In this interview, Omar Zenhom talks with a veteran coach (Speaker B) about the core principles that drive successful coaching businesses. They argue that a great product is the foundation; without it, even the best marketing merely speeds up the discovery of a poor offering. The conversation highlights how a high‑quality program enables add‑and‑compound growth and reduces churn, using examples like Alex Hormozi’s gym program and Apple’s retail success. They also discuss how to spot clients who are unlikely to benefit from coaching, coining the term “butt face” for closed‑minded individuals and contrasting mercenary (money‑first) versus missionary (care‑first) mindsets. The veteran coach shares his 20‑year background, emphasizing that he works with founders who genuinely care about their customers, believing that loving the customer fuels sustainable business growth.
Chapters
I've seen a lot of your videos and every time I see it, there's a recurring message happening. And that message is a lot of coaches that come to you and say, hey, I wanna grow my coaching business, they think it's like a hack. They think like, I gotta fine-tune a funnel. They figure I need more leads. I need to know how to convert these leads. And something that you always say, I don't know if it's actually getting through to people 'cause you keep saying it, but it is like, you gotta have a great product. Yeah, of course. You gotta have, whatever you deliver has to be amazing. Otherwise, all that is like a leaky bucket. There's no reason to do that. You've coached thousands and thousands of people.
Yeah.
What happens when somebody does that, takes on that advice?
So, let's start with what happens if you don't.
Okay.
Yeah. If you're a great marketer and your product's no good, you just speed up the rate at which people find out you're not good, which is a terrible idea.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like, oh, great. The emperor has no clothes. Okay. Well, now that we know that. So, You can get a long way on marketing and sales. We've all, you know, we've all done that. I think having something you're proud of just makes everything else. I mean, it sounds so dumb that we need to teach people this, but it's the superpower. Like, have something legit amazing. And when you do, if you don't have that, you're, you know, every new client you add is just replacing somebody who left. And so it's like, you know, churn and replace.
Yeah.
And if you do, then you're like in add and compound. And so life gets really fun really quick. Everyone knows Alex Hormozi is this great marketer, and he is. But dude, he's a product guy first. When they were working with gyms, his program was pretty expensive. Like, I don't know how much the average gym makes, but it's not that much money. And his program was like $16,000, like $1,000 a month— sorry, $1,000 a week for 16 weeks. And they could like just scrape together the first payment. But if it didn't work by the end of week 1, they couldn't pay payment number 2.
Correct. They needed that ROI quick.
Product needed to be great. So he's like, the secret to scale is like, how low can you lower the bar about how someone, how good a client needs to be and it still works? I think he's a product guy first. Like Martell is a product guy first. All like everyone good has a great product. Years ago, I remember reading that the Apple stores are the— I don't know if they still are, but they probably are highest retail sales per square foot of any other retail store. And that's because the products are freaking great.
Yeah, I love it. So you've coached thousands of people over the— like, how long have you been doing this?
A long time.
Maybe 20-plus years, right?
Be close to 20 years.
Yeah, you've been doing this a very long time.
Yeah, I'm 50. How old are you?
I'm 46.
Dude. Yeah, I'm the old guy.
You look younger. I would— people ask me about my gray hair. It's like, well, that's wisdom. That's 10 years of a software business. And, you know, I sold it, otherwise I'm going to lose my hair. Yeah, that's That's the cost. But you've been doing it for a very long time. You've helped a lot of people.
Yeah.
What are the signs that you see when you have a new student, a new client where you're like, I can't help you?
Butt face. That's probably the first thing.
Okay.
Yeah. You know, when you like, you give someone some advice and the first thought is, yeah, but that's butt face. So, butt face is like a biggie. Anyone who's like not open to trying a new thing, that's a worry. Anyone who's looking for like the tactics and the hacks, honestly, if someone's like focus is how do I make money and I'll change my niche and I'll serve a whole different audience, just tell me what works. I'm like, oh dude, I work with the good guys. I want, I want to work with someone who's like, who cares about the people and wants the people to win. And they know that if they can help people win, they'll win too. That's my person.
Hmm.
And if they— I think if it's a spectrum, there's mercenaries at one end, there's, you know, which is all money. No care. There's missionaries at the other end, all care, no money. And I want to help that person. Yeah, you know, this guy, not, not either of those two. How do I know someone's not going to work it out if they've got butt face or they're only in it for the cash and they don't actually care?
Right.
Well, they'll probably do really well short term, but they're not going to do well with me.
And who do you help the most? People that come with— they have XYZ, but they don't have this.
The people I love to help is someone who's, who's got something that works and that they love. Like if they fall in love with the customer, not with the product or the fame or the name, those people are really fun to help because they've got the goods. And now my job is how do we take the magic that's behind a door and show it to the world? That's really fun.
