Coaching Business Mastery

All right, everyone, welcome to Coaching Business Mastery. Those of you that have, uh, been in one of these presentations before know the drill. We're going to do a little allegiance capital exercise. Why am I here? Am I in the right place? What happens next? And what happens after I do what's supposed to happen next? So you are here, uh, hopefully because you want to learn a little bit about the fundamental principles and philosophy that under— undergird any successful business, but specifically you might be a coach, a teacher, a healer, or creative of some stripe or another. And you are here not to so much as we've done in the past, talk about tools and tactics and strategy behind establishing a successful enterprise. I have discussed all this before. We've had the Get Clients Now workshop, which talked about specific campaigns you can launch to build your client base right away. We've talked about, um, strategic things in the Be a Blessing marketing workshop. I'm going to give you, uh, links to access all of those, uh, at the end of this. But today we're actually going to talk about something that I actually prefer to talk about, which is philosophically and in terms of fundamental principles and practices, what do you have to have established if you're going to have a sustainable and sustaining successful, prosperous coaching business, teaching business, healing business, creative business. So, um, again, strategies, tools, and tactics. I'll give you links for all that at the end. Um, and in terms of what happens, uh, next, if you are a member of the Catalyst community of paid subscribers, then you are going to, at the end of our session, be invited to stick around for a an exclusive Q&A and implementation session. For those of you that are not members of that community, that is absolutely fine. I'm not going to be completely transparent. Sometimes, especially when you're new to one of my presentations, there's this, okay, so Scott's gonna give us all this information. And at the end, he's gonna say, and if you want all the best stuff, you can pay me, you know, to become your coach or whatever. And get that, that on the back end. I never do that. The truth is, right now all of my programs are full. You'll get an email on Wednesday about when the next availability will be. So I actually have nothing to sell you today. I'm going to give you everything that I believe you need to know to establish this— you set yourself up for success with a successful business. And if you decide at some future point that you would like my help, feel feel free to reach out. I'm happy to share how that might happen. But for today, you're actually going to literally get everything you need. So if you're not a member of the Catalyst Community, um, you have two choices. One is take really good notes, uh, and the other is if you would like to try out the Catalyst Community of paid subscribers, it's $9 a month or $90 a year. It's, uh, less than you would spend on dessert at the end of a good meal. But you can test it out for free by signing up for a 7-day free trial. So I just dropped a link in the chat. So if you want to hang out and try out the, the exclusive Q&A and implementation session, you're welcome to do that. If you decide it's not for you and you want, don't want to be charged, just cancel your subscription before the card gets charged at the end of 7 days. So unless there are any questions about that, we're going to jump right into it. Are we good? Give me a thumbs up if we're good to go.

Cool.

Okay.

So when I'm going to kind of set the table by telling a story, and I'm going to tell a story about my favorite subject, which is me and, and my grandson. So if you are in this room, you are probably, probably a coach, teacher, or healer, or you're thinking about establishing some sort of enterprise that might involve one of those types of roles. And for those of you that are already engaged in establishing some sort of online business, I am going to guess that your schedule, probably current if you're in this room, you're probably currently experiencing something that looks a lot like what I'm about to share. So this is, uh, in 2020, my weekly schedule looked kind of sort of like this: getting plenty of sleep, spending a little bit of time in the evenings and on the weekends, with my family, but most of the time it was work, work, work. So I'm an early riser. I would get up at 5 AM. I would pretty much be working until 4 AM. What did that work look like? Well, spending lots of time creating content, spending lots of time posting content to my blog, to my broadcast, to my podcast, my YouTube channel, and most of all, spending lots of time, on social media, either creating content for social media, uh, or, uh, scrolling through social media to see if anybody was engaging with my content. And so most of the time I would be spending my time trying to get clients instead of actually doing the work I started my business for in the first place. So just curious. For those of you that are currently engaged in some sort of online business, do you find yourself spending the majority of your time doing the work that you started your business to do? Or do you find yourself spending most of your time trying to get clients so that you can do the business that you started your business to do? So if you spend most of your time doing what you started your business to do, raise your hand. Okay, we have some people that are doing that. I don't know what you're doing in this room. You should probably be leading the workshop. How many people spend more time than they would like trying to get clients so that they can do the business that they want to do? So that is my experience with a lot of folks. It was certainly my experience for a number of years. And then I, and, you know, one of the reasons that this happens is because when you are starting a business, most of us don't have a lot of education, learning experience in actually building a business, running a business, developing and optimizing a business. So what do we do? We spend our time on social media listening to the gurus and the experts and the digital marketers telling us what we need to do in order to have a successful business. So maybe you listen to someone that tells— talks about social media strategy. Maybe you talk to someone that talks about how you can leverage YouTube. Maybe you talk to someone that's Talks about creating a podcast, all the various ways that people say you must do this if you're going to have a successful business. And so you try all the things. What ends up happening is you, by trying thing after thing after thing, hoping that one of these things will be that one missing piece that will make your business magically start working, is you start doing a whole bunch of things that have nothing really to do with the difference that you make in the world as a teacher, healer, or coach, and you create a full-time job around a podcast, a YouTube channel, social media strategy, creating content for social media or your blog or your broadcast or what have you. So like a lot of other people, I was always chasing tools, tactics, and strategy to try to create a business that would allow me to do what I was actually really good at, which is creating transformation with clients as a coach. And then one day I kind of woke up to the fact that I was chasing around solutions to, uh, and, and seeking solutions to my problems by doing things that worked for other people in the past. So if you think about any of the, the, you know, the gurus that you might be following who are selling something that they legitimately believe works because it worked for them in the past, sometimes what we're forgetting is, oh, I'm not that person, and it is no longer the past. I am me, and this is now. And usually by the time you are trying something that worked for someone else in the past, it's no longer working for anyone. You know, LinkedIn messaging strategy was a big one maybe 3 or 4 years ago. I actually had a lot of success with LinkedIn messaging at, uh, for a period of time because I got in very early in the adoption curve. But at this point in time, most people I know that are buying high-ticket LinkedIn messaging strategy programs are not having that level of success because The market has been saturated with people that are leveraging a strategy very poorly, which immediately diminishes the return on that strategy. So, what we have to decide is at some point we have to wake up to the fact that tools, tactics, and strategy alone is not going to help us build a sustainable business that actually fuels and funds the lifestyle we want to live. Instead of the other way around. And if we're going to establish a business that fuels and funds the lifestyle that we want, then we have to apply philosophy and principles. Philosophy. What do I believe? Principles. What do I know to be true? And so for me, the big wake-up call was when— and some of you have heard this story many times— When my son and daughter-in-law announced that they were pregnant on my birthday in 2021 or 2020, my wife and I raised our hands and said, we want to be the daycare providers. And as soon as the kids left, we looked at each other and said, how the hell are we going to do this? We both work 10 hours a day in our business. How are we going to take care of our grandson for 9 hours a day? There's only 24 hours in a day. That means that, you know, we have 5 hours left over to sleep. So, I really had to think about what kind, like, what is the lifestyle that I actually want to live? Why am I doing what I'm doing? I'm not, you know, if you look at that schedule, I was living to work. And if I was going to invert that so that I could work to live, to work so that I could fund and fuel the lifestyle I wanted, I was really going to have to change things. So philosophically, I decided that I believed that I could build a business around this one important belief of mine. And it— this picture pretty much sums it up in its entirety. Are you all seeing a picture of my grandson napping on my chest? Okay. That's what I built my business around. I wanted to build a business that was built around my grandson's nap schedule and my ability to be with him all morning long and through his nap time in the early afternoon. That's what I believed I could build. From a principle point of view, well, I'm going to actually pause right there. How many of you actually downloaded the worksheet? That I included when you signed up? How many people actually completed the worksheet? We have a few people. How many people were able to answer the question about what success looks like to them?

Cool.

I would love if 1 or 2 people wanted to come up, come off mute and share. I know I am being successful when— what does success look like to you? I'll volunteer, Scott. Go ahead, Gerry. Yeah, you know, for every Olympic athlete, for them to successfully complete their event, it's the first two steps that they take. And my success is publishing a separate update and the associated graphic every day. And that hones my ability and capability, you know, to, and it hones the neural pathways in my brain and just kind of sharpens my axe and enables me to tackle any task, you know, for the rest of the day. Beautiful. So what I'm hearing, Gerry, is that success to you looks like doing meaningful, fulfilling work that gives you a sense of fulfillment. And is helping you become the kind of person that you want to become. Anybody else want to share what being success— go ahead, Allison. Allison 1. We have Allison 1 and Allison 2. I'm not saying who is who.

Um, uh, I'll know I'm successful when I have time to focus on my fiction writing without guilt that I should be working on my coaching business instead. Um, that I can go for massage and acupuncture appointments. Um, regularly without feeling bad about spending the money on myself, and that I have the freedom of time to spend, freedom to spend my time as I choose, doing things like walking shelter dogs and things like that, that without feeling guilty like I should be building my business.

I love that answer. And you're actually, you, you are highlighting the thing that I think is most important in this conversation. And, and for those of you that I'm looking at Nazli and Penny in particular, and Katherine. We were all on a call yesterday, if I'm not mistaken, where we were talking about the— what we were defining for ourselves, what freedom is, and where that conversation ended up is how does that definition of freedom tie into our definition of success for ourselves? And so, Alison, what I'm hearing is, like Jerry, a success for you is being— being successful means that you are able to make a living that allows you to do all the other things that are important to you in your life. And I think that's largely going to speak to most of the people in the room. We want our business to fuel and fund the lifestyle that we want to live. And I am guessing that the kind of people that are attracted to my work, are attracted to the idea of making a difference, doing work that matters with people that they care about, making a meaningful transformation in the world. Most of the people that are attracted to my work are not hoping that they can buy a Lamborghini and start posing for videos about their business in front of their mansion. Most people just really want to be able to get paid to make the difference that they know they're capable of making so that they can do all the other things in their life that are meaningful to them. And for most people, what that success looks like is tied to what Allison just said, this idea of freedom. What does it mean to be free? So, I'm going to give away the punchline that I already actually kind of gave away, if I can pull pull up that graphic again. So that is me, but let me, let me see if I can find that. All right. So we should, I should be able to pull this up now. So I'm going to give away the end of the story now, and then we're going to talk about how I got there and how I think anybody can get there. So this is what my schedule currently looks like. Remember that everything from 5:00 AM to 4:00 PM used to be red work time. And that was, that's, that was not an exaggeration. I probably literally worked for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week in my business. Now, some of that time was done coaching, But if I'm really honest, less than 10 or 20% of that time was spent actually doing work with clients. And 80 to 90% of that time that I was spending was doing work in the hopes that it would get me clients. And at this point in time, my, this, my schedule literally looks like this, uh, pretty regularly on a week-to-week basis. I work first thing in the morning to make sure I get all of my emails answered and all of my whatever posting or content creation I'm going to do is done over the course of 10 hours, 2 hours a day, 5 days a week. I take care of my grandson from 7 a.m. till noon every day. And while my wife is doing her thing and then from noon to 4 every day, I do whatever I need to do. So sometimes that's working with clients. When I'm not working with clients, most of that time is spent with hanging out with my wife and my grandson. And I keep my, my family time locked in, in the evenings and on the weekends. And of course, I maintain my sleep schedule. And so literally able at this point to make a full-time living with 10 hours a day dedicated to all the things that used to take me almost 100 hours a week. I'm sorry, 10 hours a week doing what used to take me 100 hours a week. So this brings us to the principal part of the conversation. So philosophically, you have to determine for yourself, what do I believe? What, what is my definition of success? What is my definition of freedom? What's the North Star that I'm actually working for? And I just want to, you know, point out the cautionary tale here is that what I had been doing and what I find most people doing when we first start working together is they are chasing a revenue goal or they're chasing a scheduling goal. And they'll say, I know I'm successful when I'm earning $10,000 a month, or I know I'm successful when I can be home at 5 o'clock and spend my time with my family. And it's not that either— like, spending time with your family is a worthwhile goal. A revenue goal might be the means to an end. But when you're chasing after money, when you're chasing after more, more time, more money, more status, more stuff, whatever it is, you're chasing something that's not actually an end in and of itself. It's something that can be a side effect of doing meaningful work with people you care about in a way that is sustainable, fulfilling, and meaningful to you. And so I would encourage you to be thinking about freedom and success in your life around what does— what does— what would the money get you? What would you do if you had that time? That's the North Star, not the money itself. And then when it comes to the principles of any successful business, they are the same as they have been since long before digital marketing became a thing, long before digital businesses became a thing. The principles behind that, that, that lay the foundation for any successful business that have never been proven to be not true is Do you have an irresistible offer that is presented to an engaged and interested audience with a sales success strategy that is sustainable? And when I say irresistible offer, eager audience, a sustainable sales strategy, what I want you to put in front of all of that is Enough. Do you have an, a irresistible enough offer? Is your offer irresistible enough? Because it's not gonna be irresistible from the get-go. You're going to have to work your way towards an offer that is increasingly more irresistible to the right people. You're going to have to work towards identifying an eager enough audience. For the, the thing that you can, can, the transformation that you can help them facilitate. And you're going to have to work your way toward a sustainable sales program. Most people in my experience actually have a pretty good idea of the people that they want to serve because they usually look like us. They have the same dreams, wants, needs, desires, problems, confusions, uncertainties that, that we've had to overcome ourselves. That's usually at the core of what we're offering. We're offering a solution to something that we had to learn how to solve the hard way by doing it all by ourselves for ourselves. And we have come up with some sort of product, service, or offering that helps other people get that more effectively and more efficiently most of the time. So we have Usually in terms of, you know, do I have an irresistible enough offer for an eager enough audience? Most of us have enough of that, that that's not going to be the real problem. Where we really get hung up and hung out to dry is around the sales strategy part. How do I put— how do I market that offer to that audience? So this gets us into a little bit of the way I distinguish between marketing and sales, because they are two different things, even though we conflate them most of the time. But if you look at what you need to do to have a sustainable, successful business, what you have to do is identify that audience and, and craft an offer and present that in a way that first earns people's awareness. They have to know you exist before they can even consider what you have to offer. You then have to earn their attention. They have to be willing to stop scrolling and read the next couple of lines in your post or read the next couple of lines on your sales page or watch the next 10 minutes of your video or what have you. You have to get their attention and you have to present what you're presenting to them in a way that earns their permission and trust to have a conversation that will move you from the marketing piece—awareness, attention, permission, and trust—to the sales portion of the conversation, which is, I'm interested in what you do and what you can do for me. I'm enrolled in the journey that you say that you can take me on, and I'm ready to invest in the change that you can help me facilitate. Marketing: awareness, attention, permission, trust. Sales: interest, enrollment, investment. Different conversations. Yes, there's places where you can, you know, where they overlap and where you can build bridges and so forth. But when you think about doing that in the online space, We all know what the challenges are. Everyone on the planet is competing for everyone else's awareness and attention and permission and trust. It is a very loud, crowded, distracting, confusing marketplace that we are all operating in. And the days when you could come up with in, you know, some sort of miraculous funnel with the perfectly designed ad creative and copy and the perfectly created landing page with the perfectly colored buttons and the perfectly crafted copy that drove people, you know, to act. I mean, those days are largely gone. And so we have to be much more, we have to pay a lot more attention to those fundamental things. But here's the other thing, and this is the other part of that worksheet that I gave you. We all know, we all have a pretty good idea of what success looks like to us. We all have a pretty good idea of who we're serving and what we offer. We don't always have as good an idea, and very rarely do we have a, a good idea at all about where we're actually starting and what we're actually starting with. As you're sitting in this room thinking about your journey, how do I go from where I am, which is I'm largely living to work, to where you want to be, which is large, broadly, I want to be able to work so that I can live. If you don't have clarity about where you're actually starting and what you're starting with and where you actually want to go, you have no— there's no way to establish direction. You can't establish a vector without those two points. So when we are focused on what we want but not taking into account where we're starting from and what we're starting with, we're just going to find ourselves on a hamster wheel. You can go really, really, really fast towards your destination, but you might be going really, really, really fast in circles. You might be going really, really fast in the wrong direction. You might be going really, really, really fast backwards because you just keep doing more and more and more and more, which only can get you further away from what you want. And you might be actually heading towards disaster because the more you grind and, you know, just try to grit and grind your way to what you want, the more likely it is that you are going to burn yourself out and blow yourself up before you get anywhere close to where you want to be. So when you are looking at where you actually are and what you're starting with, that's where that audit of assets and where you're currently spending your time, money, and attention is so important. Because here is the thing. If you are already engaged in business and if you have any of those assets, if you have any kind of email list, if you have any kind of social media presence, if you have any assets around podcasting or YouTube channel or blog content or what have you, you already have plenty. Assets to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be. What you need to do is establish a, a process, a system that gets those assets in front of the right people so that you can start the conversations that will get you the clients that you want. Because ultimately, the way that any of us get clients or customers is a way that Every business ever created has got them. It begins with a conversation. It begins with a connection that leads to a conversation that creates the possibility of working together to get the thing that you want. So when you're thinking of the question that I love to ask my clients, and I see some of you here, so you'll probably— I'll probably get some knowing smiles. I will ask What are you actually optimizing for? If you're optimizing for content creation, that's great. But that's not going to get you closer to what you want, because content alone will not get you there. If you're optimizing for conversations that can lead to the calls that, or communications that get you clients, that's a different thing. Now it's what, what do I do with what I already have to create the opportunity for me to engage in a conversation with someone? So if you have enough of an idea of what's, you know, what your offer is and who your audience is, it really comes down to how can I leverage the assets I already have to create the conversations that are going to get me there? And that's where some of the tactics and tools that are going to be in the links that I share with you at the end can help you. If you already have an email list, a Be Helpful campaign or a Silver Bullet campaign will help you get clients in the next 7 days. If you do not have much of a list or much of a social media following, you can use the strategy and some of the tactics that are part of the Be a Blessing marketing to host an event like this that get people into a room with you so that you can start to have a conversation that might lead to them reaching out to you to get help solving the problem that they have. But you have to first make sure that fundamentally you have your philosophy and principles dialed in. What do I believe? What does success look like for me? When I say I want more freedom, what does that actually mean. Free to do what? I am free to take naps with my grandson. I am free to take care of my grandson all day long and earn a good living. That's what success looks like to me. Whatever it looks like to you, establish what— excuse me— what that is. But when I— when you follow up with every opportunity right? Because every opportunity also comes with an opportunity cost. And you have to ask yourself, if I do this thing, what am I optimizing for? Am I optimizing to get the life that I say that I want? Is it getting me closer to what I want? And if you can't answer that with a very clear statement of yes or a good idea that it's, that it's highly probable that the asymmetry of the risk is to the upside and not the downside, you probably should not do it. You should probably look at the other options that you have to get— that will get you closer to what you want. And I'm going to give you the, the secret that every single one of you can apply to start being a little bit more successful immediately following this call. Anybody here had— is anybody here actually absolutely brand new to starting a business, coaching, healing, teaching, or otherwise? Okay, so Allison has a— is the person here that has an opportunity to start by doing everything right. The rest of us have probably started and are doing, have done enough things right to say this is worth pursuing, but we're not doing enough of the things right to not want to jump on a call with Scott and listen to him blab about the things that you could be doing right, right? But here's the thing. If you started a business and you had enough success initially to say this is a viable enterprise that I should pursue, then you already know what you need to do to succeed. And instead of looking at out the windshield at what could I do, what else could I do to be successful, look in the rearview mirror at what you already done and do more of that. And what always ends up happening with people like the people in this room who are entrepreneurial minded is we do a thing and it's exciting because it's a thing and it's new and it's full of possibility and we are hardworking and dedicated and committed and we make it work and we go, amazing, that worked. What else can I do? And you chase the next thing. And if you actually think about it, it's insane to not say, I just did a thing and it worked. What should I do now? Oh, I should do more of that thing. I should try to iterate and improve that thing so that it works a little bit better the next time. But we don't do that, and we say, oh, it, it, it worked, but it won't work again. To which I say, prove it. If you've done something that's worked in the past, there is no good reason to think that it hasn't, that it won't work in the future. And so I want to give you some hints about like how do I determine my next step. But I want to, um, close with a story about my big rearview mirror moment in my business. So literally going from working 100 hours a week, working all the time that I wasn't sleeping or maybe eating and watching a little TV with my wife at the end of the day, to spending 2 hours a day working and spending the rest of the time doing really literally whatever the heck I want. The biggest lever in doing that was looking in the rearview mirror. And when I thought about how I initially succeeded in my business, here's the way it happened. So, you know, those of you that know my backstory know that I kind of got my start in this business by being a head coach in Seth Godin's Akimbo Workshops. It actually started a little bit before that when I was in one of the very earliest sessions of the Alt MBA. And at the end of the Alt MBA, I was invited to become a coach in the Alt MBA. And even though I never actually coached a session of the Alt MBA, I was kind of around and on the list. And so when Seth started Akimbo Workshops, he He reached out to me and said, hey, would you like to be a coach in the Akimbo workshops? I was like, sure. I don't, you know, I don't mind making money, hanging out with cool people, talking about cool stuff and doing cool things. That turned into an almost 7-year association that actually gave me the— helped me build the bridge between a full-time career as a musician, guitar player and teacher to being a full-time coach. But at the beginning of my adventures as an Akimbo coach, I was trying to figure out what's this business that I'm building? Because I didn't know what it was. I tried being a speaker, and even though I'm a performer at heart and I love— obviously I love running my mouth— I was a terrible speaker and I actually didn't really like speaking. Because when you speak, like, you can be as insightful and inspiring as anyone. I mean, you can be Les Brown, but when the speech is done, most everyone goes home and just returns to the life they were already leading. It's not a very fulfilling— in my experience, was not a very fulfilling thing to do because I wasn't really making meaningful change for the better in any kind of sustainable way. So then I decided I'd do online courses, and I did create a bunch of online courses, and that was also a big flop. I created— spent hours and hours and hours, weeks and months of my life creating courses that 2 or 3 people bought. All along the way, people kept telling me, Scott Perry, you are an incredible coach. You should just be a coach. Like, just start a coaching business. Like, nah, coaching, coaching is stupid. I would never be a coach. Those guys are all you know, farces and hypocrites and, you know, false prophets, whatever. And one day, uh, you know, maybe 4 years into my business, my wife and I were out having coffee on our usual Saturday coffee date, and she said, honey, um, I was balancing the checkbook, and, uh, I don't know if you've, like, recognized that this hobby of yours— I know you're having a lot of fun— it's really expensive. Like, maybe you should figure out a way to make this pay for itself. And I was like, oh crap, I guess I should do something. And the only thing I knew how to do was be a coach. And so I literally went home and I created a Google Doc with my coaching offer with a PayPal link, and I sent it to everyone that told me I should be a coach. And I said, hey, you said I should be a coach. Guess what? I'm a coach. Here's my offer. Are you interested? And in the back of my mind, I said, if 10 people sign up for my coaching offer, I'll, I'll create a coaching business. 11 people signed up for my coaching offer, and that sealed my fate. Built a successful coaching business on day one with a Google Doc and a PayPal link. So what did I do? I didn't do more of that. I paid someone to make a logo. I paid someone to create a website. I paid someone to create a lead magnet and an opt-in page. I paid someone to create an email sequence. I created social media accounts. I created a YouTube channel. I created a podcast. I started writing a blog. I created a full-time job. Around marketing a business that I had already proved I could market and sell with a Google Doc and a PayPal link. And it was in the moment when we announced that we wanted to be daycare for our grandson that I realized, oh, all I actually have to do is do more of what I did at the very beginning. And any successful business literally starts with the assets you already possess, the relationship assets, the network assets, whatever content you've created, whatever platforms you've already established yourself on. Leverage the things that are— that you already have to get more conversations that will lead to the calls that will get you the clients or the customers that you need. So I want to leave you with something, a series of questions, and these come from my friend and mentor Nick Peterson. Who I think got some of them from Dr. Jeff Spencer. These are people that are partners of mine in the Arena Catalyst program. And it's a, it's a set of questions that you can answer when you're really not sure what you should do next. So the first question is to define what it is that you're trying to accomplish. What does success look like to you? What's your North Star? What are you optimizing for? Answer that question first. And if you're not sure what to do, I would encourage you to work through at least one or more of these questions. The first is, what do I see in my rearview mirror? What have I done in the past that has worked, that has actually helped me get closer to the thing that I'm trying to accomplish? Because if it worked for you in the past and you have no good reason to think, or you have no evidence that it has stopped working, you should do more of that and optimize and improve and iterate that process because that is actually the fastest way to get closer to what you want. Next question that you could ask yourself: What is the smallest move that I can make that will actually create the greatest improvement in closing the gap between where I am and want to be? Most of the time it's not that big, bold, audacious 10-year, 5-year, 3-year, 1-year, or even 90-day plan. There's usually one— the next kink in the hose. If you can, if you can untangle that and increase the flow to the next kink, it will get you that much further and closer to what you want. It will also help identify the next real obstacle or the next real opportunity that you can't see because you have this impediment in your immediate progress. Third question that you can ask yourself: this is impossible unless— we all think that this isn't going to work or it won't work for us. It's actually the reason why people don't buy your stuff. People don't buy your stuff. It's not because it doesn't have enough features and benefits. It's not because you're not good-looking enough or have a splashy enough sales page or any of those things. People don't buy something because they don't think it works or they don't think it works for them. And we are built the same way. This is impossible unless— what are— what is the situation, circumstance, or event that has to happen in order for the next step to succeed. And then the last one is actually my favorite because it deals with the idea of risk, because anything you do involves risk. Any new thing that you're going to add has a potential upside, of course, and it has a potential downside that we don't usually factor in. And so when you're considering what you can do next, which of those things has the best worst-case scenario? If I do this and it fails, what's the one that has the least likelihood of burning yourself out or blowing yourself up? Which one has the least cost in your most precious resources of time, attention, effort and revenue. If you every day, if you reaffirm and reclarify your destination and your starting point and what you're starting with, and you ask yourself, what's the next step? What is the next right thing that if I did it today would get me just that little bit closer to what you want? And you ran it through those questions and identified and did that thing, building the business of your dreams, building the business that funds and fuels your lifestyle, is actually becomes an inevitability, not a dream, not some desire that's going to always be on the edge of the horizon like a mirage. It actually becomes inevitable. Because you have absolute clarity of destination and starting point. You have absolute clarity of the vector and the 2 or 3 things that need to go right in order for you to get there. And you simply do the next right thing every single day and you will get there. All right. Before I let those of you that are not hanging out for the Q&A and implementation session Excuse me, I promised you some resources. I will eventually add this workshop to it, but if you click on this link, it basically is, um, a rough curriculum of all of my most actionable, powerful, um, time-tested and vetted content. The Be a Blessing marketing strategic approach, the Get Clients Now campaigns, the tools and tactics that can get you going right now, along with some insights into how to establish yourself in a preeminent position in whatever domain that you're trying to make a difference in. So I hope all of that is helpful for everyone. For those of you that are not hanging out for the Q&A and implementation session, I'm going to ask you to just go ahead and see yourselves out. If you want to hang around, there's a link in there that you can click right now and enroll for a 7-day free trial of the community. And you're welcome to participate in the Q&A and then cancel if that is— if you feel that the community would not serve you. But otherwise, yeah. I hope that was helpful for everyone, and I'll see some of you on the other side. Thank you very much, Scott. See you later. Bye. Thank you, Jerry. Just doing a quick check-in. Bear with me for one second.

Scott, I signed up at the top.

I'm, I'm just, I'm just checking. Yes, Allison and, and Kim made the big leap. Okay, so welcome Kim and Allison, great to have you here. Uh, now you get to see, um, what happens on the inside. Um, just want to clarify one more time, if you are not currently, uh, making a monthly or annual payment to the Creative on Purpose Substack, then, um, then this is not the room to be in. There we go. Okay, cool. Helpful? Not helpful? Did you all just hang out to throw tomatoes at me?

Super helpful.

Unbelievably helpful. So good. Awesome.

Thank you, MJ. Yeah, and I, uh, One of the reasons I signed up for the 7-day is that I have some more questions, and I'm looking— right? So I'm looking forward to drilling down into some of these concepts. Also, you're a really good storyteller. That always makes points with me.

Well, I really appreciate that, Kim. I mean, I've made up everything about my life. So I guess I've got plenty of practice. Um, so for Kim and Allison, who have not, um, had the pleasure before, I'll— so everyone else knows this already, but, um, when I do these, uh, free workshops and these Q&A, um, they're kind of— there's no time limit because on Saturdays my wife takes care of an elderly neighbor of ours for the afternoon. And the less time I'm not left to my own devices at home, the less time I have to get into trouble. So I am here for as long as you have questions around the content or the implementation and beyond. So whoever wants to get us started, just go ahead and fire away with your question or your implementation. MJ. I have a question.

Thank you so much, Scott. Kimberly and Allison, it's so nice to meet you. I don't know either of you, but all I can say to you is you've made an excellent decision, and 7 days isn't nearly enough for the journey that you can go on. So lean in and just do it. It's really worth it. That's my unbiased testimonial for Scott Perry. Um, I just want to say to you, Scott, that chronology, even though I've listened to and I've participated and I've been on so many other calls with Bri and Penny and Katherine, just that conciseness is just literally like a roadmap. So even I feel just like so much clearer. So I'm thrilled about this. My one question is, this is really tactical and silly, but who did you hire? Because I wanna hire that same person for the lead magnet and the opt-in page because I feel like I have all these other ducks nicely lined up. And after my first call with you, when I signed up, I got off the phone and did the offer right then. And that offer has still remained and I feel clear. But since then, I've done a whole bunch of other things to move me toward this optimizing journey.

So that's one piece I don't have. Sure. Um, so I'm gonna give you two, two answers, none of which are gonna be very helpful. Um, the first, uh, the first is I would actually encourage you to not worry about any of that at the beginning. Like, optimize what needs to be opti— optimized first, which is validating your offer. Like, it's an offer that people actually are interested in and validated in terms of sustainability, meaning validated in that people will pay you to do that thing without having to opt in for something, go through an email sequence, or any of the— like, here's— and this is really important for everyone— we're always trying to, um, add complication and automation way too soon. Complication decreases system efficiency. Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. Really complicated systems get— are very inefficient in that they don't work very well, and they can be very ineffective because a system is made up of all of the things that go into getting the result. And all of those things only work in terms of a percentage. I mean, this applies to my computer. My computer only turns on and works if, you know, I have it plugged in, if I have it charged, if I have it, you know, updated, all the things. But, you know, a piece of technology like a computer, will it work like 99% of the time? Yeah, except there's one part of that system that is notoriously always the one that is the least efficient. Anybody know what that is? Yeah, the human being at the controls, a human being that was supposed to update it but didn't, the human being that was supposed to pay the electric bill but didn't, right? So the reason why system reliability and system of thinking is so important is our brains are hardwired to chase complication and more. We want to add. We think that getting what we want is an addition problem. But it's actually not. Getting what we— getting closer to what we want is actually a subtraction problem that allows for less things to be multiplied together. And so, you know, I know some people here are going to smile when I say this because I say so, so often: you have to do the right things at the— in the right order at the right time. And the first thing to do is validate your offer. Validate your audience, validate a strategy that gets that offer in front of that audience in the simplest way possible. When a system— when your system is providing more input than you can handle, that's when you would want to add in a complication or a friction point like an email, like people have to opt in. So I'll just give a— because it's a great question. Because if you look at the way my business is currently constructed, it's all based on system reliability. The reason why I'm able to earn a living and continue to onboard clients from a waiting list is that at the beginning I started, I, you know, I would talk to anybody. When I got to the point where I was working with enough clients that I couldn't afford the time to talk to anyone, I put in a friction point like you have to opt in and answer this questionnaire in order to have that conversation. I remember Allison is one of the people in the room, and actually everybody that's a client has experienced that, filling out the Catalyst questionnaire so that you can get on a 15-minute call with me. I don't even do that anymore because now the only way that I will allow you to become a person that gets on the waiting list that can become a client is to be a member of the paid community. And people will say, well, but Scott, you only have like— you have less than 25 paid subscribers. Yeah, because that's all I need. So I have no reason to create two-step social media campaigns or lead magnets and opt-ins and email sequences and all that thing. So I won't do that until that time comes. Now, to answer your specific question, if you, you know, if it is time or if you just feel strongly that you need to create the website and the opt-in and the email sequence, the person that I hired is someone I would never recommend. And so I'm not going to say their name. There's at least one person in this room that probably would know who that was. And so I'm definitely not going to say it. Um, most, most of the time when, when it's time to do those kind of things, we hire, um, the cheapest labor we can, which is usually ourselves, which is not always, not, not always a bad idea, but not always a good idea. Um, I, I would say I mean, if, if you want to, I mean, I could probably put, um, put my mind to it and start to come up with, um, some folks that could, could help you, you know, with, with some of those things. Uh, and I'm happy to do that, um, after, after we're done, MJ. Um, but I think you're right though, Scott.

I think validating it without the complication first, that's always my Achilles heel, and this is why we keep having this conversation. So that's great for me to just do do that.

And I'll just do that. Yeah, I appreciate that. And again, happy to circle back to your question. And I just want to say, for everybody in the room, this is, you know, what MJ just— the insight MJ just arrived at is the insight we all need to arrive at over and over and over again. And you know, what MJ said about this was like the clearest picture of what I've— I've been saying the same thing. For a long time. You all know about my love and affection for ancient philosophy and spiritual traditions. My favorite philosopher of all time is Heraclitus, known as Heraclitus the Obscure, from Ephesus, Turkey, uh, in the Greek Empire. Um, one of his famous, uh, maxims is, no one steps in the same river twice, for they are not the same person, nor is it the same river. And the reason why something that you've heard 100 times suddenly clicks is because you have finally become the kind of person who has entered the river at that right, exact right time and, and has therefore had the opportunity to have the insight or the inspiration that actually was there the entire time. It's just we're not always ready for it. And a lot of it is we are programmed You know, we come fraught with all these cognitive distortions and all these biases and are prone to all the narrative fallacies that keep us humble, hiding, stuck, inert, engaged in needless dialogue with our imposter and so forth until we're not. And so it's always a matter of just— it's the same thing over and over and over again and setting yourself up for the opportunity to be ready when that insight or inspiration actually reveals itself. I'm going to invite the next person to come off mute and ask their question. But as we're doing that, I'm actually going to travel to my power source so that I don't disappear. So who's next?

I'll jump in. Go ahead. Since I'm very much getting started, I believe in the coaching framework I'm certified in. I've done practice clients. I believe in my ability as a coach in the process itself. I went through it on the receiving end before I ever certified in it. But I really struggle to get started. I, it feels, I said to my husband the other night, I'm trying to reach out to people. Hey, do you want to get together for coffee? Like trying to have conversations. I'm a homebody and an introvert. I do not have a very, very much of an actual social network. I have online communities, but most of those people know the journey that I'm on because we're going through some version of it together. And I said to my husband the other night, I feel like I'm begging for friends. And I don't know how I'm, I'm a writer naturally. So I'm trying to share things about my own life and sort of throw a little something in there that like, hey, if this is something you're interested in talking about, reach out. I don't have an offer. Um, I really actually appreciate this advice of just keep it simple because I've been thinking I need a website, I need this, I need that, I need the other. Um, but I really, I genuinely do not know how to get started and to validate an offer. I have a price point in mind. I, I, I know what I want to— what that would include, but I have no idea how to validate that or how to start having the conversations.

Yeah, well, there's several threads to pull on there, Allison, and I appreciate— I mean, one of the things is just to, to, to create a a, a, a frame that might create more possibility and less, um, obstacles in how you're looking at things is the beginning is the best time because it's all upside and it's all opportunity. It literally is, right? And so it's like, it's one of the reasons why people that have started a business keep chasing new things, because we actually— it's— we love the newness, we love the novelty, we love the opportunity, like the chance that something great can happen. So instead of just repeating things at work, we keep chasing that new thing because it's exciting. So, and, and there's also, you know, how many other people identify as introverts in this room? Yeah, most people, many people do. And I do too, and that always surprises people. It's like, Scott Perry, there's no way in hell you're an introvert. You know, you make— made a living for 30 years running your mouth and playing the guitar on stages. But the ability to turn that on is a learned skill, because if I really like caved into my default programming I would spend all day all by myself in my head having wonderful conversations with someone I really like— me. And I would never get on a Zoom. I would never go to the coffee shop to meet someone for coffee or any of those things, because I actually like to just listen to podcasts, read books, be all by myself journaling. The problem the problem. A, a, um, a common trap that introverts fall into is that identity trap. I'm an introvert and therefore I can't do this, that, or the other. And it, it's, it's, I call it a trap because it literally is a trap because the story that we tell ourselves becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you literally can just reframe the way you're looking at it, as I'm excited to try this thing, as opposed to I'm an introvert, I have trouble doing this thing, it will literally create more opportunity and possibility and create and give you the energy that you need as an introvert to actually put yourself out there and engage in conversation. So there's that. The— I'm really glad you brought up the piece around the offer because here's the, the, the bottom line. A lot of people get really hung up on the offer part. And there is a way of starting a business or, or refining a business or optimizing a business that is built on the idea of a power offer. For this kind of person, I do this kind of thing that gets this kind of result, right? And then, and, and power offers are really popular right now because it is a way of stopping the scroll and cutting through the noise and getting people to read your content. Them. You know, coaches earn $10,000 a month with your coaching business without doing social media. That's a power offer. And people will stop because I'm a coach, I want to earn $10,000 a month, and I don't want to be on social media. As someone that's actually succeeded with offers like that, I will tell you that it's a great way to paint yourself into a box that you don't want to be in. Because the kind of people that sign up for— kind of coaches that sign up for the dream of a $10,000, you know, consistent month without being on social media are generally not the kind of people that you want to spend a lot of time with. Instead of thinking in terms of power offer, I would encourage you to think about your positioning. And what that means is, what is the difference that only you can make with and for the people that you want to serve? And that means, what is the difference that only you can make because only you do this thing in this very specific, idiosyncratic, weird way? Because none of us are selling anything new. I mean, fundamentally, every coach on the planet helps someone get from where they are to where they want to be. They help them solve some sort of problem. But there— and I am not anywhere near being the top, one of the top coaches on the planet. But there's— but the people that are attracted to and decide to work with me have a very clear idea of who Scott Perry is, the way that he operates, what he believes, what his boundary— like, what he does do and what he doesn't do, what he allows and what he doesn't allow. And for a very specific kind of person trying to get a very specific kind of result, in a way, and are willing to tolerate the way that I do it, I have established myself as preeminent in a field. If you are ready to— you know, I, I will say this overtly in, in my copy: if you're looking for someone to agree with you and tell you how wonderful you are and hold you accountable for the things that you should be accountable to all by yourself, I'm not your person. I don't believe in accountability. I don't believe in cheerleading. Not meaning— I'm not saying I don't celebrate my client's success, but I'm not here to say, rah, rah, rah, I love you, you're beautiful, you're wonderful, and thanks so much for coming to the appointment that you scheduled, and I'll see you next week. And I'm also not like— some of the most successful coaches, the most famous, are the coaches that coach for insight. They use the Socratic method to get you to arrive at an insight that you had within you all the time. And you have that insight, it's like, oh my God, I thought, you know, MJ kind of just shared that kind of thing, like, oh, I've heard this a million times, but today I get it. But the insight alone is not— doesn't change anything. The problem with an insight is when you arrive at the insight, you actually think you did the work. It actually thinks— feels like you did something. And it doesn't get you any closer to what you want. So, you know, the reason why MJ says nice things and the reason why people work with me is cuz yeah, we'll spend some time arriving at an insight, but if you're not able to find it quick enough, I'm just gonna tell you what it is. Cuz I don't wanna waste time asking you question after question after question until I back you into a corner where the only thing you can say is the thing I want you to say. I want to get to the insight so that I can then amplify the, the tension that will get you to actually do something with that insight. Because then when I see you next week, you will have moved a step or two towards the thing that we're actually working toward. We will be making progress. And you will be surprised at how few people actually want a coach that does that. Because if I pay for a coach and I meet with a coach and I do all the things that, you know, I think I'm supposed to do and I don't make any progress, guess what? I did everything I could do. I hired a coach, didn't work out. Guess it's not for me. And I, I just, I'm not interested in fueling anybody's victim story or fueling their inertia. And then stuckness and dance with their imposter. Like, let's get over that shit and let's start making some progress, because then we can get the data that's necessary to start to create some momentum after we get the traction. So start thinking about posi— like, yes, you have a certification, that's wonderful. Um, some people, for, for some clients, certification is important. It A lot of times it's like, I hired a certified coach, it didn't work out. Well, I did my best. But, you know, what's the unique way that you— you're— there's still a way that you show up and execute that process that you learned that only you can do. And the people that are in your immediate network actually already kind of know that about you. And so The fundamental answer to your question is, what's the next micro step? Like, I have— I actually do have a methodology. It works for a kind of person trying to get a kind of result. I have some of those people in my network. How can you reach out to one or two of them to get them to actually get on call and work through the process? How can you turn that conversation into content that other people can see, demonstrates your ability to get the results that you say you get for your clients? Because now you have content, you have social proof, you have case study. How can you, um, turn that into a testimonial? Or how can you turn that person— how can you transform that person in a way that all of their friends and neighbors recognize the change that's happened for them, and they get curious and start asking that person about what— how did they get that result? How can you turn them into an evangelical? These are all solvable, very easily solved problems. At the beginning, what you might learn is that I don't do this very well. Okay, cool. Now we know what we need to optimize. We need to get better at that. We need to get better at facilitating a transformation that's worth talking about. Or is, is noticeable. We have to have a conversation that's worth recording and sharing. But that's, that's just where you're at. And at the beginning, if you— speaks to what MJ was saying, it's like if you do the next right thing until it's right enough, then you can think about what the, the next right thing is. But don't overthink it. And don't, don't fall into the identity trap or the, you know, I don't know enough people trap or any of the things because we all know more than enough people to get started, all of us. And I mean, there's people in this room that are part of the community that are starting with the people in this room, in this community, to have conversations that can be recorded and can be shared. It can be used as content and used as case studies and, and used as levers to get more of the right people to see the difference that they make. Is that helpful, Allison?

Yeah, very helpful. Thank you. One of the person that I've had the most transformation with, um, I need to get her to write me a testimonial. Unfortunately, her friend circle does not have the budget or the inclination to engage. So they may have seen the transformation, but they're not viable.

I'm glad you brought that up because I'm going to talk about pricing because you actually asked about this. And so, Nazli and Katherine and some others, we had this conversation yesterday. The pricing question is one of the most fraught for any business owner, but coaches in particular. Because we are operating in a crowded marketplace and we think that therefore we should, you know, what's the market charging? Should I charge less? You know, do I offer discounts to get started? Like all these things. Number one, customers that are driven, whose only decision, whose primary decision-making thing is what's the least expensive, they tend to not make great clients. People that say they can't afford or they don't have the resources to afford are lying, because if you own a device and the plan that gets you on a call like this, you have discretionary income. What you might not have is a clear sense of priorities, because even when I'm selling something that's hot— like, I don't have a high-ticket program in the way that most of the gurus do, but, you know, I do have a 3-month program, um, that includes a year-long component that's $3,000. It's a freaking bargain. And the, the promise that I make is if you purchase this, I will help you find the resources on the very first call, or I'll give you your money back. And I can make that promise because if you make anywhere between $60,000 and $100,000 a year, I know I can find $3,000 in discretionary income that that you could invest in yourself if you were truly committed to the change that you want to make. You know, if I force you to go through all of your streaming apps and all of your lifestyle apps and look at all of your entertainment budget in terms of going out to eat or, you know, spending money on your hobbies, your reading habit, whatever, finding $3,000— actually, my, my average Most people find $6,000 without my help, and they usually double that number if they do it with me. So finding the money is not a problem. But what it does is it now— what happens is people are now confronted with the fact that it's not that they don't have the resources, it's they don't have the will. They haven't prioritized the change that they say they want to make, and that creates a lot of tension. Because when you're confronted with a story that I'm the— I'm not the kind of person that I think that I am, they have to make a decision. I'm going to step into the kind of person that I say that I want to be, or I'm going to continue to put my head in the sand and distract myself with my streaming apps, my lifestyle apps, and my Audible account, and, you know, whatever. And What's going to happen? Well, you're going to get the same results you're always getting, you know. So the only promise I'm really making is things could be different. I think they can be better. It's going to take some work and it's going to require some investment, and the investment actually helps them work. But I would encourage you to never allow yourself to fall prey to that— those people don't have money— because everybody that's exploring the possibility of making the change they want to make for themselves has the resources, 100% of the time in my experience, they, um, they aren't prioritizing the change they want to make. And if you can help them see that, whether they work with you or not, you've extended an extraordinary gift to them because now they know. Now they can actually work on the problem that they actually have instead of continuing to believe a story that is only fueling their stuckness, their inertness, and their inability to get out of their own way and get going with the life that they want to live. And I apologize if that comes across as, as too pointed or harsh, but I, I believe in clear, direct, and respectful. I'm not saying like, no, literally no judgment. I have literally been on calls with someone who has said, I can't give up my 6 channel subscriptions. Cool, now we know. Enjoy. You know, I hear Yellowstone is a fantastic series. I hope, I hope it brings you great joy. Thank you, Scott Perry. You're welcome. Elizabeth, I saw your hand up. Go ahead.

Yeah, I had— well, first of all, I had my hand up because I was going to ask you to elaborate on something that I enjoy hearing you say, but you already did. So that was pieces of things that you say about doing something out loud and on purpose, and you got there and you said having a conversation worth recording and sharing. So Thank you for that. But what I, what I'm raising or what I'm unmuting for now is, can you say something about people being excited to work with you? Because I'm not worried about the price of my offer. I'm worried about people being excited to come join me in the thing that I think is fun, right? Come to this event thing that I like. So, uh, that's my, like, fear is, am I like the dork in the corner that's asking people to come and enjoy this thing with me? And like, does anybody really want to come? I think you can afford it, but do you want to come? Yeah.

Well, the thing that leaps immediately to my mind, Elizabeth, is, um, around this idea that we're all weirdos. Um, Seth Godin has a book, is it called like Everybody's Weird or something like that? Um, and I actually— so I have, I have this, um, niece that just celebrated her 10th birthday. Um, she's my brother's daughter and lives up in New Hampshire, and I don't get to see her that often, but my wife and I talk to her every other week, and Um, you know, she's a precocious young lady, and, and her uncle is a complete, you know, whack job and always making bad dad jokes and, and saying things just to make her giggle and smile because it makes me feel good. And every call she'd go, you're such a weirdo. And over time, I was like, you know, I really am a freaking weirdo. And I actually wrote an article about all the ways that I am a complete whack-a-mole. And I realized as I was creating that list, like, these are all the things that people actually like about me and seek me out for. And so a lot of what you're talking about, Elizabeth, is how do I find— so the definition of culture, Seth shares it, but it's not his definition. Cult— the culture is people like us who do things like this. That defines culture. You know, what are the signals, the symbols, the shibboleths, the slang? Like, what are all the, the ways that you show up and engage that make you the kind of person that joins the Dungeons and Dragons group or joins the football team or works at a bank or whatever it is. Spend some time thinking about what those qualities are, and then totally lean in and amplify and celebrate and demonstrate all the ways in which you cultivate and amplify that weirdness. Because here's the thing about like, You know, when we talk about trying to create a business, an online business, or leverage online tools to, um, promote a business, we often focus on the fact that it's, it's very confusing, it's very crowded, it's very distracting. And all of those things are true, but the fundamental thing is it's also really isolating. And we are born for each other. We are inherently social creatures. We crave belonging. It's how we define our identity and how we build identity. It's how we become the kind of person that we want to become, is by finding the people like us who do things like this. And so anything that you can do to identify, amplify, and demonstrate those things, it's not an instantaneous thing. Like, people don't— like, you're hosting your first event, it's the kind of event that you want to host, it's with a person that you really like and that you want more people like you to be able to connect with. And the first time, there might not be that many people. You know, Penny has been with me since the very beginning. My first online community was started in January of 2018. And there were— I, I was going to say months, it's actually probably years where a community call might be me and Penny having a conversation. That was— we were a culture of two.

My advantage.

And currently, you know, it's a community of 25 or less. That's all I need, because I can— with a community of 25 people, I can fund and fuel the lifestyle that I want. So oftentimes we're thinking about how can we, um, how can we optimize or maximize or scale a thing to get more, more people, more revenue, more whatever. Where if we actually just spent more time delighting the people that are actually showing up, we would actually succeed much faster. The big thing for me in my life was as a musician, um, you know, getting started, I would often— I, I literally could not be more familiar with the sound of one fan clapping. I have been in that room. I have been that musician on that stage in that room with the sound of one fan clapping for a significant portion of my career. Everything changed for me when I realized that if I put on the best show possible for that one fan, the likelihood that the next show will have two fans increases exponentially. And I have literally had pe— I was in the coffee shop, you know, our local coffee shop, Elizabeth, just yesterday. I don't know if you, you know who the Landers are, but David Lander came up to me. I haven't seen Dr. David Lander in probably 15 years, and he said, I want to tell you a story about how you and I met. And he told me a story about performing in this crappy little festival at a tent with 3 people in it And he said, you told a story that day that has stuck with me. And he relayed the whole story, told me what songs they played. And that, that happened 25 years ago. But that's the power of actually just showing up and letting your, your freak flag fly. Is over time, it, it's a, it's a compounding effect. If you consistently and frequently show up and be who you are and position yourself within your marketplace around your weirdness, your idiosyncrasies, your, um, approach, your attitudes, and all those things, your success is inevitable because everybody is looking for their flavor. Of weird, their flavor of belonging and identity. Is that helpful, Elizabeth?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, definitely. So isn't that— so that just happened to you yesterday. I was gonna say it kind of gave me chills a little bit, and I'm a little bit teary listening to you tell the story about this person that remembered this story and your song list from 25 years ago. I think if somebody said something like that, if I had an experience like that with somebody, I'd probably start crying in the coffee shop. Here's the funniest—

I'll tell you just a little quick add-on. Do you go to Red Rooster for coffee? You know who Riley is behind the counter? So Riley and I are friends, friendly. But you know, she's young. I mean, she's, I don't know, I don't even think she's— she's probably in her mid-20s, if that. Um, so she doesn't know the Scott Perry that was a notorious, you know, musical figure in town, you know, whose picture was in the paper all the time and who, who, who had guitar students whose parents talked about. Like, I'm just some dude, some old guy that shows up and asks her to pour me coffee. And so um, she was wearing a bolo tie, and I thought it was really cool. I was like, oh, that's, that's really cool. I used to wear a bolo tie as part of my ensemble. And she was like, what are you talking about? I was like, well, I was, you know, when I was a musician, I had like this whole, like, you know, wardrobe that was part of my act. And she's like, oh, well, you know, what did you wear? I said, well, I always wore, you know, dressed up in dress slacks, dress shirt, bolo tie, and a fedora. She's like, you didn't wear a fedora. I was like, yeah, no, I mean, you could look it up. And she's She was like, no, no, you'll have to show me. So I got my coffee, went outside and, and, um, you know, was drinking my coffee and I actually opened up my phone and found a couple of pictures of me from back in the day with, you know, dark hair, goatee, my fedora, my whole getup. And, um, when I came back in, that's when I met, had that conversation with David and, um, and I showed Riley the pictures and she was like, oh my God, that's not you. Like, that's got to be your son or your younger brother or whatever. I was like, no, no, that's— and so, and then like David was like, do you know who this is? This is Scott Perry, you back in the day, like, and he was— and so I had like this moment where— and of course Riley was like not having any of it and just kept giving me shit, but it was, you know, it was a really fun moment. Um, Kim, go ahead.

Uh, Yeah, I think you answered most of my questions when you were answering Elizabeth and Allison. So I, yeah, I signed up for the 7-day free trial and I have a lot in my head right now listening to you. So I think what I'm going to do is go away and perhaps email you a few of the questions as they land in me. One thing that I found interesting in the questions that you posed before was the way you phrased it, this is impossible. And I think that this was referring to one small step, you know, that we can work out the small kink in the pipeline. This is impossible unless— and I, for me, it would be helpful to hear an example about what that question comes from.

Um, I'll give an extreme example, and I'm not saying that this is a, uh, that I think this is a wonderful person or that what they're doing is a worthwhile pursuit. But Elon Musk wants to populate Mars. That sounds kind of impossible. I mean, first he has to have rockets and he has to have people that want to go to Mars. But before any of it becomes possible, He has to have batteries that will get him to get people to Mars. And so when he asked himself that question, populating Mars is impossible unless— and the very first unless was unless I can create batteries that will get a rocket ship to Mars. Hey, that became his solvable problem. And then he said, what is the best way I know of to create batteries that will get a rocket ship to Mars? Electric cars. Okay, how do I start an electric car company? Well, it helps if you started PayPal and you're a billionaire, but even still, you know, how do you start at— how do you start an automotive line if you've never run an automotive business. You create the most expensive car you can imagine because every— you know, this speaks a little bit to what Allison was asking— every audience, every market is fractal. There are literally people— everyone in this room operates in a marketplace where there are people that will actually pay you $10,000 a month to get the result that you can get for them, and there are people that will never pay more than $100. $1,000 a month. Every audience is fractal. And he said, there are people that will pay whatever it was, $50,000 for a car I haven't even built yet. And he sold them a car that he hadn't built yet. Then he built the freaking car and he created the capital that allowed him to get started creating batteries for cars. And then he moved, like, you know, like most businesses, he then moved down market. Like, here's an economy model, here's a truck, here's, you know, whatever. But when you're, when you're stating the impo— you know, sailing around the globe is impossible unless I can get to the Far East. And if I end up in North America, so be it. But, you know, there's, there's always a step before the step. And so we— if, if you get stuck focusing on the impossibility, it just leads to being stuck. It just leads to, you know, another dance with your imposter. But if you can think about, like, what's the one thing— like, of course there's a whole bunch of things that have to happen, but if you can define the next thing that would have to happen to get that first step achieved, then you're automatically made progress and you're at the next step. So every, you know, just to, to build on the idea of positioning over power offer, you know, I have been a person that has sold coaching to coaches about coaching. Like I'm a coach, you're a coach, I can coach you about creating a coaching business. It's a relatively simple thing to sell. Didn't give me a lot of satisfaction, didn't get me a ton of, you know, clients that I love spending time with. Penny is one of the notable exceptions. But when I decided that I was really tired of playing the ridiculous power offer game. Is everybody here familiar with Alex Hormozi? If you're not, count yourself among the blessed because just not my favorite. But he has this concept called— what is it called? Ridiculous offers or something like that, or no-brainer, no-brainer offers. Create a no-brainer offer. No-brainer offers is a, is an offer you can't refuse because the promise is so outrageous and guaranteed. And so you see this in the marketplace. You'll earn $10,000 a month guaranteed in 30 days or double your money back. That's an example of a no-brainer. And you see the market moving more and more. It's like the offers are getting more and more ridiculous. Which means they actually just come up with clever ways to not give you your money back. You didn't do all the homework, you know, you didn't have the right mindset, whatever. When I was kind of rebranding my offer around this idea that I can help all sorts of people with all sorts of problems, I actually focused on system reliability or system thinking. How do we, how do we establish the 2 or 3 things that need to happen in order for you to achieve the, the result, which is based on first principles thinking? Like, here are the 3 things that are fundamentally and absolutely time-tested and scientifically vetted to be true. How do we create the system? And then how do I help you develop a discipline and a habit of taking a daily small step into achieving the things that you want to achieve. And so that first principles thinking is a really powerful one because that's what the whole 'this is impossible unless' is built upon, right? It's impossible unless— the first unless is I can figure out the 3 things that have to happen in order for this to be true. And then of those 3 things, what's the first thing that has to happen? And what's the first thing that has to happen in order to establish the possibility that the whole thing can happen? And so you just keep— Penny will be familiar with this— my number 1 coaching question. Okay, cool. What's the step before the step, right? If the step is I need to, I need to create an offer, cool. What's the step before the step? Well, I have to have someone that's willing to buy the offer. Cool. What's the step before the step? Well, I have to have conversations with people so I can figure out what that— like, you just keep backing into— here's the thing that has to be done first, let's go ahead and do it.

Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. This has been great. And I have to take off, but this has been terrific, and I've enjoyed meeting all of you. So take care. And hi, Penny.

Before you go, I just want to say that Kim has a great book that has been helpful to me. It's Your Head, Heart, and Hands Listening in Coaching Practice. And she's Talks about the body and it goes with what we're learning here for sure. Awesome. Thank you so much, Penny. And I also want to say that Elizabeth and Bree have been great helps for me. And Elizabeth did a podcast with me and talk about learning curve. I may have been here a long time, but I'm a slow learner.

We're going to tell ourselves a different story, Penny.

I know. I, I want to share what I'm taking away from today, but I'll— I, I want to— I don't want to hold up Kim.

No, you're— thank you so much. Take care. Great to have you.

Nice to meet you, Kimberly.

Catherine is also heading out. Is there anybody else that has any burning questions before we start to wrap this thing up? Nazli, Bria, we haven't heard from you. Nazli, Nazli, Nazli had more than enough, Scott, yesterday.

I would, I would like to say something. Um, today listening, I guess I had, because I've heard what you said before and I've been through it. And so it, and, and, but something happened in my head today and I started thinking about the offers and the connections that I've been trying to make with fundraisers is to have them be stronger and more effective at raising money and keeping their donors. And it hasn't worked very well. I mean, people like it, and if I'm working with them, they like, they like what I'm, I'm doing and everything. But what I was thinking is, as you were describing validation, and this is where if you can either confirm this is, I'm on the right track or not. Is that the fundraisers themselves, where their greatest pain is coming from, is they're not being recognized. They're being isolated. Their value is only how many dollars they raise. It was really why I started to quit fundraising until I saw— I thought there were opportunities to change it. But as you were describing, Yvonne, Musk. I think I just was starting way too far ahead, and I don't know if I am validating the way they feel in their job now. And I can change that too. I can help that too. And so I don't know. That's just what was— this is what I— it's like amplifying the I think it's like the cost of working in like we do where we're only validated for money and we're not, you know, they don't care about relationships, at least with the fundraiser, all, and we're not included in budget programs. We don't have enough information to talk with donors. That's the pain of the job. How do I— how do— how does that fit in? And then what's—

it's a great question. I'm going to answer in a way that hopefully makes a great way to close out the conversation and wrap things up. The hardest thing in the world for any of us to do is to craft that irresistible enough offer and that eager enough audience and that, that sustainable, viable, minimally effective sales strategy that puts the offer in front of the eye. Because we, we're all in the bottle and we can't read the prescription from inside the bottle. So for all of us, it's really hard to sort all this out on our own, which is why communities like ours and good coaching programs and mentors and, um, even just, you know, fellow travelers that have— that are slightly ahead of where you are so incredibly helpful. The first thing is we have to act. So again, we have to know where we're— where we want to be, and we have to understand where we actually are and, and what we're actually starting with. And that means, what, what am I currently doing? Because until you bring your conscious awareness to where you actually are and what you're actually doing and the results it's actually getting you. Most of us are just repeating what we did yesterday. And the idea that we can repeat something that hasn't been working for years and that somehow a miracle is going to occur and it's going to work today, it's actually insane. But we all do it. Like, we're just creatures of habit. We just keep doing what we do. And often, like, for me, and that, like, someday I'll share the video of the kids showing us the picture of Jasper, you know, from the sonogram. And, you know, the reaction that my wife and I had. And just like, it took that, I mean, it was just this, like, this moment of intense euphoria and insights, like, holy shit, we're gonna be grandparents. This has, like, been the dream. And we're going to finally be those grandparents that actually get to help raise our grandkid. And then it was like, holy shit, there's no fucking way we can do that. We work way too much. And literally, it took that insight, that moment for me to say, I can't— if I just keep doing what I'm doing, there's no way I can get what I want. I had to rethink it. And so the, the, the big lesson is, first, you know, how do I bring my conscious awareness into this situation and see it as it actually is? But then, and here's the much trickier part and why it helps to get help, because if you are not getting the results that you want to get there's only two possibilities. You're either doing the wrong thing, or you're doing the thing wrong. And most of the time, we decide we're just doing the wrong thing, and we quit doing something that's actually— could work, is working enough. We just haven't spent enough time eliminating all the cruft from the system, or, um, tweaking and improving the few things that need to be tweaked and improved to get better results, and we blow it up and we start doing something new, which only increases the inefficiency and the ineffectiveness of the system that we've been working on to that point. So is it possible that you can be doing the wrong thing? Yes. Should you quit things that have no real probability of working? Yes. But before you do that, before you decide that, are you taking a clear-eyed, objective view of the system that you have and, um, and establishing the things that if you stop doing would actually automatically start getting you closer to what you want? And a lot of the times, the things that you need to stop doing have to do with the conversations that we're having inside our own head. It has to do with the relationships that are taking up most of our time, attention, and energy. The number one thing, and the reason why I believe so, you know, why I've stuck with and continue to invest most of my discretionary time into this community, is because the number one factor to anybody's success is the company you keep. And the number one factor in the, in your lack of success is the company you keep. If you could spend less time and invest less attention and energy in the people that are not helping fuel your forward progress and instead spend a little bit more time, attention, and energy with people that can help you get what you want, that is the biggest force multiplier we all have access to. And I'm not saying that you need to, you know, you know, divorce your unsupportive spouse or move into a more supportive neighborhood or ditch all your loser friends that are dragging down your average or any of those things. You get to decide how much of your time, attention, and energy is invested in the people around you, and you can make conscious choices to build guardrails and boundaries around how much of that time, attention, and energy they get to take and where you invest that instead. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's not a direct answer to your question, but if, if the offer that you're trying to validate is not getting validated currently, then how can you test putting the same offer in front of a slightly different audience? How can you take, create a slightly iterated offer and present it to the same audience? You know what, you have to do the little, the take the little steps, little micro steps, little tweaks to create the possibility of validation. And once you have validation, you need to do more of the things are being validated and less of the things that are not. Ultimately, whatever your program looks like, nobody is buying the features and benefits. They are buying the result, and they're buying the way that it makes them feel to purchase and interact with your offer. If you look at my offers and if you look at my, like, my sales pages are— every digital marketer that's ever looked at my sales page says, Scott Perry, it'll never work. You don't have, um, a, uh, you don't have a, a bonus stack. You don't list all the features and benefits. You don't list, uh, you don't have a countdown timer, your buttons aren't the right color, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. My offers work because I tell you exactly what you're going to get, and I not only deliver that, but I overdeliver on that. And that I do one thing and I do it to the very best of my ability. And I get exactly— give it— I, I tell them what's going to happen after they get that. I get them that, and what happens next is what happens. And I don't, don't have to make any outrageous promises or guarantees or any of that kind of thing. I just simply speak clearly, directly, and respectfully to where someone is and where they can be, and tell them exactly what's going to have to happen in order to make that happen. And if they are willing to do that work, then I actually help them make that happen. And that's all I have to do. I don't have to do any bait and switch. I don't have to do any ridiculous set of guarantees and promises or bonuses or any of that thing. That's just more stuff to fulfill that's only going to prevent people from actually making the progress. What are the 2 or 3 things that have to happen for your people to get a better result? And promise them that, deliver on that, and, and you will be able to sell your offer. You'll be able to get people enrolled. I can't tell you exactly what that looks like or sounds like. Because every market's different, every audience is different, every, every offer is different. But it's never been untrue that once you, once you get to the— it's— we were talking about this with Allison— you have to get to the— it's not the objections are never the objections. The objections are a reflection of or a distraction from the false beliefs that drive them. When a woman says, I can't afford yoga class, more often than not what they're saying is, I can't, I can't pay for yoga because it will make me a bad mom, because I should invest all of my time and effort into my kids. So you have to address that underlying false belief and help them see that actually if they invest a little bit of time and money into their own mental and physical health, they'll have more energy and be more present with their kids, and that everybody benefits from their mom being happier and healthier mentally, physically, and spiritually. Because if I spend all my time trying to blast her price objections or her time objections, I'm never going to win because I'm not addressing the core problem. The core problem is she desperately wants to be a good mom and is, is scared out of her mind that she might not be. So what are the things that you're— what, what's the What's the, the false belief underneath the, um, objection? That's what you need to, to find, and that's what you need to address. Is that helpful, Penny?

Yeah, thank you. I mean, it's, it's opening up a, a, a different way. It's bigger. And, um, I think what I said isn't close enough to be the real answer yet, but I think it's on the, I think that, that little pivot that I'm thinking about will probably lead me to where you're talking about.

I would say just as an impression, cuz I don't really have it, you know, even though we've worked together for a long time, I don't really know a lot about the psychology or the dreams and desires of your market. But I mean, I think anybody that gets into nonprofit work, fundraising and so forth, you know, they are driven by a desire to be a force for good in the world. They want to make a difference. They want— they believe in a cause that can make the world a better place. So what's their fundamental fear? That they're a fraud, that it won't work, that they're not good, they're not good enough. And so, like, how do you help them see what's actually impeding their ability to get the results that they want to get and, um, experience the fulfillment and meaning that they want? Because at the very end of the day, all living things work. Work is just exchange of energy. For results. Plants exchange sunlight and minerals and water for buds and fruit and so forth. That's how a plant works. The interesting things about human beings is that our identity is built into the work that we do. And so how can you help them fulfill the identity that they're actually doing that work for in the first place? Because, because your thing has so much to do with doing that kind of work in a very different way, you have to get them to buy in on that That, that enrollment piece for you is really important because they have to be, they have to be enrolled in the journey because it is actually going to be a journey because there's not going to be a quick, they're not going to get an instant result. They're not going to instantly fund a campaign just because they decide they're going to focus on the mission.

Totally. I mean, that's what I'm, I've sort of like known that, but not, not lived with it in reality.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, gang, I hope that you all have a fantabulous weekend. Um, Allison— and I wish I had said this when Kim was here— if you click on, um, that set of links with, um, the, uh, Get Clients Now and the Be a Blessing marketing, you should have access to all the replays. And even if you're only going to stick around for 7 days, I'd encourage you to look at that content because it it actually is the rest of the puzzle pieces that this is only laying the foundation, um, to build upon. So take a look at all that, and I hope, uh, yeah, we'll see, we'll see you all on Monday, I hope. And, uh, I hope you all have a fantabulous weekend. Thank you.

You too. Thank you.

Thank you.