Are You in the Right Room to Grow Your Business with Christopher Flett and Nancy Juetten | 012

Hello, are you in the right room to get the right

business done, so that you can set yourself up strategically to

give and receive support from respected peers whose opinions

you value, and they can make an impact on the rest of your

business and your life. This is the subject that we're talking

how to be in the right room so your business can

grow organically and easily without a lot of cringeworthy

activities that make you want to run in the opposite direction.

My name is Nancy Juetten. I am known as the Get Known Get Paid

mentor, and I have a particular expertise as a podcast guesting

success expert, and I am super excited to be here with my very

dear friend and most respected colleague, Christopher Flett.

And I just have to tell you a little bit about him before he

speaks up. He is the founder of Ghost CEO, and Ghost CEO has one

just shy of 1000 business coaches across the better part

of North America, and every one of them grew a $1 million

business before coming to work for Chris Flett and his Ghost

CEO organization. And I always like to quip that Chris makes so

much money that his greatest occupational hazard is getting

paper cuts every month with the checks that come to him from all

around the world. Chris Flett, so good to have you with us

today.

Nancy, thanks for having me. Always a fun

introduction, and fingers are healed. But I'm I'm taking

precautions these days.

Well, we've known each other for 10 years or more,

you've been the business coach for my husband for the last I

don't know seven or eight years. Helped him sell his company for

a very handy dandy price, and I think the last time we did an

interview, it was the best viewed interview ever on my

YouTube channel with 2,200 or more views. So that should let

people who are watching, in any shape, way, or form, know that

you've got some magic to add, and maybe I do too.

Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I remember I was actually,

I think, in the United Kingdom when we did that with you and

your group, and that was that was a lot of fun. Speaking of

groups, you had a great group. Fingers

up at the med, like you were saying. How many

fingers? How many fingers? Remember

that. I do. Yeah.

So I like to joke that Chris is the iron boot of

accountability, which is the match for my velvet boot of

accountability. We both have very different ways of

approaching how we serve our clients, but they each have

their place. And so during today's juicy conversation,

we're going to cover a number of key points that will give you

all powerful food for thought. Like, for example, are you an

empire builder with a team intending to add multiple commas

to your income, or are you a boutique business owner who goes

deep with fewer clients, or are you somewhere in between? And

why does that matter? We're going to talk about that. Are

you in the right room, and how do you know? If you've been

going it alone for way too long, doing things differently can be

a game changer, and we're going to tell you why. What are your

standards and boundaries around who you hang out with? Let's

name and claim some helpful ways to make sure you're in the right

room. And there are some other things we're going to talk about

too, but I just wanted to entice you with what's to come, so we

could just dig in and get to the meat of the matter. So, Chris,

why do you think it's important for people to be clear about

whether they're building an empire or a boutique or

something in between?

Well, I think your approach is going to be much

different, and you know, I think really when I when I think of

all the business owners that I met over the last 25 years,

they're really split in those two camps. There's people that

want to, you know, build like just build to build, just want

to get bigger and stronger and have more influence, and you

know, really try to become a juggernaut in their particular

industry. And then I would say almost 50, 60% are on the other

side that are like, I want to build a business that supports

the life that I want to have for myself and my family and my

friends and maybe care for parents and children and you

know much more of a nurturing kind of a piece, not necessarily

driven by you know having all those extra zeros, but doing

meaningful work as well and you know stuff that you kind of pop

out of bed in the morning and can't wait to do. Now I think

you can probably have both, but I think I tend to lean to the to

the first group more than the latter. As I, I think you know,

bigger is better, and often have to be reminded about you know

all the all of the other important stuff that comes along

with with success and the responsibility of it.

Well, and I tend to focus more on the latter

because, as we both know, I had a little health incident last

year, and I realized that I don't get an unlimited number of

days ahead, and I want to make sure that the days that I have

are spent doing the things I love to do with the people I

love to do them, and I most importantly want to have white

space on my calendar, and so. By designing a business that's

aligned with what I care about and what matters most to me, my

intention is that I get to hang out with people who have a

similar value. So those who are looking to have multiple zeros

in their income need to hang out with people and be in the room

with people who are aspiring to that, because in my experience,

when I'm in a room with the people with people that are in

that bucket, I tend to go a little bit small and maybe not

participate fully because I'm intimidated by the success that

is around me. That is maybe 10 steps beyond what I could

possibly ever achieve given my current view. Do you have any

thoughts about that?

Yeah, you know what's funny. You and I being kind of

the ying and yang and having such a great friendship is, I'm

the exact opposite. And so when I'm in a group of people that

are are you know kind of empire building, I often feel small

insofar as I need to game up to become the biggest personality

in this room, and so I have kind of the opposite thing where kind

of my chest puffs, you know, internally anyway, and then I'm

like, I need to up my game in order to be deserving of being

in this room. And when I'm with a room that might be, you know,

more boutique business owners, I often have to hold myself back,

almost shrink myself, almost the inverse of what you said. Shrink

myself because I want to get out the you know the the jockey crop

and whack every one of the bucko. And come on, everyone, we

can do two times. Like we can get this rocket and rolling, and

tend to be a very overwhelming personality in those rooms. So I

I think you and I have the exact inverse internal dynamic when

we're in our different rooms,

but being in the right room is so important

because when you're in the right room and there's safety in the

room, and people feel that they are with others who are on a

similar path, folks can identify more with the problems that are

being discussed and feel safe sharing what their unique

challenges are. Whereas if you were in a really mixed room

where everybody's an empire builder and you're in the

minority, you may just-I mean-you will certainly be

inspired and excited about what people are accomplishing and how

they are accomplishing it. But I think the thing that people have

to keep in mind is-is that really the model for you, given

what it is that you've got as a primary objective in your life,

and so in your experience coaching people over so many

decades, do you find that sometimes people chase the wrong

model, and does that ever happen?

You know what it does, and you know what's funny is you

explain that because I think back to when I started learning

how to coach in 1999, I learned from a gentleman in Australia.

His name was Ernesto Ceroli, and his claim to fame was when

Australia was going through their recession, he was able to

come up with ideas on how service businesses could build

themselves without any money or access to money. And you know,

the first thing that he said to me is, "Do you call your

clients? And I'm like, of course, I call my clients. He's

like, never call a client; always call them back. I'm like,

what does that mean? And he goes, empower your clients to

call you when they need you. As a coach, your job is not to

check in with them. And so that was when he had said that it

kind of made me angry. And I was in a room with a bunch of

coaches, right? Or people. I mean, we didn't even know what

coaching was back then, it was like it was like AA for

consultants. He was trying to teach us to share the secrets,

right? That we'd always kept tight, because if a client gets

a secret, then of course they don't need to pay you anymore.

As a business advisor, you want your client to have all the

secrets so that they can go on without you because they have

the tools. And so he had me reeling with this whole thing,

because I was in the mindset, you know, you you call clients

every day, and I was looking around the room, hoping that

everyone else would be offended, right? Are you offended like I

am? You know, who's this guy talking crap about how we do

things? And they weren't, right? But we had like an HR coach, and

we had a leadership coach, right? And I was obviously the

sales coach, and so all these people were eating it up, and

then the second thing he said, which I almost didn't hear

because I was still razzled from the first comment, was he said,

"The death of the entrepreneur is solitude, and I was about-I

think I was probably about a year in business at that point,

and I and I started my company in Kamloops, which is a small

mountain city in the interior of British Columbia, best known for

a pulp paper and pulp mill, and I had been going every Monday to

chapters with chapters in Canada. It's like Barnes and

Noble or Borders in the U.S. And there was a Starbucks there, and

so Kamloops got a Starbucks, and geez, you'd think that the Queen

of England came to visit, right? It was so exciting, and so we

would all meet at 10 o'clock on Mondays, reveling in how awesome

we were because we we weren't going to a job, right? You

didn't have to go to a job at nine nine in the morning, and we

would sit in these big, you know, remember how Starbucks

used to have the big comfy chairs that that you know

enticed you to sit there all day, and so we'd all be sitting

there kind of in a circle, and you know we'd be moaning about

how dumb the market. Right, market doesn't get us right.

They're not going to pay us the money we deserve in Cow Moves.

We're going to have to go to Vancouver. And when Ernesto said

the death of the entrepreneur is solitude, I always felt like I

had a network of people around me because I've been good at

building, you know, great connections. But Nancy, I didn't

have the right people. I had a bunch of people that were

complaining and making excuses, and not people that were saying,

"Okay, we need to kind of kind of break through this and all of

that. So now, if we fast forward 24 years, right, having done

this, we have clients, and I would say maybe 60 70% of our

clients are more of that boutique style type of a

business, right? They might want to break six or seven figures,

but it's really about balance and lifestyle and all of that.

And then you know, a minority would be the ones that are

looking to license big businesses and so on.

It is rare for clients to come and feel lonely, and that's a

really funny thing for me to talk about because it's not we

don't do personal coaching, right? So I always say like I

don't really care about your feelings. I care about the

business. Is the business making money, and are we growing it?

But time and time again, the loneliness would show up. And

when Ernesto said the death of the entrepreneur of solitude,

what he was really saying is a lot of business owners end up

giving up. They stop their business early. They might

sabotage their own growth. They might just shut things down and

go and get a job because at least they have colleagues. And

I still romance about. You know, I worked in nightclubs and I

worked in bars and I worked in restaurants. The camaraderie

that happens where you're having a bad day and a coworker helps

you out. They give you a laugh. They give you some ideas on how

to do things better and all that. Most business owners don't

have that, or they have you know, excuse the French, but

like a really shitty group of people, and those shitty group

of people tend to promote the the the bad things become worse

with the wrong group. When you're with a good group, and

you know you feel, and again, I'm talking a little bit, I'm

just talking from personal experience, but when you have a

group of people that you feel comfortable with, that you

respect, that have differing viewpoints, that can start to

bump you out of your own funks that you might get into. They

give you a different kind of an idea how to do things. You know,

different service levels. Like for me, the different groups

that I have now become part of, I would say, jettison me 10

years farther ahead than I should have been had I not had

those people. And sometimes it's just a really good idea that

they drop on you. But other times they're like, you know,

when you do this, that's probably creating a problem. And

my first thing is it's not right. There's no problems. I'm

doing it perfectly, of course. But then you have a look at it

because I know, like, and trust the people I'm in groups with,

and I'm like, they're actually probably right. And sometimes

just having that little, you know, some people call it a

mastermind or a trusted group. We call it a hunting pack

because, of course, it's all in our model within sales. Having

somebody that you know, like, and trust that gives you a

little bit of feedback, you don't get that from your spouse,

you don't get it from your mom, you don't get it from your kids,

you don't get it from your best friend. Getting it from another

business professional is where magic really happens, and 99% of

the time, people don't have it when I ask them.

I want to say respond to a couple things that

you said there. One is when you're bemoaning what's

happening in Kamloops with all the folks that are saying,

"Gosh, ain't it awful? Isn't it? Isn't it true that you also get

your own "Gosh, ain't it awful" membership card? And so I think

that it's really important if you are considering joining a

group that you should consider who else is going to be there

and be super strategic about it and make sure those people are

thinking forward and optimistically, so that you can

be in that kind of company. The other thing I wanted to say is

that with a hunting pack, we were talking about this the

other day. The neat thing about a hunting pack is that you're

all serving a similar niche audience, but you serve in

different ways. And so, in that way, you can cross refer

business among and between each other. You can do business among

and between each other, and you can create strategic alliances

among and between each other, and touch the audiences that you

collectively serve with messages that would be really refreshing

to the people that are a part of it. Another thing I wanted to

respond to is this whole idea of ideas. Sometimes you can't see

the label when you're in the jar. I think you said that once

before. You can't see the label when you're in the jar, and

sometimes we're so busy doing our own thing, trying to serve

the clients and keep this the wheels turning and the plates

spinning, that we don't have enough grace or time to say,

"Gosh, if I could just package this differently, I could make

10 times more money. And I was having a conversation with

someone today, and she said, "I'm so busy taking care of this

or that or the other. I I don't have time to figure this out.

And I said, "Well, based on what you just told me, what if you

did A, B, and C instead? What then might happen in terms of

revenue growth and ease and white space on your calendar?

And I could just see her eyes go wide. Her jaw drop, because it

was an opportunity she couldn't see for herself until someone

who was paying attention to her business was thoughtful and

generous enough to share. Which brings me to a fun little story

I want you to tell, because you have been a dyed-in-the-wool for

many years. I'm going to do my programs live, and I'm not going

to have a course, and you were in a hunting pack with a number

of respected colleagues, and someone made a suggestion. And

I'd love for you to tell us what happened as a result of that

suggestion that has created something very exciting in your

business that brings more paper cuts.

Yeah, right. Well, and so the when you say

distinguished friends, I I wish they could hear this, and maybe

they'll watch this because they'll know that is a

mischaracterization of who they are. So I have a group. One of

my groups is about 12 guys. We call ourselves the Red Solo Cup

Society, and when you think of Red Solo Cups, right? No, none

of us are drinking in fancy whiskey glass or goblets. It's

like the plastic cup, and we actually we use these when we go

away, and we go away a couple times a year. Normally, we go to

Vegas for a cigar show, and then we normally do somewhere like

Montreal or so on. And we have you know investment advisors,

and we have commercial bankers and investment bankers, and you

know a whole variety commercial realtors and developers and so

on. But what the the common thing is is all self-made

people, all kind of in the same age bracket, and all that don't

take each other or themselves too seriously, right? So we're

not buying our old own PR. We're self-deprecating. We know where

we came from. You know, I often joke that, you know, I'm

certainly not smarter than anyone. I just tend to outwork

everybody. I can I can work you to exhaustion to win the race,

and so one of our friends who's in this group, you know,

normally think business financial. That's the unit. Is a

gold mine architect, and so when you're building a gold mine,

he's the person that decides, you know, how it gets built and

how it gets stuck and all this stuff, and so we call him Lego.

We all have nicknames, so we call him Lego because he's got a

really square head, and so he looks like a Lego figurine. And

so we're all sitting in the hot tub smoking cigars. And the

great thing about this group is, we all kind of do some type of

business together. Some of us buy from each other. Some of us

partner on things. All of that. We're really honest with each

other when there's something you know that's challenging us, and

we can't do that in our normal life. That's the benefit of kind

of a closed group that's being curated. And I'm proud to say,

I'm totally happy to brag, I put this group together because

every person that I brought in, I wanted to make sure would

bring value to everyone else, not one or two people. Everyone,

and so having a curated group also very difficult to do. I

selfishly did it because I wanted people that I could hang

around with that I could offer value to, but maybe more

importantly, because I'm selfish, I could get value from.

And so in my day to day work, my job is not to tell clients what

I'm having challenges. Now I might admit, here's a challenge

that I overcame, and here's how I did it. It's a kind of a

learning structure. But if I'm staying up at night because

something's bothering me, whatever, I'm certainly not

wasting a client's time on sharing that with them. This

group is is a group where I could say this is something that

I'm struggling with, and I put it out there. And you know, when

we go to Vegas, everyone is like, oh, you know, you must be

ripping it up on Vegas. No, we go to bed at like 10 o'clock at

night, and we normally are sitting in the hot tub all day,

smoking cigars, drinking whiskey with a pad of paper, all making

notes. Because when two guys might be talking about a

problem, I'm listening to their problem, thinking how I might be

able to give some valuable input, but also thinking about

how what I'm hearing can benefit me. So I'm participating in the

group, but also thinking what lessons can I learn from what

I'm hearing that I can also use. And so I was talking that you

know, in most audiences, or you know, even in a group like this,

if there's 100 people in an audience, and Nancy, I've shared

this with you, right? And I actually think we met in we met

through a through a common client that where it was kind of

a smaller group, wasn't it?

But if there's 100 people that come to a talk, 5% or five

people will be an ideal client for our one-on-one coaching, and

95 aren't. And that might be that they're they're too small.

Their focus might be on something different mindset.

We're too much for them. I mean, there's a million reasons why.

And so for 17 years, those 95 people or 95% go with God.

Here's a book. All the best. Let us know how it goes. And that

was all we offered. And I say that with a lot because I'm so

embarrassed because I would give clients shit if they left meat

on the bone like that. And so this had been something that had

been bothering me for years because people would be like,

"Well, do you have anything for us other than this? I'm like, I

don't. All we have is the one-on-one coaching. So I'm

talking about this in the hot tub with with the guys, and I'm

like, you know, I got to figure this out at some point. And

Lego, who's walking by, said, "Well, you should just boost

some of your stuff online. And I'm like, "Shut up, Lego. You

don't know what you're talking about. And so he walks by,

right? And then he walks by again, almost like a like a. You

know, a cuckoo bird on a on a clock, then goes this way, then

goes this way, and he's like, "Well, why don't you record some

of it and put it on and make it at a more affordable price? I'm

like, "Shut up, Lego! Like we're talking about training here.

You're a gold. If I want to find gold, I'll ask you, right? But

he won't let it go because part of our group is everybody has to

leave stronger, and so we almost parenting is not the right word,

but we take responsibility that everyone gets their their you

know their crap sorted before they go home. And so the third

time he goes, "What are you scared of for online training?

I'm like, "It doesn't work. The people who come into one-on-one,

it's not going to work for online. And he's like, "Those

are not the people you're putting online. You're offering

it to the 95 people that you're abandoning after your sessions,

and the abandoning thing really got my goat. And he goes, "Do it

for them, even if they're not the ones coming in. One, give

them something else that they can use. So it makes me mad. I

get up, I get my pad of paper, I start writing out, and I think,

"Okay, how would I convert GoCO to a program that people could

learn over six months that we would never talk to, and we just

give them some value? What would and I always start with price.

What's the price, and then can I justify the price that I want to

charge? Well, long story short, that that program is called now

now called the Foundry, and it's a six month online program where

people can learn the tools of the Go CEO, no matter how big or

small you are, and that's become 40% of our global revenue. And

so that's it. Four years now. It took me 17 years of ignoring,

and then we have this donkey gold miner who walks by and

makes a couple of things, changes my mind, and then when I

look at it, I'm like, "That's actually a great idea, and it's

now put into play in some of our biggest clients, like Deloitte

and American Airlines and the Cordon Bleu, all use this

program for their senior managers and their, you know,

campus directors and so on. And so that, you know, now I hope he

doesn't see this because I certainly owe him to never pay

for a drink again or or lunch, but I'm going to stick them with

the odd bill. That's the power of having an interesting group

of people that are driven to excellence, but in their own

way, and they can't help but want to help others, knowing

that when one of us is strong, all of us are strong. And so

that I think is the story that most kind of resonates with me,

and that is the that is the life changing impact the right group

can have if it's curated properly. Most groups aren't

curated.

If you get one bad apple or two bad apples in it, it becomes

garbage. So if you or if you can find someone to curate a good

group for you to be a part of, it's it's it's beautiful, right?

And like I said, it erased 17 years of sins for me, and we're

now. And I don't. I try not to think about had I got that

information, you know, 14 years ago. But that's the power of

having a diverse group that are driven to doing things the right

way that will give you feedback on what you're doing. And most

of us don't have that,

and I think it's an itch that a lot of us would

like to have scratched. I want to tell another story. I was, as

I've mentioned, I'm the podcast guesting success expert, and

about three years ago, I was really digging in to learn every

nuance about how to be brilliant at this as I possibly could,

because that's kind of the kind of gal I am. I'm really into

mastery, so I find myself in a small curated group of people

who are very serious about podcast guesting and

establishing expert authority. And I was right in the middle of

putting the finishing touches on the Bye Bye Boring Bio workbook

that I brought to market in 2020 to serve speakers, experts, and

authors who needed to speak up virtually because they were

sheltering in place, and so I'm in. I'm excited about the book.

That's I've got this like tunnel vision book, book, book. I got

to do the book. Got to do the book, and this gentleman is in

the group, and he says to me, "Have you thought about doing a

preview for the book? And I said, "Why would I want to do a

preview for the book? And he said, "Because you can get the

preview out and build a lot of buzz for your book ahead of

time, you can build a huge audience for your book before

the book is even in your hand, and heck, you might even become

an Amazon best-selling author with a preview. And I said, I

didn't even know that was a thing. He says it's a thing, and

so I thought about it, and I thought, you know what, that's a

good idea because it wasn't going to be till September that

I was going to have the book in my hand, but it was July, and

why not get on with it? So I took the the I created a preview

of the book, I brought it out to market, it became an Amazon

bestseller in four categories, and I would have never done it

if not having been in that curative group of people who had

similar interests, who had brighter ideas than what was

brewing in my head at that moment, and that ended up being

a brilliant thing because the book came out in September. You

endorsed it to your entire Ghost CEO organization. And all of a

sudden, that video that you did about why that book was so

awesome has been viewed like I don't know 1800 times. Like, oh

my gosh! It's so. I am in the position right now where I am

curating a group that can be like what it is that we're

describing, and I'm being very, very particular about it because

I think that in terms of training others to curate their

own groups, if you put yourself in the center of a tic-tac-toe

board and you imagine that there are eight spaces around you

where you can look up or look down, just like Hollywood

Squares, and say, "Who can I call to ask for this or that? If

you curate exactly who you want in the group that serves the

same audience, but in a completely different way, that

Hollywood Squares becomes the inner circle of awesomeness.

That you instantly have people that you can refer to that will

refer back to you, and when these people have audiences

already curated of their own of 1000 or more opt-in subscribers.

If we have 12 people in the group, that's 12,000 people that

we can all introduce each other to as a warm introduction

because we know these people, we trust these people, we do

business with these people, and we know enough about why they're

swell that we can absolutely extend our trust to our

communities, so that they will want to trust them too. Right?

Yeah, I think

that's true, 100% And I think that's, I mean, you

putting your group together or a group together, I think is key.

Is a lot of times people will put a group together of people

that they want, and that's what we have our clients do. Right,

it's called a hunting pack. But the challenge with that is

that's a selfish function. You're looking for people that

will help you. You taking it to the next level, and and what

you're talking about is tic tac toe. Is you're bringing in two

people. They need to serve me. I need to serve them. They need to

serve each other. And every new one that comes in becomes a

multiplier, and so not to be a math nerd, but like one plus one

isn't two; it's three, right? And then three is like nine, and

like nine, three, you know, four. Like as you add more and

more people to a group, the exponential power of that group

becomes you know almost unimaginable. But the catch is

every individual in the group has to benefit and be of value

to every other person, and I think that's why what you're

doing is actually quite exciting. Is as you select each

person in, you're like, do you fit with all? And then the next

person, do you fit with all? Not half of them. When everyone fits

with everybody, I mean, it's not to nerd out, but it becomes it

becomes magic, and in our small version of that, a hunting pack.

It's four to eight people. The average hunting pack generates

96 qualified prospects a year for every member, and this is

not curated to the level you're talking about. This is one

person finding selfishly people that benefit them, and so I can

imagine what's going to happen when you put together these

groups.

Well, I we've I've run this group for the last

half a year, and it's it's been so satisfying to see people

doing business with each other, cross referring, looking out for

each other, and also brainstorming on how to take

their business to the next level, and I think one of the

things that's special and different and preferred about

the group that I am leading, as compared to the groups that you

may lead, is that we're really paying attention to who people

are personally. And as I mentioned during earlier, you

know, I had a little health issue last year. It seems like

no matter where we are, there's some kind of life that's hitting

the fan. And one of my members fell down a flight of stairs and

broke her wrist, and she was the number one breadwinner in her

family, and she was in a lot of pain, and she was not able to

work to the level that she needed to in order to sustain

her family's households and also keep the money running in, and

we all joined together in a GoFundMe campaign and raised

$18,000 so that she could have some space to heal. And another

person was-I mean, everybody's got something. I mean,

everybody's got something, but what was what's really special

and different about this group is that we want you to love your

business and we also want to love your life, but you also

want to know about who you are as a human being and be able to

be in your corner and by your side. Which brings me to another

story I want to tell here, which is anyone who's ever gone

through cancer treatment knows that it can be pretty fatiguing

at times, and if we have responsibility to show up live

on a Wednesday at 9o'clock to deliver value to our clients who

are expecting nothing less than the best, we have a

responsibility to do exactly what we need to do. And I will

never forget the kindness that you paid. Me, because you know

you're you and my husband have a relationship, and you would ask

Steve, "How's Nancy doing? And she says she's he says she's

she's okay, but she's awfully tired, and he and you reached

out and said, "How can I help? And I remember thinking to

myself, "I'm exhausted. Would you consider helping me teach

the next class, so that we could really have some fun with it,

and people could have a whole new experience about what it is

to grow a business that's really rocking and rolling. And you

were only too happy and too gracious to do it, and it turned

out to be the most viewed video on my YouTube channel all year

long because it was so good. I decided to share it out with

everyone I knew, and I think some of the people in your world

heard it too because I don't think I know that many people.

Yeah, that was great. That's such a kind thing that you did,

and so in my group, when life hits the fan, we're going to be

able to say, "Should I come and teach a bonus call for your

people while you recover. What can I do to extend myself to

serve you in an unexpected and profound way when you need that

help? Because we want to be in your corner and by your side,

not just for your business, but for your life. And life does hit

the fan, as we know. So, well, you

know what I love about that is you tell that story

because that so I love that that meant so much to you and to me

that was such a small thing to be able to offer with what we

had going on and you know I was I was talking to a friend

recently and so in Canada we have a group called Hutterites

and so it would be the closest equivalent would be in America

would be Amish and so have you ever watched an Amish barn

raising? You ever seen anything on that, right? Okay, and so

this is what I was talking about: is is I like old school

business, right, where you do business with people your entire

life, right? If it's working, you you stick with it, and so I

had a client who was putting up a barn amminium, and so it's

like a oh Jesus I don't know like I'm gonna say 20,000 square

foot garage with the bunkie up top you know what I mean like

that has bedrooms and and stuff like that and so you keep your

toys in the bottom right like your motorhomes and your boats

and all that stuff and up top you have sleeping quarters and

so it took her about two years to build this thing because

contractors come and then the plumber comes and then the

framer comes and it's two years and I and I thought to myself

you know I would never do that. Well, a friend of my brother's

is is a Hutterite, which imagine Canadian Amish. And so I was

saying to him, I'm like, oh geez, you know, I showed him

pictures on my phone. I'm like, look at this, and he's like,

that's three days of work, and I was like, three days of work.

I'm like that's not three days of work. He's like that would

take three days for the Hutterites to build. And I'm

like listen, unless you're Speedy Gonzales or you have a a

ton of equipment, he's like in the Amish world, when they're

raising a barn, everyone comes to raise the barn, and so so

raising a barn might be, I'm talking about here, 1000 man

hours of labor. But if you have 100 people show up, it's just a

day's work, and I think that's the piece that you're you're

kind of talking about, Nancy. Is like I didn't say to you, hey,

can I come clean your house? Because I I'm not going to do a

good job of that, right? But these certain areas that I know,

when you needed help, and when you said, "Hey, would you think

about? Yeah, that's a no-brainer. That was such a

small thing. I felt bad. I wasn't doing more for you, and I

love that you felt like that was a big thing. And I think that's

the power of being in your right tribe, being in the right group,

is getting assistance in whatever it means. Lego walking

by, you know, walking by to get the cigar, walking by to get the

cutter, walking by to look for a lighter. He gave me an enormous

gift, and it's not like he was breaking sweat doing it. And

that's the magic of getting a great group. Like it sounds like

the one you're putting together and the ones that you've had. It

just makes everything. It just takes away a lot of the

turbulence that we all face as business owners.

It absolutely does, and I think what was

really heartening for me for the last six months is twice a

month, like clockwork, everyone showing up to be part of the

community to give as well as they receive. We became like a

lifeline for each other, you know. How's that going? How did

that work out? What can I do to support you? And going back to

these, how many people does it take to raise a barn? So many

people in the online world are wanting to grow their list and

touch and transform more lives and do it in a highly leveraged

way. And finding the right people to link arms with can be

a time-consuming effort that some people don't put the time

into. But I am putting the time into curating these amazing

people so that you don't just have your own community. You

have 12,000 people that can beat the drum for you because we're

going to all support each other. So, I know that when I'm in the

right room, there isn't anything I can't do. And if there's, if

I'm in the right room, if I need some help, there isn't anybody

there that won't step up. And I think that these are itches that

need to be scratched, especially in a shelter-in-place world

where a lot of people have taken isolation to a whole new level,

so I'm very very excited about what it is that I'm building

here, and I am so glad that we're talking about it. What do

you see as any disadvantages of being in a group like this?

Well, okay, so I mean, there's not many. So if I was to

nitpick and remember that my my goggles on the world are really

all around sales, is a lot of times people will think I'm in

this group, so I don't have to do anything else to build my

business. And groups like this should be an extension. They

should be an injection kind of of excitement and ideas. But

still, I find that even the groups that I'm in, or the

groups that I I oversee clients kind of doing, is everyone has

to be doing their work, and so you can't just come in and

coast. Everyone has to be active in between sessions. You have to

keep your word. So if you say you're going to do something,

you have to do it. And so I mean, I think that's probably

something that you're really great at, Nancy. I know just the

integrity you bring to the table is people can't be in a group

and say they're going to do something and then not do it. So

they have to be committed to being like an active part of the

group. But like really, aside from that, if you think you know

a group is going to absolve you from having to do any day-to-day

you know responsibilities in your business. It won't, but

it's certainly going to make those things 100 times easier.

And you know that networking part that you talked about about

having access to each other's networks. It's you know when our

clients are able to dial that in on a very small scale, the

results are exponential. If you are if you're in a curated group

with you know let's say eight to 10 to 12 to 20 people whatever

that group needs to look like. I've seen groups of four triple

everyone's business, and that wasn't a curated group. That was

an individual bringing in people that do complementary work to

what they do. Something like this, where you have people of

equal integrity that are out there, you know, making stuff

happen, keeping their word, figuring out how they can be of

service and how they can get served. I I'm excited to see how

it's going to go because I can just imagine a worst case

scenario will be a multiplier in everybody's business. Best case

scenario where everybody you know forms and tightens up well,

which they probably should because you're the one picking

them coming in the group, I mean, it's going to be really

unstoppable. It's something pretty magical.

Well, I'm I'm very very excited about it, and

from what I read, I mean, the people that I work with, like

70% of the people I work with, elect to renew for a second

session because they get so much value, and the reason that they

don't is because their life changed, and it was time for

something else. But to have such a high renewal rate gives me the

great confidence that I'm on the road to something really special

here. So I want to talk a little bit specifically about who it is

that would be an ideal member of this group. You've already

mentioned integrity, people willing to do the work. The

ideal contributor is someone who has got an expertise that's

complementary to podcast guesting, serving the expert

author speaker kind of niche, and I'm looking for people who

already have a four figure or greater offer that's already

selling happily to their ideal client, I want them to have at

least a four-figure opt-in list that they've already

established, so that we have that asset that we can share

among and between each other when it's appropriate. And I

want people to be prepared to invest in their success, so that

they are invested in showing up and getting and giving value.

And if that's who you are as you listen to this by replay, and

you think that this could be a fit for you, I'd love for you to

go to the invitation page that I will gladly drop in the comments

so that you can read what I poured out of a vein from my

heart onto the page. Exactly everything you need to know

about what this is, what this isn't, who it's right for, who

it's not right for, and what you can expect in terms of results

and support. And if what you feel when you read this is that

this is an answer to a prayer, I want you to hop on the phone so

we can talk about it, and we'll make sure that it's a fit so you

can absolutely commit, and we're going to start in October, and

it's likely going to be mid to late October. So that gives you

time to think about it, consider it, have a chat with me to make

sure it's a fit, and maybe you'll even want to refer some

of your colleagues to be part of. As well, because I think

that the rising tide will lift all the boats. I've got the

Rolodex the size of a wagon wheel. I've got a reputation

that is untarnished. That's what they tell me. I'm I'm good

people, and so if you can tap into my network and I can tap

into yours, just imagine what we can do when we can link arms and

accomplish magnificent things together. And I was just talking

to a lady this morning who has a a very specific offer, and she's

she's. I said, every single person in my world needs what

you have. Every single person in my world needs what you have.

How many new clients do you have to welcome to get a return on

your $4,000 investment? It was like hardly like two,

right?

She's going to get to her return on investment

with her second client, and everything else that happens is

gravy. But why am I asking for an investment to start? Because

if you don't put some skin in the game. You don't show up.

You're not invested, and it's not going to work. You have to

want it enough to show up and make a commitment to the

community. And I'm certainly going to go the extra mile for

you. And speaking of going the extra mile, I'm a brilliant word

wizard. I'm a brilliant joint venture partner. I've more than

proven my value writing bios for people over the last 10 years.

If there's word wizardry and magic that you need, if you say,

"Let will you please review my whatever it is and see if you

can make it better, you're not going to get a thumbs up. Keep

up the good work. You're going to get, are you open to some

upgrades? And is it okay for me to make suggestions, and if you

say yes, then hold on to the hat because it's coming at you in a

level of specificity and clarity and magic that will exceed your

expectations. And I guess that's something else we should talk

about. How many times do we create something in a vacuum and

we have no idea whether or not it's hot or not, and who are we

going to call to look over what we've created to to get that

discerning viewpoint? Which is, I see you've got something going

on here, but I think it could be 20% better if you did this also.

You know,

well, you know, that's what we did in our group when we

go back to that founder program, is I had the pricing set and

then the value proposition, and I ran it by you know 10 guys who

would all be buyers, and they're like, no, the pricing's wrong

and the messaging's wrong, and I'm like, what? And then they,

it needs to sound like this, and as I tweeted, I'm like, yeah,

that's actually good, and so having not just you, Nancy, but

having other people they can bounce ideas off of how many

mistakes have we all made? Where you take something to market and

you totally have kind of miscalibrated the messaging, and

then you have to quickly back up, hide it, you know, put it

under the tarp for a little bit, and then do a relaunch, doing it

the proper way. I mean, I don't want to admit how many times

I've done that in my career.

Oh gosh, yeah. So I I think we're onto something

really big here, and I'm I'm so honored that you would make time

to talk about the value of a hunting pack, the value of being

surrounded by positive, forward-thinking people that are

serving a similar niche. And is there anything more you'd like

to say as we?

Well, yeah, I just think that I, you know, of all

the stuff that you're offering, I mean, it's all valuable. But I

think anyone that hasn't tried to form their own group probably

isn't aware of how challenging it is to get the right group.

And on the other side, having someone take the responsibility

of curating the right group for you-I mean, it's that really is

that's the value when I hear it myself is the amount of time

spent on coffees, lunches, dinners, trying to find the

right people, and then making sure that they like each other

and you know all of this stuff. Like that is a that is a job on

its own, and so I really think that I mean I'm a big fan of

everything you do, but your I mean your price point is I'd

probably like to see it go up a little bit if it were me. I you

know remember empire building. I like to dry that up a little

bit, but nobody really understands the value of a well

organized and working group until you're in your first

meeting, and then you're like, how the heck have I been doing

this on my own for all this long? At least that was my

experience.

Well, I want to add something to that, which is,

you know, I've been in business since 2001, and many different

iterations across time. You can Google my name, and you'll find

all kinds of hairstyles over 22 years. But I think my proudest

moment came in December of 2022 when I came through the health

challenge, having kept it a secret from all of my mastermind

clients, and letting them know, yeah, I was a little fatigued,

and I want to tell you why. Well, the next day, this crystal

award arrived at my front porch, and it's the. Star of excellence

above and beyond award presented to Nancy Jutten with

appreciation, recognition, and acknowledgement for your

exemplary expertise in building a supportive and caring

community that rises together. And in air quotes, how you do

anything is how you do everything. This arrived on my

doorstep the day after I revealed to my mastermind

clients that I was just finishing my cancer treatment

and that I had given them everything I had and a bag of

chips besides, and they knew it, they knew that I had done that,

but they didn't know the true circumstances under which I had

made it happen. And so I'm bringing that up because I'm at

a place in my life where it's not all about the money. It's

about being on purpose, serving the right people, contributing

to their success, and having my legacy be alive today. And if

those clients would say that and do that for me, just imagine

what's going to happen when we join forces and link arms in the

love your business, love your life inner circle that's

starting late October. If it's exciting to you, check out the

links that I'm going to share in the chat, and let's make sure

that we chat about it. And I would be remiss if I did not say

you've been meeting Chris Flett, Ghost CEO founder, and if you

are an empire builder, and you are someone who's looking for

multiple commas and licensing and big, huge growth. It could

be that Chris Flett and one of his Ghost CEO coaches could be

the people that you've been looking for, and if he doesn't

ever talk to anybody that doesn't come to him

pre-introduced by someone he already knows. So if you think

you want to be introduced to Chris Flett, you reach out to me

and I'll make sure that you meet him. You can also go to ghost

ceo.com to see what the fuss is about. Any particular parameters

you want to let people know about so they don't waste your

valuable time, Mister Paper? No,

yeah, no. What I love it, I love it. And what I would

say is, if you're wondering if you need coaching or if you

should be part of the group, be part of the group. Because if

you have a group like that and you get coaching down the road,

all of the tools that we apply will just be like gas on a

flame. If you don't have a supportive group around you,

it's I mean it's heavy sledding. And so if you're thinking, geez,

I should do one or the other, do the group thing first. That is

by far the biggest bang that you can get for your buck in regards

to the pricing in particular, which needs to needs to go up a

little bit. But it's yeah, it's it's just I'm always pleased to

be with you, Nancy, because I always think to myself I need to

I need to be a better person.

Well, Rome wasn't built in a day. Rome wasn't

built in a day, and I guess since you put it to you that

way, if this sounds like a screaming deal to you, what I

want you to know is that my intention with the six month

arrangement is that you will have such a great experience and

such great results that it's a no brainer for you to make a

mindful choice to renew, not just for the next six months,

but for multiple six-month or year-long periods after that,

because what I've discovered in my life, I heard this from

another expert who I admire tremendously, Steve Sims. He

said, "If you would not cross four lanes of heavy traffic to

grab a cup of coffee or a beer or a whiskey with someone you

see, then they shouldn't be in your circle, and you should be

glad of it. But I'm looking for people to be in this inner

circle that I would cross four lines of heavy traffic to grab a

beer or a glass of wine or to have a meal and to break bed,

talk shop, and talk life. And if you're hungry to have that same

kind of relationship, we can be jewels in the crown of our lives

together, and make our businesses soar to new heights,

and do it in an organic, natural way without a lot of that

cringeworthy stuff that gets on our nerves and makes us want to

run. So that's my story. I'm sticking to it. Christopher

Flat, thank you so much for being on the journey with me and

contributing to this juicy conversation, and for those of

you who are watching this replay, if you think you should

be talking to me, let's make it happen as soon as possible

because we're going to start in the middle of October, and I

want you on the train going downtown very fast. All right,

thanks so much.