How To Build A Business in 2025

I thought scale was about growing faster and growing bigger. Hire more team, throw more in ads, do more, do more, do more, do more. But in reality, what I found was that as we scale and as we made more money, it actually cost us more money to make that money. Right. And what I found was that we grew this big team, but it was just more overhead, more expense, more people to manage, leader to lead, and they having more people to manage and people just kind of getting lost in the sauce. So it's like, okay, what do I really want? And what's the most simplest, straightforward, lean way to actually go about doing this?

Guys, welcome the one and only Markel Russell. Dude, what's going on, man?

I am well, man. I am very, very well. How's it, how are you doing?

Good, man. Just look, I'm excited to talk to you. You know, a lot of entrepreneurs start out well intentioned and you know, some of them start out, I think like you and I did a little bit in that I started as an entrepreneur a bit out of necessity. Like I grew up in a very difficult environment, you know, and, and dropped out of high school to pay the bill, help my family pay the bills for a while and literally been on my own since I was 17. And I know that's been part of your story. And kind of before we get into how, how you've built a very sizable company and been a very successful entrepreneur, I want the audience to have a little appreciation of kind of your backstory, where you come from and kind of how you found your way to entrepreneurship.

Yeah, so I, I, so I feel like I didn't call it entrepreneurship, but I always kind of been an entrepreneur. I was the guy when was living in like apartment complexes, I was knocking on your door, asking, can I take your trash out? And then we moved to like communities who were like neighborhoods and lawns. I was knocking on your door, hey, can I cut your grass? I mean, it was interesting because I didn't have a lawnmower, but I would adnock and like, hey, can I cut your grass? And I would use their lawnmower to cut the grass. Right? So yeah. And then fast forward when I got into like middle school and the high school, I. Some people play sport, I played sports also. And people were just known for different things. And I was the guy who had the weed. So I was like selling weed at school and so forth. People who smoke weed and they couldn't like go to certain areas to get it. I could go in those areas and I get it. And then Bring it in and sell it. And then I actually at school, it sounds like you did as well. I dropped out in 10th grade, so I have a 9th grade education. And I just went full time in the streets because the only people I knew who made money back then were drug dealers. And I always want to be a millionaire, but I didn't see how algebra 2 and all that different type of stuff was going to get me there. So that took me down a slippery slope, obviously, which leads to jail time and meeting my first son when I was in jail when I was 19, which actually led me. I got out, wants to do the job thing, didn't really work out, went back into the streets and. But I started a record label while I was doing. I always had a passion for music. I knew people who rapped, I knew people who did beats. I brought them together, started a label which led me in the club all the time. So I did club promotions here in Atlanta. And that led me into network marketing. I'm in the club one night, I get pitched on the network marketing opportunity. I get invited to a home party, see the presentation, I join, and that introduces me to personal development. I didn't make much money in network marketing, but it introduced me to the personal development world and that stuff completely changed the game for me. Then of course, that led me to direct response marketing. Learning marketing, learning how to generate leads, learning how to get clients. Starting a company called Client Attraction University where we helped our clients do, you know, probably a little over a billion dollars in revenue easily. That company became an Inc. 5000 company. And then through that process, I figured out that just getting clients is just a small part of really growing and scaling the company. Yeah, because when we was helping individuals grow, their business would implode, essentially because they didn't have infrastructure, they didn't have team, they didn't have systems. So we created a company called Strategic Scale Institute, which is solely around helping business owners scale while to seven figures and beyond while actually taking more days off. Because a lot of times we can get caught up in growing and scaling, but the things that are important to us, like our families, like our spouses, like our. Our health, things that nature take a backseat because we're so obsessed with the grind. So it's like, how do we scale predictably and consistently by doing less while actually taking more days off for vacations and so forth. So that's what we up to now.

Dude, that's awesome. Yeah, I was just thinking, you know, my journey's been kind of similar, you know, I, I built. When I started my first company, I was homeless. My audience knows this. Built it to, you know, just under nine figures, exited last year. And thank you very much. The, the tricky thing that I've realized is there were two things that I had to go back and rebuild. Okay. So I didn't start off with the knowledge of I needed to build it as I went or, or even trying to plan ahead three, five, ten years. Like, so now I. Now when I go to a scale, a company, I'll think, okay, what am I going to need five years from now? I'm going to use that as a metric to start working backwards. And about every three to five years, I read it reiterate the kind of same kind of concept. And one of the things that dawned on me is I didn't focus on building myself, right? So I didn't focus on literally making myself more of a master at my trade, more of a master of my emotions, more of a master of my relationship, how I handled money specifically. I know early on when I was first started making money, after getting myself out of debt and all that kind of stuff, I felt the need to go out and buy some stuff, show people that I was, quote, successful. And then, you know, as time goes on, I was like, this is stupid. Like, the same hundred grand I spent here, I could have invested over here and made another hundred or two hundred or ten or whatever. What's been your experience or what's been most helpful with, with your business and helping you compound your efforts to get bigger returns?

So I think I. All those similar experiences, right. And it's, it's very interesting that as I was growing, a lot of these lessons I would hear about through just like books and so forth. But what I've learned is that a lot of lessons you can't learn without just actually going through it. Right?

Yeah.

I think one of the things that helped me just compound my efforts is really getting clear on like, what it is that I actually want and not moving based on somebody else's scoreboard. Right? Because a lot of times I get. You get caught up in like your revenue goals is based on somebody else's scorecard or your, your house size, the cars you want, kind of get caught up in a lot of that type of stuff. So I think number one is getting crystal clear on like, what it is that I legit want outside of the social media. So fear. Right. And getting in alignment with that. And then prior for me, I'm in a place in my life where I've Just been prioritizing slowness, snow slowness, which is crazy for me because I'm a guy that's addicted to faster, bigger.

That's called entrepreneurship.

Yeah, it's like, it's like, oh, man, we had two people at this event. Next event, we need 400. We made 500 grand last month. Next month we need to make a million. Like, it's all that different type of stuff, but it's like all. What is it all for? Like, is this just to feed my ego or is this really in alignment what I'm doing this stuff for? So really just kind of moving based on different things and being in alignment with what it is. I actually, you know, one that's interesting.

You know, I was thinking, just kind of thinking back, you know, I did this keynote not long ago at a business conference. And you know, there's, they tell you the top five reasons business fail or, you know, lack of marketing, lack of capital, poor leadership, lack of a plan. You know, so they give you all these reasons. And when I go back and look at my entrepreneurial journey, right, I'm having to overcome myself numerous times. And I'm one of those guys that made enough mistakes with, with big zeros I'm going to make myself. We call it, I call it stupid with zeros or stupid tax. And I, I kind of felt like it's. Entrepreneurship in general is actually much simpler, right? I feel like what separates or prevents entrepreneurs from being successful is everything from arrogance to impatience to ignorance, right? You don't know what you don't know because you don't have the right mentorship. You're not, you're not enrolling in programs like yourself to get taught and get education on how to scale and grow. You're, you're, you're somehow thinking to your point, you're operating by other people's scorecards. So you're, there's, there's this, there's this element, I think, of entrepreneurship that is more internal than external. And if you can figure out the internal side, you can, you can actually do a lot more on the external side. You know, how does that shape, I mean, how have you changed as a business owner over like the last five years? What are some unique, maybe assumptions that you used to have versus assumptions you have now?

One thing for me is at one point I thought scale was about growing faster and growing bigger, right? So it was hiring, hiring more. If we want to grow, hire more team, throw more in ads, do more, do more, do more, do more. But in reality, what I found Was that as we scale and as we made more money, it actually cost us more money to make that money.

Yeah.

So it was diminishing returns. Right. So it was like, huh, top line revenue is exciting, right?

Yeah.

So, you know, but in reality, top line revenue can be a vanity, vanity metric. Metric is something.

Right.

So. So that's what. That was one of my assumptions. If we grow top line, top line is going to automatically grow profit. And that's true. Right. Also, if we just record breaking month, month after month after month after month, that was like the obsession and the focus.

Right.

And it was just like, hey, if we just do more linear activity, that will actually lead to that. Right. And what I found was that we grew this big team, but it was just more overhead, more expense, more people to manage, leaders to lead, and they having more people to manage and people just kind of getting lost in the sauce.

Yeah.

In that same time, it's costing more and more and more money and it's costing more and more time and this freedom that I actually signed up for, actually less and less of a reality. And it was pulling me away from the things that mattered most, which was being like a present father. Not just present in the house, but like emotionally present, you know, to my kids. So it's like, okay, what do I really want? And what's the most simplest, straightforward lean way to actually go about doing this?

Yeah, dude. It's just funny. My oldest son, my audience has heard me say this before, but it just, you just reminded me of it. My oldest son asked me one time, he said, what's the. He goes, if there's one thing you could prove upon. You're. You're. You're an awesome dad, you've been an awesome husband. Like, you've done all the things, you know, you, you show up basically. And he said, but there's one thing that you could work on. And of course my ears perked up. I'm like, okay. He's like, if you could just work on being more present when you're present.

Wow.

Bro.

Wow.

I had that. That one comment has changed the trajectory of my last three years.

Wow.

Seriously. I mean, I, you know, with this, with a new family kind of that I'm helping raise now, it's like super intentional with the kids. Super intentional with my kids from prior. Like, super intentional. Yeah, like, because, you know, I. My good friend Anthony Trucks told me one time, he goes, like, he goes, look, when I go on the road, I'm fully present. I show up on stage, but when I come off the road, I'm, I'm, I don't take business calls like, I'm on family, I'm on the family time. And I think that is so profound because I think to your point, us as entrepreneurs, we always think we should be further faster. In fact, I haven't met a single entrepreneur yet, especially early stage, doesn't think they should be further along than they already are.

I agree.

Right. And the reality is, is they're, they are where they are because that's who they are at the moment. Right. You're, that's where your leadership style is. And you know, it's funny, I had an electrician come here to the house. I'm putting a, a new virtual studio that we used to have in a live event facility downstairs in the basement of the house so I could go ahead and launch our program and stuff. And so electrician comes over and he's, for some reason, he just opens up. I don't know if he googled my name or whatever, but he opens up about his business and he goes, man, I, I want to let you know something. I said, what's that? He goes, know a year and a half ago, I was running a team of 20 and my net income was blank. Right. We'll call it $2 million. Okay. He goes, I completely, I completely stopped, did what I did, which is go back and fix broken systems and processes, figure out what needs to. Where the machine needs to stand on. Right. And basically, and because I'm running a team of five now, he said, but these are high quality five. He goes, I made more money. He made two. We'll call it 2.5. Right. Running five people than he did with 12 people because of the Vanny Metric you just talked about. Yep. So if you're an entrepreneur right now and you're saying, holy crap, I've been chasing the wrong, My ladder's against the wrong wall. Possibly. How do I evaluate to figure out, okay, am I actually on course? Because I've, man, I paid some attention to systems. I've got an erp, I've got a CRM, I've got, you know, I've got all these different systems. How do I know if my ladder's against the wrong wall? How do I know if I'm, if I'm on track or if I'm on track just to have, you know, essentially margin bleed.

Yep. I love it. It's. You know what's interesting? I, I've never, I've heard the, the ladder against the wrong building concept. And it Relates to corporate America, Right? I've never heard that analogy in the entrepreneurial world. Like, you could literally be climbing the wrong ladder, leaning against the mountain in the entrepreneurial world, which is very, very fascinating. So, so let me go back to the question, though. So the question was, how do you know if you're, if your ladder is a right, right building? Right? So I think, so I think one thing is this, right? So I had, I had a, we had these things called the CEO camps with our clients, right? So one of the things we talked about was, why are your revenue goals your revenue goals? So this is a question I asked myself these last few couple years, right? And I was like, man, a lot of times my revenue goals are just based on stuff that I'm hearing, and it's just giving me stuff to go at. And you hear a lot like 10x, 10x 10x. You know, go bigger goals, think bigger, blah, blah, blah. And all this, I think all that has all that. It makes sense in some areas, right? But I was like, okay, have you ever, ever sat down and like, crunched the numbers and realize, okay, how much do you actually have to take home to fund the life that you want? Right? And then in relation to that.

Now.

You can create your revenue goal for your business. You're like, okay, my business has to make this with this particular profit margin for me to take this home as an owner. What I'm finding more and more and more is that a lot of entrepreneurs haven't ran those numbers. Yeah, they're just picking some arbitrary goal. And now they're chasing this arbitrary goal, climbing this arbitrary ladder against an arbitrary building. And then once they get there, it's like, man, I've hit this goal, but at what cost?

Yeah.

And it was really just meaningless. So we really got to figure out our scorecard. So I'll give you, like, a personal example. So a guy is flying me out to Dallas to do his show, and he was like, bringing my videographer with me. And he was like, okay, is there a specific hotel? And stuff like that? And I was like, to be honest with you, man, based on my scoreboard, the amount of times I wake up in the morning and wake my kids up and get them ready for school and do our morning routine, I, I, I'm tracking out on my scoreboard. And in the evening, the amount of times I'm home, when they get home, that's on my scoreboard. So I'm like, hey, if I can get out there after they leave for school, we do our thing. And then I'm back before they go to bed. That's a win for me. So. And that'll also save you some money on paying for hotels, right? I think it, to answer your question, I think it boils down to us sitting down and getting clear on like what is the things that we want because we want those things and not because social media or society is telling us that those are the things that we should want or these should be the trinkets of success that we should have just because we're doing xyz.

Yeah man, it's so good. It also makes me think about synergies. Right. So you've, you've clearly identified your highest priorities, right. And you know it's funny, when I went to go buy my first major, I've been buying real estate off and on at different times for a while. But my first major piece of real estate probably six or seven years ago, it's the live event facility that I'm, I have in Raleigh that we did book launches and all kinds of stuff for. And what's interesting about that is when I went to go formally try to buy the building before I even made an offer, I went and sat my kids down at the time and I said hey, this is the biggest thing I've ever tried to purchase. Here's what it looks like if everything's perfect which was look amazing on paper. Here's what it looks like if everything goes to crap. Like because it was at the time it was the biggest thing that I was, I'd ever tried to acquire is a multi million dollar property I was putting out. I was thinking I was putting down like 25 or 30% or something like that and I was going to obviously finance the rest of a balloon payment. Five years anyway. I sell that to say that one of the things that I've found is especially as an entrepreneur, if you have moments where you can bring the family dynamic into the couple of decisions and it shows them that you're being strategic about what you're doing. It seems to have buy in. So let's say there is a time of leverage where look, I'm not going to be home as much for the next three months, right? Or whatever that that time frame is. Having that open discussion with the family seems to allow them to understand, hey dad or mom is going to be on, is going to be in and out for the next three months. We know that, we know what the vision is. We now know what's how it blesses our family. It seems like that There's a lot more grace and mercy giving during that, that time frame. Now, by all means, if you put a time frame out there, you got to show up and show out like, like, you. You've got to do your part, Right? The reason I say that is because the way you, You. The way you and I prioritize our families over, in some cases, profit, but not really. Like, we know we need to ex, you know, a certain amount of profit to then perform and show up and have this, this what I call rot, return on time. Right. So you, You're. You just make great, great example. Have a fly in, fly out.

Yeah.

And while I'm with you, I'm. I'm with you, dog. Like, we're going to have a great time. Right. The reason I say that is because I'm curious to know from your perspective.

Do you use a certain fundamental, a certain principle to govern how you get buy in from your family and you get buy in from your team as you're now casting a vision to build a. A larger and larger empire, so to speak?

Yeah. So one of the things, a principle that I learned is.

Like, people support what they help build, right? So versus me just being like a dictator and saying, all right, this is what we're going to do, this is how we're going to do it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I'm typically like, I'm asking more questions versus making more statements, right? Yeah. To get what, what don't I see? What's your thoughts on this? Here's what I'm thinking. This is what we're looking at. What's your thoughts on this? And kind of doing that type of thing. So it's just a simple thing that we do. So one of the things we do every year is we do Christmas in a different country, Right. Just to kind of. Just different things. Right. So it's me saying, hey, here's where I want to go, or here's where we're going to go. Next time I'm asking like, hey, what do y' all think about? What did y'. All. What thoughts y' all got for Christmas? Um, you know, my wife is. She's gonna. The kids start.

She's on a different level.

She's gonna be the one that'd be like, no, we ain't doing that. So the final.

She's gonna be.

She's the CEO, right? Yeah. So she's. The final decision is gonna be there. But. But giving them the opportunities to make those decisions and giving them opportunities even with the team, from a business standpoint, it's like, here's what I'm thinking. What are y' all thoughts? What, what am I missing? I want to get some feedback on that. Those. And one thing that I started doing as well recently, we do an NPS for our clients and that promoter score also start doing a, a CEO nps so I can start getting like genuine candid feedback from the team just to kind of see what blind spots. Because sometimes people won't give you feedback as a CEO because of, like, them, the fear of being fired and stuff like that. So I got to come up with interesting ways to get candid feedback. Just kind of see my blind spots and how I can improve as well. And just showing them that, hey, I want to grow, I want to be a better leader to you as a CEO or I want to be a leader, better leader to my kids or my wife as well.

It's so interesting you mentioned that because I, I did a, I've done lots of different trainings over the last 25, 30 years. You know, different seminars, different immersion trainings, different business coaching, all kinds of stuff. And there's, I think there's two things I want to kind of mention here. The first, first of which was one of my biggest takeaways was a CEO coming, coming in and doing some, some training with us who had built a large organization that was bought in. Like, they had a lot of momentum, tremendous amount of momentum. And when we asked him, he said, hey, you know, what was the, what was the pivot point? He goes, the pivot point was when I had the courage to go sit down with my senior leadership team and ask them one question. I'm like, okay, what's that? He goes, how am I failing you as a leader?

And then he goes, and the harder part was to just shut up and listen.

You know. And so when you were talking about getting buy in and using these unique ways to get anonymous feedback, those are very powerful tools too. Yeah. See the blind spot. Because if you're actually an entrepreneur and a leader that really wants to grow your business and your team and stuff like that, you're constantly working on yourself. Constantly. What are like maybe the top two or three blind spots that you see with a lot of your CEO clients that are, that you're trying to help scale their businesses and put the systems in place. What are some reoccurring themes?

So I think one is this idea that. So one big one is that a lot of times their identity as a person is tied to their Identity as an entrepreneur or CEO. Right. So if their business takes a hit, so, so the flip side of if their business is, is killing it, their identity is tied to their business killing. It goes to like a down season, like through a cycle. Their, their identity takes a hit because their identity was tied into the success of the business. So then when he takes a hit they'll then it'll then spill over to how they show up as a parent, how they show up as a spouse. And they could be winning in all those areas, but they're over indexed. And I learned this in therapy, right. They over index as an entrepreneur and as a CEO in their role there. If they take a hit there, it spills into the other areas. Right.

So good.

Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

What you about to say? I was just, I've been there, done that.

Yeah, for sure. 100%. So, so, so that's one thing. The other thing is I think.

As entrepreneurs like really shifting from entrepreneur to CEO or entrepreneur to like business owner. Right. And then like decentralizing everything. Not just decentral because a lot of times we'll hire people to do task and we'll think these individuals who we hire to do a task should also be thinkers. Right. And I think it's totally different things. You have thinkers and then you have those doers. You got those who think who operate from the neck up, those operate from the neck down and it's different things. But a lot of times we'll hire somebody to do a task and we'll expect them to be a thinker. Right. And then when we bring on these thinkers and these high level individuals, a lot of times we'll, we can tend to micromanage them and not trust them and like decentralize not only the, the action and doing other thing but actually thinking that's in the decision making as well. So I give an example. So my operation director, she, when she first came on, she actually this was like five or six years ago. She came on as a va who I, who was or refer. She was referred to me from somebody else that was closing some things down. And she was like I got an amazing assistant, I'm not using her as much. And I brought her on and, but I told her from the beginning I was like, I don't just want a task doer, I want somebody who's going to come in and see what I don't see and see how we can make things better. I don't want you to come in and just yes man, media death and just tell me Great I am and all that. I want you to come in and see where can things be different? How can we change what I'm doing and how can we make this thing better? And then she grew into that over time and then now or she's operations director. So I think some of those things that we're not aware of because we can be so close to it and our identity is rooted in being an entrepreneur. But as we shift into a business owner, we got to start letting go of the sales or the marketing or the other stuff. And a lot of our identity was tied up into, man, I used to do all the sales calls or I used to do all the coaching calls or I used to do all the marketing or be in all the marketing. And now doing those things now it's like, okay, where is my identity now?

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I had a lot of respect from the team because I had done every role at least once. Right. But the other thing I would admit to them on the, on a regular basis, like, look at guys I have done, yes, I have done every role at least once. But you guys do many of those roles far better than I ever did those roles. I know that my gift is vision and strategy. Those are the two things that if you let me run with it, I'll create a roadmap that we can follow. I'll. I'll grab the machete, I'll start chopping down the trees behind me. But I'm going to need somebody, you know, coming in with a bulldozer, cleaning the road up, you know, somebody coming in, laying the asphalt, the curb and gutter, like putting all that stuff down so we can actually kind of build a, a reliable roadway to where we want to go, you know?

Yeah.

So I think that, I think that's so good. The other thing that made me think of too is.

A lot of times, and this is maybe, maybe this is a mistake, I'll kind of use it as a mistake or learning lesson. When we go to hire teams or we go to hire people for roles, it seems like, at least for me early days, I didn't put hardly any thought into what the role really should look like, what the KPIs would be, what the responsibilities are going to be with that role. And as a result, I might.

Hi.

I've actually hired great people that could have done the role really well had I give them a better framework or something to follow. And that was a major roadblock for me in trying to scale my first company. Have you, have you seen that as well? And if you have seen it, how did you overcome it?

Yeah, I've experienced it and I've seen it over and over again. So I was so oftentimes, so, so I was telling a client of mine and I was basically like, hey.

A bad system will break a good person.

Right?

Like you can bring a good person in, into a bad system now.

Right.

But if you got a great system, you can actually bring somebody into a great system who may not be as amazing. Right. So let's just say, for example, some people say it's this thing where it's like, I want a team of a players. And I don't think there's anything wrong with it. However, if you got a great system, you can actually make a C or a B or B player and they player, they could perform just based on the system that you have in place. Right. So, and again, if we. So and then you become systems dependent versus people dependent as well. Because if you got all these A players and one of them leave but your systems aren't tight, then you're screwed up. So I think 100 like having those systems in place where now you can actually bring somebody in. Because a lot I've seen over and over and over again, business owners, they'll hire somebody and they expect this person they hire to come in and figure out the system. They're like, well, I hired them, they said they can do it, they should be able to figure it out. And I'm like, that's just flawed thinking. But a lot of times entrepreneur, like training a team is high leverage, but a lot of times it doesn't look like immediate revenue. So because it doesn't look like immediate revenue, a business owner, some business owners will shy away from it and just focus on sales and marketing versus training and developing systems. Because you got to slow down to speed it up a little bit. But when you slow down and speed up a little bit now you can actually bring somebody in and now you can actually get a ROI on this higher life. So I'll give you an example. So I just did a deep dive with a gentleman. He has the duct cleaning company and he wants to sell it. And he was looking at a specific hire, but he was like, I see why I could potentially make that higher. However, he was like, I don't see how it's going to generate more revenue in this particular moment. And I was like, well, you said you want to sell, right?

Yeah, I was like. I was like, this may not generate revenue right now, but it increased enterprise value. Because right now you're doing it and if you're doing it, it's less than the value of the company.

Right.

So he was like, huh? But it had. It took that perspective to actually go from like, okay, yeah, this one generated media revenue, but it's building enterprise value to where I'm looking to go. Long, long game. Like you just said.

Yeah.

And as entrepreneurs, we if it ain't sales and marketing. And a lot of the business gurus talk about sales and marketing and not the stuff that really is going to make the business reliable, like you mentioned.

Yeah. You know, it makes me think. So I. One of the things I share with, with Our audience and team and I use a, a five driver approach to business. And essentially you look at these five drivers on a consistent basis, you know, year over year, and you're constantly trying to optimize these five things. Basically, the first driver is the ideation phase. That's you, the vision, the strategy, the core values, the roles, responsibilities, the team, like getting super clear on where it is you're trying to even go. You're starting to kind of lay out, okay, this is what this role would look like over here. We're right. And then you go from there to sales, right? So you've got to generate sales. How are, what are you selling, how are you selling it, when are you selling it, so on and so forth. And then where I see a lot of businesses really struggle is in the fulfillment side. They haven't, they, they, to your point, they've been so focused on sales and marketing that they haven't been focused enough on excellence of delivery of product, good or service, you know, so, you know, and then that takes us to finance. Okay, well now let's say you get those three optimized. Okay? You're making money, you're delivering on good products and service, but you're, you don't know what you're doing with a P and L, A balance sheet, a cash flow statement, you don't know what you're doing. And so you have bleed right. You, you, you know, I was telling, in fact, I tell my leadership team all the time, they, they were adamant, like, listen, we need to give pay raises. Like we're talking, I'm talking about annual or merit increases. I'm, I'm talking like quarterly almost like, I'm like, guys that increases overhead. Like, let's, if you want to give somebody a spot bonus, you know, of a grand or five grand, that's going to do the same thing as giving them just an annual increase in many cases, unless they're, unless they're way overdue. And I said, I also don't believe in giving increases just for breathing.

Right.

They need to be a show on paper with data that they're bringing the heat and they are making the company better. Right?

Yeah.

And I use those as, as, as rules and tools because those four drivers already then set you up for what I refer to as the raving fan retention. Right? So it's like, how are you, how are you going to keep these people coming back and buying from you for more? Which I know you guys have done fantastic with your attrition rate, with your client base and who you serve and how you serve is amazing. What are some of the ways in which you try to inspire, encourage and empower your clients to continue to do business with you that, you know, serves them kind of in the end?

Yeah. So one, one of the things that we prided ourselves in over the past several years, especially as we're like heavy into like the automation and AI world and, and a lot of, because like what I found was like, as we started diving deep into this world, a lot of people was just like automation, make sure it's evergreen, just sell logins, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Cause a lot of people like, man, you should just sell, log. You can sell a course and then you'll make way more money because you don't really gotta deal with anybody. And I was like, I get the philosophy, but I was like, based on the numbers, the amount of people that buy a course and actually log in is dismal. And the amount of people log in and then follow through is even worse. And I was like, I actually want to create success stories. So one of the things that we did was we focus on extreme high touch, right? So everything that we do is high touch. So even if it's a free virtual event, they get a personal concierge who's like touching bases with them to make sure they're good and making sure they're getting the experience they want when they come on as a client. One of the things we start doing when they soon they come on as a client, regardless of who enrolled them. Somebody's calling from the team like immediately. Just a surprise call like, hey, want to reach out to you, welcome, congratulations, et cetera, et cetera. Make sure you got access to everything that you need and then making sure you're there, making sure you got a direct contact. Like this isn't the thing where we're just going to give you access to something you figured out, but now it's like you came into an environment where you got your own advisory board basically. And we're hands on. So some of it when in just doing some of the stuff that doesn't scale traditionally, right. So I think one of the things is being a super high touch because what we hear over and over and over again is people have bought tons of different things and gone through tons of different programs or whatever. But when they, when they, before they bought it was super high touch. Like the follow up was crazy. Then they bought it was like they couldn't even get in touch with anybody for no reason. So Just making sure that high touch is all the way through and not just making it be hands off and just letting the AI and the automation do the work.

Man.

Gold.

Gold. Yeah. You know, it's, you know, and you guys are masters in the marketing world and I'm curious to know what are some of the largest marketing mistakes you see people make and then how would you encourage them to kind of change that up a little bit?

Yeah, so two things. So I, so one, one thing around the top is. And again, this is a big mistake. I had to learn as well. Right. Because we were fantastic at lead generation. But I think the big mistake is prioritizing lead generation over lead maximization.

Right.

So we got this process called the predictable scale flywheel and one of the pillars is called multi dimensional marketing. So when it comes to multi dimensional market, if somebody spends money on ads, the only thing they're looking at is what's their immediate roas, what's their immediate return on spend. Like they spent much, they make the same day, but a lot of times they discount how much, how much they make 30 days from now, 60 days from now, 90 days from now, a year from now. What about those leads that came in who become a client next year? Right. That's all profit, but. And then a lot of times they don't even have like follow up sequences in place. They're not having multi step processes they're not using. Because right now, especially with a lot of platforms going up, the trust issues that people have and all those different things, you literally have to take heed to this thing called the 7114 rule which Google put out there as well. And it talked about how prospects got to have before they buy. They typically got to have seven hours of some kind of content from you. Which is why podcasts are fantastic. Long form platforms.

Yeah.

Seven hours of content, 11 different touch points in four different locations. So it's like when you generate this lead, how can you, how can you engineer that 7 11, 4 in your process, whether that's retargeting ads, whether that's SMS, follow up emails, Facebook groups, podcasts, how can you orchestrate that and make it, make it? Not a whole bunch of disjointed activities, but how do you turn to an ecosystem where it feeds each other? So now you can actually generate less leads, but you generate more revenue because you're maximizing those leads. And one of the things that most people won't do is every new lead that comes in, how fast are we actually picking up the phone and calling the lead and people like calling the lead. Can't you just have AI or something like that work? I'm like, yeah. However, by you picking up the phone and I'm saying it's a real human being that immediately separates you from everybody else. So really, lead maximization over lead generation. I think that's the biggest marketing mistake. And then number two is a second one. Like, we can of course, go down a whole list on this, but another one is not being crystal clear about who you're looking to serve. Right. A lot of times I hear people say, well, that's going to leave money on the table. But in reality, by not leaving money on the table, you actually leave money on the table. So great marketing does two things. It actually attracts and it repels at the same time. So you want to be attracting those people who are for you, and you want to be repelling those people who aren't for you. And you're doing that literally at the same time. That's why it's called a funnel, where it's like, it looks like an upside down funnel. Legit people are becoming aware of you. Some of them going to be interested, some are going to engage, and then some are going to become a client. But you want to be filling that awareness bucket 24 7, 365.

Man, people love this episode. Dude, I'm excited. Um, you know, I just, I've. I've been to a lot of conferences right before we get. Before we started doing live events of our own and stuff like that, and then helping thought leaders do live events. I. I used to go to conferences as often as I possibly could. It's just something about catching an idea, being immersed in an experience, all this kind of stuff. And lo and behold, one of the things that has come to my awareness over the last. I don't know, call it two years, maybe three years, is I pay attention. When I'm actually doing business with whomever I mean, I'm like, I go to their landing page. I kind of. I. I'm a skimmer, so I'll skim the. The, you know, the. Essentially the copy that makes sense for me. I make it. I make a decision very quickly in many cases. And then once I make the decision, if it's a go, I actually pay attention. Okay, well, what was the aesthetic of the landing page? What was. What was the next step in the funnel? Did I. Did I just go. I get a straight thank you? Was there a thank you and a surprise free gift that I could download, you know, to your Point. I just. The reason I bring this up is I just got through doing my, my first event with Patrick, Babe, David, he just did the vault conference last, literally last week, had the rock come and speak, which that was amazing. But I remember my middle son. Well, I guess he's technically middle of the middle of the middle. The 11 year old, he's got Crohn's. And we, I remember we were happening to go into the hospital so he could go in an infusion. So we're sitting there and, you know, a social ad pops up. I've been following PBD stuff for a little while, kind of like how he operates, what he's about. His stuff looked good. Copy was well written. All right, learn more. Boom. Landing page. Landing page is beautiful, right? Copy was bullet pointed, very direct, very sharp, you know, so, okay, cool. You know, look at the ticket packages. Okay, well, now there's, you know, X number of ticket packages. All right, well, typically, because I like highly high immerse and high touch, I typically trend towards the higher ticket prices so I can have that higher touch and that higher experience. So I do that. Click, click the button again. Nurse comes in and was talking to us. I kind of let it sit there for a minute. Something behind the scenes in their system actually thought it was cart abandonment. And I actually had. I actually got a phone call. I know I got a text message first from my own personal concierge service and a phone call the following day to answer any questions. It wasn't even like, hey, bye. Why haven't you bought yet? It was like, hey, I'm just curious, you know, I saw that you were entertaining the vault conference. I'm. I'm very curious to know, you know, why. Why, you know, is there anything that, you know, that you felt was out of place or wasn't synergistic or, you know, kind of like, well, no, I'm just, you know, I'm here with my kid and I said, you know, we just catch up tomorrow, right? He gets on then. Then we have a phone call.

But between the time that we had hit the landing page and I had my first phone call, which is about 24 hours. Within 24 hours after that, I had a handwritten thank you card in my mailbox.

And it wasn't even, hey, we come to the ball conference. Hey, we're all praying for your son. We're hoping your son's gonna, you know, things are gonna be like. And then we have another follow up call. He's like, well, tell me about you. Because well, my story is blah, blah, blah, blah. He goes, dude, I had no idea you did some Google. It just, it changes the freaking game all the way to. I know when I go to an event, I know there's an offer somewhere coming, right. I know something's going to happen. And you know, when I'm looking at other things that they offer now I have a way to look at kind of like the next step if I want to take the next step, knowing it's a high touch and high value.

So when, when done right, a good target is 30 like 30% of individuals going through initial service or program and then ascending. Right. So even when it goes back, like I said, that multidimensional marketing pillar in the predictable scale flywheel is on part of that. Most people think just converge, just awareness conversion, et cetera. However, the multi dimensional approach is thinking awareness acquisition and then ascension. So people become aware of you, them acquiring. But on the very front end, this is a perfect example of this. On the very front end in the awareness stage, they're, they're already thinking ascension. And when they're already strategically thinking ascension, you're already thinking ascension as well. Like you just spoke to, you said, because this is so amazing, I haven't even engaged with them yet. I'm already inclined to buy their main thing. And if that goes well, this could be a 2, 3, 4, 5 year relationship depending on it and partnerships and different type of stuff because of how they treated me before I was even a client. So I can only imagine what the experience is like when I actually come in and engage because nobody else is willing to do the stuff that doesn't technically scale.

Yeah, you know, it's also really interesting that most of us don't do it because one, we don't know that we need to do it and two, we wouldn't know. Most of us don't have a really good conception of how to break down, increase the experiential value. So I was working with a couple ladies who are building out a wellness business. I mean it's you know, cryotherapy and all kinds of things like that. And they were like, okay, well you know, down the, you know, down the street, competitor A is, does X, Y and Z. We went and toured, you know, went and toured their facility, went through their experience and we just didn't really didn't enjoy it. And I said, well there's, there's a, you know, then there's a reason for that. And I said the, the fact that they've already announced that their doors are closing shows they haven't taken the time to sit down and try to increase the experience. I'm going to recommend you ladies do before you even start is how do you. How do you make this something where people know when they come. They're coming to get rest? Like, you're the. You are the. You're the. You're the solution to stress. Y. Right. You know, do. Do they walk in, they get a cold. A cold towel like you do from a spa. I said I would go study spas. Y. You know, the music, the ambiance, the sense, the. Like. How do you increase the experience if someone knows that? Now that we've identified that this is a major opportunity for most of us, what do you think a few steps are to get them started in kind of like building out an experience?

So I. So that's such a great question. I think study. I think one thing that can be phenomenal is. Is studying.

Companies that focus on experience, right?

So if you.

Especially if you look at, like, luxury brands. So I went to. I went to the Louis Vuitton store with my brother one time, right? That's like. That's his. Really? That's. That's his lane. So I.

When we went in, they sat us in the section and they brought us champagne.

Yep.

And I was like, wow, this was. This was different. I was like, this is pretty. So. So that's one example. If you go to, like, a Ritz Carlton, right? And you look at the attention to detail and, like, just how they're wowing you from an experience standpoint, if you go to any, like, Diamond. Diamond Level Resort or any of those things, and you just look at the. The detail, and then you start looking at, how can I take this and apply it into my industry? Because a lot of times people make the mistake of saying, well, that's hotels or that's technology, or that's this. Because one of the things that we did how. How we start calling every new client, like, with a surprise call, is that's something we pull from Apple's playbook. Right. Apple clearly knows a thing or two about business. So it was like, huh, what if every time somebody had a client became a client, he's got a surprise call?

Yeah.

So we implemented that, and people was like, wow, this is crazy. Like, y' all got my money already? It's like somebody's calling me to make sure I'm good. So it's just looking at, like, what are some. What. Who are some companies that have wow experiences and they Then they, and then looking at, okay, how can I take this and then apply it to my particular industry? And I think one, one area is really hot touch. And then systemizing the high touch because so now it becomes literally part of the culture overall.

Yeah. And it's funny, another thing I was thinking about, I know we're getting, we're getting up on time, but another thing I was thinking about too is when you set out to do a high touch philosophy and process and system for your clients.

For some reason it seems to make the team feel like they have more value in the organization too. Like we really stand for something.

Yep, exactly. Exactly. It's not just a cash grab. They're like, okay, we're really, we're really taking care of people. 100.

Yeah, man. Dude, we could go on for days. Seriously. This has been amazing. On my last question here, I wanted to understand more about client attraction. You guys are masters at lead generation. What are most folks getting wrong and what could they be doing better?

So I, so I think. So one thing that I'm seeing a lot of people doing is they're not. So I think paid advertising is a huge opportunity that people aren't really doubling down on and then, and then making it a multi channel approach because people, there is a percentage of people who would click on an ad, opt in, book a call or whatever and then buy. However, a lot of people are just stopping there and they're thinking that client attraction is an event, but client attraction is actually a process. Right?

Yeah.

Well, you, you're gonna, again, you're gonna have that awareness. They may click, they may opt in and they may, like you said, be at the hospital or they may be about to get on a airline or they may be, you know, in the back of an Uber and just something distracts them where they weren't able to go through your process. But like what's your follow up pieces? Do you have, do you have email going out? Are you just depending on email? Most people aren't going to open the emails. Right. So do you have some text going out? Are you calling them? Like, hey, I saw that you opt in on this. Do you have some retargeting, you know, in place? Do you have some multi channel. So I think really from a paid advertising standpoint and so leveraging content, because sometimes people think it's all ads. Some people even said it's do ads, don't worry about content. Some people say, well, just do content, don't focus on ads. My belief is that you have a hybrid approach and you tie them together. Because if you're doing content and ads, the content is going to make your ads more profitable. Because, like, literally, I had a buddy of mine, they tracked it, he was like, man, when we're doing content and running ads, our ads are 300% more profitable. But he was like, just running ads, though, they're not as profitable. And the biggest thing is because when there's a lot of, like, charlatans out here, right, Anybody can spend a couple bucks on that. But it's like when they say see your ad, they want to be able to go to your social platform. Somebody might see your ad and not even click it. They may just go to Google and look you up, or they may just go to Instagram, or they may just click on your name and go over to your profile. And they want to be able to see a body of work that you have. And if they do decide to engage you, that you're not just some charlatan who's here today and going tomorrow, you know, like a lot of people. So building out this whole ecosystem where now they can kind of go over and they can consume those 7 hours of content and they can see the different touch points and see that you like legit and you've actually put the work in. So even with this show, right? I know we would. We were scheduled. But, you know, I'm the type of person, I like to go to your. I went to your website, I watched video use. Cause you sent a video, which was really cool. I kind of done a lot of podcasts. Nobody's ever sent a video and was like, hey, here's what you can expect. Here's what's going to happen if you're flying in, here's the details, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm gonna set you up. Don't got. Don't come on and worry about pitching yourself. Like, the video was brilliant.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I like this. So I'm on your website, I'm checking you out, I'm seeing you do events and how you serve people. So I'm that type of person. And it's other type of people like that as well. They want to comb your stuff and see, okay, what type of body of work is it? Has this person put together? Or are they just somebody who's read a book and now they call themselves an expert?

Yeah, man. Dude, again. Goal. You're. You're. You're. You could come back on the show anytime you want, my friend. I'm ready, man.

I'M ready.

One of the things that. One of the things as we wrap up and I think I want to encourage the audience to do is I guess I. You can see the man knows his stuff. He's been helping a lot of folks with their businesses, not just for lead generation and marketing, all kinds of stuff actually helping scale them and that's where our synergies are. So I want to encourage you guys to go check them out. Where do you want everybody to go to learn more about everything you guys are doing currently?

Yeah. So real. So I put together a cool page. If you go to scale made easy.com just scale s E a L e made M a D E E Z E a s y.com and we put together a ton of resources over there. So if it's marketing, sales, scaling, team building, whatever, we got all the resources over there that you can dive into. Free resource that you can dive into and you and your team can go to work and start implementing this stuff. Right? So go scale made easy dot com. You'll also see a link to. We got a show called the Cheated Scale show where we sit down with businesses that's making 250 to a million plus per year and we're doing like real time deep dives in their business and you can actually take some insights away. You have a link to that over there as well. So. So yeah, go to Scale made easy dot com. Get all those resources and whatever your favorite social media platform is. Let's connect there. Send me a dm. Let's connect. I like to connect with real people. I check my DMs, but I think the first step is scalemade easy dot com. I think you're going to get a ton of value from all the resources we got over there.

Dude. Brother, thank you again so much for coming on the show, man. I really appreciate you big time.

Thank you for having me.

Take it easy. I hope you liked that video and if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here.

I was super naive when I was.

Growing and scaling my company.

I had no idea what venture capital was. I had no idea that that was a thing. I didn't have a business background so I didn't come at it with this is how you do it and I'll just follow the plan.