Stop Being an Entrepreneur, Be a CEO - Michael E. Parker

23:47Do I have your phone number or your email? Can I get a hold of you? If I can't get ahold of you, you're not a lead, right? Someone who is raised their hand and said, I'm interested in what you're talking about. And here's my contact information, right? So, so this is a lead. I need an offer, whether that I want to give something of real value out there that makes someone want to give me their email. And sometimes people think, well, this is going to be easy. I'll just give this thing for free. Free still has to be sold. Yes. Just because it's free don't mean people will give you that email and that phone number.

24:18It's got to still be good. It's got to be something that really brings transformation, something that really helps them. Then there's what's called a core product offer. And this is more of the core thing you do. It still has to be an offer. So that main service you provide, that main product that keeps the lights on, you still want to organize that into a very good offer. So someone understands that if I give you this, I get all of this. This is what an offer makes you feel like. And you're able to charge more for that when you organize the offer that way. Now, another critical offer, and a lot of people really miss out on this, and this is the thing that can really move you to seven figures very quickly, is understanding premium value offers.

25:05Now, premium value offers, I would say, range from anywhere from 5 ,000 to, I know some people who have million dollar premium value offers. So you if you are able to put together a very clear transformation that you can get for someone very clear transformation Yes, and you're able to realize that people don't want your process They don't want your person that I get a lot of time with you You know, I get to go through this seven step whatever process they want the payoff. Yes, they want the outcome They want the thing that gets the result for them, right? So when you're able to really define that, you're able to start making premium value offers.

25:45And something that people used to do in a year can literally happen in one day. So you can make$300 ,000 in a day. You can make a million dollars in a day. I'm among a network of people who do this all the time where you can generate these types of numbers simply by knowing how to make premium value offers. So that's a critical element. Right. Then you deal with it. And let me just say this, too, before I go to this last one, is that when you start running the numbers, you start realizing, OK, you know, if I sell 20 of this fifty thousand dollar thing, that's a million dollars. Like right now, it's not 365 days, not 52 weeks.

26:28Today, if I have a$50 ,000 offer that gets a clear transformation and just 20 people buy it, that's seven figures right now. And some people who don't understand that, they don't realize like not only is this possible, it's happening every day. And there's no reason that anyone listening to this can achieve that once you know how to structure the things that you do into a clear transformation. But that brings me to the last one, which I think is one of the most important offers of all, and that is a continuity offer. A continuity offer. A continuity offer is something that people pay you monthly or could be annually as well.

27:08But it's something that has a consistent rhythm where they pay continuously for what you do. They subscribe. They become a member. It's you know, it can be as simple as someone paying a monthly fee to be a part of a group that you started where you talk to them every month It could be a newsletter. It could be a learn a distinct portal that they get access to it could be coaching But something it could be software, which is one of my favorites so At the end of the day, you know, russell brunson built a whole business model around this called the linchpin model because He realized that the linchpin is really your continuity because at the end of the day, even if you wanna sell your business one day and you might be a great leader and you might be good at what you do, but even investors know, well, what if something happens to you?

27:56What am I gonna do if you're not around? They want something that's been systemized and they look at your monthly recurring revenue. That is gonna generate the most value for your business and make your business the most sellable and have the most highest value proposition to an investor. And also, when you have very strong continuity, this is the thing that allows you to sleep at night as a CEO, because you can't live off of events. You can't live off of the next campaign. You want to know there's some level of continuity that keeps the bills paid and the lights on no matter what you do so that those other things that you do just become, you know, these dramatic moments of injections of money.

28:38but I've got my baseline stability from my continuity. So these four offers, lead generation, core product offers, premium value, and continuity, these are the four critical offers that every business needs if they want to be a seven-figure or more business and comfortably sustain that into the foreseeable future. There is so much value and so many things in there that I want to kind of go back and chit-chat a little bit. One of the things you talked about is, you know, People don't buy products and services. They buy stories, identities, and ways out of pain. It's a very specific result that you offer.

29:11And if I walked in right now to my gym and said, hey, I want to have XYZ person's body. And he's like, cool, go home. In 24 hours, you'll have that body for the rest of your life. I'm like, how many zeros am I writing behind that? Versus if someone said, you've got to come in for the next 90 days, work out two hours with me every day. I'm going to pay significantly less for that. So if you can present and create a result like that, totally different ballgame. You're in the process of selling results, period. You're getting people out of pain. One of the things you talked about that this starts off with is, you know, getting that first lead.

29:43You know, it could be a free offer. It could be all these things. What are the things that you have found that people are willing to say, hey, here's my email address. Here's my phone number. What are some of the lead magnets that you found that convert the best? So if an audience is looking at this right now and listening, what can I start looking at my company as I'm redesigning this, as I'm changing my mind from an entrepreneur to a CEO, what are some of the lead magnets that you have found that convert on the highest level? Well, that's an excellent question, Charles. And I think one of the things that is most critical, there's a lot I could say about that.

30:12The most critical thing I think to really get across is a couple of things. One is that the difference between pain and pleasure. So when you have lead magnets that with a cold audience who doesn't know you and you lead them towards pleasure, like the, you know, come here and then automatically you're going to lose weight. People don't believe you. You know, I love the story of, you know, if you were standing out on the street and you were just waving a hundred dollar bill and you say, I just want to give this away, away to everyone. You know, you were yelling, no one would trust you. It must be a counterfeit.

30:48There's something wrong. Like who would do that? Right. It's too good to be true. So everyone's, you know, your radar goes up for a scam or fake or whatever, right? But what's amazing is if a rock fell on my head and I was bleeding profusely and I didn't, you know, I was trying to help, if a complete stranger came up and said, hey, let me have your phone. Give me the passcode. Let me call 911 for you. I would give them my phone and I don't even know them. But because I'm in pain, I'm willing to work with someone I don't know. So the reason the reason I bring that up is when you talk about pain, people are more willing to give it a try to see what it's about.

31:31So instead of saying the the the seven the seven things that will make you rich, I would talk about the seven mistakes that stop you from being rich. Yes. Right. The seven things you're doing wrong, the seven reasons that you can't overcome, blah, blah, blah, blah to make seven figures. These are the things that get attention. The other thing is, I would say, is the more that we can make sure that that lead magnet is going to give them a real result. if you can get a lead magnet that gives them a real result that these these are you know I'm going to teach you the seven mistakes that authors are making that causes their books to not sell more than 20 copies right and then you let them know in there I'm going to give you a tool that's going to help you do this specific thing right that is a part of a bigger process but I'm going to give you one part of it so these are two things that I've seen be very successful the the selling of pain, help me get out of the pain, and something that solves a specific problem within a bigger process.

32:37These are things that people will give you their email for, and you'll find more success in people actually being willing to stand up and say, hey, I would like to understand more. I agree with you. It's the pain and the quick dopamine hit. It's like, well, what is this quick thing that I can do? Okay, now I have this KOT. I have this no like and trust now towards Michael because, okay, he helped me get this. One of the things that people mess up with in marketing all the time, we have it down here in Florida is there's these billboards that say your wife is hot and it's for an air conditioning company and everybody knows it.

33:05And they're like, okay, and it's got this woman and it's a, it's a relatively attractive woman. And like your wife is hot and everybody loves the ad. I'm like, cool. What's the name of the company? And they're like, um, I'm like, Oh, just tell me, tell me one part of the name of the company. That's over to that. They're like, um, so it's not enough to just have the paint. You have to be able to convert. And I think the dopamine hit you were talking about, give him that quick win instantaneously means that are going to be kind of more connected to you and going into that next level. You know, you talked about the offer, but the one that got me really excited is about that fact that you have to have it continued.

33:36And that's why I love service-based things. I love things like, I wish I owned Zero Water, which makes the water filters. God, I wish I owned that company because every single month I'm popping in a new water filter because I'm like, dang it. I wish I had one of those products or services because it's something that I've always looked at. It's why I'm so heavily invested in real estate because I don't care what happens. You still need a roof. I don't care what's going on. I don't care who wins the election. I don't care who doesn't win the election. You need a roof. And, you know, the West Coast of Florida found this out, regrettably, really intensely, you're going to need a roof.

34:07Yes. These continued products where you have to have this, where there's those type of models. If someone comes to you and that's not part of their way because they're an entrepreneur, they've never thought of it like a CEO. They didn't think about that their offer had to change and that there had to be this monthly recurring revenue. What are some of the ways where you sit down with them and say, okay, here's your offer. It's really cute, but let's get you from being an entrepreneur into the CEO world, going through your process. What are some of the ways that you've gone? Okay, this is how things change as you go through that.

34:38So do you mean specifically about the way they position their offers or just in general? Yes, how are some of the ways, yeah, how they've changed their, if you have an example, like, hey, this person used to sell underwater baskets to chicken. And we're like, okay, let's do this instead. I'm curious who you got in examples to kind of inspire the audience. Well, one thing that I would say that I think is just really would help those that are listening is that's really big is when I help people with their offers. Sometimes that I think a big mistake people make, they think that this gumbo of stuff makes it a good offer, that there's all this stuff.

35:15You get this and you get that. They focus on the pieces and not understanding the payoff. and sometimes people actually can reduce what's in the offer and charge more money because you get to the transformation quicker. So if you get to the, people don't want, like, you know, I say, Hey, you get to spend, you know, three days with me a week. People don't want to spend three days with me a week. They will spend the most minimal time with me as possible to get to the transformation. Right? So, so helping people with their offer. And a lot of times the issue I'll have Charles is they'll put this thing in their offer.

35:50And then the next thing that they offer in the, in, in the, in the, in the offer is not related to a pain that the person's going to have within the offer. Here's what I mean. So I say, okay, I'm working with someone. They say you get this 12 week training. That's going to help you learn how to do a, okay. And then the next thing that they have is something about a t-shirt or a, uh, uh, some sort of trip somewhere that has nothing to do with what the, what anyone's learning. They're like, but it's value. Yeah. But it's not related. See, but if I was, if I was making an offer that had to do, let's say I wanted to sell this new, um, you know, backpack, that's great for going hiking and I want to sell this backpack.

36:38And I would say, okay, there's this great backpack. Now, Now, a pain someone might have that's going to go hiking is that they might need a really good flashlight. So I might say as another part of this offer, I'm going to give you this special flashlight that glows in the dark, can warm your food and do this and that. The next thing is they might need to need a compass because while they're out, see, that's related. Next thing you know, they might need something that's going to actually strengthen their tent in case a bear came at night. And it's something that locks their tent in a special way and puts a fortune.

37:09All of those things have congruency and they have relationship to what the main reason that I even want the offer is about. When you build an offer, you have to create congruency. You want to make sure that everything. So if you remember the movie Inception, where you start dealing with incepting someone's thought and putting something in their mind. People who build good offers, they're able to not only make sure there's something in there that's transformative. they actually describe the next problem that's going to come from the solution that they gave. Absolutely. Because every solution creates a new problem.

37:47So the people who make good offers, they're able to see the problem in the solution and then add something else in the offer that then solves that problem. And you keep stacking it, this value stacking to where the offer becomes irresistible. That is what I feel is the secret to helping people make great offers. And it's absolutely huge. It's like, okay, I sold you a car, but you need tires. And oh, by the way, you need gasoline. And oh, by the way. So you're constantly fixing one problem that creates more problems and so on and so forth. But you're doing it in an authentic way. One of the things that you've done also is, you know, you can tell the difference between somebody who's authentic or not authentic by the tools that they offer.

38:25And I know you've created a very specific tool to help out the listeners. Tell me more about that tool that, you know, you created a website for it. Tell me more about the tool and what it does. Yes. Yes. So I created a offer builder tool and there's a few things that are involved in this. And so as a gift to those out there who really want to know more about this critical, critical art of building just, you know, flagship offers that could lead to seven figure businesses. When you understand this, this literally is the thing that can change the game for you if you learn how to make strong offers.

39:02So some people say I'm not making enough money. And a lot of times it's simply you're not making enough offers. You're not giving anyone a reason to give you money. And you haven't put enough time into the thing that's going to make you the most money. And this is a tool to help you do that. So the first thing that I do is I have a tool that, so these are three components of this tool. The first component is to help you just begin to identify the four offers for your business. So what is your lead generation offer? What is your core product offer that is based on the core thing your business does?

39:36What is a good example of a premium value offer that you could provide? And what is your continuity offer? This basically allows you to list those out on a document and then to list out, you know, actually help you to do some research of other people's offers in these four categories. And then you list the actual thing you're going to do and what you would, you know, kind of what you would charge for it. So you're just kind of building a framework of your four offers. That's the first thing. Another tool that I give you with this is it uses what I call the car method, the car method. And what you do is you're basically looking at things that you have access to that are already there that will allow you to assemble your offer.

40:26So, uh, there are some things that I already that I already have, right? So, um, and when you think about the, the different elements, you know, the different assets that you might have, here's what we're really doing. We're taking all these things that we've done in our business, right? I've built a product here and a service here, and there's things that customers have said, I like this, but now what I need to do, I need to go and pull these assets together to start building an offer. and sometimes I have things that are just ready to go. Like I can use this as is. This is good. I can put it in the treasure chest and use it as an offer.

41:05Sometimes I have things that need to be altered a little bit and with a little tweaking, this is something I can put into an offer. And then sometimes there's something I just need to create brand new. Like I need to create something brand new that I don't, like for this offer to be what it could be, I need this thing and I don't have it. So I'm gonna take the time and I'm gonna do a quick training video. I'm gonna make a partnership and get an alliance with someone that'll allow, that they'll allow, sometimes people make the mistake in thinking everything in the offer has to be from them, but it doesn't.

41:35I can build a partnership with someone and say, hey, will you, every time I sell this, will you give them this thing that you have that will make my offer perfect? And so sure, just, you know, throw me 50 bucks every time you sell that offer. And here, I'm doing this offer for$5 ,000. Yeah, I'll give you$50 every time I sell it. You can do that to make the ultimate offer for someone. And so this is a tool that allows you to do that. The next tool is to actually structure your offer. And here's where the real offer building comes. Now you actually begin to lay out your offer. What is the first item?

42:07What is the value of it that you would assign to this element of your offer? So you actually list it out. You say, this is worth$997 by itself,$997. Then you begin to think about that inception. What's the next problem that that thing solves? us. And then you list out the next thing and you assign a value to it. And you go all the way down this sheet, filling out the value proposition. And then you get a, then after you do those main things, I have an area where you list some bonuses because a good offer always has a few little bonuses. So you say, well, here's the main things of the offer. But if you do this offer today, here's a few bonuses.

42:48We're going to give you this, going to give you that. So I have you list that and assign a value. At the very bottom, you begin to add it all up and get a total value. And then lastly, you make that distinction. Back again, when I said, if your value is here and your price is here, they will always make an attempt to buy. So what you're doing then now is assigning a price that is different than that total value that's going to be the actual offer that you make them. So when you put all these three things together, you now have the construct of building an offer that you can actually start to sell to generate substantial amounts of money just from doing this one exercise.

43:30It can lead to a six to seven figure opportunity by itself. And I think just as you went through that offer process, it really shows the difference between how an entrepreneur thinks and how a CEO thinks. It's a completely different mindset and people just don't understand it. It's not just systems. There's so many things that are involved from the way you offer things, the way you hire, the way you interact. There's so many, it's just a different world. You know, we talked about it and you said it earlier, what got you here isn't going to get you there. It's really, really simple. And there needs to be that evolution.

44:01If someone wants to go on that evolution, how do they track you down? What's the best way to find you? How do they interact with you? What's the best way to do that? Well, yeah. And I just want to say real quick on what you just said, Charles, because it's so powerful when you talk about CEO thinking, and you think about offers, what's so powerful is wealthy people make money out of things that come in their mind, not things that they do with their muscles, right? And people say, work hard. And the beauty of it is when you make a good offer, not only do you make money then, but when you make that money that day from you selling the offer, you still have the offer.

44:38So the offer becomes an asset that you keep making money on. And so one of the things that I do is, you know, when you think about those out there that really want to know more about how do I actually become a better CEO? How do I actually learn how to make better offers? So I have a few things that I do. You know, people that are interested in, I have a program called a C-suite business mastery program and people that are interested in that, you know, they can look us up on urco.com and contact us if they're interested in just learning more about the things we do in our business and wanting to know more about our programs.

45:17But one of the things that we do, I offer a free webinar and, you know, I, you know, this whole webinar is built on teaching entrepreneurs the roadmap, what I call a business freedom roadmap. How do I actually do the things that seven figure CEOs are doing so I can get the results now and use my money to collapse my time. So what can I do to invest in myself to collapse the time it would take to become a seven figure CEO now? And I teach in this free webinar what people have done to collapse that time. What is the real roadmap to do that? So sometime I refer to this webinar as from Federer to Freedom because we are bound by the lies we've been told about business and we need the truth to make us free.

46:07We got to understand what do people really do? What's the real thing that people do? It's more than selling a product. It's more than showing up saying, my name is this and I'm a CEO. So this webinar is a beautiful place to come and get some good information. It's called From Fetter to Freedom. But another thing that I would mention is that I want to make sure people have access to the tool. And I believe the domain that I put together for this tool, I'll mention it in just a minute. You can go to this distinct domain and you will be able to download this tool for free. And what I would invite people to do is to take this tool, really begin to use it, fill it out.

46:50And if you go through the process of filling it out, so the domain is yourofferbuilder.com, yourofferbuilder.com. And I I named it that because it's yours. It's your offer builder. And if you take this and just go through the steps and follow the instructions, you will end up with this offer that you can use. But here's the issue. Once you have a great offer, you have to make sure you have a great business to back that offer up. You gotta make sure that you actually know how to fulfill on that offer. See, if your business isn't strong, so there's five elements I teach in my program to help someone become a CEO-minded entrepreneur.

47:33The first thing, Charles, is clarity. We have to be super clear on who we're serving, what that market is, and what is the distinct strategy for me to be successful in that market. And I'm super clear on who I am and who I serve. The next is capacity. I must understand the capacity, how much capacity is in this market for me to even make seven figures. Are you in a dying market? Do you understand your numbers? Do you not understand the difference between gross profit margin and net profit or profit margin? Do you know what those things are, right? The difference between knowing how much money you're making on your product versus making on your business.

48:12So this is all capacity issues, right? Then we have to understand commerce. Do you have a systematic way of having money flow into your business like a river? Because you've got a distinct way to generate leads and to convert the sale. That is predictable. Then we have clear commerce. The next one is control. We must have a sense of control in our business. You know, in statistics, they talk about upper control limits and lower control limits. If you don't understand what control means in terms of how you want customers to feel when they work with you, if you don't know what control means and the distinct quality and experience you want people to get from your service and product in a way that is consistent and happens every time and you put systems in place to get that result in a predictable, consistent way, you don't really have a business.

48:59You know, I've told people this sometimes, Charles, that they have to qualify to have a problem. You know, people say I have problems. I say, no, you don't, you have chaos. They say, well, what do you mean? I say, a problem is a deviation from a standard. So until you have a standard, you haven't qualified to have a problem. You just have chaos. So we have to have standards in our business to get the business under control, to qualify to know when something is out of control. And then lastly, we must understand culture. Culture has to do with the environment we create in our business that cultivates an experience for people to work in that business to generate a clear result.

49:35See, some people are gonna use culture and allow there to be a subtle disease inside their business that destroys the company from the inside out because they didn't nip things in the bud, they didn't stop things that were a problem, they didn't correct things when they should have, and something in that business begin to grow and cause that business to implode. But see, when you use culture as a constructive tool, it becomes a silent weapon. There's a reason that a lot of my team that's been with me has been with me over 20 years. This is just, you don't hear of this anymore, but why? Because I was able to build a strong culture and your culture is created.

50:14There's three ways you, three things you got to keep in mind with building culture. What is happening consistent in your business? What are you condoning in your business? And what are you celebrating in your business? Those things are creating a culture in your business that if you don't intentionally take control over it, something can take control of the business that you thought was yours because what you put on those walls and those taglines and all those business acronyms, it means nothing if that's not what really happens in the business every day. And that's why culture is so important.

50:45And this is what I teach people in my program. Yeah. I think this is why you're the seven figure CEO maker because people don't understand the massive difference between being an entrepreneur and being a CEO. And you can't do it by brute force. You have to understand offers. You have to understand culture. You have to understand systems. There's so much more with finances alone. I remember when I made my first seven figures, I was like, great, I'm done. I never have to work again. And my, my wonderful accountant, I love him forever. He's like, oh, that's adorable. Sit down. Let's talk. And I was like, dang it.

51:14I'm losing how much of the government? Dang it. I just didn't know. I knew how to be an entrepreneur. I never knew how to be a CEO. And I think that journey starts as you were talking about, just let's figure out your offer first. Let's, let's get, let's get you up there. We're not asking you to climb Mount Everest right now. Let's just get you to buy the shoes that we can start this journey on together. And I think, you know, the fact that you're offering that is just such a gift. I really appreciate you coming on again. How do people track you down? What's the best way that they can take action right now?

51:40How do they get a hold of you? Well, one thing, again, you can definitely look me up on YouTube at URCEO. You can find Michael E. Parker. There is my webinar, From Fetter to Freedom, that you can check out. We also have yourofferbuilder.com. I want to make sure you get that free tool that you can grab. I really appreciate it, Michael. Thank you so much for providing all these resources and for coming on the show. Thank you so much, Charles. Such a pleasure to be here. The gap between six and seven figures isn't about working harder. It's about thinking differently. Michael proved that entrepreneurs solve problems, but CEOs build systems that solve problems without them.