, someone like that, or people who are key, like key people who are involved in your success.

So I would say like somebody that, that got me into the marketing world. I was looking for marketing training for ages. I was going to do a master's degree in marketing and I went on the internet and I Googled it. I looked for ages and ages about like master's degrees in marketing. So really want to get good at marketing and strangely like universities cannot market their master's degree in marketing very well because none of them inspired me. Like, I didn't want to do any of them. They all look really boring. And I thought, man, like, if I'm bored reading all this stuff, then how can they even know what they're doing? Because they can't even market their master's degree in marketing to me. So I didn't, I didn't choose a marketing degree at that time. And then I was on a Facebook group One time, so I was on Facebook and I was looking for entrepreneurs groups and I typed in entrepreneurs, joined some entrepreneurs groups. And then on this one group, someone asked a question about entrepreneurship and I was like, well, I'm an entrepreneur, so I'll answer it. And I answered it. And then someone was like, that's not what Dan says. And I was like, who the fetch is Dan? And I looked up and there's this baby-faced guy called Dan Henry. And I was like, who is this guy? And so I looked a little bit more into him and basically he started to become someone that I followed for a while and brought me into the ClickFunnels world. And I really like how he teaches things. And yeah, I say he's one of the inspirations for me. Yeah.

That's great. And brother, a lot of people who are watching this live may really want to invest, like want to be like picking up you as a mentor or something like that, maybe like have you inside their true journey. So like where can my audience come and find you? Where can they get mentorship from you?

They can just find me on Facebook right now. So Michael Ross Maitland on Facebook, they can follow me there and there'll be more things coming out soon. But yeah, that's where they can find me.

Super cool, yeah. I would love to put your group link as well after this live session, I'll put that group link as well your special mastermind group link. And brother, before we conclude, what are your last words to the internet entrepreneurs who are watching this session live or maybe on replay? What would be your suggestion to someone who's just starting off or who is in a phase where they want to scale their business?

Well, just back to what we're saying about leverage, like if you want to scale up, you need to find a way to leverage. If you don't have the money to pay someone, then look at getting a business partner or look at getting a virtual assistant because they're quite cheap, um, in different places like in the Philippines and things like that. Um, but look at ways that you can leverage as fast as possible and also look at getting a mentor that can take you a lot faster to your goal. That's what I would say. Apply best practices from people that have already done it.

Wow, this is a complete value session. So you really opened up the complete truth of scaling the business. The simple key is leveraging people's mind. Like, just assume, like, having 10 brains working on the same thing, it's much more powerful, right? Then just a solopreneur who's always tweaking it, it's not much effective. So yeah, brother, this was a completely amazing session. First of all, I really appreciate your time, and thanks for hopping in on this live interview and giving a lot of value to all the internet entrepreneurs who are watching this live and on replay. I would really look forward meeting you and have you again on this show very soon as well. And I hope a lot of entrepreneurs who are watching this show got a lot of value. And if you need any— have any more questions regarding the flywheel strategy, on want to get into Tefl heaven, or want to learn about how to do online business and scale beyond 7 figures, I would definitely recommend go and check out Mr. Michael Ross. He's the man, right? So I hope you guys had a lot of value. This is Nikhil Sai. We're closing this session right now.

Peace.