From Zero to $100 Million: Leo Popik’s Journey and Strategies

Welcome everyone to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. This is the podcast for you if you are wanting to create or already running peer groups. It's what we call PACs, Peer Advisory Councils. They might be known as mastermind groups, CEO peer groups, all the same. But this is the podcast if you want to run better PACs, that you want to be better at being a moderator, you want to up your game, learn advanced techniques, hear from myself as well as guests what works, new concepts, trends, techniques. Also learn content, things you can take back to your meetings, different ways to do different things to solve problems that we all have when we're running groups. It will increase your retention, reduce your attrition, get you more members, make you more money, this is the podcast for you. I'm Tina Corner Stolz, the host. I've been doing this since 2005. I built a territory of 10+ groups, sold for a multiple, started Ellis Council, Leader Exchange Council, in 2012. We are a licensing model. We are the leading educator in the peer advisory council space. We have the podcast. I have a licensing program with certification. I've written 2 books. So today, when you hear this episode each and every week, it's a new podcast where we dive deep into a topic for 15, 20 minutes. One week it's me doing a deep dive on all the experience and insights from not only today with our entire licensed partner community or the past, what I've learned along the way. But we also have guests that are out there doing groups today that share their insights and new concepts. So let's get started with today's episode. Welcome everyone to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. I am your host, Tina Corner Stolz, and today I have a guest that's going to talk about a topic that you probably all have wondered. Can I serve the small business market? Is it possible? There are definitely challenges to that. You might have ruled out how important that market is, etc. And I have been fortunate enough to meet Leo, who is going to talk a little bit about this and how he got into this space and his whole vision for it, a little bit about his model. And you should walk away with ideas yourself and an understanding that if you truly also have a passion about this particular space, not only can you reach out to Leo, but it will give you some ideas on what you can do in your own marketplace. So, Leo, welcome to the program.

Thank you, Tina Corner Stolzl.

Great. And so, Leo, can you tell everybody a little bit about, um, first of all, where you are and how you got into being one of the founders of Leading Peers, right?

So I'm based in Weston, Florida, which is about 20 minutes west of Fort Lauderdale Airport, Fort Lauderdale City. Um, how I got into it was really interesting. I'd always since I became an entrepreneur, read books to train myself on how to scale my company. And I read all the classics, you know, the Good to Great, the Built to Last, all, all the great books. And one thing that kept coming up was the importance of peer to peer networks or peer to peer learning environments for business owners. And I said to myself, I have to join one of these. But I was always traveling or I was moving internationally, or having kids. I was super busy. And I always put that off. So finally in 2019, it caught up to me and I realized I have to do this now. So 2019, let me take you back there. I had, uh, a company with 45 full-time employees. We had full-time employees in 10 different countries with offices in all of them. We were doing $12 million of revenue and things were starting to get really challenging and I really wanted to scale to $100 million. So I'm like, I've never done this. I have no idea what's going to come up. I need to find the right peer learning environment. So I went and joined Vistage. I thought, okay, it's one of the 3 flagship, uh, organizations along with YPO and EO. Let's go and give it a try. And it was really good for me. It was really, really, uh, beneficial. But then a year after I joined, the pandemic started and my corporate events business came to a complete standstill, Tina. There was no revenue overnight. Imagine going from $12 million to zero in revenue and no end in sight because it really depends on me on whether there would be a vaccine, people would go back to doing events.

Right.

So it was so very scary times, and especially in my line of business, it was going to be the last one to come back after the pandemic. So I realized I'm an entrepreneur. I have to find a way to continue to be an entrepreneur in this tough environment. And while I didn't shut that business, I realized I needed to leave that business. So I found a CEO to replace me and I said, what am I going to be the CEO of? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized what I was all about was leadership, entrepreneurship, you know, small and midsize business growth, personal development, professional development, and community building events. That was what I had done my entire life, and I was so passionate about it. So I'm like, how can I build a business out of it? Well, the day that I started thinking that I had to leave Vistage because it was costing me like $25,000 a year when I added the membership, the retreat, the event that I needed to host, all the social around it. That was the day that I realized, man, this is harder than I thought it would be leaving this organization. And I realized this is because I'm so passionate about the work we do there. I'm so passionate about it. And so I was like, why am I trying to find a new model? I should just go and become a member of another organization like Visage, but that's not gonna cost me as much. And I couldn't find it. And when you find that there's a need in the market, when you identify that the solution you need doesn't exist and you're an entrepreneur and you have a passion for the, the solution, you build it. That's what I did. So I founded it. And over the course of the last 4 years, I have sought some investors, 3 friends of mine, but they're passive investors. They don't work in the business and, and they have a minority stake in the company. And I have a majority stake in the company.

And so can— first, to help the audience, can you define your— the space of small business? What does that mean?

Well, small business is defined in so many different ways depending on where you look, right? If you ask the SBA, they have their definition. If you ask researchers, depending on what research study, they have their definition. There are more definitions than you could think of. By and large, when, when I think of a small business, I think in the United States of an organization that's still not at a, at $100 million of revenue or more. I think that mid, the mid-market starts at around $100 million on up to about, you know, a billion or, or 2. And then you start getting into corporations properly speaking. Now, between 0 and $100 million, you're gonna find a lot of companies that are very different from one another. I mean, it's one thing to be doing $500,000 in revenue and have like just the owner working in the business to have, I don't know, 200 people working in a business doing $70 million. So it's a big definition. When we in Leading Peers think of our members, we think of companies that can be up to $100 million, but sometimes they're not even yet at $1 million, but they are established companies. They're not ideas anymore. They have sales. They have some results and they're looking to continue growing.

And you have figured out how to work with them effectively. And so can you talk about sort of a little bit more of like you mentioned, there's a price point that you were trying to fill in the marketplace. Is there anything else that your groups help regards to fulfilling that space?

Yes, there is. Yeah, there is a couple other things. So the barriers to entry of joining the flagship organizations in the CEO networking, um, and the coaching and training space are pretty high, and they're around 3 different areas. One is the price point. The other one is the revenue that you need to have in order to be able to join them. Uh, the third one pertains more to whether you need a friend to invite you or not. Okay, so let's go to the first one, the price point. It's not just how much does it cost per month or per year, but also the terms. Can you pay month to month or do you have to pay the year in advance? Is there an enrollment fee or is there a penalty if you decide to leave? All these things add to the price. So we have a very simple price in Leading Peers, which is $340 a month that runs until end of July of 2025, and you pay month to month. You can leave at any time. You don't have an enrollment fee. You don't have a penalty to leave. Alright? And you can't pay the year in advance. You pay month to month. The second thing is the revenue requirement. A lot of these organizations say, well, you have to have at least $15 million, says YPO. Here in Florida, EO says at least $2.5 million. Visage typically says at least $5 million. They might look the other way and make exceptions. We said, let's be very, very clear that with $200,000 of revenue or more in the last 12 months, you can get in. Now, that is provided that when we bring you to an interview or we bring you to a group of peers, they want to invite you in. So there's a double vetting process. You don't need an invitation from a member, but you do need to fulfill that revenue requirement and then be approved by a specific group of people because we don't want to match people that don't want to work together. So we never impose that this is the group. If you want to be here, you have to. That's why we would never take somebody's payment and then assign them. We actually have them interview, make that match, and then we know it's going to work for everybody.

And I also believe that your format is very conducive to that space and which you're meeting your, your members' needs, you know, by that format. And what have you found that is important to that type of member that they're looking for? And then how does your format help facilitate that?

Well, our, our, our members are looking for something that's gonna be powerful and, and efficient. I mean, accessible is important cuz if not, you can't get them even to give it a go. But what makes somebody wanna stay is that they're getting a lot of value. The same applies in every service that exists. For them to feel there's a lot of value, it has to be powerful and efficient. So you can't give them the power at the expense of biting a lot of their time because they have to balance with a very busy workload. So that's where the efficiency is crucial. You have to make every minute count. And I would even say every second count. Now, you can't script everything that's going to happen. There is some room for spontaneity. That's what makes it fun. That's what makes people get more creative. But they need to see that there is a structure. We're not just going to get together and, just see who has something to talk about. Now, there are, there's an agenda. We're going to assign X number of minutes to each part of the agenda. There is a facilitator. In our meetings, we have a peer board leader. This is a certified position. We don't charge people to certify them through the process, but we select rigorously on the basis of does the person have great facilitation skills at a board level in a group of CEOs? And has this person been a CEO themselves and a business owner? Because they can't really be the advisor of the group if they have never walked in their shoes. And even to facilitate, it really helps for them to have that high-level business experience because they know how to extract the best wisdom in, in the room. So those are the things I would say, as far as, as that. The power comes from people bringing the right issues to talk about. So they have to feel a lot of trust in the group. They have to be able to be very vulnerable with the group. And you have to create that safe space for people to bring that. And, um, from tracking certain results and having some data that is shared, if everything is just spoken and nothing is ever recorded, then that power also is very limited, uh, because everything is forgotten very easily.

Mm-hmm. And then a little bit about your format, because one of the things, um, that I learned from you about is the concept of members coaching each other. So, you know, that plays a role versus a coaching session in between your meetings. And can you talk a little bit about that concept and kind of how did that happen that you figured that out?

Yeah, it's a great question, Tina. So in Vistage, my experience is that you would have a coaching session with your group chair. And that added a lot to the cost of the membership. And I realized that when I was trying to incorporate that, uh, one-to-one session with the group leader for our members early on, and I realized nobody really is going to want to pay for this unless they have a, a lot of revenue. And I'm trying to open up this market of people that don't have that very high revenue. And can join all these other organizations. So how can I make it more accessible without losing that coaching element? And that question stuck with me. And it was really my participation in another community that I'm a part of. So I love communities. I'm a member of many. I don't just run one. I'm a member, a lay base member of many communities. And I grab the ideas. I get inspiration from other communities. One of the communities that I was in believed a lot in one-to-ones. And another community that I'm in, we have small bands of 4 people, and we don't have a facilitator. And I realize if you combine these two ideas, the power of a one-to-one session with the ability of a very small group to facilitate itself, why can't you create a one-to-one coaching session. Now, I understand a lot of people, unless you show them how to make that one-to-one session valuable, are, are either going to skip it or they're going to show up and just wing it, and none of those things is going to have any value. So we do a lot to create accountability around here is your meeting, and then checking, did you do your meeting? How was it beneficial? We give guidelines that it is a coaching session Maybe in your first one-to-one coaching session, you do want to get more information about the other person to know who they are. But by the second one-to-one you do with a member of your board, you should be getting deeper and getting help from them. If they have expertise in an area, you should use that time to gain that expertise. And, and in our organization, those one-to-ones are always with members of your peer advisory board. So you already have that trust. They already know what your vision is, what your goals are. And what challenges you've been bringing, and they know how to get through to you. So that's why they're so powerful.

And have— do— and they do those monthly, correct?

Okay.

They're kind of rotated around. So like, I may be responsible for holding or doing a coaching session with another member, but then I may have another member doing it with me.

Well, in each session we split the time. Okay, we say schedule 45 minutes so that you get 5 minutes of chitchat and then 20 minutes to coach the other person each. And that's the 45. You can extend it, you can turn it in into a 2-hour lunch if you want, but schedule 45 minutes because less than that you're not going to be able to achieve the depth we're going for. And if you try to schedule more than that, you might say, oh, I don't have the time, I'm too busy. So That's the, the guideline that we give them. We tell them who is responsible each month to initiate the organization of the session. There has to be an organizer, and the other person is just waiting to be contacted. They can take the initiative, of course, but, you know, the person who's responsible knows who they are.

Okay, got it. So then through the course of a year, I would end up meeting with all the members one-on-one at some point in time.

Yeah, our boards have a limit of 8 members, not counting the board leader. So if you're one of those 8 members, you're going to be having those one-to-one coaching sessions with the other 7 peers. And so that means that every 7 months you start again and you meet with your, your, your peers again. There could be a new member, sure. And so you might have, you know, a change in that regard. And Our average board has 7 members right now, not 8, because we capped them at 8, but we will start them with 4 to 8 members. So sometimes they're not yet at 8 members.

Mm-hmm. And what can you share with the audience? What has been some of the amazing outcomes you've seen from the members doing these coaching sessions with each other?

Yeah. You know, a lot of what happens in those conversations stays there, right? Because, and you don't expect them to share everything that comes out. What I will say is that the personal life aspect tends to come out more in the one-to-one sessions. Um, because when we have the group session, it's a monthly meeting, it's 3.5 hours long. There is a section which is the core section of the meeting called wins and challenges where each person's gonna have the same time as everybody else. And by the time they're done presenting their wins and challenges and they have 5 minutes of uninterrupted time, we typically have another 15 to 25 minutes to work on the key challenge that the person brought. So the member will usually pick a business-related challenge for the group meeting. Sometimes they bring a personal challenge, but they just name it as one of their 3 challenges and we don't go in depth in the group meeting. But then in the one-to-ones, that's where they feel more comfortable to say, here's what's really weighing on me right now. It might be a relationship at home. It might be a health situation in their greater family. It's usually things that are harder for them to talk about, but they find that trust with that one person and they're willing to go deep. And that creates a tremendous amount of support. And then you see that reflected— the way I see that reflected, I run 8 of our 18 peer advisory boards right now, Tina, and I see that because the two people that had their one-to-one last month or two months ago, they're giving advice to each other at the meeting in a way that you can tell that they know something that the rest of us don't. And, and, and they, they know that they can trust the group to, to hear it. So sometimes they'll say, well, in the one-to-one you shared this with me, and based on that, you know, I think that blah blah blah, and the rest of the group can benefit from getting a greater understanding of what that member is going through emotionally or whatnot. You know, obviously, since every member signs a confidentiality agreement and everything that's discussed in the board has to stay in the board, they know that they are at liberty to say that unless they're, you know, such great personal friends that they might say, you know, don't even bring this to the board. This is really just something I wanted you to know.

Mm-hmm. So obviously increases as you stated, level of trust, vulnerability, bonding. It's a way to get members bonded quickly as well.

Yeah. And I'll just add that sometimes they use it for mentoring on a specific topic where they have a board member that has expertise. So say you have a lawyer in your group and you're having a legal issue, you use that time to say, I'm going to ask you the, you know, 10, 20, 30 questions I would ask my lawyer, but my lawyer might be upset that I'm asking all of this because he's like, why don't you trust me? I'm guiding you well. And I want to validate if I'm doing the right thing. Or you meet with somebody who has financial expertise and you say, look, you know, here's what my CFO is saying. I want to validate that I have the right. And as a CEO, you have to make sure that you are convinced of the path you're going down. You know, you can trust your team, but at the end of the day, it's also incumbent on you to, you know, to put your, your, your, the weight of your office behind what your team is going to do.

Absolutely. So before we get into like the last question, which is obviously I want you to share any words of wisdom or piece of advice with the audience. But before we do, are there, have you noticed any downsides to the members doing the coaching back and forth that you have realize you need to mitigate, or there really hasn't been any?

No, there hasn't been any. It's been incredibly successful. Now, sometimes members, specific members, don't make the time for the one-to-one sessions.

That's what I would think. You kind of have to manage like, hey, this is the obligation, you got to make that up.

Yeah. So it's important as the board leader to say, hey, when you're not doing that, you're not building trust with that person. You're basically saying, you know, your time, even over a lunch with me over Zoom while we speak, is not worth my time. And that's a big statement. So if you want that person to really be in your corner, think of you, have your best interests at heart, you've gotta make them feel that. We have a format here that allows you to create that relationship and support. If you're, if you choose to, to, to bypass it, you're sending a big statement to that person and to the rest of your board peers.

Mm-hmm.

You know, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Right, right. And that goes across the board in anything. Of members helping each other, obviously. And so as we end every episode is that one piece of advice, and it could be on anything that would be really helpful to our listeners that are out there also running their groups or aspiring to. So, Leo, what would you share?

I think what's key is to not reinvent, to not do more of the same that already exists when you start your thing. You have to think, what am I gonna do different? And this applies in every service, in every, organization. If you are just doing the same as everybody else, you're basically setting yourself up to compete over price. The cheaper you sell, you know, you might, you might grab a client or something, but basically you're gonna have the wrong clients that are not, you know, able to pay much. And they're gonna see you very transactionally. Like, the moment that you raise your price or somebody else comes into the market that charges a little bit less than you, 5% less than you, they're going to leave you. So why take that path? It just doesn't make any sense. You've got to pick a blue ocean, not a red ocean, you know, full of blood. You have to pick a blue ocean where you can swim for miles on end and there's no— nobody going to be right around you. So if you can't figure out what's going to be different about what you're doing or who you're doing it for, or how you're doing it, you, you shouldn't even start. And if you find the differences and those differences are compelling, they're, they're really things that make it more exciting for you and for somebody specifically, not for everybody. It shouldn't be for everybody, but for a very specific type of client. Wow. I mean, the market's huge. You can always scale and, you know, acquiring customers isn't easy, but they're out there as long as you're driven you're gonna find them and they're gonna find you.

Absolutely. Well, Leo, thank you for sharing some really good insights, particularly in this size of market, and that you can tell you're passionate about it, and I appreciate you sharing it because it is a market that is many times underserved, particularly in remote locations, because typically you know, nobody is there offering the peer group concept. And so it can be applicable, particularly in those areas. So I hope the listeners take some of this away, and, um, we'll also reach out to you, which is how can they reach you if they would love to contact?

Well, first of all, Leading Peers is the name of the company, right? It's where leaders go to grow. So it's where you have the leading peers of companies. So go to our website, leadingpeers.com. Com. You can fill out a contact us form there or a become a member form right from there. It'll come to us and, and we'll be very, very happy to work with you.

Excellent. Well, thank you. And of course, all that information will be in the episode notes, um, for everyone. And thank you again for sharing this knowledge and for all of you for listening to another episode of Mastermind Mastery on this Tuesday. And until next Tuesday, and go make it happen. Thank you everyone for listening to another episode of Mastermind Mastery. And to get access to today's episodes, not only the show notes but any tools and resources, encourage you to— not only will you find them in the episode show notes, but also you can go to the website www.lxcoun counsel.com. So elxcounsel.com, and you will find a plethora of articles and content and tools and resources and worksheets and things like that that can be helpful to you in creating and running successful PACs. I want to leave you with one thing that we end and teach to do in every single meeting, and that is the very last thing is to ask what is your takeaway from today's episode? I encourage you to give that thought. Take advantage of the time you just invested in listening to the episode, and what can you do to move one step closer to the vision that you have and the goals that you're trying to achieve with your groups? So again, take a step back. What's your key takeaways? What can you actually act on? And I leave this with one note, and those of you that have read my You know that I ended the book with a story about my mentor. He always, when he met people, had a pebble in his pocket that he passed to them when there was knowledge shared. And so I ask you today to think about that pebble concept and to pass what you learned today on to someone else, which could be your members, or take it internally to yourself and act on it. So now go do something with those takeaways.