0379 | Susie Carder

Hi, Susie Carter from susie carter.com and you are listening to EA Interviews.

EA Interviews Episode 379 Inspiration, Transformation, Success Stories and the Imperfect Action Round. Seven days a week. Join Mario Ficcini for today's Expert Authority Effect interview. Money is an everyday part of business, but what is your relationship with it? Are you making as much as you want? Do you feel like something's holding you back? Despite no matter what you're trying, it's just not working. Maybe you're at a seven figure level already, but you'd like to get to eight. I am super excited to have Susie Carter, the author of Power your Profits on today's episode. She's not only built one eight figure business, but two. And she's going to share her story and how she did this and all the amazing things she's doing. I can't. I'm not even going to attempt to read it all off because it's just helping over 100,000 entrepreneurs being seen on the New York Times. All kinds of different things. I'm going to bring her up right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Susie Carter. Susie, how you feeling today?

I'm feeling amazing. It's always a good day. It's always a good day. Opportunity all around you and money all around you. So how can you not feel good about that?

Absolutely. I agree 100%. So love your energy, love everything you're doing. It's why you're here, why I wanted to have you on the show, to share with the audience. But let's just kick it off with.

Everyone has an attachment with money. Some are good, some are not. Why do you think that is? And with all the people you've helped, how do you help people overcome it if it's not good or where it should be, maybe it's not so bad. But maybe they're stuck at seven figures. It's not eight. And I wouldn't say that's a bad place to be stuck at if you're gonna get stuck. But still, being stuck sucks.

Suck. Being stuck does suck. Well, I think part of our money beliefs are inherited and so the Money conversations are inherited from our parents and our grandparents, from our community, from our churches, from your ethnic background to your gender, male, female, right? We all have these roles that we're brought up inside of. And you know, I grew up poor. Nobody gave me this, nobody handed me this. And when I say poor, I mean, we weren't the kind of poor that we didn't know we were poor. We were the poor that we knew we were poor, right? We knew we didn't have it. And the great gift that my dad gave me, he said, sue, you can have whatever you want. Just go, go, go get a job and go work hard right now. I've had to spend years getting rid of the work hard part and really develop. I don't have to kill myself in order to make money. And so part of the structure that when I work out with clients is I can help you make millions. I have a client that we got her revenue to 15 million, got her personal income to a half a million, and she still was broken, she still had the money patterns of overspending, right? Using her business as a personal bank account, right? Giving her money to her family, just not taking care of herself. That's fiscally irresponsible.

So it wasn't the creation of the money, it was the management at that point.

It was the management and the mindset. It was an old belief, right, that her, she was addicted to struggle, addicted to lack, addicted to the chaos of creating the money, right? And so if you start looking at your environment and you look at what were those conversations your parents were having, grandparents were having, our conversation was null and void. Outside of there isn't any don't ask, right? I don't know what your beliefs were in your household when you were growing up, but we, I knew very clearly don't ask my parents for anything if I want to make it, you know. So at 10, 11, 12, all the way till now, right, I've had some kind of business, some kind of hustle from cleaning windows to doing yard work to I was an entrepreneur at an early age selling whatever I could sell to make that money so I could buy a bike, I could go to cheer camp, I could do, you know, gymnastics camp, whatever it was when I was a kid. And that gave me a really strong work ethic as I grew up right now, I didn't know how to manage money. I made a lot of money and spend a lot of money, right? Because I was like, I just got caught up in the excitement of Woohoo. You know, when you Come from a background of nothing. You just want to buy everything. There was a point in my life, Mario, I'm embarrassed to share this, but I think this is where the, the greatest lessons come from is I refused to buy anything on sale. I don't buy anything on sale because I was like, I had. I deserved a painful price. I'm not that way now, right? But it was like finally I had money. Finally I had some kind of financial security. Right? If you go. If we go back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? That first level is survival, like food, shelter, clothing. And then you want to get.

The first level is WI fi nowadays.

That's part of it. But if you're. If you can't manage your food, shelter, clothing, you can't think about building wealth. Right? And as a young kid, I moved out when I was 17, never looked back, never went back. You know, started paying my own bills, figuring it out. I had a bicycle at 17 and moved my little butt out. We were talking about my sign. Well, behaved women seldom make history. Clearly, I was the rebel with a cause in my household.

But that gave me skills, right? Skill sets to grow, skill sets to learn skill sets to be independent and make it on my own.

And clearly it's worked. And so congrats on that. I love what you're sharing because while I have a little different background, I started my. I was selling stuff early on too, probably 9, 10, 11. I officially started my first business at 12. Lawns, landscaping, power washing, painting. Really anything I could do, just manual labor that you could do. Like at 12, it's not like you're gonna go.

Well, I wasn't gonna say. I was about to say go run a business or go into a corporate America. I see people on Shark Tank Now. They're like 9, selling the stuff for 2.6. So I'm like, okay, maybe I should shut my mouth on that. But the point is, you couldn't get a job, so it's like, whatever you could do. And I heard you say window cleaning. What age was that?

That was probably nine or ten. Wash your window.

So you just got creative and figured it out. And that's the thing that's so great about kids. They're resourceful. And if you, you know, it's like there's all this possibility, especially nowadays. And I want to just pause briefly and go back to the whole sale thing because you're making a joke of it. I get it. The whole, I don't want to buy anything on sale. I've also Felt that exact same way. However, it's also not good when you get taxes back and go, I could have bought a car for cash with what I wasted. So as much as we can joke about it, and also I do want to bring up McDonald's, McCafe, like 9,000 doll dollar a drinks because I could never afford them. And then when I had my best year, I just started sipping on those things three, four, five times a week. I'm like, whatever, they're like five, six, seven bucks. I don't care. Same thing with Starbucks. I don't love them. But it's like just the fact you could afford it and spend frivolously, it just felt kind of good. But why do you think that's stupid now?

Well, now looking back, I think there is a point that you have to do that, you have to go through that because then you realize that it doesn't matter. Like you said, that doesn't matter.

Do you think you have to purge it from your system?

I do. You've got to purge it. You've got to purge it emotionally. You've got to, you've got to work on your self esteem around it. You've got to work on your beliefs around it. We have a saying in our culture that says your net worth will only go as high as your self worth. And so I was looking for things to validate who I was as a person, as a business person. I had to have the best car, the best clothes, the best house, the best things. Things, you know, keeping up with who knows who the Jones are. But I was trying to keep up with those elusive people and realizing that that doesn't make you happy, that doesn't give you joy. Now accumulation gives me joy, right? You go through one market crash, you go through one financial devastation, and you realize all that, it was frivolous, right? So 2007, I went through the most horrendous market crash. A lot of people did, right? I was over leveraged in real estate. I lost $10 million in assets, Mario. $10 million. Now you talk about wanting to end it, all, right? And I was 45 at the time. And I'm like, I don't have another 20 years to rebuild my assets, right? I'm like, I can't, I can't, I can't. I don't have the energy, I don't have the drive, you know? And I'm feeling beat up. And I remember being on the floor crying, and not like a boo hoo, but crying like, why? I've been A good steward. I did all the things what I thought was right. I followed my coaches, I saved, I strategized, I leveraged. I have multiple income technology now. We all know now what happened in 2007. There was a lot of shenanigans that the normal consumer didn't know about, right? We didn't leverage that time. So I realized that, okay, it didn't take me 20 years to rebuild my wealth, right? It took me seven years to rebuild my wealth because I wasn't starting from scratch, right? I hunkered down, I put my head down and went, I know what to do. I know how to make money. I know how to build my portfolio. I know how to build my finances. The first thing I did, I lost a lot of money in real estate. First thing I did was invest in real estate. I've made millions in real estate. And even though I lost my hiney in real estate, I said, I know this will be the quickest way to rebuild what I lost. And so there's those humbling moments in your life where you realize, like you said, how much money have I wasted? Right? You use the McCafe one. I did the Starbucks one. And it wasn't. I never even finished a whole coffee. But I would go twice a day, once in the morning on the way to work, and then in the afternoon, I need to get out of the office. So I'd go again. And I realized I am spending $14 a day on coffee five days a week. That was a lot of money, right? And so that's. When I look at the numbers, I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. And so you accumulate that by 52 weeks, right? That's a boatload of money. It was like 14, $1500. Okay, well, that could be your retirement. That could be, you know, something else that you're paying for. And so really learning to monetize. I've always been great at creating money. I wasn't great at building wealth. And income isn't wealth, right?

Because let's expand on that. What's the difference in your perspective and why should you be focused on both?

Well, wealth is your net worth. Wealth is your accumulation. Wealth is what you have in reserve. Wealth is what you have for the future income. I can make a million, but if I'm spending a million and one, I. I'm not any more prosperous that somebody that makes $30,000 a year, right? Because I'm still spending that money. And I think we've all been in those situations, right? I think the hard lesson. I had a million dollar business. I owned a salon and spa. And I'm like, how do you make a million dollars and not have profit? Now, I was paying myself, which was great, but we didn't have the profit. And all that came from formulas, right? My book, power your profit. Chapter eight is math is money. Money is fun. I hated math. Mr. Syn in the 9th grade said, don't do anything that has to do with anything with math. And I'm like, first of all, whoever decided they're going to put the Alphabet in math just should be fired because you should not put the Alphabet in math. So I think this is just a dumb class in general.

What's the square area under the steps.

Right? But if I look at my day, I'm in spreadsheets all day long. I'm talking about finances all day long. I'm not a cpa. I'm not, you know, a wealth manager. I'm an entrepreneur that uses my skill and my talent to build my wealth. My wealth for myself, my wealth for my family. And it's what you have left over, right? The difference between income and expenses and what you have left over is where we start building your wealth. If you spend it all trying to keep up with the Joneses, right? Or whoever they are, right? The reality is you're still broken. Broken. You might have nice things, but you have debt up the wazoo, and that never feels good. And so I think we have to decide as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, even if you're working for someone, however you've came to this podcast to go, wealth is created, right? Money is creative. Money is a creative energy. And so I've. My belief is wealth is our birthright. And so I want to say that again, wealth is your birthright. It's not for some of us. It's for all of us. And the difference between Mario and I, and we chose. He chose to be wealthy. He chose to quit spending that way. I chose to quit spending that way. I chose to accumulate. I chose to want something different for myself and for my family. Now I still have an amazing life. I still travel. I still have a beautiful home. Just. My home's paid off, right? My cars are paid off, right? When I'm. I'm not financing vacations, right? So I think looking at what are the things that you value and how to. How do you want to create them in your life? An entrepreneur. We are still in a country today that entrepreneurship is the backbone of this country. And we can still make the kind of Money that you want to make starts with a plan. You got to have a plan in place, right? And I talk about in the book, I have created ten multimillion dollar businesses. Ten and two ten million dollar businesses. How? By a system following a system, following the structure. I'm a creative and I know the more systems I use, I can rely on the system. So to allow me to be more creative. When I realized, Mario, that money was creative, it opened up the world for me because I was making money so linear and so hard in that voice in my head, Mr. Cyberson, saying, I suck at math. Well, I did suck at algebra, but I didn't have any value to it. Right? Now you start looking at services as, oh, you can make a million dollars, right? People entrepreneurs can do two things. You can either manage units or you can manage dollars. Find most people have a better time managing units. If I said, Mario, just sell 10 of these things a month, we'll make $5 million. She'd be like, okay, I can sell 10 of those a month, right? If I say go make $10 million, you'll be like.

Why do you think most people don't. They'd rather manage the units versus the dollars.

I think there's an upper limit conversation that we have. Just the fear of it. What does it mean, right? What does it mean if I'm making this? Because when I break it down for my clients, every single time they're blown away at how easy it is, right? When I say we're going to do a million dollars, they freak out. I can't do that. Okay, well, let's not look at the number, let's look at what you're charging, let's look at the units, let's look at what it's going to cost us and let's just play a game. Because if you're inside this thing called Play Games are fun.

Then it's fun, right? Because again, chapter eight, math is money. Money is fun. Nobody likes to do the math, but we all like the benefit that money gives us. And so by the end of the game, they have a million dollar business, a ten million dollar business that is simple, quantifiable, doable, right? That builds the foundation of their business and then every activity comes from that plan. What's my marketing activities I need to do, right? What, how am I going to sell to these people? How are we fulfilling on these orders? Or what systems do I need to put in place? But it all starts with that financial forecast. And 90% of entrepreneurs just want to stick their Head in the sand. They don't even look at their P and L they get from their accountant. If they have an accountant or a bookkeeper, they just want to keep just winging it. Well, stop winging it. You're not having the success you want because you refuse to be disciplined in this area. So once you get the discipline in play, once you start looking at it and you understand the formula, it all boils down to a formula. Remember, Mario, like when you go to the gym and you have the locker, you know, and you have the little combination.

Yeah, the little padlock.

Yeah, the little padlock. One little tick off, that sucker won't open. Right.

That's what saws are for, Right? No, I get what you're saying, though. There's only one combination that works. You could be trying to all day long. You're working hard. Well, you're still off.

Yes. So one tick in one area, the lock won't open. So if you look at sales, marketing, operations, finance, you have one tick off in each of those areas, you'll be broken. Broken. But if we get the right formula at the right time, then it opens the lock and it's like, oh, no one's just ever showed me the formula. No one showed me the system. It's like the difference between a great chef, right. And someone who cooks. Someone who cooks. Maybe they just don't know how to interpret a recipe. Like, how hard can it be? But there are people that follow a recipe. It still does not taste good.

Right.

There's a skill and a knack to it. But world class Michelin chefs, they put their own secret sauce on it, right? They figured out the formula, they followed the basics, they did exactly what they were going to do. And then they started interpreting. We as entrepreneurs start interpreting. Day one, even earn the right to interpret, do the basics. Right. People are blown away that what kind of results we get. We get clients that have 100% to 3,000% increases because we work on the basics.

Let me ask you about the basics here, because you're sharing so much, so many great expert authority effect insights. There's a few things I want to touch on before we continue with it. One of them, you're saying broke and broke in. You're touching on the emotional side of this, correct?

Both. Right. Financially broke and then broke in. Because you keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

How do you find that and address it if that is the root cause of this with how you grew up?

So how you find it is you look at the pattern. So if I look at the pattern and you're most of the time, and I'm going to say 87% of the time, your pricing, you pulled it out of your butt. You have no idea if that's the right formula. We. You went like this. How much does Mario charge? How much does Susie charge? How much does Joe charge? How much does Tony Robbins charge? I'm going to charge this. Well, we don't know if Mario's business is profitable. You don't know if my business is profitable. But we're pulling our pricing based on comparison analysis. Right? And yes, that's one way to look at it. But that's not the right formula for your business. Your overhead, your goals, your financial capability. We talked about it before we started. I've spent a lot of money on my branding. I've spent a lot of money on my business. I spent a lot of money putting the right things in place.

Invested it.

I've invested it. And so my overhead is more expensive than somebody that just went on to GoDaddy and made their own website. Right. So there's a different overhead that's in play that I can't afford to charge less than a certain amount for my programs, for my consulting if I want to make money. See, profit is the value Mario, you and I bring to the business where most people think profit is what's left over. No, profit's the value that I bring. If I have no profit, I have no value. I've not planned for that. Profit is planned for. And again, I'm going to say our mindset is keeping us from our financial freedom. Afraid to charge what you're worth, right? Afraid to look at the numbers. Everything boils down to a mathematical equation. And I'm going to tell you, I did not like math, but I had to figure this out because I felt like the biggest ding dong in the room they're talking about. First of all, why did you have to have two P. Ls? You got accrual and you got cash. One said I had money, one said I didn't. I like the one that said I had money. But the CPA is like, that one doesn't count. Then why are you showing it to me if it doesn't count? Because you know, you need to know what you sell.

I'm like, just give. I had to create all these rogue spreadsheets for myself. And then I found Maro. You would go like, can I have that spreadsheet? I'm like, you know, my spreadsheet it just broke it down to the simplest form, like our average ticket worksheet. What's the average client spending with you and how can I double that? The goal is double the day. Whatever you sell, whatever you bring in, whether you're at an event, whether you do sales daily. If you own a retail business, right, if you own a training company, it doesn't matter what business, but the goal is to double the day. It's easier to double it with pre existing clients than to keep fishing for new clients. Take care of the clients that we have, right? Let's strategically look at who are your A customers, who are your B customers and who are your C customers. The goal is take those C customers and get them to be and the B customers get them to A and then when you finish that strategy, go get more customers, right? But there's so much money all around you and you are leaving money on the table. I put promise you, I do it every single day in my business. I find the money, I am the money. Because there is a gold mine sitting right under your hiney.

You hear? In this expert, expert authority world, I am so enthralled with this and I'm so glad I brought her on because this is so valuable. And I know they're just taking notes because I'm taking mental notes. And that's why I was like, I want to go back to this because the broken, the broken. Thank you for expanding on it. Because there is that emotional attachment. Everyone has different ones. The second one I had on my notepad here. Oh my gosh, I should have done this.

Actually. I'm going to, I'm going to be real discreet about it and not tell anyone right now while we're live. You didn't see that, by the way. So the other question I had for you is when you're talking about.

The.

Broken, the broken and then you're saying everyone that comes to me, we're taking them to a million, 10 million, these different things. What is the starting point do you find? These are already six figure businesses I see that you were talking about from 10,000 to 10 million. Can they be making 50 grand? 500,000, 350? Does it even matter?

Yeah. So the most important thing is you have to have something that you're selling, right? So I'm not going to fight. I'm not helping you create your vision. I'm not helping you. You got to know what you're selling and why you're selling and who you're selling it to. Right? So when you Come to me. You've got to have a preexisting business so that all I'm doing is fine tuning and playing with that business. So.

So the offer has to be in place. You have to be successful selling it. Does the size of the list matter?

No. Okay.

Small and mighty, right? Because a lot of times the people that are on your list are the wrong customers anyways. Right? Because you were accumulating leads. Leads do not mean customers. Leads are fans. There are people that made up, maybe done an opt in for you. There are people that may, you may have transferred from their social media. So the reality is we want to make sure that we're only marketing to qualified leads. Now let me tell you what my qualified lead means. Yes. You have all the demographics and the psychographics, right? So you know who your target audience is. You know what they're buying behaviors on are. But for me, I gotta love and adore what you're up to. You have to be making a difference. You have to be coachable. And more importantly, you got to be able to swipe that card. Right? You'll be able to pay for my services. So I'm not chasing money. I'm too old for that. I'm a little seasoned. I've been doing this for a while and so I'm not pushing. People appeal to their greatness. Right? Because some people get coaches and they want them to do them. That's not my job to do you. That's somebody else's. Right? I need you to be willing to do your own sit up, do your own, you know, weights, do that stuff. Because I can give you the best strategy in the world. But if you don't take action, it'll flop. You won't have the result. It doesn't happen by sprinkle fairy dust. So you can tell I'm tough love. I'm gonna give it to you straight. But I'm gonna hold you to your greatness, to what you said that you wanted. I always start with a financial forecast because I need to see what's in your head and see if you can meet with what's in my head. I always blow my clients away, so I have to go. Okay, Mario, what do you think success is? Is it a million? 5 million, 10 million? What's that number for you? Right. I realized. So your money mindset, the broken, broken part, right. So I grew up poor. That was a underlining conversation. Was there's not enough. Right. That conversation. I was doing this money mindset exercise that I do with my Clients. And I was teaching it to a room full of people. And I always do the exercise because it's a great check in for me. And one of the questions I ask is, I. One of the questions is, I know how to handle large amounts of money. Well, I'm comfortable with $50 million companies, right? Hundred million dollar companies. I'm comfortable. And so I answered no. And we do muscle testing. So your body tells you this. You're not. Your logical brain, your, your physical body, your unconscious answers these questions. So I'm like, where did that come from? I'm clearly comfortable with large amounts of money. And then I realized I'm working on this project that's a billion dollar project. I've never worked on a billion dollar project, right? But now all of a sudden, she's asking me to manage this financial piece of this project. And I got scared. Now, not in my logical brain, my logical brain is, I could do this, sure. My subconscious, my smallness, my broken part said I can manage a lot of money, but I don't know. Is a billion different than 100 million? Like, what's going to be the. What do I not know that I would need to know?

Is it that fear of the unknown?

Well, I don't know, right? But once I could see it, like, where's that fear coming from? It didn't stop me, but it had me look at. I don't want to sabotage the project, right? The broken part is if you let your unconscious brain manage it, you will sabotage the project. Meaning you won't call them back or you will be too busy. We got sexy excuses. And the more money you make, the higher your ego is. Our excuses. They got crystals on them, they got diamonds on them, they look good.

Swarovski.

Swarovski crystals, right? So when you look at that, I have to manage my own limiting belief. And so even though I've done, I've done so much work on this, and then to catch myself in my moment of smallness, to go, oh, check me out. I'm a little nervous, I'm afraid. And so then I could deal with it and go, who in my community can I go to to get those answers, right? If I don't have the answers, and I don't have all the answers, but I have an amazing, badass roster of colleagues, clients, partners that I work with that I can call up and go, hey, I don't know how to do this. Do you want to get on this project with me? Right? I'm clear. I'm not going to sell something I don't know how to do. But I'm also clear when I need to bring in other big guns. Right? To go. I want this client to win. And sometimes it's not just me that's going to help that client win. Who's going to help me help that client win? And maybe I get a rev share versus the whole deal. That's good money, too. I don't have to do the whole project. Let Mario do the project. And he just gives me a rev share for introducing him to that client all day long. I'll do that. Right.

Either way, the client wins. And you have their best interest, no matter how it's structured.

Exactly. Exactly. And that's the end game, is what. What do I want to deliver to that client? Because we've all oversold and gotten a situation where it's like.

I don't know how to do this, you know? And either you figure it out or the project fails. I've normally figured it out. Right. To go, okay, I think I can do this. It may take me twice as long, but I go through a learning curve through it. I think a lot of times as entrepreneurs, we just get scared, and then we don't do it right. Because we want to be perfect. Well, part of entrepreneurship is it's never perfect. It's never right. It's never done. And you just got to jump. Right? That's entrepreneurship. And so people who want steady, they want consistency. Entrepreneurship is not for you. People like Mari and I who are rebel with causes, right? We got a cause. We're rebel. We're going to push it. We're going to do crazy stuff that normal people won't do. And you all think we're weirdos. We think we're unicorns. Right? Out in the world going, where's mother unicorn? I know he's out there. There he is. I can see him. He's got the pink tie.

Oh, I love what you are sharing and your personality with all this. I do want to ask about the limiting beliefs. And you keep saying your smallness. So my next question is, when you encounter the smallness, even at the level you're at, how do you deal with it?

Well, you know, the French have the saying, the more things change, the more.

Things stay the same.

Exactly. And so when you realize, I remember being a kid, like, what the hell does that mean? Right? So the more things change, like, you can change the environment, you can create another business. But if you don't manage your behavior, if you don't manage your Smallness. If you don't look at your limiting mindset, if you don't look at the things that sabotage you, you will fail again. And so that's. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And so the only way that you can change is notice. It's like when you do a weight loss journey, you know, a good coach will want you to write down everything that you eat, right? It's habit, right? If you go, oh, I. Some people like chocolate. So they're like, that's my thing, right? I like martinis. If I'm trying to lose weight, I cannot be drinking martinis every week, right? I have to go, oh, the habit is, I want a martini, I'm not going to have a martini. Or I want a cocktail, I'm not going to have a cocktail. The change occurs when you notice the behavior and then you immediately change the behavior. That's the only way you're going to change. You can't go in denial. You can't disassociate. You have to be so present to go, I don't want to do this again. Right? So when I looked at my financial collapse, right. Which was horrific, right. Life changing, I said, I don't want to do that again. So what will I do differently? I was too leveraged, too heavily leveraged in real estate. So when the market crashed, I crashed. I couldn't recover. I did not have enough cash to sustain the debt that I had from the properties. So everything was upside down. And then I became upside down. So I made a conscious effort, like, okay, I'm not going to do that again. I'm going to invest in real estate, but I'm going to pay for everything in cash. And so if I can't pay for it in cash, I'm not buying it because I never want to be that vulnerable again. Right? And by that time, I'm like, I got to accumulate wealth fast. I don't have.

So now you eliminate or severely mitigate exposure.

Exactly right. Much more conservative. I'm still risking, but I'm risking conservatively. And I'm looking at all angles when I was young, you know, you're invincible. I'm just going to risk. I could do it. I got forever to make this up, right? Yeah. No, you don't have forever.

The great news is, like, I failure. As much as I hate it, I love it. As long as you're learning. So when I'm in failure, when there's a breakdown, I'm like, what is the lesson I'm learning? Because if I can learn a lesson for it, it was well worth it. If I, my lesson can save Mario. And not being sued, not going bankrupt, not having a financial collapse, that's worth it. If I can have one person. Now, I've helped millions of people, right. Just in this conversation to go, don't do that, do this, don't do that, do this. You know, and that, that makes a good coach. I'm willing to be vulnerable to share. Share the ugly and share the possibility. Right. Because I don't want to just teach from my mountaintop because that gets old and narcissistic. It's like, well, let me tell you the most humbling times of my life because those have been traumatic, but they have also been really great learning lessons.

Yeah, it's not a fun point to have a breakdown or go through that, but you're not going to have a breakthrough if you just keep doing the same thing. Status quo.

Right. Exactly my point. Exactly.

I appreciate everything you're sharing. I want to ask you about who is your biggest success story from all the people you've helped?

And I'm sure you're right now going, oh, man, I gotta narrow it down to one of these thousand. But maybe if you got a couple, that's cool too.

But I do. So I'm gonna say one of my greatest success stories is Lisa Nichols. Most people know her from the Secret. She was the most requested speaker in the Secret. And when I met her, I met her at a millionaires conference. We were the two women teaching at the the conference. There were 60 faculty and there was Lisa, myself. So we were the only two women. She was the only woman of color that was at that conference. And it was back in the day when she wore all the African garb. So she was very exotic and very like, wow, right? And then here's me, I'm all, you know, the business is fun and systems and. And so money is fun when I'm. It is fun. Right. So when I met her, she was doing about 80 grand a year and she was raising money for her company. We took her from $80,000 to $10 million and we did that in a 10 year span. And so when you think of accumulation and the growth in that 10 year span, it was bananas. And so she's an amazing, probably one of the best speakers I've ever seen, you know, on the planet. I've seen hundreds of thousands of them. Right. I've been doing this for 30 years and. But she didn't have the business side. And 15% of your financial success is based on your vocation. So for you, Mario, it's how you interview people. It's that relationship. It's coaching people, selling people. That's 15% of your success. The other 85% is what I do. Sales, marketing, operations, finance. What's the strategy we need to put in place so that you can monetize your greatness? And so I ran that company for 10 years. It was after I sold my company and I believed in her mission, I believed in what she was up to and completely shifted that company, took that company public, still one of the only five African American women companies that has been public and taken public. So it's a huge success story. The millions of people's lives that we transformed. Right. We completely turned that business around, made it a success, made her millions, you know, in that business. So that's probably one of my biggest success stories.

Wow.

And then on the smaller side. Right.

That's incredible. But I also want to expand on the fact that you said over 10 years.

Yes.

It wasn't overnight. It wasn't over a week, over a month, a quarter, whatever.

No, this was, this is the long play. I have a lot of clients that I've worked with for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. They keep coming back and they're like, why are people working with these so long? Because I keep making him money.

You keep getting them the results.

And like you're talking about if someone's at low six figures, going to half a mil, to a mil, to 5, 10, whatever. And even to your point, you know, that's why I had the special question, you know, you're at your level now, but you're going, wow, this is a billion dollar deal. You know, this is going to be the, maybe the first of many for you. But right now that, that's no different than someone going, well, I'm at a mill, I want to go to 2 or 5 to 10.

Right, exactly. You have those little, you know, mind chatter that goes off like, can I really pull this off? Right. And what are those, what are those unconscious conversations? I think that's the power of really identifying, because they're not your beliefs. We inherited those beliefs. 90% of 80, 90% of the beliefs we inherited from our parents. Parents, right. And our grandparents. So when you look at human development, by the time we're 8 years old, 80% of our emotional programming is done. So basically, Mario, we're all running around like little 8 year olds. Now, if you're enlightened, like, meaning you're in some kind of therapy, some kind of training, you're working on your mindset from the time you're 8 to 18. That's another 10%. So 90% of your emotional maturity, maturity belief systems is done by the time you're 18. And so 18 till death is another 10%. So that's still very powerful. But if you've not done the work. And I'm talking about the personal development, I'm talking about looking at your mindset, looking at your beliefs, looking, setting goals, hiring coaches to help you with your behaviors, right? I. When I look at my life, I've got three financial coaches, right? I've got a personal development coach, my AKA therapist, right. I got a fitness coach, right? It's helping me with my body. I've got a health coach that balances my hormones and make sure I'm at optimal level. Because our jobs, Mario jobs and I. That takes a. It's high performance, right? There's no slacking. You can't have an off day. You're interviewing people you're training. You're. You got to be on. It is a stamina that when you're not used to it, it's athletic, right? When people go, how do you do what you do? I've been doing it for 30 years. It's. I just do it. But you get a newbie on the road with you, or you get a newbie sitting next to you and you will wipe them out because it's.

I will also say, because we train and invest in ourselves and do this so we can be at peak performance and be able to show up full energy. Because I know people that have been doing stuff 10, 20, 30 years, and, you know, I've been doing this couple decades myself now, which is surreal. But at the same time, I don't think the time is the answer. Like, you could be doing it for 50 years, but you could still be at a certain level. And there's other people that, you know, I've met who they're in some new business for two to three years. And because it's a burging.

Industry niche, whatever, you know, they explode in it and they were prepared for it.

So, yeah, the reality is we always say, are you in business for 10 years or do you have one year of experience repeating it 10 times? Oh, because that. My business. I'm always looking for who's playing bigger than me, who's my next coach, who's going to help me with this next thing that I'm trying to get to that level. To get to work on that billion dollar company, I've got to have a coach that understands that language, right? So that I don't get intimidated. We're working with the Department of Defense, right? We're working with some big old people that you could walk in. We're working with generals. You walk in the room and you're like, I won't get in trouble.

That's a younger conversation. I won't get in trouble. Get a military man. I got a general and a colonel sitting next to me.

I just got to ask though, do you still like try to sneak away and go.

Where'S my unicorn?

I would have to curb that so bad. Like I can put on the, you know, it's nice to meet you. Everything's good, professional. But you better believe I'm like, oh.

I'm still my unit.

Oh, look, a tank.

They either love me or they don't. If you don't, that's none of my business.

Oh, it's one of the stealth planes. What's in that room?

Right? We're sneaking off into the war room.

So with all this talk of the subconscious and things that deal with our programming.

How. What would you say to someone that.

What would you say to someone that is trying to get through it? They just came like they seem to always be hitting a wall with it. Would you say it's a coach? Would you say it's the people around? How big of a role does the network play?

I think it's all of it, right? So one is who's coaching the coach, right? I think there is a level that we get to. It's hard to find someone that's playing 10x of what you're playing with, right? You've got to seek them. You don't just run into them, right? You're going to find them through, hey, Mario, who do you know? And here's what I'm looking for. Who do you know that has that right? Your community, right? If you're the biggest fish in the pond, go get a new community, right? Because that's going to burn you out. You're, you know, it feels good for a minute, but when you're really achieving results, I need people who are pouring into me. I need to sit and glean from somebody else. I'll need you to coach me for free. You can have a conversation and I can pick up the diamond. Humans, right? So it's finding those high level masterminds, it's finding those right people to be around, right? You are the sum of the Eight people you hang out with. So I'm very protective of my time. I'm very protective of my community and my private time. I'm not going to share it with everyone, right? To go. I'm going to choose and choose wisely. My dad used to say to us, there's nine kids, right? Bobby, Ronnie, Stevie, Terry, Joni, Shelley, Susie, Kelly, Debbie, so.

And all of us are accomplished, right? And so he used to say to me, again, as the little rebel, right, in the household, I've had trouble for everything. Mario.

He used to say to me, sue, show me who your friends are. I'll show you who you are. And I didn't understand that as a kid, right? But then you start realizing, like, oh, that's a shady character. Well, then people think you're shady, right?

Or if you're guilty by association, right?

And so, you know, I didn't understand it as a kid, but as an adult, you know, it's. It's really the same. You're in the sum of your network. And to go, I'm in different groups that I get intimidated when I sit down, which is great, right? I'm not the biggest fish. And to go, wow, these people are playing huge. You know, I've always put myself in those environments where I'm not the highest producing. I'm not grossing the most. I still want to be with colleagues. I want to be some peon, right. I want to have an intellectual conversation. But most of the groups I'm. I'm involved in, you have to qualify to be, and you just can't join. Right. It's not a joiner group. You have to qualify by either your revenue. Right. Different aspects of your influence. Right.

What are those places being at a certain level or above.

Exactly. So that we're all networking at the same level so that, you know, if you need something, you can come to me. And I'm like, oh, let me give you four people that can help me. You versus, I don't know, I got nothing. There's a lot of those organizations, right. I want to spend my time wisely and spend it with the other movers and shakers in the world.

Yeah, you can always make more money, but we only got so much time.

Right.

Well, I have quick couple questions. One, yellow or black?

Oh.

Yellow.

I thought you were going to say both.

It was really hard.

Yellow. It is the spinning the wheel of whatever. We get a. Well, I don't want to say a fun question, because I think all these have been fun. Yellow right here. Who is.

I Want to ask you two things. One, who is an industry you haven't worked with that you would just be like, who's on your moonshot list?

Oh, I've worked with so many crazy industries. I don't think I. Honestly, I don't think I have one that I've not been in. The craziest one. Can I tell you my craziest?

Yeah.

Okay. Besides the wild animal park.

I know nothing about a wild animal park. They're like, no, no, we love you. I think you could do it.

Did you bring a zebra home?

That was crazy. No, but when I, that's when I realized business is business is business, right? Because I just hunkered down, wrote the business plan, figured out the financial model and went, oh, it's the same thing. It's just we're selling entrance into the, the amusement park, we're selling in the.

Offer units, price per unit, profit margin.

All the same thing, right?

I would still negotiate a zebra. I would still negotiate a zebra. But that's good to know because I think so many people think, you know, my business is different when really it's, it's really not so.

Right? And that's what I tell my clients is business, is businesses business. There's a financial equation and a mathematical equation to everything we do, from your leads to your sales, conversions to your financials, to your profitability, everything. And so once you know that, it's easy, right? So it's taking the time to go, oh, what do I need to know? But the wildest business. So I had this hardware store. Think of like a Lowe's or Home Depot. You got that in your head? Okay, so this was a mom and pop business they started. You know, it was in business for 30 years. Grandma and grandpa started it. And the mom was a little sophisticated and so she said, I'll come work because we need the help. But I'm not selling hammers. I'm gonna put a jewelry store right in the middle and I'm gonna sell high end jewelry. I'm gonna sell Rolex watches, I'm gonna sell the best diamonds because I know Mario has an anniversary. And I'm gonna hit up Mario when he walks by. I know Bob, that's there, you know his wife's birthday. So I'm gonna make sure he buys her a nice gift. Not this chotchki stuff these men bring home. We don't want that. So when I met them, they were doing $20 million. 15 million was the jewelry store. And so they were thinking about pulling the jewelry store out and getting its own location. And I'm like, don't you dare. That is the most brilliant because again, the hardware store is only doing 5 million, 15 million smack dab in the middle. Right. Of running the business mom had. Because men don't like jewelry stores. Most men, right, they don't like the high pressure sale. So you're buying a hammer, you're like, crap, it's my birthday. Her birthday. Oh, it's an anniversary. Oh, it's Christmas. So mom had that store dialed in and she had customer records. It was amazing. That was genius.

It's that premium pricing. I remember reading studies on that. And I know Starbucks has like a $2,000 coffee maker somewhere on the top shelf. And you know, people go, well, how many people have to, how many people even buy that they're coming in for coffee? It's like, well, how many have to. To have, you know, have a profit maximizer?

Right, Exactly.

Wow, that's a great example.

We left a jewelry store in and really created some sops. Right. And got more efficient. So we made more money. That's where we looked at the average ticket to go for our average client is coming in the hardware side and only buying $200. Let's get them to spend 7,000. Right?

Like what, $800 for a tennis bracelet and 200 on hammers and nails.

Exactly.

So like that, that. Thank you for sharing. That is pretty creative, unique and. But it's such a great illustration of always having a super premium product.

Right. And finding the need, filling the need. All grandma did was, what do these men need besides hammers? And I'm going to provide that. Now. She did it because she didn't want to sell hammers, but it was genius.

Whatever the reason, it still, it still made sense. So we're going to thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@EA publishing method book.com. so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what? Don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having.

An idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done for me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable.

John Cody.

I've worked with Mario over the phone and online.

And he's been very helpful in getting.

Me where I needed to go with promoting my books. Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele, if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario ficini or Bill benner.

I can't make a higher recommendation for me than to work with Mario ficini. He has been great for me, and right now, I won't work with anybody else except for Mario. Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once Again, that's eapublishing method book.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Susie, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I'm ready.

I feel like I knew you were gonna say that. I got three questions, 60 second or less answers. The first one is what is the fastest path to the cash?

Your financial projections. Right. Really getting clear on what you need to do and how you need to do it.

Very good. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospect making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

Avoiding sales. You gotta have sales time. You gotta have to dedicate sales time. You gotta be talking to x amount of clients. I know I have to have 706 qualified leads in my business every single month so that I can hit my revenue goal. Do you know that number? If you don't know your number, you're in trouble.

Excellent. Number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Understand what the value is now, what your current value is and what do you want to get it to? Just like the jewelry store, right? What are they doing and what do we want to get it to? And then go after those customers. Quit trying to sell to everyone. Find that qualified client, really hone into it and serve them with what they need.

Oh, love that. Love that. So as much fun as I love publishing books for people, I love hearing about what books have impacted their business and life. So what would be yours?

I would say the old school classic, right. Is Michael gerber's e myth. So that's a classic. Everyone should read that book. Probably the money mindset. One that really shifted my mentality was the millionaire next door just really looking at and Then the third one which is kind of out there. It's kind of woo woo, but it's called the Course of Miracles. It tapped me into. It's a book that looks like a bible. It's not a bible, but it's all. It taps into your miracle making ability and realizing that everything's at your fingertips. Money's all around you, possibilities all around you. You just have to create it and go get it.

Sounds good. Sounds like a real good one. Woo's good stuff. And for people who don't think so, I'll dive into it and it'll change your life. Where would you like people to learn.

More so you can find me on social media by my name, Susie S U S I E Carter C A R D as in dollar and dinero er so you can go to our website, all our social media handles and if you go to our website, we've got a ton of free stuff that you can download. You know, you can get a chapter of the book, copy of the ebook, power your profits. It's a best selling book. It hit Cosmos top 20 reads of 2020, which is very exciting.

That is exciting.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for everything you've shared. I've thoroughly enjoyed it and I appreciate your time and expertise.

Thank you, Mario. I appreciate you and thank you for doing everything that you do and bringing such genius people on your show so people can learn more, get and do more.

Well, I appreciate that as well. All right, Expert Authority world. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless. You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect publishing method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started. Now once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.Com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it if you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn. Lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.