7 Business Experts Reveal How Entrepreneurs Actually Scale

When everybody is mani-chatting and AI-ing their way through things, when you just grab your phone and start talking, you connect so much to your audience because people connect through eyes and through mouth. We can go find anything on ChatGPT these days, but what they can't get is your energy.

People try to be a mind reader. Well, actually, your audience is telling you what they want. We just have to listen, and you have to know where to listen and how to put systems in place to listen.

There isn't an all lights are turned green and now is your time to go moment. You just have believe in yourself to know that when you start, the rest of what you need to find will unfold, especially when you surround yourself with the people around you that can support.

Chat is a tool, but an agent observes and it decides. And if you give it enough agency, it can act. It's the difference between a calculator where you put an input in and you get an answer and an employee. You have that autonomy with the power of AI for it to be able to do things for you.

A lot of times people don't ask themselves like, okay, where should I actually be for the thing that I'm selling? Maybe LinkedIn would be a great place for them, or TikTok's a great place, or Pinterest long-term. Where does my, you know, woman who's 25 to 30, who goes to Pilates every Wednesday, who does all these things, where does she hang out online? And doubling down in some of those areas.

When are you actually holding yourself back from scaling? Because you need someone that has like senior level expertise, right? Maybe it's operations, maybe it's marketing, maybe it's sales. That's one of the signals that we do need that more senior hire.

Now, to make your business sellable, and this can apply to you if you're wanting to sell tomorrow, a year from now, 10 years from now, it doesn't matter.

But number one, okay, so you guys, I want you to meet Melissa Dugalecki. And she is our marketing coach in Mentor Collective Mastermind. And marketing is one of my favorite pieces to talk about. And so I'm so excited to have you here, Melissa. And I just wanna share a little bit about you and your business so people can know how incredible it is to get access to you. I learn from you all the time on the calls, so I just wanna share a little bit about you. You've built a 7-figure business with 4,000 followers and no paid ads. You've partnered with some of the biggest names in the industry. You speak internationally. You've published your own book. You've built multiple 7-figure businesses on your own team. And it's been so fun to watch you grow even more in the short time that I've known you. And I think that that just shows how much you are able to, uh, grow and also help other people grow. And the reason that I think this is so important to also just talk about the businesses that you've built is I want everyone to know that we're not just hiring coaches who can kind of guide and help people through things. These are people who have built massive businesses on their own, and they're applying all of the things that are working for them and teaching you in your business as well. So Melissa, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you on.

Mm-hmm.

Thank you so much, Lori. I'm so excited to be here.

So we're gonna go through a few questions because what I want people to understand is what it feels like on the inside of Mentor Collective Mastermind. So let's jump right into it because marketing is really broad. You hear the word marketing and people are like, you know, they apply different meanings to it. They don't know what that particularly, like what exactly does that apply to in my business? So what do you specifically see as the most important things for Mentor Collective Mastermind members? Or anyone to focus on to improve their marketing in their business?

I mean, you're spot on. Marketing is so broad, uh, it can encompass so many different things, but primarily the main things that we see is diving into over and over and over and identifying, uh, where people can monetize more, uh, where people can improve their lead flow without having to go to paid ads, without needing more followers. And Lori, I think I just want to hit that for a second because I think it's really important to understand when your marketing is off Oftentimes we think we have to drop our prices, we need to run to paid ads, uh, we're not good enough, or we fall into comparison. And it's likely just a marketing issue, and you have to reposition and dial in your marketing, and then things are going to begin to flow more. And so it's so important to, to dial that in. And primarily, if we're looking at the whole scope of marketing, that can encompass your entire funnel. But if we're prioritizing looking at top of the funnel— and so what does that mean? That's going to mean your messaging. That's your sign on the door. And Lori, you've seen this. We've talked about messaging all the time. It can seem so simple, but actually you really have to dig in. And we do certain practices in Mentor Collective Mastermind, and we take people through different activities to get clear in it. I just helped somebody today with her messaging. She was like, oh my gosh, that clicked, right? Within our program. And it's understanding if your sign on the door is off, if it's vague, if it's fuzzy, if it doesn't speak your ideal client's language, And that's a big mistake I see. We often speak our language, not our ideal clients. We forget that gap between where they are and where we're going to take them. They're going to walk right by it. And so messaging for sure. And then secondly, I'd say, is building authority and ownership. You know, we can't give everything, like all of our power, all of our contact to social media platforms. We have no control over ownership. So in Mentor Collective Mastermind, as you know, we spend a lot of time working on lead magnets. Landing pages for lead magnets, building your email list, building your opt-ins. And so while there's a million things we could talk about, I'd say those two— I couldn't pick one— those two stand out to me as, uh, the, the most pivotal and, and the most needle-moving for people.

You know, something we say all the time in there is, in, in everywhere, in every industry, there is not a whole lot that more eyeballs or bigger audience can't solve. And just like you said, a lot of times people are like, oh, maybe I should create something new. This isn't working. You know, people aren't looking at my stuff on social media. There's so many little tweaks that once you get inside of a mastermind like this, other people's eyeballs are on it so they can help you. They can give you feedback. They can say, God, you don't need to start something new. Your program is actually awesome. It's just so confusing on how people are going to find you and who you are. That's actually one of the biggest things I see, Melissa, in there. I'm sure you I obviously do too as a coach, is people will get on and I'll go to their Instagram and I'm like, I don't know what you do. Like, I don't even know what you do from your website. Like, your program is amazing. I know that you— like, a lot of these people can get awesome results with the few clients they have, but they're changing lives, but they can't seem to get more people. And so having someone like you in there who can go and look at a landing page, you can go and look at something and say Hey, you need to tweak this. You need to go do this survey to your people. You need to go learn more about your ideal client or go through this exercise so that now you can like really directly impact them and they can raise their hand and say, that is for me. It's either that is for me or that is not for me. We want something so clear like that. So I love, love, love that. And that is what you're so helpful with. Okay. So how does brand play into buyer decision-making and marketing strategy?

Brand is so widely talked about and I think quite often misunderstood. So the way I, I coach it and teach it is I built my business with 4,000 followers because I had such a strong brand, but I didn't even realize it at the time.

Mm-hmm.

But brand identity is like creating a movement, is creating something that people are clearly a part of. They understand it, they wanna join. It's not, you know, fonts and colors. Those parts of a brand kit will bring your brand to life. But it's not the substance of your brand. And so we really work on, uh, you know, unique selling proposition is very commonly known. You USP, what is your unique selling proposition? I really like to break down what is your UBP, unique brand positioning, because as the industries become more saturated and everyone's like, it's too saturated, it's not. It just requires us to become a little bit more discerning, a little bit more ninja. And I mean, Alex Hormozi just said it on a recent interview. Cody Sanchez just said that on a recent interview. If they were starting over and they had to do one thing to focus on from scratch, what would it be? And both said build their brands. And so I think if we're looking at two identical programs, two identical price points, you know, talk about saturation in the industry, the buyer is going to make a decision based on the brand. Do they know it? Do they align with it? Do they trust it? Is it familiar? Is it consistent? Are they visible enough? And so, you know, I, I just, I don't think we can overlook the importance of brand, but understanding brand beyond just like a brand kit.

Mm-hmm.

What would you say are some of the big components that go into brand that you are seeing people missing? Like when we start working with people in Mentor Collective Mastermind, what are some of the overarching, like, oh my gosh, you guys need to start working on this specifically for your brand?

Yeah. Two things. I mean, a few things that I do is, um, One is core values. I think core values are so important. What do you wanna be associated with and what do you want people— these are different things we bring people through in Mentor Collective Mastermind, but it takes digging. It takes a little bit of back and forth and soundboarding. But what do you wanna be associated with? If you're not in the room and somebody says, I need someone to solve this problem, and they say, oh, you need to go to Lori. Oh, you need to go to Melissa. You've mastered brand. What is that thing? Messaging. I know we just hit it, but messaging is a huge part of brand. For me, I live in Tulum, Mexico. I throw in hola, I throw in different things where people know it's me, not chat. And these tiny little things, and we call pattern interrupt, which is something I, I teach more deeply. I can't get into that right here, but you know, pattern interrupt will actually stop your reader to be like, oh, this is Melissa, and they feel more connected. So just that human connection. But a fun activity is I always say, if two famous people were to birth you, There's like your brand persona parents.

Who would they be?

Hmm.

And that allows you to see how you wanna be perceived by well-known brands or names by taking two together and what makes you you. And that's a great place to start from as well.

Hmm.

Okay.

So fun.

All right.

In a world full of ChatGPT, cuz you know, as much as it's saved our time, it's also now made everyone sound alike in my personal opinion.

Agreed.

How important is messaging and how does someone improve it?

I know I don't want to beat it to death, but messaging is so important. It is everything.

Honestly, it's, it's everything. I'm working on it. I feel like I'm working on it every day, every week.

And to your point though, it evolves.

Uh-huh.

Uh, the more clear that you get, the more feedback that you get. And, and I work with people in MCM to show them the two most, uh, important and lucrative places to get your messaging data. Because a lot of times people try and guess, oh, I should say this. And actually there are two parts of the sales funnel where we'll find spots to collect data to dial in somebody's messaging. The other thing about messaging is it's not just marketing. It's going to be your client experience. It's going to be your client retention. It's going to be in referrals. So it's got to be consistent all the way through. Ways to improve it, I think, are to look at these two spots that, that we focus on in MCM. And, and pull the data and we extract it and we help set up these systems to do that. So now instead of, uh, using your words or trying to be a mind reader, Lori, that's what I often say is people try to be a mind reader.

Mm-hmm.

Well, actually your audience is telling you what they want. We just have to listen.

Mm-hmm.

And you have to know where to listen and how to put systems in place to listen. So I help our members put systems in place in two particular spots. Where we can really collect data to make decisions and not just try and guess and not just try and mind read. But, uh, you know, some of the biggest mistakes are just so general, blending with the noise, afraid to say the thing. Like I always say, what is the thing that everyone's thinking but no one's saying? Whatever in your niche, like whatever that may be, if you're willing to go there, you're going to stand out more.

So good, Melissa. Thank you so much for coming on. There's so much we could dive into.

I know.

But the really cool part, you guys, is that you get access to Melissa inside of Mentor Collective Mastermind. You literally get to, um, not only see her teach, but she comes on a lot of the call, or she comes on the calls and answers questions as well. And you also get access to her, um, with a 24 to 48 hour turnaround time on those questions in Circle, which I think is one of the coolest parts of this program is those on-demand answers. During the week, which is absolutely incredible that you don't have to wait until another call to go and get your stuff looked at, to go and get your answers to everything.

Yeah, the, the response time in Circle is a huge value add. You know, I'm constantly breaking down landing pages, and to be honest, Lori, I, I ran a business coaching mastermind for 6 years. It ran 52 weeks a year, and it was very successful. And when I became a part of Mentor Collective Mastermind and saw that you and Chris, who have massive brand power, have so much expertise and experience. You weren't saying, well, we're gonna, we're gonna coach and do everything because we know it all. You said, hey, we're going to get you really, really far, we're going to bring everything we got, but we've actually hired all of these coaches to give so much value. I closed my mastermind and sent it to Mentor Collective Mastermind.

That was the—

like, I've never closed it in 6 years, but I saw that I've never seen anything in all my time in the industry and all the masterminds I've been a part of and seen and even helped my clients with that provides this level and this depth of coaching support. And so I just think that's also a testament to you and Chris and what you're on a mission to build.

Um, well, I am so grateful you are in there. You have no idea. Your value is so insane. I learned something from you every single time you open your mouth. So I'm so grateful for you because we couldn't do this program without you and these incredible coaches. It wouldn't be what it is. So it's been just such an honor of my life and so much fun. So I'm so grateful for you. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you, Lori.

Allie and Matt, welcome to the podcast.

Woo!

So happy to be here.

Oh my God.

It's like a party, you guys. I've had a blast just with all of the coaches because they're also all in my life and you're also all friends. So this is so much fun. So I'm going to read a little bit about Allie and Matt because they are extraordinary humans and I'm so excited to share them with you. Allie and Matt Aruta are entrepreneurs, investors, accountability coaches, and the co-founders of Benchmark Fitness, a luxury fitness and recovery gym built on community. They've created a culture where health, mindset, and leadership intersect, helping ambitious professionals build stronger bodies, greater confidence, and consistent growth. Allie's also the creator of the International Girlfriends Walk, while Matt, a lifelong athlete, is passionate about fostering accountability and high performance. Together, they help high achievers raise their standards and build lives and businesses that reflect their fullest potential. Allie, I also know that you're helping people with visibility a lot right now, which is so incredibly exciting. But you guys truly, we love having you in there because you build as a couple and you have such unique, diverse backgrounds and you're building personal brand and you have a brick and mortar and you're doing different courses. So you have a lot of perspective from a lot of different industries and building together. In your business. And so in Mentor Collective Mastermind, you're also our accountability coaches and you emcee a lot of, pretty much, well, you emcee all of the calls and you also host an incredible happy hour. You guys are like the heartbeat. I would say you're the prom king and queen of the Mentor Collective Mastermind, which is so much fun because this program has taken on a life of its own because of all of the incredible humans in there. And I would say that every single person is especially you guys, just have a heart of wanting to help and serve people and see them win. I've never actually seen two people be such giant cheerleaders for people, hold them accountable, and want them to win. So we're going to talk a little bit about the question, some of the main questions that you see in there, and so we'll just roll from that. So why do high-achieving entrepreneurs still struggle to follow through even when they know exactly what to do?

I think a lot of it actually does come down to accountability because, Lori, I'm sure you have this as well. Matt and I definitely do, where we have lists, we have Post-it notes, we have calendar reminders, and we can have all of the to-dos and all of the reminders at our fingertips, but it takes the accountability to put the action step in to getting that shit done. And having someone like an accountability coach in your corner that's not only going to hold you to that standard to complete the thing, but also be as a reference point directing you to the person or the coach in this case that's going to help you and get that task completed sooner. And we say it all the time that the, the quickest way to advance in your business and grow is to be in a mastermind. And Mentor Collective Mastermind is so unique because they have access to all of these different coaches and industries to help them navigate these challenges or these to-do things that are on their list. And it all starts with having that accountability.

And you know, something changes when you put out there what it is you're going to do to multiple people hearing it. So yes, these touch points that we have, whether they be hosting calls or hosting happy hours or sending out weekly accountability email reminders and DMs These are all different touchpoints to have them say out loud multiple times the things that they are going to be responsible for and the way in which they take it more seriously. And you know this as well as anybody else, what you do to show up for somebody else is typically a hell of a lot more than what it would be for just you showing up for yourself by yourself. So the accountability component of this, whether you want it or not, drags you up into a higher level.

Yeah, I, I can honestly tell you everything that I've done has been through a mastermind, through accountability, through my peers and through coaches. And, you know, something that I didn't know about myself and that I didn't really realize about humans until you get into groups like this is exactly what you said, Matt. Like, until we start putting it out there, the level in which we start showing up and playing when we don't want to disappoint people. When we want to be the person that we say we are and that we say that we want to be. It is like I will run through a wall in order to not disappoint people. And you guys are incredible accountability coaches in that program because you do hold people accountable, but in such an empowered way. Not like a, you said you were going to do this, why didn't you do it? It's like, come on, this is who you know you want to be. This is what you wanted because you have that amazing fitness background too. It's such an empowering coaching style. Like, I love it and it's so powerful because it gets people to where they want to go. People always shout you out in the groups, like, as a huge reason why they're reaching their goals is because they have you guys to answer to and you're constantly reminding them. And whether they like getting those emails or not, not that, not checking in, did you do the thing you said? And then also to have you guys shout them out on the calls in front of everyone, I will run through a wall for edification. And I think that that's been such a beautiful thing to be recognized in the group by you guys all the time. So I love it because you're the eyes and the ears where Chris and I can't be sometimes, and it's so powerful because it brings us up to speed of everything that's going on with everyone and where they're at with their goals. So what, what do you guys think is the difference between motivation, accountability, and why does one create lasting results while the other one doesn't?

The difference between motivation and accountability is obviously motivation, it's on you essentially to have to come up with it every single day. You're the one, whether you're feeling sick, you're feeling like you've got kids or whatever other obligations pulling you a million different ways, it's you that has to dig down deep that effectively gets you from point A to point B. Whereas accountability, we become your partners, we become a bit of your ride-or-dies where we, we understand what your goals are. We're not going to necessarily put your feet to your— to the fire, but we're going to remind you lovingly. We are going to remind you, and we are going to bring you along with us. The beauty of what we're able to do specifically within MCM is the strength of the entire program isn't just on Allie and myself or on you and Chris. We have got a spectacular team of coaches who are so dialed into their individual niches that when somebody, when a member specifically needs help, if Allie and I knowingly can't be the one to get them across the finish line, we can happily quarterback it to one of the other amazing coaches who they can step in and take them across the finish line. And it's that accountability component versus the motivation when you don't feel like doing it that we will ensure, whether it's us or one of our teammates, gets you to where you need to go.

We see it a lot in the accountability coaching group that, as you said, Lori, visibility is a big thing in our MCM community. And I can confidently say that if you tell me you are going to post 3 times on Instagram in a week, we're watching. I will go check your Instagram and I will lurk until I see all 3 posts. And the success rate of that has actually been pretty good.

So I'm confident in what I'm saying.

Yeah, exactly.

We love a lurker. We love a positive lurker. Okay, so you guys also really help people, like, with their physical health as well, because I think that that is such a massive— I don't think, I know it's a massive piece of entrepreneurship. You're only going to be able to go as far as your energy is going to carry you. And if you are not feeling good, if you don't feel good in your body, if you do, if you're not taking care of yourself, your business can't Like you, you can't run on empty. There's no possible way. And if you're not feeling good about yourself, you're probably not gonna go and do the things that are required, take the risks, put yourself out there, be more visible. So how does physical health directly impact business growth and leadership capacity?

We think it is such an intersection of growth, not only for the success of how you're gonna grow and evolve for yourself, like your body, but how that energy is going to be poured into the success success of your business, we are the first ones to say it, that movement is such a priority for how we start the day, because then we can show up as a better versions of ourselves for our calls, for our team, for our communities, but also for the content that we create. It is how we are going to fuel that energy. And seeing some of the conversations that we have had in the MCM community surrounding that, and even rewiring how people think about movement, even if it is just like getting a goal of 10,000 steps in a day or out for a 20-minute walk between Zoom calls so they can clear their mind and just have a fresh slate for how they're going to pour into the content that they're gonna create after all of their Zoom calls. That it really is this co-creation of stimulating your mind and body through fitness and how that is also going to help you grow and evolve with your business.

The correlation between not necessarily being fit, but all of the habits it takes to consistently show up when you don't feel like it. And that's the part that I think so well mirrors what the entrepreneur journey is. You're going to show up, you're going to get through it. In the middle of it, you're going to hate it. It's hard. You might be sweating and crying and all the other things that entrepreneurship sometimes looks like, but at the end of it, you're never going to regret it. And that feeling of accomplishment and that heightened feeling of focus. These are all things that you bring with you into what you go do once you're done doing what you did within the gym walls. I can't think of any, I really can't, I can't think of any high-level entrepreneur that we look up to that we've worked with that doesn't feel that looking after themselves first, I mean physically, which then leans itself to the mental component, that that isn't a huge priority of their day and weeks. To set themselves up for success professionally thereafter.

I think it ultimately comes down to discipline. We have to be disciplined to do hard things in the gym when it comes to moving our bodies. I always use the example of pull-ups, but it's discipline that is going to make us better in the gym, and it's discipline that is also going to make us better in our business.

Show up, right? Your show up rate, you know, because absolutely you're gonna solve shit if you show up. That's huge. Okay, so what are the most common mindset blocks that you're seeing in ambitious entrepreneurs that keep them stuck at their current level.

Visibility is a big thing that has been coming up and people starting to realize that, oh my gosh, yes, it is absolutely necessary, but it's intimidating. Or it is for sure that imposter syndrome, that, that thing is so sneaky and it comes up so often, but really working through imposter syndrome and also getting over the hunch of being afraid to show up online and show up in your stories or creating content. And knowing who it is that you're going to speak to, which also I have to give a shout out to our coaches that literally help you with messaging and help you with social so that you're able to take from all of those expert coaches to build up that muscle to be able to do the hard things. And obviously the accountability of knowing that we have your back, we are going to celebrate you, we will show up on your lives, we will comment, we will like, we will share. And all of that. But I think that that's a huge thing is the block of being visible, but being surrounded by a supportive community that will celebrate you literally in real time working through that block has been so incredible to witness.

And what I'll add to that is the idea of people waiting for the quote unquote perfect time to start anything. And again, I, I know I'm preaching to the choir here. You know better than most that there isn't an all lights are turned green and now is your time to go moment. It doesn't exist. You just have to believe in yourself to know that when you start, the rest of what you need to find will unfold, especially and specifically when you surround yourself with the people around you that can support what the next step is that you're looking for. So the idea of just getting out of your own way and recognizing that nothing starts until you start— first step forward. Chris says it all the time: how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And it's the God's honest truth. You just have to start small, but you have to keep going.

Mm.

I love that. All right guys, what's one of your favorite parts of Mentor Collective Mastermind?

Oh my gosh. Um, we're so lucky we get to see them as often as we do. To your point at the beginning of this year, like the idea that we get to touch base with these incredible humans multiple times a week and to see, I'd say my favorite part is to see the ones who were most scared. Actually start and then watch the confidence drip in week over week over week. That's the part that is so ridiculously fulfilling for me. Best, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yes.

That's a good one. I'm realizing that I should have totally gone for answering that. But I would say community. I am such a lover of community and I'm loving being able to see the connections being made and people that are taking the initiative to host their own coffee connection calls so that they can all meet. And people that are actively making an effort to compare, like, which in-person events are you going to? I'll be there. Let's get dinner. Let's do a group workout. I love seeing that and being able to witness the friendships at the core, but then on top of that, the collaborative energy that's happening from a, a business standpoint as well. Mm-hmm.

It's finding your people. There's nothing like it. The, the amount of um, just fear that subsides when you meet other people doing the same thing that normalize the conversations that you're having compared to like, you know, we've all talked about this when your family's like, oh, what's that thing you're doing? Or are you really sure you can do that? Or friends that are like, oh, that's cute. Or, you know, judging you. And a lot of times in entrepreneurship you lose friends because you have to go all in and it's, it's challenging. So I love that you guys cultivate so much community around like, hey, We're having a different conversation over here. This is normal. Like, how could we connect? How can we be friends and do something business-wise together? And I think that is so much fun because when you're, when you're built to be a builder, you are built a little different than most people around you. So it really is awesome to find your community. You guys host so many calls where people really, really get to drop in and become friends and talk about these things and move through them together. So you guys, I'm, I'm so grateful for you both. Like, you've just been the most insanely amazing addition, and to get to do this with friends is life-changing for us. So thank you guys for coming on.

Thank you so much for the opportunity and giving us the platform here to have a conversation about something that we also love and enjoy so much.

Yeah, we couldn't be more grateful for the program. We couldn't be more grateful for you and Chris and your guys' leadership. Like anything else spectacular, it starts from the top and you guys, you guys shine through. So thank you.

Oh, thank you guys. Starting something new isn't just hard, it can be terrifying. I remember right before I launched my first business and even this podcast thinking, is this really the right decision? What if this What if this totally bombs and nobody listens? What if no one buys anything? And the doubt got super loud, but choosing to do it anyway was one of the best decisions of my life. And having the right tools underneath you helps that jump feel a whole lot safer. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US, from brands just getting started to household names. And it's what I trust with Glossier, with hundreds of ready-to-use templates Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. It's packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography, which saves you so much time. You can tackle everything in one place, inventory, payments, analytics, and more. No juggling platforms, no tech overwhelm. And if you're wondering, what if I get stuck? Shopify's award-winning 24/7 customer support is always there to help. Plus that iconic purple Shop Pay button gives you the best converting checkout on the planet, helping boost conversions and turn more carts into real sales. It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/happy. Go to shopify.com/happy. That's shopify.com/happy. You know, I talk a lot about how powerful sleep is for our skin, for our mood, for our hormones, literally everything. But if I'm being honest, winding down at night hasn't always been easy for me. My brain literally loves a 10:00 PM strategy session all by myself as soon as my head hits the pillow. That's why I've been so intentional about creating a nighttime ritual. And lately, OSEA's Dream Collection has been such a beautiful part of that. Their Dream Night Serum and Dream Night Cream are clinically tested, powered by bioretinol, and designed to reduce the visible effects of stress on your skin while you sleep. So you can literally say goodnight to dryness, dullness, wrinkles, and loss of firmness. And I'm especially excited about their newest launch, the Dream Bio Retinol Body Serum. It's a full-body overnight treatment with bio retinol, red seaweed, magnesium, and lavender that visibly firms, smooths, and deeply hydrates while also creating this incredible sense of calm before bed. I am obsessed with the smell. Lavender is one of my favorites. And because skincare is self-care and choosing products that work while you sleep, that's the kind of efficiency that I am here for in this season of my life. So give your skin a rest with clean, clinically tested skincare from OSEA. And right now we have a special discount just for our listeners. Get 10% off your first order site-wide with code EARN at oseamalibu.com. O-S-E-A malibu dot Welcome, Andrea, to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm super pumped about this.

I'm so pumped about the podcast and also to have you as a coach in Mentor Collective Mastermind. I'm going to read a little bit about you so everybody knows who they're getting. Andrea Sager is an author and the CEO founder of Legalpreneur, a legal tech startup that focuses on helping small businesses cover their assets and get lawyered up. She's also the founder of Andrea Sager Law, where she is ranked number 22 2 out of 40,000 trademark attorneys in the United States. Andrea's true passion is helping small businesses protect their businesses without spending big firm fees. Andrea, you have helped Chris and I with— I, I can't even— I couldn't even tell you how many things at this point. Like, having a business means, um, you need to have an attorney in your back pocket that you can go, oh my God, I don't know, ask Andrea. Are we good? Ask Andrea. Let's get this trademarked. Tell Andrea immediately. Immediately. Like, the amount of times that, that conversation has come out of our mouths and also how many people we've referred to you because people need you and everything that you do. It just made absolute sense that we had to have you in the Mentor Collective Mastermind, and I can only imagine how many people are hitting you up and how grateful people are for you. So what I wanna do today. Um, for everybody listening is we're gonna do like the top 3 questions that you get asked the most and also give them a little taste of what goes on inside of the mastermind, especially for those people who are at that like $25K to $500K. So more early, um, early entrepreneurs. I think that's when they really need you as well. Um, so let's kick it off just from the first question, and that is what legal protection is needed for online small business? Businesses?

Yeah, so this is the biggest question and I just kick it off right off the bat. Every member of the mastermind gets our, our business audit for free. So that's where we go in and just dissect your entire business and then we tell you line by line, hey, you need an LLC for this, or hey, you have an LLC, this is when your renewal is due, or hey, you need this stuff to keep— make sure your LLC is up to date. And then we go to your contracts and tell you exactly what contracts because it's obviously we know we need written contracts, but we tell you, hey, for this offer, you need this contract. For this offer, you need that contract. And so it's just really giving you the answers instead of, hey, here's this general answer, go figure it out. No, we lay it out all for you. And then we go to your intellectual property and tell you, hey, these are the trademarks you have. These are the copyrights you have. This is what you need to do with it. So we really just lay it all out there because I come from big law and I did not enjoy being billed out for every second of my time and even pay— people had to pay just for the information. So I've always been a firm believer that, hey, you shouldn't have to pay for information. And it has always been my mission to make sure that our legal protection is as affordable as possible. So I love being part of the mastermind and being able to just take that even a step further and offering our business audit completely free to all of the mastermind members.

Yeah, that is So exciting. That is so huge. And I would say a lot of people avoid this piece because they're afraid of it. They're literally afraid. And here's the thing is like, they're afraid. They, they want to know that they're covered. They want all these things. But I think sometimes it just takes someone like you being like, hey, it's okay, let's go look at it, let's go figure it out. And then when you're on the other side, like, honestly, the most empowered place you can be is knowing you're covered. It's almost like it gives you way more way more freedom to like run and grow.

Oh, absolutely. Because most of the time business owners aren't aware of the subconscious fear that they have because they're afraid to be seen because they know, hey, I'm not legally protected, or I don't know if I'm legally protected. And so they're stumped from growing and they have no idea why. But then they come and they get all the legal stuff taken care of and they're like, oh, that was it? That, that was easy peasy. And then before you know it, They're being seen, they're growing as fast as ever, as fast as ever before because all the legal stuff's taken care of. They're not afraid to be seen anymore because they don't mind if a million plus eyes are on their stuff because they know what to do if somebody steals their stuff, or they know they can really brand all of their offerings because they're protected.

Yeah, I, I think the beginning with that is just, I, I actually wish we would've had it a lot sooner. You know, we had started in business when this wasn't even a, it wasn't even a conversation. You really operated without a lot of this stuff in the beginning. And I just remember, especially because I was in the fitness world, I was just like, oh God, am I doing everything right? Like, how do I know? And you're scared to spend money on it because you also don't have a lot of money in the beginning.

Exactly.

So it's so powerful, um, what you offer in there.

It's crazy.

Okay. Question 2, when is the right time to trademark and like, what should we even be trademarking? Yeah.

So trademarks are your brand identity. So think your brand name, your logo, your slogan, your podcast name, any offering name, anything that has a unique name within your business likely can be protected with a trademark. And the right time to file obviously is as soon as possible. However, we're working with clients that are balling on a budget, I like to say. And so if money is an issue, you want to wait until you make that shift from Hey, I'm trying this thing out and trying to see if I can make it work. It's when you make that shift from that to, oh yeah, this is a thing, this is, this is going to stick. When you, when you make that transition, that's the latest you want to file that application. Because right now when you file a trademark application, it takes over a year to be registered. So you want to have the benefits as soon as possible. So you want to file as soon as possible. But of course, if money is an issue, just keep it in the back of your mind. And when you're ready to make that investment, do it as soon as possible.

Can you talk a little bit about if people are kind of freaking out like, oh, I can't quite do it yet, is there something around like first use, especially if you've been using it all the time or—

Yeah. So if you have not yet filed your application, if you were using it in business first, you ultimately have priority to the name. So if somebody comes along a year later and files an application, You can now cancel their application or registration if it's registered now. You can cancel their registration to get your registration. That is available to you. Of course, it costs more money. That can cause a lot of headaches. So you want to file as soon as possible, but you still have options available if somebody has filed before you but you were using it first.

There's so much I've learned that's also just been really helpful as we've been naming our different, you know, naming different offers that we have, naming podcasts, naming books. Like, it's been really interesting. Like, you can trademark things, and some other people can have certain things trademarked and names, but then you can also use them in different categories. It's like, it's very helpful to have someone who understands because more is probably open than you think. And then also, you can also protect yourself more too. There's just, there's a lot of nuances that it's important to have somebody as you're building to ask these questions to, which is why it's so awesome to have you. Okay, third question. How to make your business sellable.

Yeah, this has been a huge topic as of lately because for those that don't know, we're in the middle of the great wealth transfer. So all the boomer businesses are selling, they're retiring, and I'm finding that 2026 is the big year. January alone, we had like 6 new deals of people selling or buying. So we, we've been very busy with mergers and acquisitions. Now, to make your business sellable, and this can apply to you if you're wanting to sell tomorrow, a year from now, 10 years from now, it doesn't matter. But number one, you need to make sure that you are removed from the business or are removable from the business, which means the business can operate without you because nobody wants to buy a business where the owner has to stay in forever. So to make it more seamless, you want to get yourself out of the business as quickly as possible. And what's so funny about that is when you remove yourself, then you're, Then you get to the point of, wait, why would I wanna sell this business?

It's operating, it's making money without me.

Exactly.

I, I've been there so many times. I've been so close to selling a number of times and every time I'm like, it's, it's just not time. It's just not time. But that's number one. And number two, you absolutely wanna make sure you are protecting your intellectual property because that is actually monetizable assets. Some people may only want to buy the intellectual property that you you have. And even if it's not buying the business as a whole, maybe it's a program that you offer. Maybe it's just this brand name that you have that they wanna buy. So protecting the IP that you have, that's gonna make sure your business or parts of it are sellable in the future. And then number 3, and there's, there's a lot that goes into making a business sellable, but number 3 is having clear financials. At any given moment of time, you, if somebody says, hey, send me your balance sheet, or your cash flow statement. It should take 5 minutes to send to them. So hopefully you have these documents ready at any time. If not, it's not the end of the world. You just need to make sure you're working with a really good small business accountant to make sure you're ready to send these documents at any time because you don't want to have to go back and recreate documents or numbers and balance sheets that, that can take hours and days and not fun. So always make sure you have clear financials, cuz that's gonna make the selling process much easier as well.

So good. I mean, this doesn't even scratch the surface of questions that come up and that you help with. Um, but I'm so grateful for you. I would love to know what is your favorite part about Mentor Collective Mastermind?

I love that people can ask any question at any time. Uh, because so many people are afraid of the legal stuff, but the Mentor Collective Mastermind really breaks down that barrier because they have access to everything that they would absolutely need to run their business and getting those questions answered without being charged an hourly rate as most attorneys charge. I think that really, it fulfills my mission in making the legal side of things much more attainable and not as scary.

You are a magical human in that regard because I really, most of all of this is fear. And I will tell you, I've, you know, with the different businesses that we've had, 'cause I've had to have different types of attorneys. You're very unique in the fact that you do not operate in fear and in, you know, or in like black and white. There's a lot of gray in legal, which I love. You're wearing a gray shirt. There's a lot of gray and there's a lot of considerations. And I just love that there's an open conversation about all of it. So I'm so grateful for you. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you.

So grateful for you, Chris, and the Mastermind.

Jillian Murphy, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me, my friend. I'm so glad to be here.

Okay, you're, you're one of my favorite people to jam with because I love sales. I think you teach a woman sales, you teach a person sales, and they're good to go for life. Truly, it's like the best thing. And you are an absolute ninja when it comes to sales, especially in the DMs. So I'm gonna read a little bit about your bio so people can know who you are. You're one of our incredible coaches in Mentor Collective Mastermind. So you are a sales and marketing leader with nearly 25 years of experience driving growth across multiple industries. Jillian has worked with major consumer brands like Boom Chicka Pop and HealthAid Kombucha. Those are some of my favorites, helping create marketing and things that truly convert for them. In the online space, Jillian has scaled her own business from zero to six figures in just six months to half a million in 17 months, and is now nearing seven figures all through organic messaging, authentic marketing, and powerful lead generation. You guys, one of my favorite things about about all of the coaches is that they have insane businesses themselves. And so I've been in a lot of different programs, and I will tell you, people have gotten assigned to me who have never run a business in their life to be a coach of mine or an accountability coach. And the coolest part of Mentor Collective is it's like, Jillian, you are doing this every day. You're in the rooms, you're in the DMs, you're putting on the sales trainings. People are obsessed with your sales trainings in Mentor Collective Mastermind, like one of the calls that everybody loves to get on. And so I'm excited to chat with you here so people can kind of get a little inside scoop. We're going to ask a couple of questions that I feel like you get a lot, and then you can add some color to it too. But I think one of the biggest things when people come in, especially from this $25K to $500K, is everyone is like, how do I get more people, more audience, more leads?

Yes.

Yeah.

So I love this question. Before we even start into this, I just wanna say one of the things that I love most about the collective is the group of coaches. So even if I get a sales question and I'm like, this is actually more about your content, go see this person, or this is more of a marketing question, go here. So I think that's also something that is so different about this program particularly is that we love to bounce ideas off of each other, but I'm here to talk all things leads right now. So I think one of the biggest things that people see when they come into Mentorship Collective or even this point in their business is they think that they need more messaging or they think that they need more marketing or even more sales. But really what they need is more leads coming in. And one of the easiest ways that you can generate more leads is number one, use the mastermind. Use the mastermind to collaborate, to connect, to do email swaps with, uh, freebie swaps with. It's one of the best things that you can do. And I'm also like a big IG Live girly. So like use people inside the collective to do IG Lives with each other. That's number one. And I think one of the other things that so many people don't do, and it's literally golden, it's so easy, is just go talk to your audience. I ask people this all the time, like, how many conversations have you had this week? And they're like, well, I posted content or I was in my stories. I'm like, that's not the same thing of having a conversation. So start having conversations with people that are following you. And I promise you, you probably have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in your DMs right now.

Oh my gosh. And I have been learning this personally more and more and more, the more that I act actually get in there in my DMs, in my community, the more that we are seeing conversions into Mentor Collective Mastermind. Because yeah, they just want to feel like you care about them. And I think, yes, you know, you have, you have such— like, you're sitting on so much gold with what you do and what you teach right now. Because the more AI and automation that we get, the less people feel like anybody actually cares. And so what you do and what you teach is becoming extra, extra valuable. So How do we create content that sells? Because I am seeing, trust me, I have been working on my content for years and it's like there is a, a fine line between like, okay, we're getting content out, you're learning to get eyeballs, but then getting it to convert. So I know this is a really big question in the group.

Yeah, I love this question and I think it's important even for you guys to know, listening to the podcast, like I don't have a webpage, I don't have any sales pages, I don't have anything fancy. So my content has to do the selling for me. Like I always say, my content is literally my sales pages. So there's a couple things that I personally teach on and also some things that I encourage you guys to be doing. Number one is creating problem awareness content. Mm-hmm. So many people are actually trying to sell you into a mastermind or a program or into retreat or healing your nervous system, but they don't even know that they have a problem first. So if you first create problem awareness content, then once they realize you have the problem, then you, Chris, Lori, me, Melissa, Nick, whoever it is, you guys then are the only and obvious choice to go to. So that is number one. The second thing that I think is so crucial right now, especially in this world of AI, and I know someone called it a trust recession, so I actually feel like it's easier to sell than ever in a trust recession because when everybody is mani-chatting and AI-ing their way through things, when you just grab your phone and start talking, you connect so much to your audience because people connect through eyes and through mouth. So when you think about your stories, that's where the connection is actually being built. And we can go find anything on, um, ChatGPT these days. Like, let's be honest, but what they can't get is your energy. So that's another one I think is really good. And I think the third thing that I would tell anybody is if your content is not doing the selling for you, are you being so micro-specific? So an example of this is like, I help you create freedom. Okay, but freedom looks different for everybody. So what does freedom look like for your ideal client? Is it like, hey, I help you create a business that at 3 PM You get to throw your phone in a drawer and not check it again until 8 o'clock after your littles are in bed. That's so much more micro-specific than like, I help you create freedom.

Mm.

So good. And these are all awarenesses, you guys, that I've, uh, it's like when you're inside of a mastermind like this, these are little tweaks that make such a massive difference that the sheer amount of idea share that goes on, it's like I, I learn so much on every call because of share ideas, share, because Jillian is out there mastering her craft every day. I'm not doing exactly what she does. Leah Garvin's out there mastering her craft with people and teams. And the fact that literally we all get to learn from each other is, is one of the most beneficial things for your business. So, okay, let's talk about sales calls or DMs. How do I know which one is the best?

So I think you have to first of all figure out what you like the best. So I don't do any sales calls in my business. It's because I genuinely don't like to do them. So you have to figure out where your superpower is. Most of the people who are in the MCM are not professionally trained salespeople, which what I know is that when they tell me what's happening on sales calls, I'm like, you're actually just kind of like practicing. And we don't want that. When you are in the DMs, you have so much more control. You have so much more like understanding of where somebody is at. And you also have time to answer when you're ready. So even like today, I did a training and someone reached out to me and asked me a question that I'd actually had never been asked before. And it gave me time to like stop, think, consult with my team. How do I wanna answer this? Versus if I was just on a sales call, I would've been like a deer in the headlights and I probably would've got off track. Also, another podcast that you and I did, I encourage you guys to go back and listen to it, but we talk about buyer types. And if you are someone who is super analytical and you wanna give all the details, but you have somebody who's more of like a dominant buyer, that is not gonna go well. So depending on your personality type, that also should be where you're currently selling. I teach this thing inside of MCM and it's called a bursting pipe or a leaky faucet. And I want you to think about this. When you have a leaky faucet, like you might have water dripping in your house, Lori, and you might be like, hey, Kris, it's kind of annoying. Like, we got to get that fixed. But it's not like, oh my gosh, the house is burning down. But when you have a bursting pipe, you're like, we got to fix this right now at no matter what cost this is. So when people reach out to you in the DMs, especially like, hey, how do I work with you? Your content resonated. What's usually happening is they're in a bursting pipe moment. And I personally do not believe, my personal opinion, you should not be like, well, how about we get on a call next Thursday? Or how about my program opens in 6 months from now? Or let's throw you on like a waitlist or something like that. Because now they have the opportunity to go from their bursting pipe back to their leaky faucet. And that's where we lose people. That's where it's like, Well, hey, this person reached out and she wanted to work with me, but I don't know what happened. You gave her too much time to think about it.

Mm-hmm.

That's so true. I actually, the amount of time that I've seen from like a voice note where I'm asking about, you know, what someone's interested in, what their goals are, what their biggest struggles are, to me following up to them, booking a call, which there's so many different— one thing I love, Jillian, is there's so many different ways to sell, which I love all of them. We talk about all of them.

Yeah.

And me, I don't want to be on a sales call either, but I do want them to get on one. So I hired someone, you know, we are sure people for sales calls. But speaking of the speed, like, it is a fast process. It's like they're on a call in the next whatever their closest availability is. And that's the urgency that we want to move in. And so whenever I'm talking to anyone who has to do those calls, I'm like, right away, as soon as we can, as soon as we can book one, the better. Because you are correct. It's like when they're interested, they're interested now.

Yeah, it's so good. And that's what I even love too about like MCM. So let's say right now you're listening to this podcast and you're either in MCM or you're thinking about joining MCM, which you guys should. But what I want you guys to think about is maybe you don't wanna sell on sales calls.

Okay?

So then you get to ping me in the group. Maybe you wanna build an entire email funnel and lead magnets and sell on webinars. Well then we have Melissa in there for that. Maybe you're like, you know what, I get all of my people coming in from podcasting. Okay, well then great. Lean into Christina about how you can leverage your podcast. So there's so many different ways to do that. That's the beauty about business and sales and marketing is that there's so many different ways to do it. And there's not one way that's made for everybody, but you have different options inside the group to see which one feels best for you and then ping that expert.

I love that.

Okay.

Any last thing you want to add about MCM?

I would just say for me, I joined back in the day when it was Fast Foundations, and it reminds me so much of that. But honestly, like on steroids, like I feel like it's so much better. But I truly believe that was one of the biggest catalysts in my business was number one, being around you and Chris, but number two, being around the community. That community is still paying off for me half a decade later. Relationships, friendships, podcasts, all those things. And I think everybody should be in some sort of community at all times because the community is really what's gonna leverage you into your next business growth.

Oh my God. Well, we are so grateful for you. Like I said, Jillian is very popular in her—

I know you're early in there.

Love her.

And Jillian helps you make a lot of money.

Yes.

Great. I mean, amazing teacher, incredible personality. I've gotten to know you for for so many years, and I just feel so blessed to be in your circle and have you in there. Like, you are such a gift. I could not do what you do. So thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me, my friend.

Yeah, thank you. Jim Carter III, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast.

So excited to be here with you too, Lori Harder. Hi.

Hi.

Okay, guys, so you get to meet yet another one of our incredible coaches. And Jim, we go way, way back. I'm so excited to not only be chatting with you today, but to have you in one of our programs as one of the coaches has been such an honor, especially because your zone of genius is so incredibly important right now, especially to this range of entrepreneurs from $25K to $500K, where I think they're highly underutilizing what they could be doing with AI. But first, I wanna lead, uh, read a little bit about Jim. So you guys can understand who you get access to in this program. It's quite crazy that Jim is even doing this program with us. So I'm so grateful and so honored that he is in here as one of the coaches that we get to have. He is one of the most sought-after AI strategists for the world's top creators. He builds AI-powered digital minds and the marketing engine strategies that grow them for names like Brendon Burchard, Jay Shetty, Matthew Hussey, Lewis Howes,, Jay Abraham, Jefferson Fisher, and many more. With over 25 years in tech and a client roster from Fortune 15 companies to 8-figure personal brands, Jim has been building AI for over a decade. While the world is still waking up to it, he's already been in the room with the leaders who refuse to wait. So I am so excited to have this conversation with you. And Jim, I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump right in because you have given me a bunch of questions that you are seeing consistently over and over again. In Mentor Collective Mastermind from our amazing members. And we'll just start with the first one. So you get asked a lot, where do I start with AI, or what's one way to start that adds the most value?

This is the single biggest question that everybody comes up with. And why? Because we're all so inundated with everything. You can't get away from it. You turn on the news, you hear about what ChatGPT is doing. Like, what was it, like one out of every five commercials in the Super Bowl had some kind of an AI spin? You know, this is the world that we're living in right now. And the best way that I like to just help everybody understand this is I like just saying, stop trying to learn AI and actually just have AI solve one problem at a time and just start with one. And the biggest mistake that I see so many get stuck in is we treat AI like studying, like a lesson, like something that we have to check a box for and we don't want to do it. It's the reason that we're starting to feel all this pressure about like, well, if I'm going to put the time in, How far is that going to take me? What if I do it wrong? And then we get stuck and then like everything, we don't actually get anything out of it. So I like to just say, pick one thing that's eating the most time, it's cost too much, or if you could have more of it, that's the thing. So if we can check one of those boxes, amazing. If we can knock two of those checkboxes off at the same time, even better. And sometimes we can get all three. And that is absolutely the thing that we start with. So when we ask ourself, like, what are some of these best starting points? A lot of the times it just comes down to content. Like, we all know we need to do more content, but more isn't always better. It's the right content. So if you already have like a podcast or a newsletter, or you want to do more with it, just start there. Don't do it like you have to learn AI in order to accomplish it. Just start trying it. And take what already works for you, and it's just gonna get better and better and better every time.

That is some of the best advice that I have ever heard, and it's, it's actually how I learned it was, oh, I have a need. This need has been a pain in my ass. And if I could get more time back from this thing, like, let's, let's see what this can do. Like really learning what is a proper investor letter? What does that look like? Like, how is that crafted? Like those were some of the first things that I learned that I was like, wow, these things are taking me. Sometimes 4 hours it feels like to be really thoughtful and to make sure everything is in here. And now I feel like I can bust that out so fast. It's so thoughtful. It's put together better than I could possibly put it together. And so it was one pain point at a time, exactly like you said. That was taking me 4 hours. I wanted to make sure the structure was really professional, and it was like boom boom, okay, what else can it do? And as you're learning, you start to see how that can apply to other things, and that opens up the learning. So I don't think you have to sit and go, oh God, I have to just sit and learn. Like you said, that is so overwhelming. I've tried it before.

Oh yeah, this is overwhelming to me too. Like, I'm the one that's trying to keep up with all this stuff so I can teach it, and hours go by and I feel like I miss mountains worth of opportunities, and I have to discern too. But I think to that point, two visuals that are really helpful is you never have to start from a blank page ever again with AI, and you always have a thinking partner with AI. And we'll talk a little bit more about this depending on, you know, where the conversation goes, Lori, but those are the biggest things that have always held me back. As a technical person, I don't like starting from a blank page, so I don't have to anymore. And that's so freeing. And then this idea that you've got a thinking partner, if you just, You just want to riff. If you just want to try ideas, you can just sort of throw them into chat and see what comes out the other side of it. You're already paying for it or it's free. All of these options are available to us. So really what we're doing is we're removing excuses to not be our best self.

I mean, you put that in the best way possible because even though I am a creative, coming up with a structure around your creativity has always been a major pain point for me. So coming up with a linear flow, a table of contents, the 4 topics in the structure of, of what that is. And now I'm so free, even on my podcast, to fill in all the content. Let it be me, let it be storytelling, let it be real, let it be the human. But now it's given me the frame for all of that content, and it's because I love that back and forth. I truly, I truly have a partner now. And the more that your AI gets to know you, the more that partner just increasingly pulls better things out of you. You get better thinking. So I love that. Just name a couple things in MCM that you're seeing people are like being surprised by or really excited about for their businesses at this level, $25K to $500K.

I've seen some really, really fun creative opportunities that have come up. One is, you know, a lot of times we get, we get stuck with like big data overload, right? You have all this information and you have to sense of it. Or, you know, we're told that you gotta have a mission, you gotta have a vision for the business, you have to have a business plan, all these things, all these checkboxes. And we've learned business is what you make it, right? Like sometimes you just gotta go for it. But a lot of the times it's those things that hold us back and we don't actually just take that action. It's so freeing to be able to take all of that, throw it into ChatGPT, Claude, any of your, one of your favorite tools like this and actually say, okay, now help me work through this, get rid of the duplicates, organize this for me. Having that extra assistant, if you will, that isn't on payroll, doesn't ask for upward momentum, isn't looking for a career pivot. It's like you just, you have a tool that's available for you. So feeding the overwhelm into a machine that allows it to be a lot more calm and allowing, giving you the peace to be able to do your thing. So I've seen a lot of people go from overwhelmed to actually just doing something, which, God, I wish I had this one, my first business. Can you believe it? Right? Like, am I going to go back into your own history? Like, wow, what if I had this then? So that's one. Another that I'm seeing is actually the example I threw out, which is you have a podcast, so you have transcripts, but you wanted to launch a newsletter, or you have a newsletter, but you're not blogging, or you're doing those or none of those, but you want to actually put social content out and you want to put carousels We know, I think everybody generally understands that repurposing good content for the rest is great, but we don't actually know how to do it. And now the how is becoming the easy part. Believe it or not. Yeah, I said it like the how is the easy part because AI just keeps getting better and better. So really what we're seeing in the mastermind is collective mind, which is the beauty of a mastermind. Somebody will ask a question. I'll hop in, Christina will hop in, our social ninja, you know, everybody gets ideas and then I see them actually taking micro actions and then learning from each other. And it really is a beautiful thing.

So fun. I know I love it so much. All right. So let's talk about what an AI agent is. It might be new for some people, but it's one of the most exciting things for your business.

AI agents. This is where we like, we get to go back and think of like The Matrix and it's like, Mr. Anderson, you know? Conversation. It's funny, I bring that example up because I keep thinking about that, and I know it's kind of based off of where this term came from because we grew up kind of watching that movie and thinking about it. But I like to present how an agent works is it doesn't just answer, it takes action, right? So it's the difference between, you know, most people know having conversations with AI like we just talked about. You, you throw it into chat, you get an answer. It's a tool, right? Chat is a tool. It's a way that you can get an output after you give it an input. But an agent observes and it decides. And if you give it enough agency, it can act. So it can even act on its own actually. And it can do it within guardrails and you can set your own preferences and your own safety net for what you want. But it's the difference between a calculator. Where you put an input in and you get an answer, and an employee, which is you hire someone for a specialty and you get out of their way and you let them go. So an agent really is where you have that autonomy with the power of AI for it to be able to do things for you.

That is insane. I'm very excited about it because, um, I've been hearing about a lot of people who have them and love them just for— I mean, literally just even The simplest task for me is I'm like, I just wanna create an AI agent for my email who can respond back about, you know, all of these different small details, podcasts, all of the thing appointments, all of these different things that I could literally get it trained and never worry if I'm missing something again.

Yeah.

That's insane to me. And I, that's the simplest, that's the simplest thing these days.

These are, these are the table stakes opportunities now. You know, we're recording this around February. In 2026. Who knows what it's going to be in March? And this is the world we live in. And this is why I'm here. This is why I love this group, why I love supporting entrepreneurs at this level and doing it myself, because I learn as well. I'll try something. I'll see if it works for me. I'll throw it away. I'll iterate. I'll move on to something else. So, you know, ideas for agents. I have agents in my business right now where one monitors my email, one will triage One monitors my Slack channels. Another one looks at Asana. It checks and cross-references and it delivers me a morning report. Like I, of course, am that guy. So yes, naturally I have that. These are all things that used to take me hours. Now they take zero. It's done. And I'm not replacing what I love. It's, I'm augmenting myself. I have given it my directives. I told it what I like. There's times my agent will come back to me and be like, hey man, you've worked enough. Go shut the laptop and go be with your wife and your kids because I've told it my priorities. And I think we can get lost in the excitement of having all of this superior productivity, but then we forget why it all matters. You know, did I wake up today and everybody's healthy? That's a great day. So can I enjoy more of it? And I like finding these micro experiments that start as a tool. Hey, can I just put this information in and get an output? Okay, great. Lesson learned. But now, is that actually getting closer to maybe where an employee could come in and do more of it? So rather than thinking about going and just hiring, which has been status quo for years and years, now we can actually think, well, maybe an agent could take that piece over and I can have a really qualified team member oversee all of them. And I, that's, that's the big sort of reskilling of what AI is giving us is we now have that option that we just didn't before.

Mm-hmm.

Oh my gosh, it's, it's insane what's happening. And I love that you're in this group giving updates, able to answer these questions. Like, a lot of people aren't doing this research for themselves, and it's just so cool that all of our coaches do different trainings updating, you know, anything that they're up to. Like, it's exciting because I'm on every single interview, I'm like, I have learned so much from you as a coach, like, and then from watching how everybody interacts collectively. That is, that is the power of a mastermind. And I know you know that. You've been in them for years and years. Like, it's been the thing that has like truly launched my career, the relationships and the interactive, like watching and seeing what everyone else is doing and collaborating with them.

So let's say I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be here without it either. So we're in the same boat.

Yeah, I just love it. I know we're both so passionate about it. Okay, so let's talk about digital minds and clones.

Ooh, yeah. My favorite. What if I told you that I could clone you? Is that big question, right? And funny and also factual. I did, uh, you and Chris.

So, um, I don't—

grateful. And it's so fun. I still remember when Chris gave it to his mom for the first time and she was like, this is interesting, honey. You know, it was, it was so funny. But here, here's where we're at, which is ChatGPT, Claude, your favorite large language model, something that you go to where you can have a conversation, that tool is a fabulous, incredible, sometimes I still tell myself I have to lie down when I'm like, wow, this power exists in my life. What a time to live, right? Like I still have to just kind of take a minute and think about that. And while it serves a lot and while it's great, it is the world's knowledge. Compressed into one database, and it is all normalized and generalized for whatever you need. Now, that already is phenomenal, and I use it every day, but there's also something special about specialized knowledge, right? A lot of times what I find is that we're very quick now to turn to chat to get it, to get an answer, and it might be a really important answer, and that's fine. But if you really want to go deep with a topic, I don't know if you feel the same, Lori, but if you ever started going down that like rabbit hole, let's say for investors and things like that, you're like, where is this knowledge coming from? Do I like, what's, what's the trust factor of where that is? And it's getting better about citing and things, but we're, we're in such a rapid economy where we just want that answer and we just want to keep moving forward and we want to be trusting consumers that We're kind of going from, okay, just a couple years ago, all we had was Google, generally speaking. Then all of a sudden we have chat and now we're like, wow, this is amazing. And now we're starting to get a little bit greedy and we're like, hmm, okay, but is that actually the best answer? Am I going too fast? And we start asking those questions. The reason I tell this story is that's why I'm so passionate about working with the biggest creators in the world to be able to augment them. And give them an ability to be able to serve their people in a way that they never would be able to themselves. We, we've, we've gone from like one-to-one to one-to-many to now many-to-many where these AI agents can come alive and be able to serve people with specialized knowledge. So when you're an MCM, uh, one of the benefits that we have for the group is that you get access to Chris and Lori's digital minds. So I can ask you, hey, well, hey, AI Lori, what was that one podcast where you spoke to Jim Carter and you talked about that thing? And it'll come back, oh, here it is. And we talked about it. You can ask that at 3 AM. You can ask that on a Saturday. You can ask that when you, Lori, are not available for those main calls. And if you just, that's something the chat won't know. So it opens up this ability for us to be able to have these deep-rooted, very meaningful conversations with the minds and the expertise that we love in this world. And we're really, we're, we're building an asset that can outlive us. And between the impact of that, the scale of it, it just checks all the boxes for me and I just love it so much.

This version, digital minds cloning all of the things. It's so interesting. I've been using quite a few people's because I want to know how they think about, I wanna know how they have navigated certain things, navigated certain Negotiated deals, contracts. Like, I don't just want that from chat. I want the, like, finesse, the wording, the, like, I want to learn how these other people think. And you just, you cannot get that from chat. It's like, you know, like you said, whether it's my clone or someone else's or Chris's or someone that Jim has made that is incredible, what you guys don't realize is like it has been loaded with like every conversation that I could ever find that we have ever said. So you're gonna get not only, you know, how we think, but you're also going to get the wording. Like if you're like, oh, how would I learn how to interact with these people? Like what does that look like? And I think that that is one of the coolest things about it is just learning kind of like the, the languaging and how people interact.

It's so true because we said earlier, like, chat is like having a thinking partner and that's great because it's super flexible and it can help you from everything from I'm just having a bad day and I just need to get something out of my head all the way to I have to tell an investor a thing and I don't know how to say that. Help me work through it. But then there's also very deep-rooted things that if you want to know how Lori Harder would say it, how Jim Carter would say it, how Matthew Hussey would say it, or You want a little bit of wisdom from Jay Shetty, or you want to, you know, get fired up and ask, get, feel aspirational from Lewis Howes' brand, whatever that is. You, you start to think about these people that if they're the first that come to mind, shouldn't it be the finished thought is the way I like to kind of think through this. So if you really love the way that a certain marketer presents themself, don't you want to be able to pick their brain? Don't you want to be able to coach with them? Don't you want to be able to ask them anything? And this technology gives us that platform. And again, these weren't things that were available to us at scale years, just a couple years back. So we're in such this beautiful new time and space that we have these opportunities, and it's such a blessing and a gift, and it's such an asset for us as we build our businesses and we figure out what we're doing next.

Well, I'm so grateful for you, Jim. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful that you are in this group cuz it keeps us on our toes. And also like already you've just reminded me like I need to create that agent. It's gotta be my number one thing.

So we're gonna, we're gonna knock it out this year for you, Lori.

I know it.

Okay, great. Well, I'm so grateful for you being a coach. Thank you so much.

Right back at you, Lori. Thanks for having me.

Are you ready to take your business's marketing to the next level? Meet Brevo, the all-in-one marketing and CRM platform built to help you connect with customers, boost engagement, and grow your business smarter. With Brevo, you can manage all your customer interactions in one place. Nurture leads with their built-in CRM, reach your audience through email and SMS, and keep them coming back with powerful automations. But here's where it gets really exciting. Meet Aura, Brevo's AI assistant. Aura helps you craft smarter campaigns by suggesting personalized content, optimizing send times, and even analyzing performance data to help you improve your strategy in real time. It's like having a marketing expert on your team 24/7. And of course, Brevo offers advanced analytics, seamless integrations, and AI-driven personalization. Everything you need to create multichannel campaigns and hit the mark every time. Get started for free today or use code HAPPY50 to save 50% on starter and standard plans for the first 3 months of an annual subscription. Just head to brevo.com. Happy and take your marketing further with Brevo and Aura. You know that moment when a meeting ends and someone says, let's remember to circle back on this next week. Everyone nods, but no one writes it down. And next week rolls around and everyone forgets. That's why Granola exists. Granola is an AI-powered notepad built for the way real people actually meet. Here's how it works. You take rough notes like you normally would, and in the background, Granola securely transcribes the meeting. Then it turns everything into a clean, structured, actually useful notes when the meeting ends. And the best part is that Granola works through your device's audio, which means it integrates seamlessly into the video conferencing tools you already use. And there's no setup and there's no awkward bots. It's just your normal meeting with superpowers. So you get to actually listen instead of frantically typing every word and still walk away knowing exactly what was decided, who's doing what, and what comes next. And I have to tell you that before using Granola, my meetings were very much the classic entrepreneur chaos where I jumped from mastermind calls to team meetings to partnerships, scribbling notes everywhere, then spending extra time afterward trying to piece together action items or remember what we actually decided. So the first time I saw Granola's notes after a meeting, I was honestly shocked by how organized and complete everything was. It felt like getting my brain back. Now I can actually stay present in the conversation instead of worrying about capturing every single detail. So if you're in a season of big vision, big conversations, and a lot of moving parts, Granola makes sure nothing falls through the cracks. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for 3 months. Just head to granola.ai/earn. That's granola.ai/earn to get your time back. Get 3 months free at granola.ai/earn. Christina, welcome to the podcast.

Oh, I'm so excited to be back. So fun always chatting with you.

I know, you guys, we have a whole episode with Christina if you just can't get enough of her. You're going to feel her energy immediately, so you can go listen to that and like binge all things Christina. So fun. It'll be the best day ever. But with that, Christina, you are a coach in our Mentor Collective Mastermind, and to have you in there is so incredible because Number 1, you're insanely fun. Number 2, you really have expertise in so many different areas. I'm going to read your bio and then we're going to get into some of the top questions that you get and how you help people in there. So Christina Barthold is the co-founder of The Social Snippet and High Vibe Women, which is an amazing event in Canada. You guys, you must go. She loves helping entrepreneurs and small businesses grow their communities online using social media, podcasting, and events. And what I would love to jump in with is one of the first questions, which I feel like people ask all the time. What should people be focusing on right now to build community on social?

Yeah, I love that question, Lori, because I think right now so many people are focused on vanity metrics, which we talked about in our podcast together. Like, people are, you know, hoping for a million followers. I've seen people have a million followers and not be able to sell like a $10 product.

Mm-hmm.

So what they need to be focusing on to really grow their community online is conversations, like actually talking to their audience, asking questions, getting research, getting data. And really growing from that place. I just answered a question actually in the Mentor Collective today where somebody asked a question about this, where they were wondering like what they should be posting and what they actually should be doing is really looking into what it is that their audience, their clients, their community is saying over and over again and speaking to that to attract more of the same people.

Mm.

Okay.

What do you feel like, um, with people asking around, like what, what, what is the reason you think people are asking about building community? I mean, ultimately, isn't it about audience and being able to sell your product?

Yeah, I think it's like there's a difference between audience and community for sure. At least I think so, where audience is definitely like a numbers game, right? You want to be in front of as many people as possible, but community are the people that buy from you over and over again. They're those raving fans or the people, you know, I was definitely one of these and still am for you and Chris, where I similarly listened to your podcast, joined one of your masterminds, kind of grew alongside a lot of folks in your community. And so I wasn't just an audience member. I was someone who was listening. I was waiting. I was excited to buy. And that's ideally what every person, brand, business is looking for. They're looking for people who are ready to buy. So cultivating that only comes in relationship and communication.

Okay, amazing. Question number 2.

Yeah.

Who should start a podcast? Because you help a lot of people with their podcast, launch their podcast, start their podcast, grow their podcast. Tell me who you think should start one.

So I would say one of the questions we get all the time in MCM is like, you know, is it oversaturated? Like, do too many people have podcasts? And the answer is no. Most podcasts actually don't get past the first 10 episodes just because it's such a long game to see success. But even as you know, Lori, like, it is one of the most impactful ways to get in front of your audience. And I think if you have a message on your heart and you have a, you know, a version of your story you love to tell. If you love to talk to people, if you love to talk about your craft, then you are someone who should have a podcast. I was somebody who— I have a podcast called Community. I was really, really struggling with, should I do this? There's so many business podcasts, but I feel like I have a really unique take on the way to grow a business, and I've always wanted to share that, and I've gotten to impact people over these last few years with that. So, um, no matter if you have 5 people listening, 10 people listening, 1,000, 100,000, whatever it is, it's a great opportunity to get in people's ears. That's very intimate, right? You're on dog walks with them. You're there when they're, they're watching their kids. Um, and then that's a very like sacred space. They're choosing you every time. So, um, I would say if you've got a good message and, um, you really wanna get in front of like those diehard loyal fans, podcast is an awesome way to do it.

I love it. And podcasting too, you and I could talk about this all day long. It's like if you want to grow yourself personally, become a better speaker, become a better communicator, really have to learn how to understand what the pulse is of what your audience is talking about and what they wanna hear from you. Like there is no better practice. Like what has your podcast done for you personally? Like how has it grown you as a business person?

Like so many things.

Exactly what you said.

I think too, I'm a way better communicator. I would say I've gotten so many speaking opportunities from my podcast where same other people have seen it. And I'll tell you, I run a, you know, 150-person event twice a year. If I see an application come in, I don't know who that person is, I type their name into Spotify. Like I just wanna see, like, even before I go to Instagram, I just wanna hear them talk. Like, that's the most important piece. So yeah, speaking opportunities has been huge, but the actual best part, which we talked about on our pod together, is that even if no one ever listened to my podcast again, I would continue to do it as a networking tool. I get the opportunity to share space with some of like the smartest, coolest, most ambitious people. Often those people turn out to be referral partners for me, or they turn out to be great connections, and that's well worth it. I make great friends having the podcast, so. Um, it's like such a good relationship building tool. So it's not, it's like selfish for me. I know you feel the same way. It's like, I'm like, oh, I get to talk to Lori, like how fun.

Um, and get to do it on a podcast. Yeah, it's truly the best networking tool ever and marketing tool, but networking tool. Like I, I had somebody come in that I was interviewing recently and they're like, I only interview potential clients. Like, like if it's a, you know, if she's a marketer, like someone who can help market, she's like, I interview people who I know could use my marketing because the whole time they're asking me questions about marketing and I'm answering in a way that makes them want to work with me. I was like, you're literally a genius. So, yes, great job. Great job for doing that. So she's like, yeah, it's a podcast, but it's also like by the time we're done with an interview, they got all their questions answered and they're like, I think I need to work with you.

And there's so much— there's so many podcasts out there. Like in my agency at the Social Center, like we work with like, I think it's like 65 podcasts, horse vets, like, you know, people who are running like rug shops. Shops, like all different types of people. You can use it as an educational tool or resource. Like, I don't know, I'm, I'm a big podcast fan, but it's done so much for me. So I know that your podcast, if you guys are listening, uh, can do so much for your ideal client too.

Yeah, I totally agree. Okay, next question. How does someone use a podcast for business?

I know we touched lightly, but yeah, yeah, I would say like, you know, the networking piece is huge, but again, I think really it is about that like relationship and that authority building, right? You getting to talk about your niche over and over again really refines it and refines you and makes you be seen as an authority in, in your niche. So even if you're just showing up weekly talking about, uh, whatever it is you sell, so for, for me it was at the beginning of social media only. I went on weekly and I talked about, this is what's going on in social. Here's a, a new trend. Here's what people are doing with Threads. I always see such a bump in my podcast. And then whenever now people have social questions, they think of me first. Because they've listened to the podcast. So you're really planting that seed for people that you are an authority in whatever it is that you wanna talk about.

Mm-hmm. I love that.

Okay.

If someone is feeling like they've plateaued on social and nothing is working, what do you think they should do?

I think it goes back to, of course, the community piece, right? Ask, actually asking people like what they wanna be seeing from you. Like that's a piece. Often I see, Lori, people make content and it's like content they'd like, but it's maybe not content for their ideal client. And so really just asking like, you know, or really looking as well at like what has worked. This is a big fitness thing, but success leaves clues, right? So you see that with social as well. You have a reel that really popped up. You have a message that people really liked. You got a lot of DMs from this story. You know, I really look at those things as data of what do people want to see more of? What I will say, if you've plateaued on a platform, is asking yourself maybe if that's the right platform for you. A lot of times people don't ask themselves like, okay, where should I actually be for the thing that I'm selling? They like Instagram, so maybe they, they play over there. Um, but maybe LinkedIn would be a great place for them, or TikTok's a great place, or Pinterest long-term. Um, so actually asking some of those questions about like, where does my, you know, woman who's 25 to 30, who goes to Pilates every Wednesday, who does all these things, where does she hang out online? And, and doubling down in some of those areas.

Give me an example just for people. I'm trying to bring them with this podcast right into being a member in Mentor Collective Mastermind. What does that kind of look like for them when they engage in a conversation with you? Just even right down to like how they're answered.

Yeah.

One of the things I love about Mentor Collective is that I love the, like, the really how much the coaches like pour in. And like even today somebody asked a question and they were like, hey, I'm looking for Jillian sales brain, Christina social brain, Melissa's marketing brain. Can we like do all three of these? Will you guys all pour in? And all three of us gave our different perspectives on a on something we were thinking of. So I think when it comes to the Mentor Collective, anyone who's maybe going through that, that question of like, what platform should I be on? They have a lot of, there's a lot of expertise in the room, not only from the coaches, but there's a lot of community in the room around, hey, I've seen this really work, or I have a friend who's tried this, or this has really happened. That's the beauty of a mastermind, right? And Lori, you know that from your years of running them, is that, you know, if you guys listen to my episode with Lori, I got started in Fast Foundations and that skyrocketed my business. And this is a similar model. And like, so I'm so honored to coach, but why I'm so honored is because I've seen the power of how many of these opinions and perspectives are able to really propel people fast, which is so beautiful.

Mm. Thank you so much for that. Last question, shameless plug for MCM. What do you love about it?

Oh my goodness. What don't I love about it? It'd be easier. But personally, what I think is the most amazing thing about this, I've never seen this anywhere else online, is how much the coaches, how much, uh, like perspective they have, how many different perspectives there are, and how many different levels of expertise they have. Um, so if you're struggling with your team, you have someone to ask.

You have Leah.

You're struggling with the law, Andrea's struggling with the law.

Uh, if you're— get me out of jail.

Yeah, you're posting on StartUp.

Maybe.

But like, you know, if you're struggling with AI, Jim, like, and to have access to all of these people that individually charge like hundreds and hundreds of dollars an hour for coaching. Like, it's unheard of, right? So even for me, sometimes I'm like, is it appropriate if I post a question to Jim? I've not done it yet. It could happen. But it's really an amazing, amazing community. And I think what's even more amazing than the coaches is how much camaraderie is in the room. And sometimes, like, that's like the most incredible part is like who you're going to meet. I know people are joining really for your energy and Chris's energy and the coaches, but the people around you could be the people that really make or break your business. So So, um, yeah, it's amazing.

Well, you guys, you're gonna love meeting Christina. Truly, it's so much fun. It's so much fun building with you, and I love having you in there. So thank you so much for coming on.

Oh my gosh, such a blessing. Love being part of community.

Yay. Thank you.

All right, Leah Garvin, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me on.

I'm so excited. I'm so excited. Again, you guys, Leah is one of our incredible coaches in the Mentor Collective Mastermind. She's known as the Team Whisperer. She brings experience leading team operations. She's done it for Google, Apple, Microsoft to help business owners get out of the weeds and scale their businesses. She's a 3-time bestselling author, international keynote speaker, and leadership advisor featured in Fast Company, HBR, CNN Business, and beyond. And Leah, I'll say, you know, you've been also in our Elite Entrepreneur Mastermind in You're probably one of the most hired and called upon people in that group, along with our Mentor Collective Mastermind, because I don't think people fully understand how important people in your business are until they're really, really in it. And I also think it's a highly overlooked place where people lose money and make money. So we're gonna chat a little bit about what you see inside Mentor Collective Mastermind. Who you help most and kind of what businesses you also help. But I would love to know some of the top questions that I think get asked in there. And I know that you had helped kind of curate some questions, but how do people know when to hire someone for their team, especially at the Mentor Collective Mastermind kind of, um, place that they are in their business, which that is $25K to $500K that we're helping in Yeah, so like you're saying, I think that's probably the top question I get is how do I know when to hire?

I think it's terrifying, right? If we, if we're maybe making our first hire, it might be a VA or an executive assistant or an OBM. And so we're wondering, how do I hire someone I'm never going to meet in person, right? Or maybe we're at the $500 range or beyond and we're saying, I need a more senior person to really maybe be my right hand or my, you know, to someone to really take on a whole function. So I think first it's, it's really scary because when you're hiring someone, you have to pay for something before you have a lot of that certainty, right? And so I think some of the ways in which we know when are the right times to hire is when we are really doing— first and foremost, it's when we are trying to do everything. We're doing stuff that's really outside of our skill set. So we're doing the, the video editing and the copywriting and the you know, the emails and stuff like that. But we're supposed to be like a coach or there's, you know, dance studios and coaches and recruiters and all sorts of businesses in MCM that, you know, really the best use of your time is not writing your social media captions or, you know what I mean, or even sending your invoices or maybe it's booking you on podcasts, right? So first I would say is when you're being pulled in all the details, And then for that more senior hire, it's when are you actually holding your back from, yourself back from scaling? Because you need someone that has like senior level expertise, right? Maybe it's operations, maybe it's marketing, maybe it's sales. And you know that it's not just picking a couple admin tasks up here and there. And so I think when we're really wanting to take that step function in our business, that's one of the signals that, We do need that more senior hire.

What would you say that process looks like when people reach out in MCM? Are they just like, I, I have no idea, here's all the things. I mean, what are some of the questions you ask around that?

Yeah, so usually I ask, you know, where are you spending most of your time? And I actually like to look across it at 3 buckets. Like, what are you doing because nobody else, you know, can do it? What are you doing because you actually like it, but you shouldn't be, you know? And then what are you doing that you really should be in that zone? And so we sort of look across, well, how are you spending your time? I think for the more senior level one, I'll ask, you know, what is your roadmap for your business? Where are you trying to go? Where are you trying to get to? With this person, what are the expectations you have for them? Because that's one of the real follow-ups is like, hey, let's bring on a person. What are they going to be doing? And that's like the second biggest question folks ask me is like, okay, great, I've hired someone. How do I know they're doing the right things, that they're doing a good job? Like, what do I— how do I figure that out?

And so, yeah, let's, let's talk about that. So, yeah, how do we know? You're bringing me right back to like my first few hires. I was like, I don't know, aren't they supposed to tell me? Like, tell me what you do. Like, yeah, come in here, come in here, fix everything. And I, I will tell you, those ended not well for me, right? So, um, exactly.

Yeah.

How do we know what people, you know, should be doing and working on? Yeah. And we get them started.

Totally.

So I think, like you say, one of the biggest things that can be frustrating is like, well, you said, you know, how to do all this stuff, new hire. And so just do it. I don't want to explain it. I don't have time. I don't want to tell you how to do your job, but they really can't read our minds. And so we have to write down, really map out the job description. What do we want them doing on a weekly basis or monthly? How do we know that it got done right? So maybe you're giving them brand guidelines or templates or examples. Some kind of expectation setting is really, really helpful so that the person knows, okay, I know how I did it in this other company, but maybe it's not how you wanted it. For a more senior hire, I think you can completely, you know, hire them with the intention of that they're gonna scope their role. So I think you can do that, but you want to spell that out upfront too, because I think sometimes we can hire someone, we think, well, I'm paying them $100,000, $200,000, they should. And I think part of the conversation in the interviewing is like, hey, the expectation is you're going to build out this whole area. You know, you're the expert. I'm going to give you, you know, 90 days to build up the plan. A lot of times with a senior person, you want to make sure they know if they're going to have a team or not. Because then that person might make a plan, they need 10 people, and you're like, no, like, that's not happening. So we want to really set the expectations on what they're doing, what success looks like, and what support they'll have. And if you want to be in the details, hey, like, that's your right. Like, let's say you say, hey, I'm, I'm a writer, or I'm, I'm a video personality, I want to look at every single thing and approve it. Fine, but they should know that up front. So it's like, that's part of your process. It doesn't mean they're doing a bad job just because you want to have that visibility.

What's so great about you is you've been able to, uh, save people so much money and make people so much money. Because sometimes people think they have a bad hire and they don't at all. They just didn't give structure or they didn't give enough frame. And sometimes people could go to make a bad hire and it's like, did you set these expectations first? Did you ask these questions? There's just so much much guidance that you give that can save so much time, so much effort, so much money. And honestly, most of it is just like fear of doing it wrong. Yeah, a lot of fear around doing it wrong, building up the wrong team, not hiring the right people. Where do I hire? Where do I look for these people?

Yeah.

And that's the other cool thing about MCM is like you also get to kind of ask other people in there. Yeah, you have a great VA. Hey, do you know a great ops person. And it's really incredible that a lot of people are so fractional now. A lot of hires are so fractional that whoever they love might be able to take— yeah, as well, which is exciting. Yeah. So last question, how do I deal, um, when people aren't performing?

Because you—

yeah, I feel like this is like the eternal question.

Exactly.

Well, I think that you hit the nail on the head. A lot of times we think someone's not performing, but we actually haven't set expectations and we definitely haven't given feedback. And so my answer, and you'll see it at MCM, is, okay, well, what feedback have you given that person?

It's usually like, not, I just don't like it.

Yeah, I don't want them to get mad, you know. So usually we have it, and then if they have given feedback and maybe the person got defensive, it's like, okay, well, what expectations did you set? How do they really know that this was, you know, was or wasn't So we know it's time to fire someone once we've set expectations, once we've given the feedback, and then the person was defensive, or they said, oh yeah, got it, and then they totally didn't fix it. Or, you know, they're trying really hard, but hey, like, it's not their wheelhouse. Like, I think that's kind of the harder one when you have someone that's like passionate and they're trying and they're really open to feedback, but it's like, like, this isn't, this isn't for you. So that's, we determine that after we've had these follow-up questions.

Yeah.

That's another hugely powerful thing that you do is just guiding around the tough conversations.

Yeah.

This is really where people get stuck and it starts to bottleneck your business because you're stuck on one conversation that, you know, you need to have. You don't know how to have it. You don't know how to legally have it. You don't even.

Yeah.

You know, you're not sure, is this the right per— you hold a lot of times in the beginning, we hold on to people who cost us a lot of money, who should have been let go of a long time ago for both. Exactly.

You know, and I think—

exactly.

I think you normalize a lot of the conversations that most people get very stuck in, and then it makes their business be stuck.

So, yeah, yeah, it's so true. And I mean, I've seen, like you say, I've had clients that they came to me after spending $200,000 or $300,000 on a person that cost them so much money, and they replace it with someone that then starts to 10x their business, right? So like you say, the wrong person can cost you so much. And I think the right person working on the wrong things too. Like you said, rehiring is expensive, it's time-consuming, it's a pain. Like, that's actually not always the answer. And so we wanna work through these things, and that's the kind of challenges that I help people people work through is like, wait a second, what conversations do I need to be having? What are we really figuring out here? Because you want to act fast but not too fast if it's actually just a reset that was needed.

Oh, I love that. All right, is there anything else that you want to share about MCM?

Um, I think, you know, we, we've— calling it the most supportive mastermind out there on the planet is, is like an understatement, I think. You know, so many of us as entrepreneurs, we are thinking every day like, am I doing this the right way? I'm sitting in my house at my computer, or maybe I'm traveling to event after the next, and I'm just like, where are my people?

And how—

where do people understand what I'm going through? And how do I get these answers that I can't find? And to have all of that together, the coaches, the community, the accountability, the celebrating of wins, where it's, it's what you have to find in like 15 different communities out there all rolled into one. And, you know, I, I work with a number of folks both in the, in the mastermind and, and externally now, and everyone says the same thing is like, I just get 10x the value that, you know, that I put into it. And it's, they're so excited to be a part of it because the energy is so high. And that's the last thing about online communities. Sometimes it's like, oh God, like, is anyone gonna respond to my question? Or is anyone gonna like care that I'm here? And like, people are so supportive of each other. Like, it's, it's, it becomes like this kind of 10x factor because every new person that comes in brings that same energy and it, it kind of pulls it outta you, which makes it easier to participate and engage.

Oh, I love hearing that. And I love it. I feel the exact same way. I say this with everyone, but every time you speak, Leah, I learn something from you. I truly do. And every time I get in these groups and I get on the calls with everyone, it's so collaborative. And I will be the first person to say the magic is in the fact that there's so many people who are in their zone of genius and skill set. Like, Chris and I alone could never create anything like this. Like, we get to just say, hey, you know what, I'm not the people person. But Leah specializes in this and sees it every single day. And it's almost like they, they literally get their own team of advisors.

Yeah.

You would have to spend so much money in order to get all of these people on an advisory board for yourself to be your business. So yeah, it's really mind-blowing. And I'm so grateful you're in there. Like, thank you. Any room that you're in is a much better room, let me tell you. So I'm so grateful. I appreciate that.

Well, I would love to give a free tool before I leave so folks can take advantage of that. So, you know, the how do I know my team members are working on the right things is another one. And so kind of thinking about, well, what level of detail do we want? We don't want all the tasks, right? I want to know what are people working on, what they got done, and what they're doing next week. So I created this snippets template, which is my, like, everyone's favorite tool that I have because it gives you this bird's eye view of like, yes, people got their work done. Here's some wins and what's coming next.

Text.

So if you want to check that out, it's at leahgarvin.com/snippets, and it's perfect for whether you have a VA, one team member, or like 20 team members. It really scales up and down for whatever you need.

Amazing. You guys go check that out. And Leah, thank you again for coming on the show.

Thank you so much.