How Chip Klose Built a 7-Figure Coaching Business that Provides 4-Day Weekends

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on fire. The only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we'll be breaking down how Chip Close built a seven-figure coaching business that provides four-day weekends. And to drop these value bombs, I brought Chip Close into EO Fire Studios. Chip is the host of the Restaurant Strategy Podcast and author of The Restaurant's Marketing Mindset. As a restaurant coach, he's helped hundreds of restaurateurs increase the profitability of their business. And today, Foundation will talk about the biggest reasons so many restaurants fail, how to build a business that values lifestyle balance more than growth.

0:41We'll get down to that four-day weekend, staying lean and mean and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Chip and our sponsors. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout. Chip, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's going on, everybody? Thanks so much for having me.

1:24Thrilled to be here. I love this question. I love when you ask it. I think it's really important to understand enough, to define what enough means to you. So as you become more and more and more successful, you have a really clear idea of when to stop. Now, I love that. That was actually my word of the year about six years ago. I always have one word of the year. And that was a powerful year for me because we were about 17 people. The business just felt like it was kind of growing, growing with no real purpose. And I said, Kate, we have more than enough. What kind of life do we want to live? And that allowed us to shift over the next couple of years down to three total people on our team still staying incredibly profitable and doing exactly what we wanted to do, bring a child into this world and do some other things because we found our enough.

2:19It wasn't just growing for growing sake, Fire Nation. It was enough for us and for everybody's different. But when you find your enough, man, that is powerful. And that's why today we're talking about how Chip built a seven-figure coaching business that provides four-day weekends. I mean, what could you do, Fire Nation, with four-day weekends? And Chip, a stat that we hear all the time, 96 % of businesses don't make it five years. So what's the biggest reason that so many restaurants, which is your specialty, and small businesses in general, though, fail? Why? So I think it comes down to two pieces, right?

2:52We talk about failure a lot with small businesses. Certainly, restaurants are small businesses. And I like to split it up between struggling and failing. I think most small businesses fail because it is on the part of the founder, of the entrepreneur or whatever. They're focused on what they want to do rather than looking at the market and see, hey, what's the problem that can be solved? What's the problem that I'm uniquely qualified to solve? And I think that's why most businesses fail in those first couple of years. The other piece to it is struggling. Right. And I think a lot of businesses struggle then.

3:29And again, this is true with restaurants because they don't start with the end in mind. They don't understand where they're going. They don't understand enough. And so they don't reverse engineer their businesses. And I think for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, for restaurateurs, all of that, having a clear idea of what you need from your business is incredibly helpful. It'll help guide you to your point right there, right? Going from 17 people down to three people. At a certain point, you got clear about it. You articulated it better, what you needed from your business, what you really wanted. I think that's what all small business owners, all entrepreneurs, all solopreneurs really need to do, get really, really clear.

4:10I think the reason they fail is because they don't have that clearly defined. They don't know how to serve the market, and they don't know how to clearly define what they actually need out of it. I mean, you've worked with hundreds of restaurants and you found that so many of them are siloed in their business. What does that mean and what should they do? This is true, right? Like you said, my focus is on restaurant owners. That's the group that I'm really passionate about, certainly where my career experience has been. But I think this is true with a lot of small business owners. I think this is true of a lot of entrepreneurs.

4:45I mean, think about your own journey, you coming up and building what you've built over these last many, many years. It was in the beginning, I have to imagine because it was like this with me, you don't come across a lot of people who do what you do, who see the world the way you see it. And those first couple of years are lonely while you're trying to figure it out until you build a network. And you have personally built a network, I'm sure at this point, of other people who see the world, you see it, who want what you want and are building something similar. That was the case with me as I was growing my business.

5:21I needed a network. I needed peers who were after the same things as me. And it's the same thing with restaurateurs. You know, if you ask people, right, like, do they know the other, do the other, do they know the other business owners in their neighborhood? Do they have conversations? Do they meet with them? Do they share war stories? Do they share tips and tricks? Hey, this is what worked for me. Have you tried this. They don't. And I think partially that has to do with this dirty word of competition, right? That like, well, I'm competing with the restaurant down the street. I'm competing with the other people for a limited amount of dinner dollars and nothing could be further from the truth.

5:58I always use the, I always use the car dealership analogy, right? It doesn't matter what town you go to anywhere in this great country of ours, you will see car dealerships all plop next to each other. Are they competing for limited dollars? Of course they are. But they are also in some strange way collaborating with each other because everyone knows, oh, we're shopping for a new car. Let's go to that part of town. They're all lined up on a given street. Of course, they have to convince people to buy their car instead of buying a competitor's car. But they succeed largely because that's the part of town where people who are shopping for cars do it.

6:33It's the same thing when you see a lot of restaurants lined up on the same block or a bunch of theaters all in the theater district along Broadway, like just by being near each other. And I think the same thing is true. I think the same thing is true. If you could put yourself near other people who are going through what you're going for, other like-minded individuals, it changes your outlook and changes your business. And this Fire Nation goes back to scarcity versus abundance. You're going to live in a world of scarcity where there's only a certain size of the pie. And if somebody takes a bigger piece, that leaves less for you or vice versa.

7:05I mean, that's just not the world we live in. We live in this world of abundance and we need to approach it that way because we're all standing upon the shoulders of giants. You must learn from others. I mean, that collaboration with other restaurants in your area could prove priceless. There could be collaborations, there could be partnerships that happen, or there could just be ideas that are switched. And that's actually why I like to say you should also be collaborating with other businesses that have nothing to do with restaurants because man, that could be some amazing collaboration opportunities as well, partnerships as well.

7:32And by the way, you might learn something that they're doing that is just so foreign to the restaurant market that nobody in the restaurant market is doing it, but they should be. They just haven't thought about it. And then guess what? You're starting to do something outside of the box and that can be unbelievably meaningful. It can be a great opportunity. So you have a pretty awesome lifestyle balance. I mean, you know, the title of this episode is about building a seven figure coaching business, providing a four day weekend. So how can we build a business that values lifestyle balance even more than growth?

8:06I think it begins by acknowledging whether that's something that you want. Now, everybody should build the business that they want. And if you want growth, if you want bigger and bigger and bigger, and that's fine, it goes back to the word I started with, which is enough, understand what is enough so that when you get there, you'll know that you've arrived, you won't keep moving the goalposts as it becomes so easy, so easy to do. For me, could I build a bigger business that makes more money with more people? Yup, I absolutely can. And at a certain point, it was very clear with me that as I was building my business, my coaching business, what I firmly believe is that people need to get really close to each other.

8:49And I think restaurant owners benefit when they get really close to each other. So I run a mastermind program where I coach restaurant owners on profitability. I get them together. I don't need to do that five, six, seven days a week. I can do that in very specific times and I can organize it in a way that works for my life. The beauty of it is that then I make my life my life. I make it what I want. The other great part is that I'm full. My cup is full every time I come to the mastermind sessions, that I'm not exhausted. I'm not burnt out. I'm coming with all of myself and I can be full for the people that I'm working with.

9:27For the hundreds of people that I work with every single week, I'm not burnt out because I'm running here, there, and I'm not running ragged and all of that. So it goes back to that word enough. It's funny, John, you said abundance. Abundance was my word for 2024. I just thought – and I love it. And they go hand in hand. One can lead to the other, right? Living this life where it's not 100 pieces to the pie and we got to divvy it up. It's like creativity. The more you use it, the more the well springs. So that becomes really, really crucial. So understanding what it is you want. What I wanted was a business that provided for me and my family that provided stability in the areas that I cared about.

10:11And I was very clear on what was enough. and for me, the idea of working five days to get two days for ourselves, the idea of working eight, nine, 10 hours a day to sneak out two or three for ourselves at the end of the workday, I certainly did that for many, many years but when I started building my business, I just thought, nope, that's upside down. I do not believe that that has to be the way and we've never lived, you know this, I know this, I think a lot of your listeners know this, but we have never lived at a time in history like the one that we're living in right now where the internet provides us incredible opportunities to connect with people and to help connect people from all over the world.

10:53So whatever it is, as you're listening to this, whatever it is that you are exceptional at, whatever it is that you care deeply about, whatever it is you are uniquely good at, there are people who will value that and you can bring people together and teach people what you know and provide perspective and objectivity. There's incredible value. you this idea of coaching, right? Coaches have been around forever and ever and ever when it comes to athletics. And it's just now making its way into the business world. It's now making its way into hobbies. I golf. I love to golf. I'm a terrible golfer.

11:26The number of online coaches that now exist that are helping people find more joy in something that they love, like golf or skiing or whatever it is for you. There are ways to monetize that and to impact the people you're serving and create a better quality of life for you. And I think that's been my journey over the last 10 or 12 years. And I feel like it's, I'm at an arrival point these last three or four years. And I want that for everybody out there. There's a way, there's a way of doing that. There's a way of bringing your expertise and your experience that can be incredibly valued, valuable to people out there.

12:02Lots of key takeaways here, Fire Nation. The one I want to focus on is something that Chip shared earlier on in this, which was build what you want. Like build what you want. You first have to know what you want, but then build what you want. Like Gary Vaynerchuk is building something I have no desire to build, but he loves it. He wants to be in there every day grinding his face off 16, 18 hour days. He loves it. That's him. That's not me. I build what I want. He builds what he wants. You should be building what you want. And we have a lot more to talk about around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

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14:15Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete.me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout. The only way to get 20 % off is to go to joindeleteme.com slash EOFire and enter code EOFire at checkout. That's joindeleteme.com slash EOFire, code EOFire. Chip, we're back. Let's get down to business. How can our listeners, Fire Nation, launch a group coaching program in their niche? I think this is going to be a big deal over the next five to 10 years. The way I put group coaching, right, I always say, especially with restaurant owners, restaurant owners, right, a restaurant is a pyramid.

14:59Picture it like a pyramid. And the restaurant owner is the top of the pyramid. Everyone is always coming to them for answers. They always want to know, you know, what should I do here? What should I do there? Hey, this is – they're coming to them with problems and all of that. They are the top of the pyramid. They need to have an answer to all of the questions. And what happens is I run this group coaching program. It's a mastermind format where I collect, you know, I've got four different groups, you know, 40 to 50 people in each group, and we collect them for two hours every single week. And I always say there has to be a room where you don't have to have all the answers, where you can go in and ask the stupid questions, where you can raise your hand and say, I don't know.

15:37So what I say is that I take the tops of the pyramids and I lob them all off and I get them really close together. And the analogy of the pyramid is something I really like because pyramids, if you know a pyramid, if you can picture a pyramid, as you get higher and higher and higher up to the sky, you get further and further away from the other pyramids. And it becomes really hard to shout over to the other pyramids. It becomes difficult to bring intimacy to those conversations and those relationships. So if you can lob them all off and get them really close together where we can have real intimate conversations, where we can bring humility to the table, where we can ask stupid questions and get really good answers.

16:16The number of times where I've heard somebody say, you know what, I should probably know this by now, but what is this? And everybody else is sort of nodding their head and say, yeah, yeah, I don't know that either. And everybody was just not in a room where they could ask that. So for me, it's funny, I started my business as a consultant. And then as the pandemic hit, that turned into coaching, meaning I couldn't go into a restaurant and help anymore. I could only I can only hold calls via the phone or Zoom. And my time just got so jammed up, right? I only had so many hours in a day. There's only so much I can charge.

16:53And I was introduced to a woman who's now my business partner, who helped me launch this group coaching format. And the idea is just identify people who need help in the area that you're really good at helping, right, who have a problem that you're uniquely qualified to solve and put together a path forward for you to help them. And, yes, we help them with very specific things. And yet the other very powerful piece is when you get them all together and they can feel not so isolated, not so lonely in doing all that. So it begins by understanding, number one, what's the life you want? What does enough mean?

17:30What's the thing you're really good at that you're really passionate about that you'd love to spend a lot of time working on and helping people? And then you just sort of like hang your shingle out. There's a lot of ways to hang out your shingle, right? You could have a podcast. I've got a podcast that helps me raise awareness. You can have a presence on social media, on YouTube. You can run ads, all of which I do. But really what it comes down to is hanging out the shingle. The way I like to think about marketing, right? And hopefully this resonates with a lot of people out there. One of the things that I help restaurant owners with is simplifying marketing.

18:03And I say it's actually a lot more straightforward than people would have you believe. Can it be complex? Yes. Is it nuanced and sophisticated? Of course. But at its base, there are only two things we need to do when we market. Number one, we've got to get people to raise their hands. And number two, we've got to get them to change their behavior. Easiest way I say about this is that you walk into a busy room, a room full of people, and you say, hey, let me see a show of hands. Who here likes tacos? A handful of people raise their hands. You're like, all right, my taco people, follow me. And they follow you outside to your taco food truck, right?

18:34At its base, that's what you're trying to do. So you do the same thing with your coaching program. Now it takes time to grab hold, but just by hanging your shingle out and saying, hey, who needs help with this? I've built some expertise in this area and I can show you how to do this, how to get to where you wanna get to. It starts as simply as that. That's powerful. And we've mentioned it once before, but your four-day weekend is pretty legendary. And you believe that to have that, you have to stay lean and mean. So how do you do this? How do you stay lean and mean and keep that four-day weekend intact?

19:10Yeah. And to be clear, right? So Alex Ramosi says, you're talking about Gary Vaynerchuk a minute ago. Alex Ramosi is somebody that I look up to. But he says here, you know, he says something, which is, don't take advice from people who are living a life that you don't want, right? Alex Ramosi is very smart, and I listen to a lot of what he says, but he lives a life that I do not want. So if anything I'm saying doesn't resonate with you, that's okay. If you like to work, and Alex says this, he's like, I'm happiest. My days are happiest when I have time to work out, when I work and I leave nothing left in the tank at the end of the day, and I get to share a meal with the people I respect and care deeply about.

19:49He's like, so I realized I'm just going to build my day to do those three things. I think it's really important, again, part of this enough conversation is understanding what do you need. Now, it might take you a year or two or five years to eventually bend your life to be your ideal, but understanding what that ideal is is crucial. For me, that work-life balance of working really hard for three days and then having four days to spend with friends and family and to golf and do the things that are important to me, it's just crucial to lay out your life and understand that's what you need. For me, lean and mean helps me do that because then I'm not stuck in meetings.

20:30I'm not stuck overseeing or managing people. So I would rather work with very capable agencies, for example, where I know I can outsource a whole series of tasks and I know I can hold them accountable to certain results. So whatever they need to do to get the work done, that's on them. That's the agency model. I pay them for making the results happen. So for me, agencies have been crucial. For example, it's a way of not just delegating, but outsourcing, just sending it to, you know, to a room full of experts. And then the agency manages the people who execute. So that's a way for me to get a whole lot of management duties off my off my plate.

21:13I will say that there are really great agencies more and more here where you can do that. That's been a key part of staying lean and mean and bringing people in who are experts in their field. And I will say overpaying for those people overpaying. And again, this is part of understanding what's enough. I would rather overpay for somebody and know that they never have to be micromanaged because they can crush it. They could easily run their own business. But when I surround myself with those people and compensate them, what I believe is fairly, and I joke around by saying overpaying, I probably could find someone to do a role to fill a role for cheaper.

21:51But I would rather pay a premium for the best person out there and compensate them in a way that makes them never want to leave and gets them excited to roll out of bed and come do the thing that I've asked them to do. I think those two things have helped me stay lean and mean and have cut hours, hours off of my work week. Chip, if Fire Nation is resonating with what you're saying and they just want to learn more about you with what you have going on, what is your call to action for our listeners today? A couple of things. Number one, find the podcast. If there are restaurant owners out there, operators who want to listen, you know, who want more, go find the Restaurant Strategy Podcast.

22:29If you want, I wrote a book, it's called The Restaurant Marketing Mindset. It is remarkably applicable to most small businesses, to any entrepreneurs out there. If you want a free copy of that book, go find us on Instagram at Restaurant Strategy and simply DM me the word book, B-O-O-K. We've got an automation set up. It will send you a link for you to grab the book for free. You just pay shipping. And I would love for you to check out that book. It's beautiful. It's put out by Amplify Publishing, came out last October. And anybody who wants that, get it for free, you just pay shipping. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

23:06You've been hanging out with CK and JLD today, so keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, just visit eofire.com, type Chip, C-H-I-P, in the search bar, the show notes page will pop right up. And Chip, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Chip for sponsoring today's episode. And Fire Nation, over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, and I've created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and your fulfillment.

23:43And I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, personally endorsed by Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk. The Common Path to Uncommon Success is the step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams, visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com slash EOFire and use promo code EOFire at checkout.

24:24Thank you.