5 Things We Learned From Multi-Millionaires This Year

Foreign. Welcome to the Success School Podcast. Thanks for joining us guys for episode 23. We have a banger of an episode today. Steph, how are you feeling?

I am excited. Guys, it is Christmas day, so merry, merry Christmas to everybody. If you're listening to this on Christmas day, I just want to celebrate the heck out of you because the fact that you're listening to a business podcast on Christmas day just shows me that you are highly committed to the growth of your business.

Yes, you guys are either savages or you will be savages at some point with that level of commitment. Guys. So let me get into my lesson of the week, guys. So I'm talking about a paid media strategy that you guys can run and execute. So I'm testing this out at the moment with a couple of my one on one clients. It's working super well. So before I get into that, once you learn how to run ads, implementing strategies and finding what works is essentially what paid ads are made of. Clicking buttons, I think a monkey could do with Facebook and meta ads. Once you learn that stuff, it's super simple. So I think ads or people with ads are in two camps. Either A, they believe all ABs ABs ads will solve all their problems, or B, they believe ads are bad and they believe it's cheating for business. So most people kind of fall in one of the two camps or a little bit of either. Let me just say that ads will not solve all your problems and B, they aren't cheating. Okay? It's just essentially where marketing is going. So Organic reach is plummeting every single day, week, a year. They want you to spend money. So what I'm gonna do, guys, I'm gonna give you the strategy. So part A is you need to create a high quality video that's three to five minutes that has a hook value proposition CTA and delivers information to your prospect. You're gonna launch that out to a cold audience for five to ten dollars a day, really cheap. So in a week, 70 bucks top end, and you're gonna get a couple thousand views. Then what you're gonna do is you're gonna target anyone that's watched 25% of that video with an offer. Okay, so first part here, guys, is value based. Then you're going to target the watchers with an offer. Okay, this is you're going to bring high quality people into your network. Much better than just running cold ads. So the best part about this strategy and this Lesson, it works 24,7 in your sleep. So organic does not work in your sleep. Paid ads does. Steph, what is your lesson of the week?

I'm going to dive into my lesson of the week. I have questions to follow up on this because as a non ads person. So when I say non ads person, what I mean by that is I'm very much into ads in terms of I love them and I actually do think they're a bit of a cheat code, personally, because, like, and also, who doesn't want to get ahead the easiest way possible, which is ads. But second of all, I'd love to know really quickly, when you say value proposition, what does that mean?

So value proposition, you need to be solving a problem for them, okay? And it has to be a micro problem, not a maximal problem. So if you, if you go on and you're like, let's get more clients in your business, that's like a big, big problem. So it wants to be super niches. How to turn everyone that DMs you on Instagram into a client. Okay, that's very specific. So the algorithm on Facebook is going to go and target people that have that problem. The algorithm and meta knows more about you than you do. And okay, so you just need to let it do its thing.

I love it. So, so good, guys, we're testing that right now. We're having huge, huge audience growth, which we are loving. So my lesson of the week actually kind of, I guess, stems on from that. And that is that leads and sales are the lifeblood of your business. Now, too many people we see online avoid selling or avoid getting leads. But let's be honest, without sales in your business, without leads coming through, your business kind of feels a bit shitty and your life just sucks a bit because you're constantly focusing on, how do I get more leads, how do I get more sales, how do I keep more money coming through the door, how am I going to pay my bills? And I think that where it comes from is that too many people associate leads and sales with money. Okay? If you looked at getting leads and sales as impact, you'd be more driven to do it. So the money you make, we really believe in our business and in everyone's business, the money that you make, the money that's in your bank account, is a direct relation to the value that you give. And so if you can focus on just giving more value, leads are going to flow. If you can focus on just giving more value and getting people to experience you and not getting in your own way for advertising, your lead magnet, not getting your own way from making offers, that's the only way that people are going to know about you. And without them knowing about you, you're not going to be able to get leads. You're not going to make sales. So stop avoiding doing the leads and sales generating stuff. If you want to be in business, if you want to have success, if you want to be able to pay the bills and create financial freedom, this is the work you're going to have to do.

Question, what are they doing instead of getting leads and making sales?

I think a lot of people are faffing around in their emails and just sitting on Instagram kind of, you know, replying to comments on their posts and things like that. You know, they're sitting around in their emails. You're focusing on doing client work. You're perfecting some of the stuff you're putting out. You might be spending hours on Canva before you put something on social media. You might be faffing about writing social media captions that take you an hour or putting a reel together that takes 45 minutes. That stuff is such a waste of time. You'll be so much better off just going into 50 Facebook groups and advertising your lead magnet. That's going to get you way more traction, a lot more leads, a lot more eyeballs, and a lot more no like and trust than it is to be sitting on Instagram waiting for leads and sales to drop in.

Guys, I want you to take a notepad right now and write, stop. Avoid doing the hardship, okay? And that is what is going to drive you forward in business. In summary, I know that because Steph and I have both been there, okay? We've done that stuff that she was just talking about. We've done that for years, okay? And that's the periods where we had no growth. Stop avoiding getting leads and making sales.

That's 100 what you need to be doing in your business. So what a year this has been, guys. Obviously, this episode is airing on Christmas Day, and we've been feeling a little bit reflective of our year and how much we've learned and grown all of the lessons, all of the hardships, all of the wins, and ultimately for us, actually some really huge quantum leaps. But we thought what might be really helpful and interesting for you guys is for us to share our biggest learnings from working with, meeting and collaborating with people who are earning multiple million dollars per year. These are networks that we've been able to tap into. These are coaches and mentors that we've paid lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of money to and these are conversations that we've been having behind closed doors with people who are way ahead of us and our biggest takeaways that we want to share with you so that you can benefit, too. So these are the five things that we have learned from multimillionaires this year in 2023. And I'm going to kick off, if you don't mind, go for it. Amazing. So one of the things that I learned. So I have a fairly interesting relationship with money. And as I, you know, if you've listened to this podcast for a while, my dad went bankrupt when I was younger. And so my methodology for money was save, save, save, save, save. And also spend like crazy, because I never really had a lot of money, so I loved spending it. And one thing that I took notice of on all of the people who are way ahead of us was that they invest their money instead of spending it. So let me talk to you about what investment looks like, because I think that that can be a little bit confusing for some people thinking that, you know, you need to buy stocks and shares and bonds and all these things you might not have comprehension of. I can tell you right now, some people are investing in those things, but all of them, 110% are investing in mentors, coaches, and therapists. Okay, so the last one I'm really going to push on therapists, like, literally every single person that we know that is way ahead of us has a therapist or a counselor or a life coach. But they also all pay sometimes $500,000 plus to their mentors and their coaches. They have. They all massively reinvest in themselves. So that's, I think where the clear investment strategy is, is it's in themselves. It's in their own skills, in their own abilities, is their own mindset to be able to push through anything. They all have multiple properties, so all of them are investing in real estate in some way, shape or form. They keep minimal cash in the bank and instead focus on smart reinvestment. So things like super things like property, and the reason they keep minimal cash in the bank is if you start to learn about money, you will start to understand that money that sits in your account is actually going backwards for you year on year. So keeping a big cash stack in the in the bank is actually just not a smart investment move. They do not buy $5,000 pairs of shoes or Chanel T shirts or any of that. In fact, most of the people who are ahead of us that we hang out with, that we know, that we get coached by wear T shirts and jeans 90% of the time even when presenting on stage. And so my takeaway for you here around investment is where you spend your money matters. Yes, you could buy that two and a half thousand dollars hand or you could hire that for. You could pay someone to a thousand dollars for a month to teach you how to make $100,000 a month. If you spent two and a half thousand dollars a month to get ads training, you would learn how to make money very very quickly rather than that two and a half thousand dollar handbag that's going to give you nothing back in return.

Awesome. I love all those points. What would you say the number one thing is? They're like that they're investing on to take them forward.

All of them invest big money into mentors and coaches. And we're not just saying that because we're mentors and coaches. We also invest big money into mentors and coaches. Guys like it's the cheat code and we've spoken a few about a few cheat codes here. Ads are the cheat code, but you need to learn how to use ads. So therefore you need to pay a mentor to teach you how to use ads so that you can use that cheat code. Everything that we have learned, we have learned from somebody or through our own trial and error. The trial and error is the slowest way to do this. It is by far the most painful. It is where most people give up. You don't have to do it that way because the mentors that we've used have just helped us circumnavigate that stuff. So we don't ever have to go through some of the hard stuff that you know that we've been able to save time on trial and error.

So I'll just top that off with a story. So I was in a Facebook group and there were some pretty high level entrepreneurs asking for a life coach or a business coach and a guy kept getting recommended and his name was Steve Harden or Hardman or something like that. I ended up looking him up and I looked into his program and how it works and he does one on one coaching. It's six months and it's US$250,000, pay in full only. He's had over 250 clients. So if you do the math on that 250k times 250 clients, that's a lot of money. That means his net worth is like $40 million. So for someone to invest $250,000 there has to be a massive ROI for that. So he's not working with your local mom and pop like he's working with CEOs and entrepreneurs who have the cash to spend on that and they are willing to invest. There are so many little nuggets of wisdom in that story from who to work with, who has money, what people are investing in that. I hope you guys step back and just really think about yourself and your own services, your offers, what you guys are doing and who you're investing with. My lesson, which I've learned is simplification is key. People would say that to me and then you don't really realize it until you look at it in your own business. Okay, so we obviously turned successful from the PMP mastermind into successful and we upgraded it. I wouldn't recommend doing this, but what we did, we pretty much looked at all our processes and threw them in the bin. And then we started again because it was much easier to simplify and start again for us than to try to simplify the business. And what we did, we said, all right, so how are we going to get our clients a result? They want to get to a seven figure business or multi seven or eight or whatever it is, how are we going to get them there? And then we built all of our systems and processes around that to support them on that goal. So every system and process we had, we attempted to streamline, okay, AKA rebuild. We did take the old ones and then made them a little bit better. But what we found it was there was probably about 80% of them that were needing to be updated or simplified. Which if you really ask yourself in your business, do you have systems and processes or do they need to be updated? This is a key one. Again, I'm going to give you guys a little hack on how to simplify and do this. So the way you do this is you have the start and finish of each of the processes. Processes and you write them on a sticky note. So this is a sticky note thing. You can do it on a whiteboard, but you want to start and the finish and then you sticky note the process. Then you want to look at the process. Let's say it's five steps or five sticky notes and you want to say, can I make this any simpler? Can I make this any easier? What does this process look like at its maximal efficiency? And then you move forward from there. So my first big lesson I've got from every successful person is simplification is key.

And the simplification of our own business has increased our profitability from like 30 to 40%. Which was pretty good, to be honest, but it's now taken to like 75% in profitability just by streamlining things, just by simplifying processes. And our clients are just as, and if not more happy. We actually work less hours than ever before. So this simplification process, like, I think that as humans we naturally try to make things complicated so that we look more intelligent, which is crazy. And so I just want to add a little example here. If you're trying to increase revenue when you have no time, please do not add more services. Okay? You do not have the time to manage those more services. Even if those more services are things like a course. You think often we have a lot of this, we see a lot of this where people think that I'll just add a course and then that way I'll be able to make money when I sleep like that. That's not necessarily true. It don't work like, it doesn't work like that. You're going to have to market that course. You're going to have to create an ideal client for that. Take it as somebody from people who run courses every single day, I'm telling you, you have to show up for that for at least 10 hours a week to make that work, at least if not more. So if you don't, when you don't have enough time, but you need more revenue, you actually, it's not about adding more, it's about doing less. So how can you simplify what you have to make it easier and, or make more money from it? Okay, I love that sticky note process and we did that and it was so, so helpful for business. My next point is that our mentors, the people who are ahead of us, people that we look to, they don't skip the identity work. And I think this is a really powerful point that gets overlooked a lot in business because everyone just focuses so much on strategies and tactics and get rich quick activities. But most people underestimate how much your identity changes as your business grows. The version of you who wants to the next level is going to take a different level of action. So if you want to go in the next 12 months from a six figure business to a seven figure business, the version of you to get to that seven figure business is going to have to be wildly different from the person that's sitting here right now. You have to have a different level of resilience. You have to have a different level of courage. You have to have a different set of skills to be able to do that. And you need to step into that person. How do they run their days, how do they wake up, how do they behave, how do they dress? One of our mentors said that he actually has an unlimited budget for identity work. And what he meant by that was like, I think it was to do with his wardrobe actually. He was like, if you want to become the person, you have to dress like the person. You have to get up in the morning, you have to look in the mirror and you have to see that person. And so he was like saying that him and his wife have an unlimited budget for this sort of work. Now, obviously they're very wealthy, but this is the kind of things that these people are investing in is like, you know, identity work from a very core level, from mentors, from coaches, from courses like figuring out who you are and how you need to behave in this world and then stepping into that next version of you before you hit the goal. If you step into it before you hit the goal, you will hit the goal much faster. So the best version of me, the version of me that's going to hit eight figures in the next 12 months, right, she needs to shop it, she needs to take action every day, even when she doesn't feel like it. She needs to do the terrifying things like reaching out to people. She needs to do, you know, and take massive action. She needs to make offers probably every single day, right? So you have to step into that person before you hit the goal so that you can hit the goal faster. The biggest thing that is going to hold your growth back will be sitting, sitting in an old identity as you grow and having those same old belief systems like money is gross, money is dirty. Any of those things that run around in your mind, they are going to hold you back as you grow. If you stay in the same identity when you're trying to grow your business, I can guarantee that at some point that identity is going to be the exact roadblock that's stopping you from getting where you want to go.

I'm just going to add a practical example here. So if you want to be a seven figure entrepreneur and you're acting like someone that has a job job, you're definitely not going to be there because there's different identities, different thoughts, patterns, beliefs, actions, et cetera. Another example here is that let's say you have this image that you need to present as to become a seven figure entrepreneur. And that's tidy, that's sharp, that's in shape, that's punctual, that's on time, that's all These types of things and you're not acting that people are going to see through that. Okay? So people have a really good BS meter. And I know a lot of people have these grand visions of being a seven figure entrepreneur, but their actions and the way they look and the way they present is just not showing up as that. Therefore, you never reach it because you'll never pass someone's BS meter because you don't even believe your own BS meter on that.

You have to live so in integrity. And that is part of the identity work is like if you say you're going to do something, you have to do it. If you're telling people that, you know, especially in the coaching world, we see this a lot. Like if you say that you do something, you actually have to do it. Like, you know, we talk to our clients about posting on Facebook groups all the time and we do that. Like, you have to lead from the front. Like, you can't just say, hey, this is good for you, but I don't do it right. You have to lead from the front. You have to be an example of it every single day.

All right, my next one is they don't blame anyone and they never play the victim. Okay? Business is hard. I get it. It's probably the hardest thing you ever do. It's the hardest sport, it's the hardest endeavor. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. That's why only 8% of the population are entrepreneurs and only 1% of that 8% are successful. Because people can't hack it. Okay? You just need to know that going in. But you can't blame anyone else, okay? It's hard for a reason because the rewards are incredible. Once you crack it, it's incredible. I can tell you that. I don't even think I've cracked it, but I've cracked it more than other people. And it's honestly the best thing I've ever done and the best thing I've ever committ. But on that journey, they would tell you and I would tell you, you can't blame anyone. From where you're at, your current level or situation or where you're at right now is a direct reflection of the choices that you have made. Okay? Nobody else, no one else has put you in that situation. It is you that has put you in that situation. For you to play a victim on your current circumstances is the wrong move. You need to take ownership of it. Okay? So we've had a bunch of mentors or people we look up to in the past. And I'll give You guys, some example of this. But, like, Alex Hormozi and Tony Robbins have had their entire fortune stolen from business partners. What did they do the next day? They got on with it. They weren't sitting around crying, complaining, trying to take people to court, you know, dragging the whole process out. They got on with it because they realized that they need to take ownership for it. It was their mistake that they let them do it. Okay? It's a. It's a clear differentiator there. There's no point getting on social media, complaining or doing whatever you're going to do, because you need to take ownership for this. Okay? They don't take things personal because they know this is just business. And I've heard that so many times. We even have had our mentor currently. He had his entire business, like the idea, the business plan, clients, everything stolen from him, from his wife's best friend's husband, and laughed it off. I couldn't believe it. I was on a zoom call with this man, and he laughed it off. Can you believe that? Imagine if someone stole your business and you could get on a zoom call a couple of months later and laugh it off. Were you pretty baffled when you heard that?

Yeah, he. Like. Like, it wasn't. It was the same week. Like, it had happened on the Monday, and our session was on, like, the Thursday it had happened that week. And he was like, ah, you know, it's just business. And he. The exact phrasing he said was, there's people who are doing better than me that have had to go through worse than me. And I really. That really stuck with me when he said that, because I was like, you're so right. Like, there are people who, like, if you look at Tony Robbins stories, you know, like, he was homeless. And, you know, there have been people like Dan Martell's, another really good example, who came from, like, foster homes and was heavily abused. And, you know, there are people who have had some. Some really hectic stuff happen. And even in business, like Hormozi, like. Like Tony Robbins having all their stuff stolen and. And there's stuff that's going on for people that's. That's necessarily, especially in business, that could be worse than what you've been experiencing, and they're not playing into it. Okay? It's like that concept of its eyes forward at all times. This is happening for you. There's a lesson or a blessing in every single thing.

And last thing here, guys. There are people doing better than you that have had it a hundred times worse than what you're going through right now, don't be a victim and don't blame anyone else. Take ownership for your situation and you are going to do far better as an entrepreneur and build the seven and eight figure business that you've always wanted to to.

Yeah. And I think just really quickly on this one, I think that one way I really see this play out a lot, I think that this will really resonate with our listeners is like, guys, if you have clients who are constantly bending boundaries, that is your responsibility as an example, right? Like, you set the boundary, you uphold the boundary. If the boundary gets crossed and you're not upholding it, that's why it's happening. So you have to take some radical responsibility. Radical responsibility is the answer to your freedom. And last but not least, our mentors, the people who are ahead of us, the people who we know, they don't get shiny object syndrome when something stops working. So if something worked and then stopped working, they find out a way to fix it. They don't change it. Okay? And there's a really cool saying that's like, do more before doing something new. Because most revenue streams actually do have the ability to take off, but most people just don't stick to them long enough. Okay? They have a new business idea every six months, and they start from ground zero, over and over, and they wonder why they can't make it. Guys, I'm telling you that getting something off the ground is so hard. The first six to 12 months of any business is the hardest part. And while of course, it gets easier every time you rebirth something, you cannot skip the hard work, okay? No matter what anyone on Instagram is telling you, there is going to be a point in your business where it feels like it's not moving. And you have to get really good at diagnosing and fixing those problems, not just shutting it all down and starting again. If you really want to get ahead, you have to to stay the course, even when it feels like it's not working. This is why we have coaches and mentors, because I said this to my clients a lot, our clients a lot. Recently is like, a mentor is most valuable to you when shit hits the fan, like, when stuff stops working, when you feel like you're overwhelmed, when you are at breaking capacity and you don't know how to take on any more clients, that is when someone's going to give you, like myself or Tim will give you a $10,000 piece of advice. Because we can see so clearly from outside the bottle exactly what has gone Wrong and exactly what needs to be fixed. But when you're in that moment and you're em emotional and you're stressed, your logical brain is completely tapped out. So you were just making emotional reactive decisions. And I see so many people shut and sell businesses at that point when there was a few tweaks that needed to be made and they would have been in the fricking green zone for the next five years. So don't get shiny object syndrome when something stops working. If it stopped working, fix it, don't change it.

Yeah, it's an incredible book, Think and grow rich, which is probably my number one read for every entrepreneur. The first lesson is stopping three feet from gold. You know, I'm not going to go into the whole story here, but essentially there was a mining company in California and they gave up three feet before they reached one of the biggest gold finds in the history of the world. And the lesson in that is don't give up. Because every time you give up, imagine there's a ball rolling down a hill and you are that ball. And every time you give up, you're restarting and going back to the top. Okay. And that's what we see so commonly in entrepreneurship. It's people just can't hack the mindset component of it when things just don't go right.

Absolutely. And this is why it's so important to have people in your corner like we have. When we've learned these five things from multimillionaires this year, we are going to dive into our listener questions. Now. I hope that those five insights really change the game for you. They massively changed the game for us this year and I really hope they help you going into 2024 and over this Christmas period. For something to reflect on, listen to questions. Tim, I'll let you dive in with number one.

All right, so from Nikki C. Of all the things, what is the number one thing you wish you had done earlier in business? So my number one thing is I sound like the ads guy right now, but I honestly wish I'd learned Facebook ads and, you know, paid media a lot earlier than I did because it's been really a game changer for us, especially having an online business. I think understanding buying customers is something that is valuable for everyone. So I would say learning paid media and really putting some time into it, I don't think you can go wrong once you learn the basics of it. It's all just trial and error. I've gotten a lot better when I've actually had to do it for someone else, not myself. So when I did it for someone else, it was like it just mattered way more as well because you're spending someone else's money on ads. So for me it was learning paid media and then trial and erroring it on other people's accounts. It's been great obviously to run Steph's ads for a few years, but then now with my one on one clients, I'm like, the stakes are a lot higher. So for me, learning paid ads, learning copywriting as well.

For me, email marketing. I wish I built my email list earlier. I wish I'd done more lead magnets in the beginning. I wish I'd given away more free value. I just had no idea. I didn't believe it. I also didn't believe in paid ads. I just didn't believe how valuable it could be for my business. And you know, now we send an email out and I can guarantee every time we send an email, if it's got an offer, we'll make a sale. And you just can't beat that. And again, we've had this conversation on podcasts before. Like we have a list of 8,000. Imagine when we have 80,000. Like it's, it's a crazy, crazy, crazy missed opportunity for people because they just, you know, don't prioritize it because they're so focused on Instagram. I can guarantee you if you build a list of 3,000 or more people, you're going to start making some really big bank really quickly just from sending emails. It's so important. The second question that we had was from Summer, she said, what would you do if you dropped the ball and lost the groove in business? How do you get back into it?

So I have been on a bunch of podcasts and I've talked about this exact question or the scenario that happened to me. So post Covid we increased our pricing in the gym by 30%. I lost 183 clients in a week. So. So, you know, ask yourself, have you ever lost 183 clients in a week? It sucks. And it was probably one of the worst times of my life. I think I actually got depression.

I wouldn't like some trauma from that.

Yeah, I've got add some trauma from that. It was the worst. So how I picked myself back up is I knew that if I didn't pick myself back up, it would start to affect my wife, my life, my family, everyone around me because I had no choice but to re pick up the ball and get out of my funk. So I put my motivation in other people because I needed to at that time. Time. And how negatively it would affect someone else if I gave up. Okay, so the option there is giving up, and the other option is just, you know, getting on with it. Because if it was a mistake, it was my mistake, and I needed to take ownership and leadership of that decision. And if it wasn't my mistake, I was going to work that out pretty quickly, but it was my mistake. It wasn't even a mistake. It was one of the best things I've ever done in business, but it sucked. And I dropped the ball financially for our family, and then I clawed myself back.

I love the way they showed up in that period as well. Summer for me, and knowing your personal circumstance a little bit as well, I would just say that it really starts with, you know, it's okay. Like, first of all, don't shame it. Let's just call it what it is. Like, Tim, you know, there's no point him sitting in there being like, oh, I made this decision. I've really fucked up, and it's so bad. Like, that's just so unhelpful. Like, sitting in that emotion, sitting in that feeling, sitting in that lack of momentum, that lack of drive that, you know, that negative emotion is so unhelpful. So my first piece of advice is like, figure out what your small goal is like. So for Tim, it's like, okay, okay, well, you know, maybe the first goal was, let's just get 10 clients. Let's just get 10 new clients. I just get five new clients. So just set yourself a small goal to start getting some momentum back in your life. Okay, so I want to get five people. Then my second piece of advice is like, what is the quickest way out of all the things that you offer that you can get those five people right? Can you do a beta test? Can you go out to your market? Can you private DM some people? Can you send an email? Like, what needs to happen for you to get those five people and just get the momentum? Like. Like, it's step by step. Like, step one, set a goal. Step two, make a plan. The easiest way for you to get to the goal. If you need help, you know where to come. Success school, IO, but someone's already in successful, so you know, what's the next step to get to that goal? And then three, like, what are the daily actions I need to do or the weekly actions I need to do to make sure I actually hit it?

All right, guys, hope you got some value from that as always, subscribe to the show and follow if you would like to grow to seven figures. Apply for success goal Like Steph just said, Steph and I would love to be in your corner and coach you. We go to bat for anyone that asks us anything. So when I say we go above and beyond, we go above and beyond. And I would love to be in your corner for this. As always guys, if you got some value from this, please share it with someone. 66% of our growth comes from word of mouth. And lastly, leave us a five star review. We always love reading the reviews and we read every single one so make sure it's good.

Thanks guys.