Episode 037 - The faster you move, the more the money grooves

Like when a client comes to me with a problem or one of my children comes to me with a problem, or I have my own problem in life or in business, I try and look at it and go, okay, well, if it's something really bad, it's what's the, what's the lesson that I can learn from this? Like something really bad happened. What's the lesson that I can learn from it? And then it's about looking at what's the solution to this.

Welcome to this episode of the Content Amplification Podcast. This week we're going to the UK and joining us on the show is Alan Miles. Alan, thank you so much for joining us today.

Pleasure to be here.

So Alan, I mean, when you submitted your information to us, you used the term— I love this term, I hear it all the time— serial entrepreneur. Tell us your entrepreneurial journey.

Yeah. So it started at quite a young age. I think I, I just grew up in one of those environments where money and like trading things for something else was always part of, just part of me. So we ran a family business and I think that instilled it into me at quite a young age. I left school very young in the UK. Do GCSEs at 16, which is high school, and then a lot of people go on to college. I left school at 16 to immediately just go and earn money, built a career quite quickly in the corporate world, and then decided at the age of— I think it was around my early 20s— to go off on my own and open my first business, which was a recruitment agency servicing engineers. And that went well. I definitely learned a lot of lessons through that. So that ran until the back end of the financial crisis in 2008, and I decided— we actually made it through that crisis, and I decided, you know what, I think I want to go and learn some more skills in a workplace. So I went and got another job, learned the skills that I wanted, left again, opened another business. That one went well. That one grew to 7 figures in its first year, which was great. That was a partnership in recruitment again, and I sold that a couple of years ago. So family is incredibly important to me. I'm a husband, I've got 5 children, and my business had kind of grown to a point where it consumed me. I was never at home, I was always working. So I stepped away and thought I'd get involved in the online space. Launched my first fully online business in 2019, which was an online high-ticket fitness business that grew to 6 figures in about 3 to 4 months, which was nice. But I still felt there was something missing. I always enjoyed the real business side of things, and I think that corporate part of me never really left. So as much as I really enjoyed coaching people through their health and wellness and still do that to this day. I decided to do some business coaching and as well as that, some done-for-you stuff as well. So we have an agency element to what we do around lead gen and sales closing, and that just exploded. So that was a very, very fortunate timing as the pandemic hit. We started literally 2 months before the pandemic really hit, exploded to 7 figures in the space of the year. So it is something that we're in the works of launching another business. We just love launching businesses and it's that launch cycle that then going through that stabilization period where you systemize everything before you then really hit the button to make something go nuclear and really explode in growth. It's just something that I absolutely love.

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned about, you know, the launch and you say, you know, to 6 figures to 7 figures businesses. And a lot of people listening to this podcast, you know, we hear that term a lot and, you know, growing it to this financial number. What would you say is really the successful factors you need to consider when trying to launch a business? You know, you may have been an entrepreneur, you know, all your life and now you're like, okay, I want to build this other business and I want to launch it. What would be those key factors to consider to be successful in that?

I think one of the most important things is speed. I think speed of action, speed of execution. Just this. Everyone has this thing wired inside of them of a reason to not do it. And I have to plan a bit more and I have to do this a bit more and it's not the right time. It's never going to be the right time. You don't need to do any more planning. You just need to go and do it. And I think that was probably One of the things that I really had cemented in me from one of my mentors who I learned quite a lot from, and it was that speed, the speed that you can take an idea and monetize it will truly determine how successful it is. And I think that's something that because you just bypass that system in your body, don't you? You bypass— I mean, unless you're planning on opening a business to be a neurosurgeon, in which case probably you want to plan a bit more and go do some studying.. But if it's a true entrepreneurial service, a coaching service, an agency, a product-based business, anything that just requires you to go and do, then I think the quicker you can go and do it, the quicker you can see, is it working? What do I need to change? And it's a case of if you look at— and I love looking at people who have gone from nothing to having something substantial. And if you look at all of them pretty consistently, they make rapid decisions and then they take a very long time to make adjustments. So they'll continually make millions of micro adjustments until everything is really on point. They don't take a long time to launch and they fully commit. Look at Elon Musk as an example. He sells his first company and then he doesn't go, well, I'll keep two-thirds of the money. He just goes, I'll invest all of it. I'm going to invest all of it into building an electric car and putting rockets on Mars, which just sounds crazy, but it works for him. So I think that's the thing. Speed would absolutely be the number one thing. And just being almost like I was watching a film the other day and it was Need for Speed, a few years old, from the early 2000s. And in the film they say something because the woman's driving the car. They said, you need to go against your instincts. You're going to feel like you want to go the other way, but lean into it. And I think that's really relevant when you're launching a business because it does feel like you're like taking a car around a corner at 130 miles an hour. You feel like you want to press the brakes, but you just need to lean into that fear because the quicker you lean into that fear, like that fear is your conscious mind holding you back, trying to keep things the same, trying to keep you safe because that's what our brains are there for. There's no saber-toothed tiger there, so just lean into it because something amazing always happens. It's always a learning experience. If you don't necessarily get your end result, there's always a learning experience to take you to that very next level, I think.

Yeah, definitely. Risk is definitely one of the biggest things that comes up with the business owners, for sure. That fear of risk. I am interested to hear why you decided to focus specifically on coaching businesses that are in the fitness industry and kind of why that, that kind of niche market you feel you have to provide such a specific marketing service.

Yeah. So initially it was something that I felt that I could get good traction in because I had just built a fitness business online. So I felt it was a niche that would serve me well. But when you actually— when I actually started coaching in, in the industry, it was something— I started speaking to other fitness coaches— there was something that was really apparent, that there was a really big gap in the market for not somebody who has a shiny object, not somebody who's only pushing Facebook ads, um, or some fancy marketing strategy, but somebody who's just teaching core business principles and really showing people how to take that idea of I have a concept, I want to take my skill set that I have that I've built in a gym, and I now want to leverage that with high ticket coaching, and I want to show people how to monetize that. So it was really about understanding that I think it was an industry that still does need a lot of care, because if you look at the coaches, they have fantastic knowledge. They spend thousands and thousands of dollars and pounds learning the skill set to train people properly.. But yet when we go to see a personal trainer, most people are like, how cheap can you do this for? Well, I could get the information for free from Google, so will you do it for $30 an hour? So they have their own problems around charging their worth. So it's an industry that for me, I went through a really big weight loss transformation myself about 10 years ago. I lost over 100 pounds in weight and that transformed my life. I look like a different human being, but it opened a whole new world to me. So it's an industry that's very, very close to my heart from that aspect. And to see people who were previously charging $50 an hour be able to go out and earn $20,000 in 30 days and have more time on their hands, like, that to me is why the fitness industry is an industry I've really focused on serving with helping people to really get those breakthroughs.

Yeah, this is very interesting because, you know, when people look at, you know, they're still stuck on that idea of, you know, charging per hour and you see these coaching programs, you know, not just in the fitness industry, but even in business or any other areas where you see a lot more of this, you know, $20,000 over, you know, in set period of time. Do you think that's really the, in your opinion, like, where the ability to grow and scale to those 6, 7 figures is in taking that and getting away from that hourly rate?

Yeah, I think it's about providing a solution, isn't it? If you can provide a solution to a complex or a sophisticated problem and you can do it in a way that gives somebody some certainty and you can do it in a timely way, then I think that opens a whole new door. And another mentor of mine, he always uses a lawn mowing analogy. And if you say to somebody, I'm going to go mow your lawn, or I can mow your lawn, well, how much can you charge for that? Not really very much. Like $30, maybe. I don't even think you can charge that in the UK. If someone wanted to come and mow my lawn, I'd probably pay them like £10. Whereas if you offered them a whole service around taking care of the lawn, manicuring it, as well as the hedges and the flower beds and removing any weeds. Well, now all of a sudden you're providing a service that is going to cost a lot more. It's going to be on a longer-term basis. So it's just about finding those real pain points in your set area. And I think being able to resolve those solutions. But I think the other part of the equation is that you can't just stand still. Because COVID was a prime example. The fitness industry moved forward at light speed through the whole COVID pandemic. And I was obviously doing online fitness coaching before the pandemic hit. And you'd be able to use a tagline like eat your favorite foods without sabotaging your results. Something like that would work really well. It was a fairly unique mechanism, but then the pandemic hit. So naturally, every single gym on planet Earth shut. Every trainer moved online and went, how do I earn money? What do I do? I know, I'll go look at the people who are doing online coaching well and I'll copy them because that's a standard process. It's a great way to get going. But when you have millions of people, all of a sudden everyone's saying, eat your favourite foods, lose weight without sabotaging your results. It's now no longer a unique mechanism. So the marketplace moved forward. So when I look back through marketing and you see the industries go through change, don't they? Like the tobacco industry, it used to be a case of smoke because it's cool. Well, it's not cool to smoke. And if someone said that nowadays, they would come under a lot of scrutiny. So the marketplace continued to evolve until they reinvented themselves eventually by using, like, sexy pictures and stuff to make it appealing and put them on fast cars like Formula One cars and stuff. But it's the same with the fitness industry. It's now going through an evolution of we need a more, we need a new pitch, we need a new angle to come from, we need to take it deeper because people understand around healthy food, they understand how to train in a gym or at home. Now it's about looking at the deeper level and the more sophisticated problem. So a hormone-related problem or something like that. Do you know what I mean? It's about finding that new mechanism. And that's the thing that I think really provides long-term growth. For people is when they see the new opportunities and they can stay ahead of the curve. Yeah, for sure.

Um, in your bio, you had written that there's always a way to accomplish a goal as long as you incorporate lateral thinking. So I'd like you to elaborate on that kind of philosophy and business and how you can kind of turn that into a, a piece of advice for, for the listeners.

Yeah.

So I think something like that, it's a case of problems come up every day, and I think you speak to some people and a problem, it sits there as a burden. But really, if you flip it on its head and you see every problem as an opportunity, like when a client comes to me with a problem, or one of my children comes to me with a problem, or I have my own problem in life or in business, I try and look at it and go, okay, well, If it's something really bad, it's what's the lesson that I can learn from this? Like, if something really bad's happened, what's the lesson that I can learn from it? And then it's about looking at what's the solution to this? Because there is always a solution. It's a case of there's always something that can be taken from it, a lesson that can be learned, a process that can be adjusted. Something new comes out of it. And I learned this myself at a— I was in my mid-20s and I lost my mum. So I grew up just with my mum. My dad passed away at a very young age., and my worst fear was losing my mum. But from that situation came fantastic opportunity for me to build better relationships with other people in my family, which in turn led to advancements in other areas. And I think it's really about having that lateral thinking to instead of just look at that problem and go, how do I fix it? Or it can't be fixed. It's about looking at, okay, well, what else either side of this problem exists? What can I take from this? How else could I dissect it? What could be a win from this situation? And if we apply it directly to business, I think a good example of this would be when a client comes to you and says, okay, I don't need your services anymore. Well, that for a lot of people would be a big problem because you're about to lose a customer. And it's about looking at the situation and understanding why. Why do you think that you don't need me to coach you anymore? Oh, well, I've learned everything I need to learn. Okay, well, what is it that you want to learn next? Well, they're going to let you know what they want to learn next. There's a new opportunity. Is that something that you can help with directly? Could that be a new product offering for you? Is it a product offering that already exists? And if neither of those things are true and you can't either create it or you don't have it, do you know anyone that does? In which case, you could align an introduction potentially then look at an affiliate connection there so that although your revenue stream is adjusted, you're still getting something from that situation. Just about looking at it in a slightly different way and going, okay, well, what's the positive? What can I take from this here? How can I move it forward?

Does that make sense? Yeah, great advice. Yeah, absolutely. So, Alan, I mean, you talk about these new opportunities and changes and COVID being obviously a prime example with the fitness industry. I'd love to know or hear from you to share with our listeners, you know, from a promotional sense or an advertising or a marketing sense, what has been working for you and your business to obtain new clients and reach them? I know a lot of businesses have been struggling with, you know, the changes to Facebook and, you know, they really had all their eggs in that basket.

Are there any unique approaches that you've been taking that have been working really well? Yeah, so I'm at— I'm really anti-Facebook ads. I do not like Facebook ads. I had some bad experience with it early on and I made a vow to myself that I really wanted to maximise and master organic in as many different forms as possible. So all of our growth has been organic and I think that surprises a lot of people because a lot of people think, well, organic marketing is only good to validate an offer. I can make 1 or 2 sales from it posting on my feed or engaging with people and connecting with people. It's not something that's sustainable, but to build a 7-figure business based off of it To me, the key is doing the things that other people don't like doing. So it's about talking, it's about having conversations, it's about being able to scale those conversations and have conversations en masse. And it's about taking, I think, taking principles that work soundly in offline business when you're growing it. So knocking on doors, making phone calls, having conversations with people, getting in front of as many people as you can. That's what really has made the big difference for us. So this has been through— there's no physical doors you can knock on, so it's about being able to engage with people on their profiles, not pitching people in the DMs. Nobody likes that. Like, don't, don't walk into someone's DM with a pitch because no one wants it. But it's about building a conversation, adding value, showing up to every situation with one clear goal: how can I leave this person in a better place than I found them, because for the most part it's interruption-based marketing. They didn't necessarily ask to start a conversation with you. But if you come to it with a good heart and you come to the conversation to want to add value, and you can see something you can help with, well then it's about gently persuading that conversation and guiding the conversation in a certain way. Our approach is to get people onto a call as soon as possible. I know if I can speak to somebody on a phone call, I can add 10 times the value that I can add typing to them on a messenger. But then it's also about the collaborations. Who are the pillars in that community who have access to wide pools of people and who have trust? If I can build a relationship with that person based on my being able to add value to people and we align from an ethos standpoint, I want to collaborate with people so that I can get on more and more stages in front of my ideal client. That really is the key to it. iOS 14 has not caused me any problems, whereas everyone who's doing any kind of Facebook advertising at the moment, they're really struggling. So I think it's about being able to diversify and really trying to, um, maximize those pipelines and really being able to, like I say, do the things that other people don't want to do. So a lot of follow-up. Follow-up is king. Sales is not a linear process. It's not a straight line of find a lead, sell them, end of story. It's a circle. I think it's something like 80% of people, um, won't even close for a minimum of 3 to 6 months anyway. And you need to get above that 8th contact point before most people will engage with you. So it's about having a really solid long-term follow-up process. Absolutely.

What are some of the, the tools that you use for your, your follow-up or your, your marketing?

Yeah. So from a software standpoint, we use Salesforce. So we had a system built on Salesforce, but up until integrating Salesforce, I'm old school. Like, I'll use ActiveCampaign and a spreadsheet. I'm good. It's really about being able— on my phone calendar. It's really about having just anything. You don't need to have complex systems. There's points that— I mean, I love my system., but there are points where I'm like, a spreadsheet would just be loads easier. Um, and it's about having just a really simple process that allows you to be able to track what you're doing, keep yourself accountable, um, and be able to have a complete view over overview of the process. So I think if someone's only just starting out, literally having a basic spreadsheet or a pad You just need to write everything down. I think that's the important thing. Once you are going through that launch process, I always liken it to being a dog digging a hole. It's messy. Just throw the mud everywhere. It doesn't matter. Just take action, move forward, just track what you're doing. So when somebody comes to me and says, I'm not getting any sales, how many conversations did you have today? I don't know. Well, then we can't help if we don't know how many conversations we had. How can we possibly work anything out? Like mathematically ratio-wise to know if what we're doing is working. So tracking is important, but it doesn't need to be complex. You don't need a fancy CRM. But then as you move to that next stage, it's about systemising it. So at that point, having everything documented is really important. Again, you don't need fancy systems. A simple Word document is perfectly fine to be able to build your playbook to be able to run your business. I think SOPs are really important in the stabilization phase because you can document everything that works. Absolutely.

Right. I mean, if you can't track it, you can't improve it, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. There's a saying, if you don't document it, it didn't exist. It doesn't happen. So it's what we always used to say in recruitment with any of our consultants. If they didn't update the CRM, it didn't happen. I made 50 calls today. Well, the system says you made 15, so you made 15 calls today. 35 calls short, like, pick up the phone.

And my last question to kind of wrap things up is, is there a piece of advice that you can give or offer pretty much every client you have, no matter what situation or industry specific? Just kind of a general piece of advice that you can offer every client.

Yeah, it's a bit of a vague piece of advice, but it's something that I think I've really come to appreciate. You have to find joy in what you're doing. If you do not love the process, don't do it. That's the thing. I mean, there's going to be days where you obviously don't necessarily— you're not like, oh, wow, I can't wait to do credit control today or whatever. But you need to enjoy the process. You have to find joy. And I think that's the key thing, not looking for happiness, but looking for joy. And because happiness is cause and effect, isn't it? Happiness— I'll be happy when I hit that first $10K month. Well, if you just find joy in the process, all of a sudden that $10K month comes along and you're like, oh wow, I hit my $10K month, that's great. We all need money to live. Money isn't the key to happiness though. Having joy in those key moments is really, really important. And I think The key to having joy is being able to be clear on your priorities in life, what's important to you. And there is no right or wrong answer to that. So for some people, family comes first. For other people, business comes first because they feel they can provide for a family or they don't have their family yet. It's about understanding and being able to look in the mirror and go, these are my priorities to me, and I'm okay with that. And I'm going to do everything I can to find joy in this process, that would be the number one thing. Because if you look at anyone who truly is successful over the long term, they all love what they do. And that is the key thing. There's that joy, isn't there?

Because it's that passion.

Absolutely.

Well, Alan, I mean, these 25 minutes have been packed full of nuggets of wisdom. I think anyone who's listened to this episode will find that in the value and they want to find you online. Facebook, you're on there at Alan Miles. Instagram, Alan Miles Coaching. And your website, Alan Miles.

Very well branded, very consistent. Ah, double L-A-N. Everyone spells the name wrong.

A-L-L-A-N. All right, and we'll post that with the, with the show notes.

Thank you so much for your time today. No worries, I've really enjoyed it.

Cheers, guys.