The 7-Step Framework To Build a $30K/Month Coaching Business

I earn about $30,000 a month. I work about 30 hours a week. I have zero social media, zero paid ads, one part-time assistant.

My guest today, John Meese, is the founder of Sold Out Coach Club, and he has a 7-step framework to becoming a sold-out coach. I'm like super curious. Find your what?

Find your target client bullseye. If you think about your target client as being like a dartboard, the bullseye in the exact center is your perfect fit client where you can have the greatest impact on their life, and in return, they're willing to make the biggest investment.

I think about this from a flywheel perspective. As you're going through and creating these wins, the best thing that I can do to get more clients is to create wins for clients that are worth celebrating.

When you're selling a program that's $2,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 or $30,000, the reality is selling at scale can actually get in the way of you succeeding. Emailing thousands of people to click a link, to go to a page, to watch a video, to fill out a form, like we're creating a gap between us and the client. It's a lot like if you were standing on stage in front of an audience and you know your target client's out there, but it's not everybody. We want to find ways to find out who they are and then close the gap between us and them so that it becomes very personal. Getting to the point where you are a sold-out coach, this is where it gets really exciting and fun. What I typically recommend is for your very first program—

I like it. John, you might be the person that we talk about the most on the show, so it feels like you've been a guest a whole bunch of times, but this is actually your first time on, so welcome to the show.

Thank you. It's an honor to be here, and it's also an honor to be like a repeat guest, even though it's my first time. I do get texts or emails every time you mention me like a Q&A episode or something. So I'm grateful for that.

That's awesome. So we're gonna dive into how to build a sold-out coaching program, how to become a sold-out coach.

Yes.

And a bunch of things related to that. I feel like maybe it's from Craft and Commerce, maybe it's from the sheer number of mutual friends that we all have, but you have had an impact on probably dozens at this point of my friends' lives in their, like, building their creator businesses. So you're gonna be able to share a few of those stories, But just give me the high level, like what is your story over these last few years of building up, you know, getting to the point of being a sold-out coach yourself?

Yeah, well, I've had an online education business for more than a decade now, so I've done all the things of like courses and memberships and books. For years I ran one of the largest membership sites in the world at the time. So, I mean, we had, you know, so we've had, we had over 25,000 alumni. We had 5,000 members paying $47 a month at one time. So you can do that math. It's pretty great. So I was the Dean of Platform University as my title. Yeah. So A friend at church, by the way, got promoted to be like a real dean at his school. And I was like, oh, I'm a dean too. And he's like, ah, yeah, not quite. That's not the same. But yeah, so I did. So I got— so of course when I— we sold Platt from University to Pete Vargas. And so then I was on doing my own thing again. And the natural thing was a lot of people that I was working with as I was a fractional CMO for a lot of different online education companies that were doing from $2 to $20 million a year in revenue. And the natural thing was to be like, oh, you're like another Stu McLaren because you guys both ran Platform University. So can you like do membership stuff? And so I did that for a little while. What I found was that memberships are a great way to make recurring revenue, but they start upside down. Like you can be upside down in a house where like you owe more than it's worth. Oh, so you launch a membership that has recurring revenue and like day one you owe the full experience, but you're making like $100 a month, right? And so a lot of companies I work with, even at scale, really struggle to make the math work unless you have like a huge volume. And then smaller creators who have smaller audiences, like it almost never made sense to start with a recurring revenue membership because, you know, even if you got a great conversion rate, you're getting to like $207 a month. Exactly. And you're like, I deliver 3 coaching calls and create new training every week and it's like, it's like a ton. So that's actually what led me to learn more about a high ticket because when I worked for Michael Hyatt at Full Focus, his name, his company, we had a lot of high ticket group coaching programs. So at the time, like I ran one that did six figures that was like Platform University's like premium package. And then we had a whole dedicated team that ran Business Accelerator that was doing over $5 million a year, just that one product.

Right.

And so like I saw it was possible, but I was really like the membership guy, so I was kind of not paying that much attention to it. But then I thought like, wait, there might be something here. So I guess about 2020, like 5 years ago, I started going all in and like buying every program I could on high ticket, learning how to do group coaching well, and then ultimately running my own program and then teaching other people how to do it, what I was doing. And so now that's like my focus is like helping you build and launch a sold-out group coaching program. And I've fallen in love with it as like the core of a creator business where you can fund your lifestyle from one group coaching call you lead once a week for 90 minutes, and now you can buy back your time. So now you can go create books or courses or memberships without having to worry about paying the mortgage. Right. You see, you've got something over here. So that's kind of— that's what I teach now is like to have that at the core of your business.

Yeah. What's an example of someone who you've, you've been able to help them go from, you know, maybe an individual coaching business or something selling digital products or that sort of thing and go to a sold-out group coaching program?

Yeah. So I think one example of somebody that I just worked with that was a lot of fun is there's this woman named Monique and she's in France and she's a vocal coach. She speaks English and French. Thankfully, I can't coach in French yet. Yeah, my new— yeah, my new AI chatbot can do that for me. But that's right. It's not the same. But yeah, so she joined my program and she's a great example of someone who's like, she's got about 800 email subscribers. She had a one-on-one vocal coaching business, is doing pretty well. She sold some paid courses and workshops. So she's like, eeking by, she was doing pretty good. But a lot of it is like selling her time, like all these one-on-one clients. And it's kind of exhausting at a certain point where you realize like, how much more can I raise my rate or how many more one-on-one appointments can I take? And so the idea is like, of course, the dream is like to go straight to selling passive income products of like, let's just sell courses or ebooks where I don't even talk to the customer, you know, and we just make money while we sleep. And that is the dream. But also, the other hand, like that's really hard to do, especially when you don't have a huge audience. So she's a good example of someone that we worked with where she joined Soul.CoachClub, my program, and went through the process of dialing in, okay, what's the actual total transformation of what you're offering to people and turning that into a group program? And so in her case, the 10x promise, which we'll get into in a bit for her program, is unlock your signature sound. So unlock your signature sound to become an unforgettable singer. And so her target client are professional singers who are competing with all the other professional singers for the same gigs. And they're like not getting the callbacks they want. And she teaches, well, there's these 5 levers you can control in terms of how you perform that can— you can have a signature style, you know, like a John Legend or, or a Mariah Carey or like all, all these artists have like their sound. So you can learn how to master these 5 elements that the outcome of that is you have a signature sound. And now you're unforgettable and now you get callbacks. And so she came back to her audience with that offer and followed what I teach to say, okay, first time we open this, it's only 5 people, $2,000 each. And then she just launched her program. So she just sold out. So now she's a sold-out coach. And so that's amazing. Yeah. So it's pretty—

I want to get into all the aspects of that, but it sounds like we should probably get up on the board and walk through these 7 steps to become a sold-out coach.

Let's do it.

All right. So we have these 7 steps to launch your sold-out group coaching program.

Yeah.

Let's dive in.

Okay.

You've got— I'm like super curious. Find your what? Where are we starting here?

Yeah. So we should probably start at step 1.

That's a good place.

Yeah. So, so the first thing to do is find your target client bullseye. Okay. So, I mean, everybody knows to sell any kind of product, there's typically some element of like, who's your target customer? Who is your avatar? But what I find is that when you're selling a premium program like a group coaching program that's going to cost several thousand dollars, you have to go further to the bullseye. So if you think about your target client as being this, I mean, literally like a circular target, like a dartboard where there's these concentric circles, the bullseye in the exact center is sort of your perfect fit client where you can have the greatest impact on their life and make the biggest transformation. And then in return, they're willing to make the biggest investment. Now what happens is when you focus on that, the more magnetic your focus is on that bullseye, it tends to also attract people who are in these other kind of circles on the dartboard where they're still in the target, but the bullseye is really critical. So using Monique as an example, I mentioned earlier, so she's targeting professional singers who are already— they've already received some training before. They're already making some money as a professional singer. They may have songs that are streaming on Spotify, but a lot of what they're doing is live performances, cruises, or traveling, or at music clubs. But specifically, it's like they're eeking by. They're not getting the callbacks they want from their dream gigs, and they feel like they're competing on price with a lot of other performers. It's like, that's her bullseye. It's like, that's where she can come in and make a massive impact and totally change their life with a group coaching program. Okay.

Yeah, I like it. But you're really like— everyone talks about finding your target client.

Yeah.

And so when someone's like, I already know my target client. Yeah. What are the things that are the flag to you? It's like, no, you've got like A target client, but yeah, like bullseye is an important word to you.

Yes, it is.

And so how do you really hone in on that?

Well, so how I hone in on that is to focus on intent over identity. So a lot of people, when they talk about the target client, they're like, it's working women or it's stay-at-home moms or it's like whatever that is. It's like that's the identity. But intent is really what are they striving for? Like, what do they want? And that is more than 10 times. It's probably like 100 times more important than identity. So when I say bullseye, that's part of what we're looking for is like, what is the people who are there already trying to make a change in their life and you're the natural solution they just don't know about. And a lot of it is focusing on that intent. So for me, for example, like my target client are online business owners, but that's pretty broad.

Yeah, there's a lot of us.

Yeah. So it's like the bullseye is more focused specifically on like, okay, they're overworked, underpaid. They want to, they want to launch a sold-out group coaching program that's going to help them buy back their time. And so time is a priority, but also getting paid well is important to them. And they're typically already authorities in their space. The like inner bullseye for me would probably be like online business owners who are also nonfiction authors. But that's sort of like the very exact center of the bullseye because then you're the obvious authority in your space. And then the reality is books are—

You've already demonstrated the expertise.

Exactly.

You've already—

Yeah, you've got to have a framework too. You've done that work to create the book. Yeah. Books are a horrible way to make money, so they're good. They're not great at creating cash, but they're great at creating customers if you have a way to elevate them.

Yeah.

So yeah, just my— just real quick math on that. My first book, I had like a publishing arrangement where we did the math. I had $1.25 per copy, but because I had a group coaching program, I earned over $100 per book sale on average. So it's like, that's a big—

that's a great benefit when someone's like, wow, what's the economics of a book versus something else? You're like, pretty good.

Yeah, pretty good. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Number 2, craft a 10x promise. A 10x promise.

Yeah.

Okay.

So 10x is really more about the idea of saying like a dramatic change, like the examples that I've given so far we're talking about. So if you were to work with me, for example, and launch a sold-out group coaching program, it's not just like an incremental, like, addition to your life. It's you, you can't— you start as you don't have a way to earn $10,000 a month group coaching 90 minutes a week, and then you end and you have that and all of a sudden you're a different person. It's a radical transformation. Now all of a sudden you have a whole new future in front of you. Same for Monique, same for for Mike Pacchione, mutual friend of ours, who his program is focused on helping you create an unforgettable signature talk that earns instant trust with any audience.

There's a Mike Pacchione story that I want to get to a little bit later. There's a teaser, but there's a fun moment from Craft and Commerce that ties into all this.

Yeah. So, so related to that. So like originally he had actually had a program before we went through this process together, him and I, and but his program is called Speech Club and you're like, okay, like if you know Mike is an amazing speaking coach.

So good.

Yeah. You're like, I might buy Speech Club for— but you're like, it's all based on Mike and his credibility and reputation. Yeah, but it's not exactly clear what you get out of that. And so we work together and we came up with that 10x promise that I just said, which is like, okay, what's the actual outcome where you're a different person? You have a 10x transformation in your life. It's like, well, if you can create an unforgettable signature talk that allows you to earn instant trust with any audience, that's an asset you can take to physical stages, you can take to podcasts, you can transform that into an entire business or career change. You're a different person. And so that's where that 10x promise actually becomes really the basically the one sentence pitch for your program. But you're not pitching your program, you're pitching the promise of what's possible on the other side of it. And so that's a big part of that. So a lot of that is about you. Ideally, you want a paradox or a tension between what people want without what they are afraid of. So like Sean Block, another example, he was selling a mastermind program and he's known for like focus and productivity. And so, right, so like that, those are good things, but it's like, what is the actual outcome of that, you know? And so we started working on like, okay, we want to help people get what they want without what they're afraid of, without what they fear. So get the result without the roadblock is like the rough template we start with. And so his ultimately became Run Your Full-Time Business Working Part-Time Hours. Okay.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah.

Because you get that little bit of contrast in, in the title. I mean, that's something like Marie Kondo did a great job of this. The Life-Changing Magic.

Yes.

Of Tidying Up. Yeah. What? Like, that's not what I expected. Mark Manson does the same thing.

It's the paradox a little bit.

Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, full-time business. Part-time hours.

Yeah, because he— so actually going back to how step 1 and step 2 play together, Sean's run his online business for over a decade now. He's one of the OGs of like the blogging world and he has a massive audience and a lot of products. And he realized when he was selling his group coaching program, it'd be tempting to try to sell a program that helps like everybody in his audience. But the people that he could have the greatest impact were full-time business owners, usually agency owners who were overworked and exhausted and were saying like, look, I don't actually need to grow the business anymore. I like where we're at right now.

Revenue is great. Yeah, yeah.

But I'm working 60 hours a week. I'm dying here. I'm starting to burn out. Yeah, yeah. And so then that's where it became like, okay, well, what if you could run your full-time business, meaning keep this because we're trying to find a sexy way to say like, keep your business exactly at the same level it's currently at. It's like, don't grow. Yeah, don't grow. Yeah. Run your full-time business and like working part-time hours and you're like, oh, it's like, well, what does he actually teach? It's these productivity and delegation frameworks. Yeah. That make that possible. Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's a 10x promise.

I love that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Number 3, send hand raisers. Hand raisers. Yes. One word. Hand raisers. So I don't know if you know anything about email marketing, but I know you know.

I'm still learning.

Yeah. So, so traditionally, email marketing is designed for selling at scale. So you send an email to hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of people. Yeah. And in that email, there's a bunch of text or images, there's a link where someone ideally, you know, maybe 30% of people open the email and then some percentage of those people click the link. Yeah. And then go to a page, read about a thing, some percentage of them click through the checkout form and then some small percentage actually complete checkout, right? Yeah. So there's a lot of holes in that.

We're running a funnel all the way down.

Yeah, that works when you're selling at scale a low-priced product where like you don't want to have to convince someone to buy your $10 book. Like, you just like— it's not good math. So instead what you do is like, that's, that makes sense, right? So originally marketing is selling at scale because that's what you're trying to do when you're selling a program that's $2,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 or $30,000. Then the reality is selling at scale can actually get in the way of you succeeding. And so step 3 is to create a message where there's no links. So an email. So this is an email marketing strategy. Yeah, but hand raisers specifically, there's, there's no links. It's just a question. That's basically— I mean, it's a lot like if you were standing on stage in front of an audience and you know your target client's out there, but it's not everybody. It's like, hey, raise your hand if this is you. But instead what we're doing is we're saying, would you please reply to this email if this is you? And that starts the conversation for you to then go through the rest of the process to also win your program. Yeah.

So what's an example of either a hand-raiser you use or one that one of your clients use?

Yeah. So we usually start with the very simplest one. So there's plenty that are like long form, like paragraphs and bullets and tell a whole story.

Really get someone to resonate.

But the first one to start with is actually a great way to test step 2, the 10x promise. I call it the want a 10x hand raiser. It's literally, would you like to work with me to 10x promise? First name. So like, so like that's the whole email. Like, so you send an email to thousands of people. So Sean Block did this. So he sent this email to like 35,000 people and it just says like, it just says the subject line is quick question. And then he says, would you like to work with me to run your full-time business working part-time hours? Dash on. And it comes through and like, we also like to put a lot of blank space between that and the unsubscribe. So like, you have to scroll down to realize like, is this an email marketing? Like, it just feels very personal because we also usually put the first name in there too.

One thing that I do, just a quick little thing, is often if I'm doing that style of email, I will put a signature block in it. I don't normally do a signature block in my emails, but I'll put like the little Kit logo and maybe, you know, I'll format that, you know, all those details and unsubscribe link is in with that formatting block and it's got the address and, you know, all those things. And so it feels it has all of the can-spam requirements. Yeah, all that. But it still feels like a 1-to-1.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. We still want to— we still want to follow all the guidelines. You know, we still do that. But the biggest change is like it's a pattern interrupt, right? So if you're in your inbox and you're looking through all these newsletters or in your reading, you're clicking, you're like, yeah, and also you get one that's like, hey, Nathan, would you like to work with me to Launch your own sold-out group coaching program, John, you're like, this is—

do I?

Do I?

I don't know. But 10 minutes ago, I didn't think so.

And if you think back to like Sean's example, run your full-time business working part-time hours, if you open that and you're like, I don't have a full-time business, you don't reply. Yeah, you're like, no, no. Maybe you reply and you say no thanks. Most people just don't reply if that doesn't apply to them. But then someone goes like, well, yes, tell me more. Like we're intentionally leading with the promise, not the product. So that they're likely to reply and say like, yes, tell me more. And so that just starts the conversation. This is also like just a general theme with selling a premium program is as much as possible, close the gap between you and your target client. So when you're doing email marketing like the traditional way, we're like selling at scale with like low-priced products. A lot of it is about creating a gap. We don't usually call it that, but like emailing thousands of people to click a link, to go to a page, to watch a video, to fill out a form, like we're creating a gap between us and the client. But when you're inviting the top 10% of your audience to say, hey, you're my target client, would you like to work with me directly? We want to find ways to find out who they are and then close the gap between us and them. So that becomes very personal and that's part of the enrollment process.

Yeah, I like it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Serve to sell with one free coaching call.

One free coaching call.

Yes. I wrote a book on this, so I feel obligated to mention that. It's right there. So, so Serve to Sell with One Free Coaching Call. So this book is— I've actually— that was the— that was my third book, but it's the easiest one to write because I've been teaching this in my coaching program, this framework for years. This is something where, I mean, a lot of people have this. They have like a discovery call or a strategy session or a free consultation. They have like a free call with your potential client. This is a key part of the enrollment process that I teach, especially when you're getting started. There are ways that we can talk about later, like when you maybe may take this out of the sales process. But this is a huge opportunity if you follow the framework that I recommend for the free coaching call where it's a, it is a high impact coaching call for them. It's market research for you. So they're literally like writing your copy for you as they answer your questions. And about half the time it sells a premium program. So I get over a 50% conversion rate for a $5,000 coaching program. On the surf calls that I deliver, the free coaching calls I deliver. I don't give them to just anybody, right? You have to reply to a hand raiser and give me a clue that you are my target client. Yeah. And then I invite you onto it. And so for me, it's like my Tuesday afternoons is like I have like 2 or 3 surf calls. So for me, that's a great way to spend a Tuesday afternoon to have a couple of those calls. And then over 50% of the time, people end up joining the program right there.

Yeah.

So that's a key part of this process. But this is also where we come back to The way that I teach this process, every step comes back to the other steps. So you think you know who your target client is and then you craft the next promise. As you're crafting the promise, like Sean Block as an example, he thought he knew who his target client was, but as he's crafting the promise to get specific on the transformation, he realized, oh, I need to go more narrow with the bullseye, right? So he comes back and refines it. Then you send the hand-raiser. Sometimes you send a hand-raiser and nobody replies. And that's a good sign that like maybe we need to revisit.

Something in steps 1 and 2 went wrong. Yeah.

Sometimes you send one, like I had one client Austin Saylor, where he sent a handraiser to his list of 3,000 subscribers and over 300 people replied. And so it's like, whoa, yeah, sometimes you're like, I think I'm on to something, you know? Yeah. So we don't offer 300 calls, just to be clear.

Do you remember what his promise was?

The rough version. This is probably not word for word, but yeah, it was earn an extra $50,000 from motion design this year. Because he teaches motion designers to do like kind of like, you know, logos that move and graphics and that kind of stuff. And he already had a community about that. And so his whole thing was like, part of it is like earning an extra $50,000 filters out people who are like, well, I'm not earning anything yet. And so of course there's also because there's a revenue promise there, which just to be clear, you don't need a revenue promise in your promise for it to work. But that's one of the reasons why he— it worked so well. He was actually already starting to sell his program before he learned about this technique. He was in a live workshop with me where I taught this technique. He set the hand raiser like that day, and then on Monday was like, what have I done? So he— but he sold out his program by just replying to people. And then usually what I do is the first time someone replies, I don't go straight to a call. Yeah, I go, excellent. I'm so glad to hear that you're interested. Would you tell me a bit more about yourself and your current situation? Yeah, I got one reply today to that email that said, I am living and hunting. And I was like, I don't know what that means. Yeah, I don't know what that means.

Opening a loop. Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm like, I don't know what it means. So that's a good example of like, probably not my target client. Yeah, right. So then someone replies back and they're like, I just need money. I'm like, okay. I mean, like, that's— we all do. So like, that's not a bad thing. But like, sometimes someone replies and they're like, all right, I've had this course business for the last 6 years and here's how much money I make every month. But I'm really struggling with scaling it. I feel like the course sales are starting to decline and I'm having to see this cash flow crunch coming. And I've done one-on-one coaching before, but I've never cracked the nut on group coaching. And it seems like maybe like— and they go into this like long, you know, like, okay, excellent. I would love to offer you one free coaching call to see how I can help you. And so then— and that's the natural invite to be like, oh, great, amazing. I'm giving this gift with this free coaching call. And so then it's like, yeah, amazing, let's do that. So out of, you know, 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 100 replies, you're only going to have a handful of actual calls. And now I have an executive assistant who's trained in most of their replies.

Yeah, to get through from the hand raiser to the call.

So like the first reply is templated. It's already exactly what I said before. And so that's just sent. I don't even see it. Like, and in this case now I have a hand raiser automation in Kit. So as new subscribers join my list, every couple of weeks they're getting different hand raisers until they reply to one. And then that first reply is from my executive assistant. So I'm only coming on if like that third reply is like something nuanced or custom that I might want to respond to. Oftentimes I'm only showing up for the surf call and like 5 minutes for the call, I'm looking back at the notes like, who is this person? What do they say? Okay, great. So this is the first thing that I do oftentimes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the surf to sell with one free coaching call. Any questions about that?

No, that sounds great. All right.

So number 5, get sold out. All right.

That's what we're talking about here.

That's the theme. Step 5, win. Yeah, this is critical. Like getting sold out, this is where it gets really exciting and fun. Getting to the point where you are a sold-out coach takes focus, but it also like it is important that you start out of the gate where you have a plan to get sold out right out of the gate with your new product without having to raise the bar very high. Let me make that make more sense. What I typically recommend is for your very first program, you only take 5 clients and you charge $2,000 each for a 60-day group coaching program. Where you're meeting once a week for 90 minutes with them. Now, that framework is wet clay. Like, you can massage that and you're like, well, I really need 90 days. Like, okay, take 90 days. Yeah. You know, I have clients who have programs that are 6 weeks long and 6 months long. And so there's not necessarily a right answer there, but you have to start somewhere. And so if the question is like, how can I accomplish this to next promise in 60 days, in 90 minutes a week, those constraints actually make it easier to create the material. But also 5 clients paying $2,000 each. Well, this is my nerdy economics background coming out. $2,000 is the average disposable income for a family in the US.

Okay.

So like, you know, that of course, like that your market's going to change all over the place. The reality is no matter how big your audience is, even if you don't even have an email list, you should sign up for Kit. There you go. Yeah, there's the plug. There's a plug. Yeah.

Yeah.

You can find 5 people. Yeah. Who are your— if you cannot find 5 people who are your target client, you need to change your network, change your environment, or change your target client. Right, right. That's a pretty low bar. You can count them on one hand. So $2,000, 5 people, that's $10,000 for you. But more importantly, you're a sold-out coach. People want what they can't have, right? So part of this is about elevating your authority and your expertise by positioning you as a sold-out coach, by launching a program where I'm sure you're familiar with it. I'm sure many people listening are familiar with the adoption curve for technology. You know what I'm talking about? So there's like this small percentage of people who are early adopters for anything that applies to coaching programs and courses too. You're excited because you're like, I'm launching a new thing. And most people are thinking, okay, cool, I'm going to wait and see if this is still a real thing 6 months from now. So what I do is I typically avoid any public announcement about the product until it's already sold out. So the first public announcement the program exists it's already sold out.

And then people are like, wait, hold on.

Yeah, you didn't even give me a chance. Yeah, exactly. So then it starts to create people like, like Monique, the client I mentioned earlier. She just did this on social media. She posted a picture of like the first Zoom call with her clients and she was like, I'm so excited about these people I'm working with. We're diving into how to unlock their signature sound so they can be unforgettable singers. This is going to be great. And this is— this sold out program has already started. But if you're interested in being the first to know about the next time I do this, let me know. Yeah. And immediately 5 people DM her and they're like, tell me more, right? And then that starts this process again, right? So just to be clear, what I'm not talking about is building a waiting list that then 6 months from now you follow up with, which is like a bad strategy. What I'm talking about is you announce that you're sold out, you start getting DMs, and immediately you're like, okay, well, this program sold out, but tell me more about your situation. And if they are a good fit, you're like, oh, why don't we jump on a free coaching call? I'll give you one free coaching call and let's just talk more about your goals so I can better understand. And then on that call you're saying, hey, my next program starts in 2 months. Why don't you go and pay a $500 deposit? And I'd love to have you start that program. And so actually, the minute you're sold out, you're selling the next cohort, right?

And then it takes all the pressure off.

Yeah.

Because you, you're not worried about making that sale. Like you can casually do it because you're like, oh, I'm, I'm pre-selling this. Yes. This is, you know, it's not like, oh, this starts Thursday. I have to, you know, get this going right now. And so then even on that call, you're going to have like a, you know, a level of confidence or calm in all of that, which will then come through to the client of them being like, oh man, he or she doesn't even need me. But like, I want this more. Exactly.

Yeah. It's a lot like the posture that I teach my clients to take is a lot like an expert doctor, honestly. Like if you're sitting down, if you go to a doctor's office for a consult and you sit down, he's going to ask you questions about your symptoms of what's going on in your life. He's not like, you're not going to sit down and be like, buy heart surgery. Like, you're like, it's just like, you just tell everyone they need this. He's going to be like, well, no, I cannot recommend heart surgery or even the type of heart surgery until I understand what's going on in your life, what's going on in your body. Let's do some scans. Let's have some conversations. And at a certain point, he might say, like, you know what, I just like— I have a family member who actually wanted to go into not heart surgery, but it was a knee surgery and was told like, you need to lose weight before you get that surgery. So literally saying like, you can't buy this right now.

Yeah, right.

And so it's like, that's kind of the posture you need to take. Sometimes you talk to me with somebody and you're like, you know what, you're not ready for this program right now, but I'm going to make some recommendations of what you should do to get started. And so I'll have people that will come back a year later and they're like, I did the thing, can I join now? You know, like they want it, right? And that's one of the powers of being a sold-out coach is it elevates your authority. Here's the thing I love. Even if less than 10% of your audience buys your group coaching program, everybody now knows it exists and everything else is now seen through that lens. So, so I, for example, like I sell this program on how to become a sold-out coach, how to launch a sold-out group coaching program. And the reality is, even if you don't join that program, every time you read my newsletter, every time you buy one of my lower-priced products like my books, you're thinking about that as I've defined success. And so that you're thinking about the back of your mind and you actually get more value out of my books or my newsletter because I've already named like defined success like Sean Blanc, run your full-time business working part-time hours, like that's success. He's defined it. And so now when you're reading his newsletter or signing up, you know, buying his, his digital planner or going through his like focus course, you're thinking like, okay, that's the gold standard, right? And so you get more value out of the other products too.

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah.

Okay. There's a bunch that I want to come back to.

Yeah.

But before we do that, let's go to number 6.

Okay. Celebrate your clients.

Okay.

So this is the most effortless marketing to continue to get inbound leads saying, tell me more so that you can become a continuous sold-out coach that's continually selling out over and over again is to celebrate your clients to get more clients. So this starts when you get sold out, right? Where I mentioned like Monique posts, she was like, I'm so excited to serve these people. Like we're getting started, we're diving in. You're celebrating the clients, but then it comes down to like—

She hasn't even given them a win yet, but she's even celebrating the fact that they're in the program and the she's going to deliver wins.

Yeah, but then the other content. So sometimes this means like you're sending a dedicated email or posting on social media for those of you that have social media. I do. We'll get into that a little bit. Yeah, but that means like you're sending an email or posting on social media about a client specifically. Sometimes it starts with the whole group and then it becomes a specific thing like, like I'm doing right now. Like most of what I told you so far today is me saying like, hey, so Mike Pacchione did this thing, Sean Blanc did this thing. Running to this thing. It's all celebrating clients, which is this beautiful energy that starts to get people have a little bit of FOMO. Well, they're like, well, I want to be like, I want to be there. I want to be like that.

I want to have that outcome.

Yeah.

And I want to be celebrated and I want to be in this community of people who are achieving things like that.

Exactly. So it's a different take to like a testimonial strategy because like, like I collect testimonials of hundreds on my website, but a lot of testimonials are used kind of in a cheesy way where people are like, check out this testimonial, buy our product. And it's like, this is not that. Because again, like, this is where you're celebrating. Like, I'm just so excited about this impact we had on this person's life. And it's a really authentic, genuine way to celebrate people and to have this. And it draws people in where you get DMs, you get replies saying like, that is so cool. How can I be your next case study?

Right.

So, so that becomes the core strategy. Now, there are also more advanced ways to do this. So actually, I'll come back to that though, because that's part of step 7. All right.

Yeah.

All right.

I like it. Yeah. So celebrating your clients, I think about this from a flywheel perspective of as you're going through and, you know, going through this process, creating these wins, it just, it aligns you perfectly because you're saying, hey, the best thing that I can do to get more clients is to create wins for clients that are worth celebrating.

Yeah.

And so it has you completely aligned with your customer. And you're just like, look, I'm just here to help you get a win. Yeah, because that's how I make money. And like, wait, you only get paid if I get a win? It's like, not quite, but I only get new clients or my, my machine to drive new clients is entirely dependent on the wins that existing clients get.

Exactly. Yeah, that's it. You've got it. That's exactly it. And again, it's like everything kind of comes back, starts to build on itself where as you celebrate your clients, it's like you're getting more clear on which of the clients had the outsized results, that's helping you clarify your target client bullseye, right? And so that may help you then clarify your 10X promise. And actually, the questions we ask in the serve call, if you follow the Serve to Sell framework, the questions we ask are designed to help you rewrite your 10X promise in your customers' words, right? So you're starting with one promise, but typically you've got so much in your head about it that the actual word choice may change once you hear how your clients describe what they want.

Yeah.

And so then it's— so yeah, it's all related, all builds on itself.

Well, then, I mean, if we bring in some of the principles of flywheels here, right, it getting easier with each rotation. Yes. And more effective with each rotation, then that's exactly what you're talking about. You're saying, hey, basically I got someone, identified target clients, had the promise, got the hand raiser. Then on the coaching call, I realized, oh, you know what, that would be a better hand raiser. Or, you know, in each case, and so you can make notes of, okay, I did, you know, 3 serve calls this week. Here are my notes from it. Here's how I'm going to go back and refine the target client. So you're getting more efficient, you know, in every way you're getting more efficient, more effective because on the efficiency side, then you're going to say, oh, I had the same email conversations with 7 or 20 people or in the example, 300 people.

Yeah.

And so you're like, all right, now I've got either an assistant for that or I've got all the text expander things so I can have that conversation. And so yeah, you can handle— I mean, you can get all three laws of the flywheel of every step flowing smoothly, it getting easier with each rotation and then driving more and more growth with each rotation.

Yeah, I didn't really recognize the flywheel layer to this until I went through your program, Create Flywheels. And as part of that, like that was kind of my conclusion too. I was like, wait a minute, I'm thinking of this step by step. But the reality is like you're circling back and kind of refining this as you go. So like a real life example of this, Austin Sailor, who I mentioned earlier, I told you he got over 300 replies. I didn't mention that over 100 of them were people who were like, yes, I would be happy to be your motion designer. Would you pay me $50,000? Because he was like, would you like to earn an extra $50,000 as a motion graphic designer? And they were like, yeah, what's the gig? He's like, oh no. Okay. I see how you got that. Right. So then he just went back and he wrote the hand raiser.

The hand raiser. On one hand it worked. And then on the other hand, it, Yeah, it wasn't what he wanted.

So then he went back to the hand-raiser for the next time he said it and refined it. Obviously, I've said this before, hand-raisers can be a lot longer. This is just the easiest example to talk about. But then he rewrote it to say like, would you like to work with me as your coach to earn an extra $50,000? And it changes the whole conversation. 3 more words.

As your coach.

Yeah, exactly. So, but that's something that comes out of just going through the process, going like, oh, I can refine it for next time I do it. So yeah, so most sold-out coaches develop their own, like, private library of hand raisers, which, like I mentioned, mine is now in a kit automation. So new subscribers are getting that automatically every few weeks after they join my list. Right. But even if you don't, if you have like a swipe file, it's like you can— it gets easier each time you launch it.

Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. Okay, so the last one here, number 7, sell at scale.

Okay. So candidly, this is where a lot of you want to start because a lot of what I've talked about so far are things that don't scale. Right? Like it's sending a— sending an email where you might get 300 replies and you might have to sort through that. Or having not a bunch of calls, but just to put some real numbers on this, on average, most people that I work with need 10 surf calls with their target client to get 5 sales in their brand new program. So usually that's the goal, right? So we're not talking about 100 calls. Yeah, I've given over 300 calls in the last 5 years with the surf call framework, but like my job is to like refine it, teach it, turn into a book and like, that's that. I don't recommend that for everybody. But the process of this is such that it's still things that don't scale, right? That's a lot of what we're talking about here. Even your program itself is like limited to 5. Even if the next time you do a double-double and you're like, now it's 10 people paying $4,000 each, it still doesn't scale. Part of that is by design because you want to have this sold-out limit where you, you know, people want what they can't have, where there is a real firm limit, right? But you also want to sell at scale. Right? Like, so someone like you who, like, you've—

Yeah, these two can be in tension with each other.

Yes, there's a tension, not a contradiction, but there is a tension. So step 7, we were joking about this before we got online. I'm like, step 7 is like, and the rest of your life, you're like, it's like, because reality is it's not as discrete as the other ones because— but really, I think this is when we talk about it becoming a flywheel is because now all of a sudden we're talking about, okay, how do we build systems that connect all of this back? So that's where a lot of that starts as individual, like, effort, but then we turn into a flywheel and now all of a sudden it starts to connect where now when I'm on a podcast, for example, just to pick a random marketing strategy.

Exactly. We're currently doing one right now.

So when I'm on a podcast talking to my target client, I see you. So giving you examples of my 10x promise and other people's, right? And then I'm going to promote this podcast and then I'm also going to follow up with that of like, hey, by the way, this 7-step framework that I taught on the Nathan Barry Show, if you'd be interested in, you know, would you be interested in learning more about how to apply this to your business?

Right.

That's a hand raiser, right? And then that's going to turn into booking calls. And now, so because of where I'm at now, you can't book a call with me until you go through my assessment. So a lot of people make the mistake when they're launching a new program, putting a bunch of filters on day one. They're like, I have like a sales page and application and then your assessment and waiting list. And the reality is what happens is then you end up like Sean Blanc. So he had 35,000 email subscribers and he's got a core business of courses and memberships that's doing really well. I mean, he was doing at this point over $300,000 just in recurring revenue. Yeah, but over $500,000 a year total between all the lower-priced products he's selling.

So he's, he's won as a creator.

He's won as a creator. Yeah.

But there's ways that he can improve this so much more.

But then I ran into him at Craft and Commerce and I was like, hey, how's your mastermind going? Because I saw he launched one. I usually am watching like other people, what everyone's doing.

Yeah, yeah. I have a pity.

So I'm like, how's your mastermind going? And he was like, I've sold one spot in the last 9 months. And I was like, that's super frustrating. Let's talk about it. And so we ran through this process. So what he did was what was he started with step 7. He started with a website, an application funnel because he's at scale.

And so he's saying for someone who's at scale, what, what types of things do people like me do?

Yes.

And we run funnels.

Yes, exactly. So the first thing we did was we deleted all of that. And I said, okay, let's find your target client bullseye, craft the next promise, send a hand-raiser. And then he gave serve calls himself and then he got sold out the first time he did it too. I also told him, I was like, I recommend start with like 5 clients paying you $2,000. He's like, cool, I'm going to do 20 clients paying $4,000. I was like, okay, so, so I was like, that's your prerogative. And he did that. Then he came back and he's like, 20 clients is exhausting. It could crush you for a year. I was like, yeah. So he lowered it, I think, to 15 at 5. Each cohort. But so what happened was he got so much valuable data the first time he did that. That's how he was able to dial in his 10x promise. That's how he was able to create other tools like a workshop that is specifically designed to nurture people for this. And so when you're selling at scale, like the full version of this, and obviously there's steps to build this, but the full version of this is usually some combination of automated hand raisers that are inviting people to sign up not just to reply, but ultimately to come to a live workshop where they get to kind of experience group coaching. It's sort of like a free sample, basically. So this workshop doesn't feel like a webinar by design. It's designed to feel very much like you're on a group coaching call. On the call itself, when you get to where you would normally have the pitch, I usually joke about this. I'm like, here's the part, guys. You know what's going to happen, right? This is the like $99 deal expires in 15 minutes. I was like, no, you cannot buy anything from me right now. And they're like, what? I said, you can take this free assessment. It's going to help you, it's going to help evaluate your business. And some of you are going to qualify for a free coaching call. And so it's like, so I'll have, you know, over 100 people take this assessment and maybe 30 of them will qualify for a call based on answers to questions that tells me they're the bullseye. Questions they answer. I said answers to questions. Yeah. Yep. Questions they answer that tell me they're the bullseye. Then I offer them a call. Out of those 30, it might be that only 10 schedule it. And so that's based on my availability because my calendar is also semi-sold out. Because I'm just doing calls on Tuesday afternoon usually, right?

For—

there's 3 slots on Tuesday and it's like when they're gone, it's like you can book the next week or the week after because you just—

you're playing with the scarcity.

Exactly.

Where you're like, yeah, well, you know, yeah, we tried.

Yeah. So then if you take the assessment and you qualify, you get offered a call and then you book a call and then there's a 50 to 60% chance you'll on the call say, yes, I'm in and pay $5,000 to become a client. So like when you're selling at scale, it's usually there's an assessment as part of that that's filtering people. Usually there's some sort of live workshop element or summit or something like that. But I like the live workshop because you can— like for me, it's like I just have it on my calendar every month. It's a new subscribers when they join my list as they're going through my welcome sequence, which I position as a crash course. Yep. They're automatically getting invites like, hey, if you want to learn more about this, you should go to my free workshop I'm teaching this month because I'm teaching every month. Right. But then as soon as you sign up for the workshop, this is a mistake a lot of people make too, is they're like, okay, cool, the workshop's in like 3 weeks. So until then, I'm just going to like leave those people alone.

Good luck.

Yeah. But what I do is as soon as they sign up for the workshop on the thank you page, it says like, awesome, add it to your calendar. And while you're waiting, I thought you might appreciate this recording of a training I did on how to earn $10,000 per month, group coaching 90 minutes per week. And beneath that, there's a link that says take your assessment that I call the Smart Scan Assessment. But that's not really important, right? Yeah. Like, so Some people register for the workshop and then show up for the workshop, take the assessment. Like Joseph Scholl is a client who I work with, who he just, he just sold out his program. So he just got sold out his first cohort, which is exciting. But the way he joined my program was he heard me on a podcast. He joined my email list on the first like email that he got in the PS. It was like, I'm hosting this free workshop. So this was on a Monday. So on a Monday, He clicks the link, registers the workshop, which by coincidence was on a Friday, so it was only a few days away. But on the thank you page, he saw this video embedded and he watched the whole thing. It's 2 hours long. Okay. So just to be clear, what it is, is it's 15 minutes of content and then the rest of it is all me doing live coaching to people on the call who are asking questions about it. So it's me teaching a framework like this.

And is this one call or did you edit together a bunch?

It's one that I did.

Okay.

So it was like a— it was a hand-raiser. It was like, hey, I'm going to host this. I'm thinking about hosting a casual Q&A next week. Would you like to be included on the calendar invite? There's no click here to register. They reply. I literally go to Google Calendar and like add that, or my executive assistant adds them to the calendar invite. So I had over that example, I had over 100 people who responded to that were like, yes. So I had over 100 people RSVP'd for this calendar event. I think maybe 30 showed up, you know, but then it was like a group coaching call. I was like, hey, here's the framework high level. What questions do you have about how to apply this to your business? This. And so it's 2 hours long of me just like coaching people live. So you get to see it. And so Joe, Joe Scholl, he watched this whole video, filled out the assessment, qualified for a call, booked a call for me on Wednesday. Remember, so he, he signed up for my email list on Monday. Friday is when his workshop is. On Wednesday, I guess that week I did a call on Wednesday. I said I normally do Tuesdays, but that week it was on a Wednesday for whatever reason. And we met and he became a full paying client and paid $5,000 that day. So this is a subscriber that's 48 hours old, right? And my first interaction with him was on the call. Yeah, I just showed up for the appointment. Everything else was, was a flywheel, was a system that was built. Yeah, that I built. Okay.

So as I take a step back and look at all of this, there's one story that I actually played a small part in. Yeah. Of a hand raiser at Craft and Commerce. And I only, as you were talking through this, did I fully understand what was happening. And that's like 9 months later or something. What's Mike Pacchione's hand-raiser story? Yeah.

So Mike Pacchione, he was speaking at Craft and Commerce and we were talking about this coming up, but he was in my program at the time and we had just crafted this 10x promise. And then I was like, hey, can we— can I look at your slides? Like, can we talk about how do you use this as an opportunity to, to make money, like to run your business? Because I will say he also told me beforehand, he was like, hey, being on stage is great for business. He said, but I'm notorious at like being bad at like, what's the follow-up?

Right.

And so actually the year before He had spoken at Craft and Commerce. I think he did a workshop. Yeah. And he told me, he said at the end of the workshop, I had a line out the door. People want to ask me questions and I made zero money from that. Like zero sales, zero clients. He was like, that's probably a me problem. I was like, maybe. Yeah. So, so he's like, this time I'm going to be on the main stage. I feel like we should have a better strategy. So I looked at his slides. He had a whole like bio slide of like, here's all the stuff I do. And I deleted all of that and I said, here's what you do. It's your 10x promise. So he got on stage, said, hey, I'm Mike Pacchione. What I do is I help you create an unforgettable signature talk that can earn you instant trust with any audience. And so immediately, if you're a target client, you're like, oh, I want that, right? I want that a lot. So that's just his intro, right? So then he gets through his talk. It's a great talk. He's good at that. That's what he does for a living. Yeah. So that was never in question. And then he got to a part where you would like— it was like towards the end where you typically have like a lead magnet. And I think he did have like something you could download. But then he had one exercise where he was going to teach like he was going to teach a story on like how do you describe someone on stage? Like what's like a one sentence description of somebody else? And so I encouraged him. I was like, we got to close the gap, remember? And so I said, just have everybody text you. He was like, what? I was like, he's like, like, like a, like set up like an email magnet or like a text, this number, like an SMS automation. I was like, No, just put your cell phone number up on the slides. And he did it. And so to his credit, right? So he got up on stage and he got to that part. Do you remember what his question was? Or like the prompt?

I think it was, how would you describe Nathan in one sentence?

Yes.

Yeah.

So the prompt. Yeah, exactly. He was like, so he told all these examples of how you describe other people.

And the phrases were like, yeah, it was written in such a way that you're like, oh, I got that. Like, yeah, it felt visually impactful or like, like you understood their personality in this.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So do you remember what mine was? You should say it.

I don't know if I should, but yeah.

So like he used me as an example on stage. He's like, John Mises here. And I'm like, I knew he was going to say it. So I'm also like cringing already. And he's like, John Mises is the kind of guy who he popped out of his mother's womb and said, look at the doctor and said, I can do that faster. Let me get— oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. So all about efficiency. Yeah. And I was like, okay, yeah, it's a little cringy, but it works, right? You're like, oh, okay, I think I understand who John is now. Yeah. So then, so then he said, okay, so Nathan Barry is the kind of guy who— and then he had everyone text him. So in 350 people in the room, I think 70 people texted him. He was overwhelmed on stage, like visibly going like, like going through, trying to catch up.

He's trying to read one as more are coming in.

But they were great. But that was like, that was strategic though, because then he put his phone in his pocket. Right. And so he shared his favorite example or two and then went on. So what he did then was he said a hand raiser. So on this flight on the way home, he texted back each person. This was like, oh, that was a great idea. Thanks. This is my favorite or something like that.

And he continued the conversation.

Yeah.

And he actually, he would screenshot a bunch of them that came in later and text them to me. Oh, and so I get— I knew he was having more and more conversations with the 70 people in his target audience who all replied.

Yeah. So but then what he did was like after a little just like chat back and forth, then on like the Monday, he sent a text that was just copy and paste a template. This is the strategy I wanted to tell you about, like celebrating clients at scale. So he sent— it's called the showcase strategy. So he sent a text that said, I'm thinking about hosting a casual Q&A this week on how to create an unforgettable signature talk that'll earn you instant trust with any audience, which is a 10x promise. Would you like me to include you in the calendar invite? Right. And almost everybody was like, yeah, please. Sure. So it's like, so out of the 70, it was like 40 or 50 said yes. That he added to this calendar invite. He shows up on the call and he's like, hey, I'm Mike, you know that. Glad you're here. You know, and there were probably 20, 30 people on the call and he's like, I'm so glad you're here. I want to talk through this. Let me just talk to the high level what it takes to create an unforgettable signature talk and what this makes possible where you can earn instant trust with any audience. And so he just talks to like a few key milestones of his program. He's like, but I knew it's probably better if you hear from somebody who's done it. So I invited one of my clients to be on the call to answer your questions. And so one of his clients comes on and says, yeah, here's what this made possible in my life. I liked Mike's framework so much that I paid $5,000 for his coaching program twice. They went through it once and then a year later they're like, I need to create a different talk. And they went through it again. And so, like, which is a great, like, gold standard as far as that. And they just raved about Mike's work, just sort of live testimonial, basically. And then Mike was like, yeah, what questions do you have for this person here? Like my client. And so the Q&A was mostly just Mike facilitating it of like you asking his customer questions. And then he was like, yeah, what questions do you have for me? And then he was like, great. He's like, well, He said, well, you know, Speech Club is my program. We do this together and we're actually getting started next month and there's only 8 spots left. There's, you know, 25 or 30 of you. But if you want to be one of the 8, I'm going to drop a link in the chat. Go and just pay deposit and then you'll be in. And so it was like a $500 deposit for a $5,000 program. And he dropped the link in the chat and then he was sold out. So he sold his spots on the call.

Right.

And he never even told his email list about it. Like, so his email list doesn't even know that cohort happened because it was just one speaking event. So one stage, one Q&A, sold out program.

So and then later he can use that to go back to his, his audience, you know, and say like, oh yeah, we're just wrapping up this sold out cohort. That was amazing.

Well, yeah, next one. Well, that's exactly what he did. I think he actually had an email way back to his list and said like something like, I forgot to tell you. He's like, I forgot to tell you I've been running this program. It's going great. Here's the stories. Do you want to know about the next one? Like, you know, And so it's because he has thousands of— he has a few thousand email subscribers, so he didn't even use it for this cohort. So then he could for the next one.

I love that example of a hand raiser.

Yeah.

Okay. As we wrap up, the thing that I want to dive into is selling at scale.

Yeah.

And I've got some questions and objections about this.

Okay.

It feels like the kind of conversation maybe that we should sit back down for and dive in.

All right.

Selling at scale. I'm thinking about the objections that I have. Yeah. I I run a Creator Flywheels program, which you know, 'cause you're in it.

Yeah, I'm in it.

The thing that I see in all of this is time is the biggest constraint that I have. And so all through this, I look through and I'm seeing, oh, this is gonna take some time. This is a call. This is, these other things. I actually have plenty of money. I don't have a shortage of money at all. I have an extreme shortage of time. And so how would you, address that as someone building to scale?

That's a great question. I think the reality is that, you know, you don't have to do all the things yourself, right? You know, like money can buy other people's time, as you have discovered as you built your team. The thing that's the most— what I'm curious, when you look at the 7 or you think about the 7 steps, what's the part that for you you're like, oh, that's the most time intensive. I can't imagine doing that.

My first thought was the hand raisers. But you addressed that, right, of how you, you know, were automating when they go out. And then the replies are really quite easy.

Yeah.

And I have a team. I think probably the, the one free coaching call.

Yeah.

And then we were talking about this a little bit off the recording, but we talked about running cohorts. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And then that's more of a time commitment because you're teaching something just to that cohort.

Yeah.

And then maybe also doing something to a group afterwards.

Yeah. So most people that I've worked with go through all 7 steps and then as part of selling at scale, they start looking for where can I replace myself? So sometimes that's training, like hiring a coach on your team who can do— usually you can, if you hire someone who's like, their skills are specifically coaching, right? Well, the serve call framework is designed to basically be— it's a sales call that is structured like a coaching call. So you don't need someone who's like highly experienced in like high ticket sales or even like tech sales or anything like that. You need actually someone who's a good coach. And so then all of a sudden you can have somebody who takes those calls for you. Those serve calls, what I call them, these enrollment calls. And you can also have them help in the coaching program. That could mean they're running some workshops for you. Dustin Rieckman is a good example of someone who like he has a coach on. He has two different coaches on his team, one who helps handle serve calls. So he does some of them and then they do some of them and then one who helps run his program. So like he's on like every other coaching call and then his coach runs the other ones without him. And so it's, you know, like having someone that he's— it's actually first was a client. So when he went to his program, loved it so much, they're like, I would love to help with this, like teach this. And he's like, great, can you take over these calls and I just don't show up? So that's an option for sure, is having other coaches do it. I think the reality is like for you, the most valuable thing for you to be involved with is probably the delivery, especially for the more advanced members. And not the enrollment part. So that would probably be the first thing, if I were you, that I would delegate is just hire somebody to use the serve call process. So they're meeting with people and then, I mean, that's the most time-intensive part is the serve calls themselves. But even then, if you're like, okay, if your program's $5,000 and if they can consistently have a 50% conversion rate, I mean, that's pretty good math in terms of like what that looks like for enrolling someone in your program with a live call. Also, the reality is you're buying a program that involves an element of live calls and training. And so it's also intuitive for the sales process to match the delivery. Yeah, right. So that you're not, you know, you're test driving what you're actually going to get as well.

Yeah, that makes sense. What have you seen for different models of this at scale? Yeah, right. You have a different approach for your business, the constraints you've put on it than someone like Dustin. Yeah. You know, then even what, what I might do.

Yeah. So yeah, so just real quick about my situation. So I optimize for lifestyle. And so for me, like I earn about $30,000 a month. I work about 30 hours a week. I have zero social media, zero paid ads, one part-time assistant. And so like, that's my situation where I'm just like, yeah, I just want to do that. Like, yeah, yeah.

So when I'm saying, oh, you could do this and these other things, you could scale to $3 million a year, you're like, pass.

Yeah, exactly. People are like, you should be on like social media. And I'm like, No, thanks. Like, I'm good.

You know, it's also just a fun hook to be like, it is a fun hook. I don't even use social media. Everyone else is trying to play this game and you're like, oh, I actually opted out of that one.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I've got other games I play, but that one I opted out of. But part of that for me is a season of life thing. Like my wife and I have talked about it because I've also been behind the scenes where I've run— I helped other people make millions and millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars. And I'm like, so I know what it takes. But our kids are all really young. We homeschool, like we're very active, involved at home. And so I'm like, I'd rather spend more time there and I can make my millions when my kids are older. Right. Like, that's fine. They can help, you know, they're welcome to join the family business.

You're like, I'm happy to settle for my $300,000 to $400,000 a year. That's exactly what we're doing.

Yeah, we're doing just fine. Yeah. Like, we own a house in Puerto Rico. Like, you know, like, you know, we're doing just fine. But the other people, like, so like Dustin Rickman, who I mentioned a minute ago, so he's a different situation. His kids are grown. He's got one kid at home, but like, who's like in the, I want to say the National Guard, like doing his own thing, like his grown kid. Otherwise the other kids are out of the house. His wife is a full-time teacher. Dustin's got plenty of time. And so he's not like, that's not, he's optimizing for a different stage of life. And so he came in actually when he started this process, he was actually a traffic engineer and I don't mean website traffic. I mean stoplights and like traffic, like, like stop signs and traffic lights. So when he started this, then he followed this process and he built his business to the point where he does over $1 million a year in revenue and just sells his group coaching program and his mastermind on the back end. Occasionally he has like a $100 product here and there, but it's just designed to be like a gateway product that's part of his sales strategy for his group coaching program. And so, you know, now he's got the 7-figure business and which is awesome. So coming back to like selling at scale, it's like there's a lot of different options here. The showcase strategy that I mentioned that Mike Pacchione used in that example, That's a great example of where you can actually skip the serve call to sell. I would not do that until you've already had a cohort or two where you've run the serve calls.

Yeah. And you've collected all of that information.

Exactly.

Find your hand raisers and your promise and your ideal clients.

Exactly. But then you can use strategies like a showcase to just go straight to selling a deposit. I've done it too. A lot of my clients do this where we'll record like a— we'll have a pitch deck for the program with a video attached to it. And so the hand raisers become like the first couple replies and then someone— and then you say like, oh, I think you might be a good fit for my program. Could I send you some information? And they're like, yes. So again, this is all templated. And then you send them a video and it's like, hey, I want to tell you about the program. And you're walking through this pitch deck and then you're like, if you're interested, click here to pay deposit. I'd love to have you in. And so I've got some clients who, who close that way without ever having a call, just over email with this video. And again, it's like the first time you do it, it's probably you're recording a custom loan video for each person. And then eventually it's like you've got your templated one. Shows you can sell a showcase, you can sell over email with a pitch deck like that. There are also some people like Taki Moore and Dan Martell that do a lot of like DM chatbots and that kind of stuff, like selling in the DMs. I'll tell you why I don't. So I do find that there's exceptions to this. Like there are some ways to do it, like some stuff that Dan Martell and Taki Moore do that are more elegant, but a lot of DM sales, like selling in direct message, it feels like the new door-to-door. Of like, I'm knocking on your door. This is why I like LinkedIn. Like all the messages you're getting on LinkedIn or Instagram that are trying to pitch you stuff, it feels— you're like, I don't know why, but I hate it. It's like the new door-to-door sales where someone's like knocking your door saying, like, can I sell you a thing? And the reality is that takes away a lot of your power and authority as a sold-out coach because you're chasing them. And so that's why I don't do DM sales, because I want it to be inbound. I want you to come to me.

And so there's a lot of ways that you could do hand raisers through content and things like that. So then the only people you're talking to in DM are people, you know, who have come to you.

Well, exactly. Like the example I gave earlier of Monique celebrating her clients and then saying like 5 people DM'd her and they're like, well, tell me more. That's different, right? Because then you just respond to this inbound energy and you can maintain your position as a solo coach, be like, well, yeah, I'm sure I'll tell you more. He's been in my program. It's sold out right now, but tell me more about your situation. Let's see if it's a good fit for you.

Yeah, like I got 2 DMs. I gave a talk and at a newsletter conference last week about flywheels. And then, you know, I posted a clip of that and then I got 2 DMs right away saying, hey, when is the program going to open up?

That's awesome.

You know, and that's if I had a better process, I would be like, be like, well, yeah, opening in April, here's what it looks like, you know, or that kind of thing.

Yeah, there's a lot of— when you sell at scale, there's a lot of like choose your own adventure, right? So like Sean Blanc ended up like, for example, this last summer he decided he wanted to do a program that was like I want to say it was like a 2 or 3 day version of his like program that's normally like 6 weeks. And so like it's positioning a little bit differently as like a summer camp kind of thing. And, and then there's a lot of ways to approach that. One thing I'm doing testing right now is like I also will, during the hand-raiser process, I've experimented before with this. I don't do this consistently, but I've experimented with before inviting someone to say like, hey, I'd love to show you more. Could I give you a free guest pass to just be a fly on the wall on our next coaching call?

Right.

And so they're just like, they get to listen in to a coaching call I was already going to deliver. And then afterwards they're like, that was amazing. How do I join? Like, it's like, and so there's a lot of things you could do with selling at scale. But now what I've got, like the flywheel that I've got going right now is new subscribers join my email list automatically. They're getting a crash course. So my whole newsletter is actually automated. So Sorry, but if you sign up for my email list right now, all the emails you're getting from me, I wrote a long time ago.

Well, you say sorry, but that means that you spent the time. It's not like 2 hours before I had to get the newsletter out, I like fired off something quick because I was on a deadline. It's like, no, I spent the time to craft a whole experience that is designed to get you great results.

Well, and people will tell me, they're like, why is this one of the best newsletters I've ever read? And I'm like, because I treat it like a product, right? Like I'm refining it. I hired an illustrator for every issue of my newsletter. Like I spent money on this. You know, we built custom formatting and kit for like being able to highlight, like you would highlight a book, like highlight certain phrases and that kind of stuff. And so you sign up for my email list every day for a week. You're getting an email as part of my crash course. That's this— that's— it's called the Sell Your Smarts Crash Course, but it's an email automation that's a welcome sequence that guides you through, like basically leading you to the inevitable conclusion that by the end of day 7, you're like, oh, maybe I should have a group coaching program. And then at that point, elegantly, you get invited to this free workshop I'm about to teach. That's also automated. And then on the workshop and also even on the confirmation page, you're prompted to take this assessment. And actually, even in my newsletter after that, because I have a weekly newsletter that if I don't write anything new, you'll get an email every Monday from me for close to a year. That's just the next lesson in the newsletter. And like, you wouldn't know that. Like, people will be like, I love today's newsletter. I'm like, oh great, which one was that? Because I'm like, I don't know which one you're talking about. But the PS, even I have it set to be dynamic. So using a segment or a snippet— snippet, sorry, using a snippet in Kit, I've got it set to be a dynamic PS. So if you have not registered for the workshop yet, you see like, oh, PS, I'm doing this workshop, you should check it out. Like, I'd love to have you join. If you've already registered for the workshop, instead you see a PS that says like, PS, would you click here to take the Smart Scan assessment? I'd love to learn more about your specific situation. Right. And then if they, if they've taken the assessment, then it's based on are you qualified or not. So the assessment is how to determine if you're my bullseye client or not. So if you are my bullseye target client, you're going to say like, P.S., I'd love to offer you one free coaching call and learn more about if or how I can help you in your business. And then it's a link to schedule a call. If you're not a good fit, you say, P.S., would you like to get a free copy of one of my books? Click here to share this crash course with anybody you know. And for every person who signs up, you get a free copy of one of my books. Which is my rewards program. Yeah. So you're not told like, P.S., you're awful.

Like, you know, you're just into something.

Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. So, so that, that P.S. automatically changes based on which actions you've taken.

I love it.

Yeah.

Okay. We could go on for a long time.

Yeah.

We're going to, we're going to talk more flywheels and all of that. What I want to do is end this here, okay? And then we'll get up on the board and we'll, we'll record a breakdown of your flywheel. And how you implemented that and some of the tweaks. There's some really interesting things, uh, that you've done that I want to, uh, map out. And that's going to be inside the Creator Flywheels program. Ooh, teaser.

That's the paywall.

That's the paywall right there. Uh, we'll give away an hour of value and then—

Wait, let me help you out here, Nathan. So if you would like to see the behind the scenes video of how I use my flywheel in the Creator Flywheels course, then, uh, Where can they send an email or comment below or DM Nathan on something somewhere and say, tell me more.

Just email Nathan@kit.com.

Yeah, there you go. That's a hand raiser, right? So there you go. Yeah.

Yeah. That sounds good. Um, and then you can also go to creatorflywheels.com. That's where everything is, where you can ultimately learn more about it. Yeah. Sounds good. Well, John, thank you so much. This has been amazing. I've got a lot of notes that, uh, I've taken mentally, I haven't been writing it. Well, I guess I haven't written it down, but ways, you know, some tweaks and changes that I wanna make in my program. And then also I just think there's so much that when people implement this, they're gonna have some pretty huge results. So people can't follow you on social, where should they go if they want to subscribe to your newsletter, learn more about your content, you know, or join your program?

So you, I mean, you can find, you can Google me. I'm on the internet, you know, I'm not completely, completely off the grid. But, you know, I mean, what I'd love to do— this book, this lovely book has been sitting here. And so rather than say go buy the book, I would love to just give away copies of the book. Can I do that? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So if you go to servetosellbook.com/nathan, you can get a free copy of the book. And so that's awesome. There you go. So the price is free. If you go to servetosellbook.com and you don't put /nathan, it's going to take you to where you can go buy it. You can do that if you prefer. But if you like free stuff and you think it might be useful to you, then maybe start there. So servetosellbook.com/nathan.

Sounds good. John, thanks so much for coming on.

It's my pleasure. Keep up the good work.

If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Barry Show, then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for listening.