How to 10x Your Coaching Business Revenue | Capability Amplifier #104

People aren't investing in information that's a Google search away, that's a YouTube video away. But people are investing in certainty and clarity. If you're truly committed to helping a client transform and create the ultimate result that we as coaches are committed to our people, the work really begins after the sale. Thirty days, six weeks after he was into our program, I got a message like hey Mike, can we talk? If any of you ever a message like that, it's rarely to tell you how amazing they think you are.

Hey, if you listen to or watch Capability Amplifier, you know that by learning with and from Dan Sullivan and soaking in his wisdom that some of the greatest truths that he share are often non obvious and counterintuitive. Well, today's guest is Michael Chu. He's a fascinating entrepreneur who's created a system based on eight principles for growing and scaling any coaching business that's built on very non obvious truths. And he helps coaches unlock instant credibility and get and keep clients for life. That's what I like most about it. So by 30 he had three multimillion dollar businesses and was a millionaire. In addition to scaling and wealth creation, he's also a very smart investor. In fact, I met him original originally through Justin Donald. You might know him as the lifestyle investor. He's been on the show before now. He's not dependent on his coaching business to pay for his lifestyle good. He's actually got passive income rolling. But what makes him unique and special is his mindset and his ability to systemize wealth creation, sales and also create processes to eliminate the need for him to be in the business. So in this episode he's going to share the system that you can apply to any business. So welcome my friend, Michael Chu.

Excited to be here, Mike. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, you got it. I've been looking forward to this. We've been working hard on the material and the content over the past couple days. I think the best way to get going here is let's just give everyone the Tarantino and frame. Some of the stuff we're going to be sharing with them today, wet their whistle a little bit and then we'll get into your backstory.

I mean, at least for me starting my coaching business, a lot of the true experts in the industry are oftentimes not as well known or they don't have a huge audience and so they aren't sure how to really make the impact that they want to make. And so there is a way without a doubt to grow a high impact, high income coaching business.

Even Without a massive audience, that's the first thing. But then also, if they want to, like, if someone wants to remove themselves from the business for freedom, they don't need new clients over and over and over again. There's a way to develop the right team, the right clients, and the right systems where they can have clients for life, freedom in their business, and an incredible impact.

Right on. Well, and those are all big promises. So I think the best way to get going is we'll get into the meat. Because to me, what I think you have now that I've gotten into the business and we've been working together the past couple days on the offer and refining it and elevating what you're doing, you have some awesome tactics, but also you lead with mindset.

Sure.

I think that's where you and I really have found common ground, is what you value and what you think about. So let's just start a little bit with your background. How'd you become an entrepreneur? Why did you become an entrepreneur? And also a little bit of your backstory because you're also a martial arts fan and expert too.

Yeah, I started karate when I was three. That's where I developed a lot of work ethic and discipline and everything like that. Played sports through middle school and high school. But growing up in an Asian family, I also think I was supposed to go to school, get a job, become a doctor, lawyer or something along the way. But my mom's a teacher, so I grew up pretty middle class and so started working at a pretty young age. I was waitering at Pizza Hut and I was a cashier. Wanted more beer and gas money in college, and so got my first sales job and sucked at it at first. Super, super shy. Didn't think it was something I was really good at, but because I think my martial arts background where I just keep sticking with something, the challenge itself made sales something I wanted to get good at and made it something I wanted to improve at. And so that's where I started to fall in love with sales, fall in love with entrepreneurship. And that was kind of my entry point to entrepreneurship.

Okay.

So one thing that I really like about you is some of your sales training. So why don't you talk about where you came from because that actually connects us to our mutual connector. Justin Donald.

So the first sales role I got into was selling cutlery. I then got into some door to door sales with alarms and solar. And then the third sales organization was learning online sales for health products.

Okay. And I have a ton of respect for anyone who's done direct door to door, I always say the hardest thing to sell is if you have an LDS background. Selling Jesus door to door, you learn really fast. You can't take anything personally. But then if you're out selling knives and doing that, you've really earned your stripes. Just so much respect for that. I didn't learn face to face door to door sales until later on in life and I love it now. One of my favorite clients catchphrase is every day is a great day to sell.

I love that. Let's move into coaching then how you got into coaching and.

When you really figured out what had become your eight core principles.

Yeah, so I'm in two main parts to that. So I built these three different sales organizations. They had all done seven figures and I felt like there was a bigger impact that I wanted to have. When you're doing direct sales or building teams in specific organizations, you're kind of trapped within that wheelhouse. And I wanted to spread my wings, so to speak. I wanted to expand and I wanted to make a bigger impact. So that's how I got into coaching. Struggled initially building the actual coaching business itself. Finally hired a coach, a mentor on how to grow a coaching business. And that helped me get the business off the ground. That helped me get to my first 10k, 20k. But then I started to realize that a lot of the principles that are or were being taught in the coaching industry might have gotten me revenue, but it wasn't necessarily going to help me build the coaching business the way I wanted to. And that was with freedom, that was with flexibility, the ability to scale. And that's when I started to really question everything that I had been taught. It worked. But did it really work for the outcome long term that I really wanted to create? And that's where I started to question everything positively and started to realize there were a lot of myths and a lot of principles in what's being taught in how to grow a business that weren't necessarily aligned with the freedom and impact that I wanted to create. And I know a lot of the coaches that I work with didn't necessarily want either.

Okay.

I think the best thing we can do then is just dive right in to the principles because inside each one of these there's great case studies rationale for it. So let's start with myth number one and I think one of the core non obvious truths.

The first myth is that you need more leads and you need to get better at marketing to be successful.

So I challenge that I challenge that. No, really. But go for it. Because I've spent my whole life marketing. I love marketing. And when I looked at this I'm like, you know what, he's got a good point there.

Maybe I don't know if we're going to do this later on, but can you talk first of all about the thresholds of pain coaching businesses or coaches get into, or do we do that a little bit later on in terms of revenue and the glass ceilings? Because there's a whole bunch of glass ceilings. I think everything we do is going to make a lot more sense.

Yeah.

If that's cool.

Yeah. So I mean the pain thresholds that I personally experienced or the glass ceilings that you're referring to, is that one growing. The business started to feel like a roller coaster. The unpredictability or the upside or a low paying job. It started to become a low paying job and it sometimes like the client side start to feel like a revolving door.

Yeah.

Like you get clients, you deliver to them, they're out the door just as quickly as you're needing to bring in new customers. And it's just a revolving cycle that for many people can start to feel very overwhelmed. It doesn't feel like there's really much sustainability or long term scalability to the business when it's like every 30 days it's a need to pay the bills, a need to get new clients just to fill the bank account, just to fill the pipeline to pay for the business or pay for the lifestyles. And that's where like you said, Mike, it starts to feel like a high paying job or a low paying job, a low paying job with still a lot of high levels of work and effort to put into it.

Yep. So the numbers then. So it's like zero to X and then what are the numbers that. Because I know you've got a whole chart on this, what are the number ranges that are the glass ceiling thresholds?

The simple way to think about it I found is that a lot of these types of businesses, online businesses, small businesses, run in ones, threes and eights. A lot of times there's a stop gap between that 3 and 8 that people get stuck at. But the first one, 3 and 8, the first 10k a month, it has its own lessons, its own challenges, its own glass ceilings, like you said. But then when someone gets to 10k a month, the same things that worked to get to 10k a month are not necessarily what will work to get to 30k a month. And then the different set of Challenges start to appear going from 30k a month to 80k a month and then from 80 to 100k a month. And what you need to do to go from 100k a month to 300k a month, so on and so forth.

Got it. So the net net is it's really from.

0 to 100k, 100 to 250, then to half a million or so, then your million dollars. That'd be the 80k threshold essentially. And then.

If it's 300, it's around that 3 million. There's no question about it. I found like the 3 and then the 5 million and then break into 10 million and then 15 million. Like every, every business owner has this. So I think part of the reason I asked this is because I wanted to create the universality of this. And then let's get back to.

The. You need more leads and get better at marketing to be successful.

And no doubt to get to your first 10k a month or even 30k a month. Is marketing needed? Is getting clients needed?

Of course.

But there comes a point when I found for myself going from 30k to 50k and 50k to 80k a month, especially not having a huge audience.

I didn't even have an Instagram account when I started my coaching business. It felt like a true ceiling if I just had to get more new clients to get to the 50 to 80k a month mark. And that's when I started to realize while that's what most gurus or other coaches and consultants were telling me, get better at marketing, get more clients and charge more. That got me to the 30k, that got me to the 50k.

A month mark. And that's when I started to realize that there's a bit of a myth to that in growing to the seven figure level. If you can.

More effectively retain clients for longer periods of time and sell them more, that by itself can take a business from six to seven figures without necessarily needing to get a ton of, of more clients.

Good. All right, so let's get into then there's two principles behind or really your solutions, which the Harvard effect and also your sales process. So why don't you describe the Harvard effect, what that is and give me a practical.

Example of that. Tell me a story of how the Harvard effect works. If it was like ring, ring, I'm a lead, let's walk through improving sales and also applying the Harvard effect. Is that cool?

Yeah, for sure. Well, Mike, the simple philosophy or principle behind it, first and foremost is we value things that we have to work for. We value things that we feel like we had to earn. And so I think of clients that I've had before that are true experts at what they teach and are charging $2,000 for their program. And if I could get them to not only believe that they could be charging 5, 5k, 8k, 10k or whatever it is, but also the candidate, the applicant, the client views what they offer with the same amount of value and do that in a really simple way that amplifies or enhances their revenue very quickly. That's where the Harvard effect comes into play. I find a lot of times when people are establishing credibility, growing their business, sometimes they fall into the imposter syndrome. They fall into who the heck am I? Or who am I to charge Blank. The Harvard effect simply installs into the sales cycle a small shift from you feeling like you're selling a client versus a client feeling like they're applying or earning a spot to work with you. I think of literally Harvard. I can't imagine, even if it's someone who is a multimillionaire showing up to the Harvard admissions office. I always joke, unless it's a corrupt admissions officer. But even if a multimillionaire showed up and said, hey, I want my son to go to school here.

The admission officer would most likely say something along the lines of, well, does your son want to go to school here? Has he taken the SATs or the Act? Have they filled out an application yet? And so there's a little bit of a takeaway. There's a little bit of, like, great, we might want to work, but has he earned his spot? Does he belong here? Is this the right fit for him? And really making the applicant earn their spot versus Harvard selling the kid on. Oh, yeah, right. Harvard selling the kid on, going to school there. It's the other way around, Right?

Yep. So.

Your process, because I've had a chance to dig into it, and we don't have time to go way deep. You have a really good messaging mechanism, like a step by step, here's what you say here. Here's what you say here. And you've also broken down the call sequence, which. Why don't you give us a quick summary of your call sequence, how you set people up and, like, what happens in each conversation. Or is that in step two, I can't remember if.

Well, I find that there's five money levers.

Okay.

Yeah. And especially the whole myth was that you need more leads. You need to be better at marketing to grow your business. But I find that if somebody could just be more efficient with the leads, they're already getting their six figures to seven figures already just being left on the table with the leads that someone has already worked to create. And the five money levers are five different points in the sales process where normally I see a lot of coaches bleeding out or inefficiently working with a lead through the whole sales process from start to finish. So those are the different points that we tighten up someone's sales process to get them more revenue with what they already have in front of them.

Okay. Okay, good. So let's hit. Why don't you tell me what the money levers are? Because I just want to know.

Yeah, yeah. So a lot of times you're chatting with someone already, whether it's on LinkedIn or text message or Facebook or Instagram. So the first money lever is how many conversations are actually being converted into someone wanting to schedule a call. Okay. And a lot of people are just bleeding out there already. They're having hundreds of conversations to schedule a call or two. Okay.

So messaging to increase the. I found you. We had a little conversation, and I booked you for a conversation.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, so that's the first lever. And then how many of those people actually show up? That's the second lever because they can agree to get on a call, but then they think about it and go, I think this guy's just trying to sell me stuff or I don't even know if I believe in this guy. So how many of those actually show up? And then from that call, how many actually agree or get scheduled for an actual, like what we call an enrollment or application call? How many of those people show up? That's the fourth lever. How many of those actually show to their application or enrollment call? And then how many get closed on is the fifth lever?

Okay. So the net net is every step of the way, there's indoctrination sequences, follow up reminders as to why we got here anyway. And that's. You systemized that.

Yeah, for sure.

All right, so let's hit myth number two.

So the second myth is I just need more new clients. And as we're starting to touch on a little bit, and some of these will overlap as we tell stories, but the myth is just, I need more clients. And as I was saying earlier, that started to feel like a glass ceiling. Like, how many more new clients can I really get if I don't have a budget of a million dollars for paid Facebook ads yet? Or something like that how many new new leads, how many new clients can I really get? It did start to feel like there's a little bit of a ceiling there.

Right.

And so I started to ask myself, how can I sell more or work with the same clients longer? So even if I were to never get new clients, I still have a sustainable revenue with the clients that I already have. And that's what's helped me start to realize I don't necessarily need thousands of clients to go to seven figures. A coach could have 50 to 100 really solid loyal clients that are the right perfect fit, like the phrase you use, perfect fit clients for their community and build a seven figure business that way. I've seen it done in my own businesses. I've now seen it with other coaches that we work with and they don't need hundreds and hundreds or thousands of clients to get there. Yep.

Well, why don't you share one of your stories as far as how you arrived at this and what your solution is? Because I know you ended up turning that into.

Your clients for life system as a result. Give me the backstory.

Well, we got to 50k. I finally got to 50k.

50K a month.

50K a month? Yeah. And 80k a month is like the seven figure run rate. So that became the next target for me. And how do I get to 80k? It started to feel like it wasn't going to happen. I started to doubt if this business could be long lasting. I started to question if that was my ceiling and there really wasn't much more to the business. And like I said, I got into the coaching business because I wanted to have a bigger impact. I wanted to impact a bigger community, more people. I really wanted to spread my wings. And so it started to feel a little defeating. And that's when I realized what if I could generate even just 30k a month in monthly recurring revenue with clients for life, like long lasting loyal clients. I already showed that I could generate 50k in new client business. Well, if I get 30k in monthly recurring revenue from my existing clients and then add 50k a month in new clients, boom, I could get to 80k.

Great.

And as I started to put that together, we got to 80k pretty quickly.

All right, so there's pretty deep psychology behind this. And typical thing that I've seen over and over again, I've worked with, seen tons and tons of clients and it's always about retention.

And the common phrase you hear and this is in mastermind groups, it's in any kind of a Coaching program is I outgrew my guru and I felt like I was teaching my teacher or I'm the smartest guy in the room, those are the common things. Or I just quit getting value out of here. So how do you flip that? How do you change the psychology and what are the phases that you go through in your program that made all the difference?

Well, the first thing, I stopped trying to solve clients problems overnight. And don't get me wrong, success loves speed. And so there's definitely still an intention to deliver fast results and to have speed to all of our systems. But I also started to realize that overnight success isn't necessarily what would lead to true transformation. Like would lead to people. So even if it was something like weight loss telling somebody that they could work with a weight loss specialist for 12 weeks, they will never have to think about it ever again. It was bs, right? It's why much of this country, it's why the weight loss industry is what it is today. Because of those types of promises.

Yeah. Promising a quick fix, obviously not being able to deliver it. Then the customer's like, well now they're cynical. They don't trust anyone or anything. They might have fell in love with a hook that's unattainable. Now they judge the industry based upon a lie. And so the chance that they're going to get success or they're going to re engage with someone and then it becomes a fight or a race to the bottom which is, you know, nine minute abs, eight minute abs, seven minute abs. Right. So talk about the phases then of development and how you frame your, both your delivery and also you create the retention. Because I think this is one of the smartest parts of your overall flow.

So there are three phases and I can promise fast results still. And that's just phase one, the habit development phase. But when you really think about what a habit is, a habit is practicing something enough until you get it right. But that's not the end game, right? I ask people all the time, how many of you have developed a new habit recently? How many of you have been reading a book for six straight weeks? How many have ever done that before? And then six months later, like, oh shit, I'm not still reading the book every day. Because a habit is not actually the end game. But a lot of times that's what we're sold on, like just develop a new habit. And it takes 21 to 58 days to develop a habit and practice something till you get it right. But if that's where we Leave clients, we are setting them up for failure. And that's where I started to realize there needed to be a second phase in the phases of transformation in how I work with people, how I work with clients. And that's the lifestyle development phase. And they say it takes 16 to 18 months to develop a lifestyle. And what's the differentiator between a habit and a lifestyle? A habit was practicing something enough until you get it right. But a lifestyle, I find, is practicing something enough until you can't get it wrong. And to the audience out there, like how many of you would agree there's a huge difference in confidence. And I'm doing something till I get it right. And I'm doing something and I know I can't get it wrong.

Yeah. So it's a level reaching a level of unconscious competence at that point. Okay.

And even then, even then there's another level. And the third phase is identity shift and the development of identity. And they say it takes oftentimes three to four years of consistent practice for something to truly just become a part of who we are. And that's what identity, you know, is. Practicing something enough until it just becomes a part of who you are. You know, whether it's the lottery analogy of somebody wins the lottery and then within a year or two, I think the stat is, Mike, like that person's right back to the same original financial position they were in, if not worse, because they never actually leveled up their identity to I am a millionaire or I am a wealthy person. And so the third phase is developing their identity to believe that is who they are.

Right. So what that effectively does is.

You can even have a very honest conversation with your client and saying, here are the phases I'm going to take you through. First of all, I'm going to get you there. I'm going to give you the skills or capabilities you need in order to be successful. Then I'm going to give you the systems and processes so you can implement it, sustain it and make it normalized in your life. And the third is deep rooted. I call it an operating system upgrade.

Sure.

It's both a reboot and a full upgrade where you literally aren't the same person. So is there anything, do you have an example of an identity that you feel you've very successfully installed in a past client or for yourself? I'm super curious about that, man.

I could tell stories upon stories, but.

Just give me some good rapid fire ones before and after.

Yeah, yeah. Client lost 15 to 20 pounds. Every time she lost 15 to 20 pounds. Put it all back on. We started to look within the operating system like you said, because we don't get in life what we just desire, oftentimes what we really end up creating in our lives is what we expect and our expectations are a byproduct of our identity. What we believe about ourselves, what we believe about the world. This client, every time she started to lose 15, close to 20 pounds, she started to look in the mirror and started to think she looked pretty fit. But the jocks, the athletes were also her bullies in high school. And so she would never allow herself to become the person that she actually kind of resented until we upgraded her operating system and her identity about what it meant to her, the story for her of becoming fit. So we reworked through that identity, we reworked through that operating system. We took what normally should, like I said, take three to four years to work there, but with a lot of tools that we work with, we shortened that down to three to four months. Not only did she surpass the £20 down mark, but then sustainably kept that off. So that was an example or a business growth example. A person grew up super middle class. I'll tell you a story about myself real quick, is that I could not break through 100k a month for a bit there as far as identity. I started to realize that my dad, I grew up very middle class, kind of like mocked or resented people who made six figures. So if I'm making six figures a month, what is my dad going to feel about me? I thought I wouldn't be loved by him anymore. And I had to work through my identity of what that meant for me. And as soon as I did that, we broke through six figures a month the very next month, and continued from there as well.

So what was the shift like? What, what permission did you give yourself? Because through my lens, when I listen to you tell that story, where I go is Tony Robbins always says we're meaning making machines. So we're going to create meaning from anything, even when there's overwhelmed confusion or whatever, right? Even when it's not your fault. And in this case, you look at this and you give it meaning. And it could be based on an old unconscious trauma or wound. Someone was mean to me, so whatever. So for you, what was the shift like? What was the new identity and what gave you or how did you give yourself permission to not be afraid of your father's judgment or for you to present something so he had a shift and resolve that himself? Because that could also. But this Isn't about making someone else wrong or changing their behavior. It's changing your thinking.

Well, the crazy part is I had no conversations with my dad about it at all.

Okay.

It was all within myself. And then the breakthrough happened. But it was two simple things. It was realizing that we as human beings are not first wired to be successful. We as human beings are actually first wired to be loved and accepted by the pack. We're pack animals first. So when I can acknowledge that I was then able to, you said, meaning making machine and rewrite a new belief as an example, I was able to really ground myself in how success or next levels of financial success could actually lead to more love. Not less love, more acceptance, and more service to family and friends and community. Not less. And by rewriting or leveling up that belief to the identity of where I was going allowed me to, I guess you could say, like, feel safe. I know this sounds very woo woo, but feel safe with the next levels of success that I was striving towards or looking to get to.

Okay.

Let'S dive into number three. What's myth number three? And what do you do to get over it?

Yeah. So the third myth is that you have to be pushy, sleazy, or a salesperson. A sleazy salesperson to grow to the next level. I find a lot of people, or coaches specifically, are either.

Putting content out there, putting marketing out there, and praying. We call it posting and praying.

Yeah, spray and pray is another one.

Yeah. Or they're like, well, I got to go get clients today. And so they just start cold messaging, spamming, and a lot of times that doesn't feel authentic or aligned for the long term either.

Yep.

And so I found myself in that exact same situation. The revenue roller coaster that Mike, you and I have talked about before. Like, I would have a good revenue month and be like, this is going to be awesome.

Yep.

And the next month go from 30k to 10k, you know, or whatever the gaps are 80k to 40k. Either way. It's never fun to feel like your revenue goes up and then right back down and it's not consistent.

Yeah. And you measure your personal comfort based upon how much money's in your bank account.

Sure.

That's a bitch.

Yeah. And then sometimes when you have a really good month, you start growing or building the team to those levels. But then if the next two months don't match the same revenue, it just creates so much stress.

Burn, baby, burn. Okay.

Found myself in that position, and I found myself asking, how do I Create more conversations with the right types of people. So I'm not just sitting there sending thousands of messages in a way that the right types of people are inviting me or want to talk to them. And I call it the warm gooey middle. It's not just cold leads, it's not just hot leads that you're sitting back waiting for, but there's got to be this warm gooey middle of leads that if I could initiate the conversation, they're not going to reach out to me yet because they're not hot leads. But if I can initiate with that warm middle, I know then using the convo systems we talked about earlier, I can then effectively lead those conversations to sales calls. I just needed to know how to identify who those people are, how to properly have entry points to start the conversation where they don't go, oh, another Instagram DM of just some person trying to sell me crap. And then how to have an effective conversation once they're talking with me. That feels authentic, with authority, that leads to them actually wanting to hop on a call.

Okay, so I want you to walk me, walk us through a scenario and how you do it and I'll just.

What I like about what you're doing. So I have this story in my head which for me it's true most of the time, but I know it's not always which is the kind of clients I want to work with don't spend their time on Instagram and Facebook. I found that most of mine are on LinkedIn and I've got good systems for getting LinkedIn leads. However.

I have to get past my own opinion because obviously there's plenty of people are there. It just comes down to engagement. But you have a very effective way without paying for ads, for identifying, engaging and booking people from Facebook and Instagram pretty quickly. And you've outsourced it to very low cost labor. So this is very programmatic, it's very system process oriented and it's delivered results to the tune of.

Multiple seven figure business.

We built our first $1 million annually without any ads whatsoever. And we grew to our first first $3 million annually as well without any sort of paid ads or anything like that.

Okay, so walk us through the system. Give me what you would do and how you do it from how do you identify a right fit person on either Instagram or Facebook? And then how do you initiate the conversation? What's the basic dialogue?

Sure. So it starts with knowing and identifying who the the perfect fit ideal client is. Because when you're trying to speak to everybody. You're not connecting deeply really with anybody. So the first thing is knowing the ideal client and then creating marketing that allows the audience to give you permission. We call it the PBM method, Permission Based marketing, where they essentially are giving you permission to serve them, to train them, to coach them and to reach out to them. And so we have exact templates and specific strategies of marketing that we use that doesn't feel salesy, that gets the right type of person to raise their hand or to say, yeah, I'd love to talk with you. That's the first thing. Creating a pool.

Yeah. So give me a real life example. Like what would you say? So I'm going to play let's pretend or think of. Give me an example from one of your clients that's used this and is currently using it. And like, who's their target audience? What's the conversation and what are the basic steps? I want to go from hand raised to yes, let's have a conversation.

I mean, I think at Calvin and Jenny they had built lots of success in real estate and real estate investing, but they wanted to start to coach other people on how to build passive income through real estate. And they didn't quite know where to get started. So they thought, maybe I'll just write a bunch of content and people reach out. And that feels like again like you were saying, posting and praying and just throwing crap at the wall and seeing what sticks. But instead if it was like, hey guys, we're thinking if we were to put together a free training on the exact steps that took us from zero to six figures in passive income or zero to eight figures in real estate in the last 24 months, who would be interested? So a it's designed or packaged and giving value first. There's a level of authority to it. Like we're not going to do this training if nobody wants it. If we were to put together this training and then it speaks to an outcome that their perfect, ideal fit client would really want. And so by doing that, tons of people start to raise their hand. Tons of people start to.

So we're posting in. So this is a one to many approach. It's more of like a group. Raise your hand if you want this. And you're posting in a group of folks who have already identified they have an identity with an audience. So it could be like in my case, I might go to an EO group or a YP group or a LinkedIn group, for example, and post something, hey, who would want to know? Blah, blah, Blah.

Yes. And you'd be surprised that somebody could have. Like the reason I use Calvin and Jenny as an example is they had no real identity on their own social.

Media so they hadn't developed it yet.

They were literally building their brand from scratch and right on their own personal pages. Like not in a group, not like right on their own personal page. They just threw it out there on Instagram and Facebook and that helped launch their business. They built a seven figure coaching business in their first 12 months and had nothing when they first got started from.

Just creating some hand raising. So from there.

What do you do inside your system? You've got.

We're looking for effective entry points. That's really the case as I find a lot of times with people, the start stops people. We can understand we should message more people. We can understand we should start more conversations because that's, that's sales or whatever it is. But the reality is for a lot of people the start stops people. And so we want to create entry points that feel authentic, that feel natural. So we teach people how to look for patterns and buying patterns and interest patterns within their own audiences and then a bunch of different authentic ways to initiate that conversation.

That's awesome. And I know just in looking at, I've had an opportunity to look at, at your back end, meet your team and see you have lots of little copy paste, like just copy paste the script and then training for a team that does it for you. You don't have to be doing this.

If you have someone who does outreach interest generating chat conversations, what do you have to pay someone like that?

I mean the ranges, there's different, different bots and things like that that people could use. I'm not the biggest fan of them just because they don't feel personal and authentic. Then there's VAs that somebody could pay for and then if not like as an actual full time employee, part time, full time to start off. 15 to $25 an hour kind of depending on the sophistication of your ideal client and things like that.

Yeah. So the net net is cheap. I've been so inspired by that. This. I have people monitoring my stuff, but I am not using other than like doing LinkedIn events. I'm not doing.

This level of engagement on either Facebook or Instagram. I'm going to give it another shot. Just talking to you about this over the past couple days has gotten me like, all right, I'm going to give it a shot.

Most people give up on it because they're doing it the Wrong way.

Yeah. Yeah.

But if you do it the right way, most people are leaving 80% of revenue on the table by not having a proactive conversation system. Why? Because people will show people express interest in public, but they will share their desires and problems in private.

Yes. So true. So true. All right, let's hit myth number four. What's that?

Yeah. So the fourth myth is that you can relax after the sale.

Yeah.

You enroll a client.

I'm a lady on this one. It's so true.

You enroll a client, and then all the work is done. The easy part is from here, but if you're truly committed to helping a client transform and create the ultimate result that we as coaches are committed to our people, the work really begins after the sale.

Yeah. So true. Yeah. And you've got a great.

Your own transformational story that I think is very common.

About how you decided to do something about this and really noticed it for yourself. So why don't you just kind of give us that.

Problematic client who gave you a little guff?

Yeah. So.

I had this client that had been following me for a while, and I really thought he was a perfect fit for what we did, and he finally enrolled, and I don't know, 30 days, six weeks after he was into our program, I got a message like, hey, Mike, can we talk? If any of you ever get a message like that, it's rarely to tell you how amazing they think you are. Right.

You're about to get your bed crapped in is what's going on.

Correct. So I got on that phone call, and, you know, he said, mike, I love you still, and I love what you're all about. And there's always the but. Right.

But.

But it doesn't seem like there's much of a system, or the word he exactly used was there doesn't seem to be much of a roadmap to where we're going in. Ego was like, do you see how much passion I pour into those modules? Or do you see how much I care? And we've given you so much information, and the more I sat with it, I realized there was a lot of truth to what he was saying. And it ended up being one of the best lessons for my business that I possibly could have gotten, because there really wasn't much of a roadmap. I believe that more information and more stuff up front, equal to high value product or a high value program. But, Mike, you know this. You say this like we live in the information world. People aren't investing in information. That's A Google search away, that's a YouTube video away. But people are investing in certainty and clarity and shortening the learning curve on just exactly where to put action. And so less is more. And I realize, you know, that client was right. I was just trying to give a ton of information up front, but didn't really have an exact roadmap.

Yeah, they're not paying for overwhelm. They're paying for shortcuts. So I think when you couple this principle with.

Number two. So number two, it's about taking someone from habit to lifestyle, to identity. This one is all about showing them the roadmap and giving them, we've called it for years, transfer of certainty. You need to transfer your certainty that you've got a system and you're going to lead them to the promised land and give them a North star along the way. And I think that's what I get out of this. I think it's very powerful and it's quite nuanced because it does force you to really listen to and look at and listen to through the customer's perspective. And.

My greatest regrets in all my businesses, I didn't get my hands dirty with my clients enough.

So let's move on. I don't know if you have anything else to add from the seeds to salvation here, but is there anything else you want to add with myth number four?

Before I go, you use the phrase seeds for salvation, and there's so much truth to how we, we can serve clients. But remember, you're serving clients this way. So they get incredible results. And they end up working with you not for six weeks, not for six months. They end up working with you. And I have clients that have now been with us for one year, three years, five years. But the seeds for salvation help you plant the seeds of what the journey is going to look like. At this point, Mike, you'll have had your first 30k month. Let me tell you what you're going to be feeling at that point. Let me tell you, you might think that's the pinnacle, but here's what I find. People at 30K are questioning, doubting, struggling with. And at that stage, here's what you and I are going to start working on. And that's why we have a second phase program, or that's why we have. And so we're planting seeds about what we call our whole curriculum, our whole roadmap.

Great. Good, good. So next one then. Well, let's tell us what myth number five is. And I love this one.

Yeah. Well, if I Have more offers, I'll make more money.

Yeah, yeah.

And when I was in that phase of wanting to figure out how to get to 50k and 100k a month, I was convinced that if I had more offers, I'll make more money. And my ego pointed to evidence of that. Well, look, I have clients in this program. I have and I have clients in this program. Why would I want to drop any of those programs? And at that point, I was trying to help men, women lose weight, put muscle on, grow their business, sell more, recruit more. And I had a program for anything I thought I could help people with.

Yeah, what was your revenue at that point?

20K a month, 20 to 30k. And I thought that was the way I thought that was going to be what got me to the next level.

So you're a giant man whore.

Yeah, I was a coaching whore for sure. If I can help you and you, I'm here.

So what was the moment of pain and realization? Did you realize you had to change or what was the stopping point, the realization point and the transformation that led to specialization?

While you can make money doing that, it didn't feel scalable. It feels incongruent as heck because you're in five different programs all within one business. So there's little to no congruency or alignment at all. And a coach of mine at that point said, mike, you need to rewrite your relationship with failure. And what he was speaking to is that like I was scared to commit to one real niche, one real brand, one real service. And so, you know, I realized at that point I got a niche down for 90. I tell clients to do the same. Like niche down for 90. Yes, you can maybe help five different audiences, but niche down for 90 days. And when we help people niche down, we look at the four P's. What person do you, do you want to serve? What problem do you know? What's the biggest problem? You know, that you can help someone overcome. What's the promise that you can make someone within that. What's the process that you're confident in that can help deliver that promise? And niche down for 90 days. Mike, I niched down for 90, but within 30 I went from 20k to 40k, 40k to 60k a month in that 90 day window by actually eliminating offers and niching down to one.

Yeah, I think we've been calling it horse killing around here. You just got to go out and you got to murder some horses. And that sounds harsh, but it needs to be a wall in your head and Also having the courage and confidence to make a commitment to cutting yourself off from.

What the illusion of many is better, and simple is freedom. So I think that's very, very good. Myth number six. This is juicy.

I think out of all of them, this is probably other than the behavioral ones. Every one of these principles are really, really powerful. They're so simple, but the elegance is in the simplicity. But this one is the biggest distinction between being able to scale, not being able to scale, and learning how to manage your ego. I think it's what you're really, really, really good at. When I think about what's Mike's this is. This is really good. So go for it.

Yeah.

I know I felt this at some point, and I'm sure most coaches do. And that is.

That's my big, dumb story too.

And that is clients will only work with me. That's what they're investing in. I'm the guru. I'm the unicorn. I'm the magic sauce. And clients only want to work with me. And therefore, scaling to the next level is hard because there's only so much of me to go around. There's only so much energy, time, et cetera, for me to go around. They want. I won't buy, if they're not working directly with me. That's the myth, the truth, and the reality is that people are investing for your expertise, your system, your certainty. But what do they really care about? They care that you can get them a result when we remove the ego from it.

And a lot of times, we want to be involved, we want to be needed. We want to be wanted, but we really remove our ego from it. It People don't actually care that much if they're talking directly with you. If they're having an incredible experience. They're getting the result that they really wanted, and they're getting it faster or easier than they ever could have imagined. They don't really care if they're talking to you. And so that's what started to help me realize there were different ways I could think about how I deliver my coaching that can make it more scalable, start to remove me from the business. And I remember I woke up one day and I had an email about a client who had retained into a 25k program. And I realized I don't know who that client is. They had talked to one of my chat specialists using the Champ convo system we talked about. They enrolled with one of my enrollment specialists. They onboarded with our admin team, and then they were coaching using the system that we're about to walk through and got such an incredible result, they wanted to stay on for a second term. And that's when I started to realize maybe people don't actually care that much about me. And so we look at two things. We look at number one. And I know it's kind of a cheesy way of thinking about it, but it's just the way I remember it. And that's just IY phi y. Like IY phi y ry ry fyry.

All right, what is it?

And then three rys R Y's. Rys. That's just. If you IY find yourself fy repeating yourself, then replace yourself, record yourself or resource yourself. As much as I love coaching and I love the people I get to work with, I remember a day that I was on, let's call it a third coaching call for the day, and I never wanted to slam my head on my desk more than that coaching call called. Why? Because I was repeating the same exact thing that I love to teach. But the fact that it was the third time that day, the ninth time that week, a part of me wanted to slam my head against the wall. And I started to realize that this isn't fulfilling. There's got to be a better way. And so I started to look at the four Cs of delivery. How do I utilize a community? Because people come for the content, but they really want to stay because of amazing communities that they're a part of. So how do I leverage and build an incredible community that takes a life of its own, that becomes bigger than just the Mike Choo show, so to speak? Then how do I utilize a course so it's not just me repeating stuff and my coaches don't have to become the experts at everything. Then how do we utilize calls, group calls, community calls, pod calls, cohorts, whatever. Then you leave the fourth piece for coaching. But now the whole infrastructure is not reliant on you being the guru coach. And so those are the two things I started to look at that allowed me to deliver incredible results at scale in a way that clients were getting incredible results. Yeah.

And I think what I admire about what you've done is you've now created a coaching business that replicates itself.

And that really should be. Every founder's dream is self replication.

Yeah. I think of Mike real quick. I was working out with one of our students, Scott. He's a vegan coach. And I was like, so what's.

Yeah, I hate him already.

So I was like, what's the biggest challenge you're dealing with at this point. And he said, mike, if I'm being honest, I just. The biggest thing I'm struggling with right now is I feel guilty. What do you feel guilty about? He's like, we're doing 40, 50, 60k a month, and.

I wake up and I don't know what to do. I don't do anything anymore. And he goes, I feel guilty because I think my team's gonna be like, scott's not doing anything. But I share that story as just a reference to, when done the right way, you can grow an incredible business having incredible impact and start to realize, wait, the business doesn't need me.

Well, that's the day that unicorns poop gold. So I love that. It is. It's so good. All right, so myth seven.

So the seventh myth is clients want everything all at once. Or clients are. They want more. They're paying for more value. And we touched on this one briefly earlier, but less is more. And I know that's a simple principle that we've all heard before. Like you said earlier, a lot of these principles are simple, but for us to actually look at our own businesses and get out of our own way and go, oh, crap, I am doing those things.

Yeah. No, I guarantee it. What? You and I violate our own principles that we teach and.

We practice with other people and not for ourselves all the time, Guaranteed.

The simple shift here is.

I step back and I ask myself one simple question. What's the fastest, simplest, easiest way for me to get clients momentum, traction, and results right away? What's the only thing they actually need? And I took what at that point was my program, my course, and I ended up stripping out, out 70, 80% of it. Now, it didn't mean those clients didn't need that other 70 to 80% at some point. They just didn't need it right away. I wanted to give them simple, faster, easier right away so they can get incredible results. Because we all know when we start getting results faster, we buy into the system. We buy into that person, that program, that product. And so when I get them early wins early on, they're going to stay for less life. They're going to stay longer, and then I'm just going to seed out like we talked about, seeds for salvation on a roadmap, all the other information they need. But when they actually need it.

Yeah.

So this goes back to two really big but simple ideas. One of them is no one wants to buy how. They just want the result. So it's the old show me the baby and then. And.

One of Dan's best books that he and Ben Hardy wrote was who, not how. If your brand is the who, not necessarily you are the who. And they are buying a transfer of certainty and a brand promise and de risking their investment. Right. So that's where the multiplier mindset really comes in.

And that is a huge mistake.

Coaches and businesses in general.

Get confused between.

Delivery and overwhelm and they operate. I've seen this failure so many times. So many coaches forget that they think they're the only thing that matters to that person's life. And it's like they don't care about any of your stuff. Yeah, just.

Give them a 10x or a 5x on their money. They're looking for a multiplier effect, an amplifier effect, more leverage. And they don't want to hear about any of your how. Okay? And I've got a doctor in my life who I have to remind very frequently. Many of us busy professionals will triple what we'd pay if you deliver the same result in a third the time. So shut up.

Exactly.

That's a really good sign. Stop talking. You talk too much. Quit teaching me.

So true.

So true.

I heard it might put in this analogy one time that just resonated so true with me. And that is if you had a 2 liter bottle of soda, all of the soda in the bottle is just all this information, information, information. But if you handed this 2 liter bottle fully filled to the top to a client and said, go run around with it, the information would just be a damn mess. So what are people investing in a coach, a system or a program for? They're not investing for the information. They're investing for the cap. By giving them the cap on top, they can now run with that bottle of soda and it not spray everywhere. And that's where simple is better. That's where less is more. They're not investing for the information, they're investing for that cap. The transfer of certainty that you talked about earlier and the exact game plan, the exact roadmap of. Jess, just do this.

Roadmap is, I think, a very important word. So myth number eight. What's the solution?

I am the business. Oh, yeah, yeah, right. Like I am the business. Without me, this entire thing would fall apart. As an entrepreneur myself, I know I have felt that way plenty of times talking with thousands of entrepreneurs. It is a very common feeling to the listeners out there. I'm sure many, many people feel this way at times. Like if I step Away from, I don't know what stage someone might be at. If I step away for one day, one weekend, one week, the entire thing would crumble, the entire thing would fall apart or at least the growth would come to a screeching halt. And that is without me. It would all fall apart. I can't walk away. And so I've now having built five different seven figure organizations, but most importantly growing myself and others into the types of leaders that they need to become to really build a business that can lead to freedom. I've noticed there are innovations eight wealth accelerators that when CEOs and leaders have these eight accelerators, not only can their business grow faster, but they can grow themselves out of their own business faster where the business doesn't need them and the business can thrive, the business can grow with or without them. Is the solution to the myth of the business needs me or I am the business.

Okay, so let's hit us with the eight wealth accelerators.

All eight of them.

Yeah, yeah, you can rapid fire them.

I think they'll much pretty self explanatory as you start to hear some of them.

Like one quick sentence for each one.

The CEO, an upgraded CEO operating system. Right. Like who you had to be to get to six figures is not the type of leader you need to be at seven or multiple seven or eight figures.

So that basically is the identity shift.

The identity shift. The second one is what we call our champ dev hiring system. And that's how to effectively hire the right person for the right culture, for the right role in a way that they will grow within their role to create sustainability and growth. The third is effective leadership and management of the team. So there's results, but there's also development. Number four is systems for results, KPI systems. Number five is purpose and fulfillment that leads to advancement. We all know one of the most time cost, like the most costly things is turnover where you need to replace a new team member. But imagine if you had the same team member with you for years, growing and advancing within their roles.

That's such an accelerator.

I know, I read this recently, especially millennials in particular. But if they feel like there is after 40 years of working now I would say.

If the person who's working for you, whether they're a.

Employee or a contractor, if they don't see a possibility of advancement, they just, they get very resentful.

Yeah.

And so I think that that to me when I heard you talk about that, that one really resonated. All right, what's number six?

Effective Vision and culture creation. Right. It's like kind of what you're saying right now. Yeah, people will stay for advancement and the right environment more than they'll stay just for a paycheck. We think paying people more is the only thing that is needed.

Yeah, we know for a fact that's not true. But this one, then vision and culture, really, culture is internal vision and external vision is your brand. And that's going to come down to pride. And.

If you have a great employee who associates their identity with your brand, you know you got a winner. Right? Remember Zappos? My friend Robbie Richman created the company culture of Zappos with Tony Hsieh. And.

That was one of the strongest unusual cultures. And it was used as a model for many, many years. And that I think to this day is still a steady case. But keep rolling.

A quick thing to that, I mean, to what Zappos created has become a foundation of how important I realized culture was. I remember on a Cyber Monday, I called in to buy shoes and I had just read, read Tony's book and I was like, all right, let's see how real this culture. Anyways, I was calling in and I'll never forget it. In the middle of me buying a pair of shoes on Cyber Monday on the phone, the sales associate said, sir, hold on. And you hear these sirens and noise makers in the background. And I was, what the heck was that? And she was like, we just broke our Cyber Monday sales record. So all our sales managers brought in shots of tequila and we all, like in the middle of a sales call, they just all stopped.

And so, yeah, I was there years ago, walking through and we had shots at like 11 in the morning. I'm like, yeah, I wouldn't do this. I definitely wouldn't do this. I know what it does to me.

But that is their culture. Yeah, that is their culture. So number seven is personal wealth creation. Yeah, personal wealth creation. And number eight is the eighth wonder is designed for exit. Whether that means exit to sell or exit just for you to exit from the business so the business is not reliant on you.

Yeah, yeah. And I know one of the things that you and I talked about pre interview was when I get to X, then I can have freedom. That is a very, very common, typical entrepreneurial lifestyle. And.

I just heard a recent story from someone not long ago and it was someone who had gone to.

It's a mountainous region in South America and it was like a 30 something and then, oh, I know who it was. It was Corin Woodmass, he's a guy, I gotta introduce you to him. But.

He'S there with like an 80 year old, very wealthy entrepreneur. And the old guy said to Coren and his wife, I wish I were doing and they just come back from climbing up a mountain and the guy said, I wish I would have done what you were doing. Right now. I'm too old and my knees wouldn't let me walk up there. So here he is. We're all going to die soon and we get old soon. And if you've got this moving.

Future without rewards in the meantime, you're going to wind up very resentful, very angry. The old saying is no one on their deathbed ever wished they would have worked harder or worked more. I think this operating system and this process, as simple as it sounds, what you have, which we don't have time to dig into today is just, just like the depth of the tools and resources. So I think now is a good time to tell people about.

Where to learn more, where to get more. And then there's a webinar recording and some downloadable resources. But why don't you tell everyone about those and where to go to get them?

Yeah, I mean if you go to our website, champdev.com free you can get the slide notes and everything that we've covered here today. Tons of free resources there, but champdev.com free, free. You can get the resources and the notes to what we covered today.

Yeah, that's awesome. Just for you, listening, watching. I've had the good fortune of being able to spend a couple days with Michael on his business, working with him. One of the things that they put together is a brilliant model for delivering value that first of all I think everyone should model. But secondly, it's amazing to go through because what he and his team promise is teaching and implementing these with you or your team.

The front end delivery is the brilliant part and then there's a back end delivery. Do you want to just give someone a little pre frame? Because ultimately you're saying, look, I'm going to give you these eight. Yeah, we're going to help you implement this, upgrade your systems, your processes, give you a whole bunch of copy paste tools and how you start and end it is super, super cool.

Sure, yeah, we could teach all eight over three months, six months, whatever. But one of our commitments is to accelerate that process for people. We work with people one on one or in small groups over three days to install these things into their business right away. So within three days they could walk Away with a more optimized sales process, A scaling system that will keep clients forever, will keep clients for long term, and then leaving also knowing how to serve their clients and serve their team in a way that their team is now stabilized for scale.

I think you use the system to sell the system, but also sell the system and use the system. So you're installing the habits, you're installing the lifestyle, and then you're installing the long term identity and doing that over a period of just six months.

Because I've seen when people, yes, they can take 6 months or 12 months to gradually install this stuff, But I think one of our students, Kevin, he was already at 80k a month, like the 7 figure run rate, for whatever reason, getting to 100k a month felt like a glass ceiling for him. And So I took 30 in the first 30 days in working with them, I worked on installing the three things that we just talked about, right? The optimized sales system, a scaling system to retain clients, how to serve and lead as team, team better, and putting these things into place. He went from 80k to 125k a month just implementing these things and really looking at the eight myths. And every time he's like, yep, I'm doing that. Yep, I'm doing that. Yep, that's me. And so we just looked at them and then kind of shifted them. And he went from 80 to 125k a month and then had 7 months in a row over 100k. I think 10 out of 12 months last year breaking 100k. But I've just seen what can happen for somebody when they also install these things quickly. Which is why I love just bringing people in for those three days to initiate and amplify those things.

Yeah, I'm a huge, huge believer in workshopping your way through a process because otherwise, like doing it an hour at a time, two hours at a time, you lose momentum, you lose focus, you change your mind, you forgot why you wanted it in the first place. It's very, very inefficient.

And it's easy because it's conversational, whether it's one on one or the group. So congratulations on just figuring these things out, but also having the history, the years of observing hundreds of coaching organizations and clients and being able to do the pattern recognition and find the faults.

Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so anything else before we wrap up and send everyone on their way?

I appreciate being here. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, no, it's been a pleasure for sure. So. Well, I'll wrap this up. So this is another episode of Capability Amplifier. This is Michael Chu. You can go to champdev.com free. You can get the free resources that he talked about. And in the meantime, make sure if you haven't done it already, share this episode with someone you know like it. If you're on YouTube, subscribe and click the little bell doodad and also place a comment on itunes. So looking forward to seeing you in another episode. I think the next episode I will be here with Dan Sullivan. So thanks for watching and see you in the next show.

Have a good one. Bye Bye.