Bill Walsh's 3 Secrets to Acquiring New Customers and Creating A Successful Business | The Big Success Podcast

0:00I believe in business today you really have to look at a couple things number one is that are you Are you solving a problem or are you making something better? Bill Walsh, decades of coaching business people how to succeed and you're gonna get his best stuff here today. You know, they asked Jack Nicklaus about, how did you feel about that bad golf shot you made yesterday? He said, what bad golf shot? You know, so you can live in failure, but I would tell you that through the failures, many times you find success. Some really cool stories. Bill Walsh, let's find out about how his formula for success works.

0:31So Bill, your definition of success, how would you define it? I would define success that if you look back in your life, and I know this sounds crazy, but everyone thinks it's all about money or the house or the cars or your net worth. I would tell you that I've always defined success that if you've raised kids that become fine humans, you've had a very successful life. If your kids become great adults, you've really done something right at a level that's way beyond any dollar figure, any monument or any home or statue you built. So the fact is you've actually raised good kids or made a difference and really raised and helped other human beings become really amazing people.

1:19You are very, very successful. Now, obviously, when you were younger, you didn't have the ability to have that definition. So how did it evolve for you? Like, what was your definition as a young man and how did it evolve? You know, as a young man, I grew up with not much, right? South side of Chicago. Farthest we went on vacation was as far as the car would go. You know, maybe with the Wisconsin Dells or something like that. We went on vacation one summer and I didn't realize that we went on vacation because we didn't have a home. We got to go to the Dells and stay in a cottage for three months and we thought it was the best vacation ever.

1:59only to come back and find out we're moving to a new place to live. So, you know, for me, success as a young adult was that quality time with quality people, believe it or not. You know, my father, he was an electrician. My mom worked for Allstate. We didn't have a lot of money at the end of each month, but we did a great job and they were great parents. But I raced BMX bikes as a kid and I got to be around parents that had every weekend off. They could take the weekend off and we could, you know, take the vans, whatever else, go to the bike racing. And, you know, I got to go on a private jet as a kid.

2:30And I said, well, how do you get one of these? You know, and the guy said, well, you've got to be an entrepreneur. He said, you've got to get behind the cash register instead of always being in front of it. And I realized that at that time, the most important thing is it took a little bit later. But, you know, if you could really get that quality time with quality people and it could just be a game changer. But of course it was, you know, could I buy that first Porsche? Oh, yeah. You know, could I get that first house? And I really thought that that was that was success at a young adult. Right.

2:56And I guess having needs, you know, to be able to go to the Bahamas or go to Vegas or do these things. And as you get older, you start to realize that once you have a lot of money, you start to realize that none of that shit really matters. I know it's really crazy, but as a young adult, you don't see that. So sometimes even if an older person tells you this, you don't really grasp it until you start to realize that quality time with quality people is everything. So where do you think in your life you chose success? Was it as a young boy? Was it a young man? Where did you choose that success was your thing?

3:33I think I just liked winning. I mean, if I go back to bike racing or playing football or sports, I think sports for a kid are one of the greatest things ever because you learn you can't do it alone. I don't care if you're the greatest quarterback of all time. If you're a Joe Montana, you're a Tom Brady, I want you to try to win any game without a line in front of you, without running backs, without receivers. You know, it was funny. I was with Peyton Manning about six months ago, eight months ago now. And we were we were heading down to Indianapolis for a game. And we literally were in the same van driving over.

4:06And we just started talking about life and after sports. And he said, you know, I was on a chairlift. And of course, when we go skiing, because he has young boys, like 12 to 14 years old. He said, when we go skiing, my wife does not let me take the mask off. I have to ski with my mask on. And so I got on the chairlift and my wife took the two boys in front of me. And I got on the show with this young man and he was wearing a Manning jersey to go skiing in. And of course, Peyton said to me, he says, well, are you a Broncos fan? He said, oh, my God, I love the Broncos. He said, well, are you a Peyton?

4:40Are you a Manning fan? He said, oh, my God, greatest quarterback of all time. No one's even close to Peyton Manning. And so now this is Peyton talking to the kid. He says, well, you know, Peyton did have a lot of great receivers. You know, he had a lot of great running backs. He had one of the best lines in the NFL. You know, anybody could have probably thrown those passes. The kid's like, well, you know, maybe another quarterback could have did all that. He's like, no, no, wait a second. He said, I'm actually Peyton Manning. You know, and the kid was in shock. But I think the thing is that you want to go fast, go by yourself.

5:12You want to go far, go with a great team. Yeah, yeah. And it's really amazing how humble he was for the success that he's had. And I think one thing I've always liked about you, as successful as you've been, you've always been humble in your own space to serve other people, to show up no matter what the situation is. You and I, we would travel to events, and it's supposed to be 4 ,000 people there, and now there's 200. And you're like, it didn't matter. You showed up for the ones in the room. And I define success also as that, and I think it came to the realization that you show up because you've committed to be great, you know, and you've committed to play a hundred percent out.

5:48And that's why you've had the results. And that's why I believe people that are successful, they'll do things other people won't do when nobody's watching. They'll work in behind the scenes. And I think for me, I was always that person. I wasn't the smartest guy in the room, but I would go hire some of the smartest guys in the room. And I would figure out ways to to inspire them to play way outside their comfort zone. What's the Bill Walsh formula for success then? How do you make success happen? What's the process or the ingredients? Well, I would say the ingredients are number one, you know what you're great at, right?

6:24So whatever you're going to do, figure out what you're really great at. Does it serve a lot of people? Is there money in the space? And would you do it for free? I was great if you had an idea and I'm great today, if you have an idea and I work with, I have billionaire clients, I have brand new startup clients and everything in between. But if you can really look at that, what they're working on and figure out what are you great at? I was great at, Brad, if you said, I've got an idea to launch this new product in this marketplace, I could line up the team, I could line up the capital, I could line up the marketing, the systems, and man, I could execute.

6:58I mean, I wear a shirt today that says dream, plan, execute, right? And I believe only wear your own gear. I would tell every business owner today, quit wearing Versace and this one or that one. Get your own gear. Go buy your own shirts, right? But if you had an idea, I could line those up and I could execute. And I think I've still been paid a lot of money for that today because I could see things in people they couldn't see in themselves. And I could bring that to market quickly. And the funny thing is that the only thing we ever get paid for as coaches or business growth specialists, whatever you want to call it, is we get paid for results.

7:35And if people, so I get presidential candidates that call me for insight. I get people that are running brand new companies for insight. And I know for a fact that if you just, if everyone listening to you just says, what are you really great at? Does it serve a lot of people? Is there money in the industry? And would you do it for free? Which means are you really passionate about it? And if you can say so those four things, then you're probably on a pretty good path to get paid. Yeah. So what if you were to look at, because obviously failure and success, there's a, what's your, how do you see that relationship between failure and success, I guess?

8:11Well, I can say that I fail every day. I think every day I miss things or I don't do things right, or I try things. I mean, you know, we printed a flyer the other day and it sounds crazy, but you know, it's for special dinners at one of the restaurants we work with in town. and instead of saying chocolate moose, it said chocolate mouse, you know, one of the flyers. And it's like, you just own, you own your mistakes, you know? And the thing is that don't, don't continue to focus on your failures. You know, they asked, they asked Jack Nicholas about how did you feel about that bad golf shot you made yesterday?

8:46He said, what bad golf shot? You know, so you can live in failure, but I would tell you that through the failures, many times you find success. People laughed at Edison. People laughed at Einstein. You know, know, we get laughed at you and I, oh, he's going to go to Australia and open business, or he's going to move from Australia to here and open business, or, you know, Bill's going to go to Romania and do some business. Well, the funny thing is that the business I did in Romania five, six, seven years ago, my students today run one of the most successful brands in the world called IntelliRank.

9:15And they're in, now they're in Vegas launching their own events. Why? You know, because someone showed up for their story. And so I would say the same thing today that I think through most of our failures is that we do find some of our greatest success stories. But the challenge for a lot of people is they start to listen to negative people. If you listen to enough negative people, you're going to quit. And it's almost always sometimes friends or families that will try to put you down for doing something extraordinary. And the funny thing is, once you do it, they all say, oh my God, Brad, I knew you could do that.

9:52I didn't say that shit before. You know what I mean? Now you're like, oh, I knew you could do it. It's like, no, that wasn't your story at all. You know, I remember going back. We sponsored a thing called the Small Business Expo. People said that's a stupid idea. Nobody goes to these events. Within five years, 100 ,000 people a year were coming to these events. Oh, my God, that was the greatest idea ever. You know, so when people think you're crazy, you're nuts, you're probably on the right track, everyone. Hey, just a quick one. When I look in the back end of this, something that's quite surprising to me, I noticed that it says that 82 % of you who watch the channel regularly haven't hit the subscribe button yet.

10:30So it'd be a great favor if you could hit that subscribe button. Let me tell you why. See, over the lifetime of the channel, we scale the show and get better guests, better production, better everything by having the number of subscribers. So if you hit subscribe, it helps us plan better, do more, get better guests, and so on. Scaling production and making the show bigger is something we all want. We want more success for you. We want more success for the show. And we want to be able to get the best guests to give you the best information. Yeah, I had a great mentor once tell me, if people aren't laughing at your dreams and goals, they're either not big enough or not crazy enough type thing.

11:09100%. You're on the Big Success Podcast. We're with Bill Walsh. We're going to come back in a minute. We're going to get into his three pillars of success and get his advice on how you get new customers. Make sure you hit the subscribe button though. In 30 minutes a day for 30 days, 30X Business will take you through the exact hard-won business principles that Brad Sugars has personally developed over the past 30 years as an entrepreneur, investor, and business advisor. Join Brad and his team and 100 other entrepreneurs who want to start building a successful business today. And we're back. More big success from Bill Walsh.

11:41Bill, let's talk about building a business first and foremost. What are the key factors to a successful business today? Well, I believe in business today. You really have to look at a couple of things. But number one, it's that are you solving a problem or are you making something better? Solving a problem. I mean, think about Uber. It just made it easier to get a taxi. Yeah. Think about Airbnb. They were innovators in the fact that they allowed people to turn their homes into hotels and get paid for it. You know, if you think of what a company like Zapier did, they made it easy to connect things.

12:16You know, you're seeing today all this new chat GPT and you're pretty soon you're going to see tools that are literally digital intelligent officers inside your brand that will attend your board meetings and they'll take notes for you and they'll ask better questions. So when you think about business today, are you solving a problem or are you making something better? And if you're going to solve a problem or you're going to be a pioneer, it's always going to cost you 10 times more money. So I'm going to pioneer this idea in healthcare. And that's why when you start thinking about health-related businesses, the cost of entry is so, so high, but so is the reward.

12:56And so when I get entrepreneurs today that want to go out there and say, I'm going to start a business, well, start a business by pick a niche and always get to the top 10. Believe it or not, the top 10 in any industry will outproduce the other 90. So when you're starting a business, begin to think, has someone already done this before? Can we do better? And that's where I believe a lot of people get lost in the shuffle is that they don't realize the cost of entry. And so I would also tell someone that's going to start a business that make sure you write a really great plan. And everyone thinks the plan is about the plan itself.

13:31the plan is nothing more than a pathway to generate and drive and drive and build some capital. I don't care what your business is, you all should apply for grants. There's$500 billion a year in grant money that ever gets used. Set up your office in a hub zone. Well, what's a hub zone? Well, it's a blighted, slightly blighted area that you can begin to apply for loans that the government gives to business in those areas that are going to employ or plan to do future employment. And so the idea is that without capital, you're done. Stop getting money from friends and family and fools. I know your brother-in-law might loan you the money, but you got to see them again at Thanksgiving and Christmas when if you have a good plan that's well-written, it's going to attract capital.

14:16Yeah. Let's talk about the acquisition of customers then because that's something that you've been teaching for a long, long time. What is today's, what is the things we've got to really focus on today for getting new customers, filling that pipeline and building those relationships with customers? That's a big thing that people don't realize is that number one, and I'm going to give you guys some tools that are free tools. And I have nothing to do with these tools. I'm not related to them, but I will tell you they're going to help you a lot as you're going down this path. Get positioned as an expert in your niche.

14:48What I do by that is get yourself set up with maybe an influencer site. You know, you can use like Linktree. There's one called Mingle, M-I-N-G-L dot N-O. You know, get yourself something where they get to know you first. It has links to your social media that works. It might have PDF documents. It has a QR code. It lets them know who you are first. Go to GoDaddy, pay the 10 bucks, point it to your influencer site. From the influencer site, get a book cover done. Go to something like Canva, get a book cover done today, it's free. Make an announcement, your new book comes out, Q2 of 2025 or 2026.

15:22I don't care if your book ever comes out, but the fact you have a book cover gets you in the know. Go out right away to Facebook and create a community. Create a community around your area of expertise, not your name of your company or your business or your products, and begin to get bandwidth out there with folks that have an interest in your area of expertise, but not about your brand. Feature and talk about simple tips and great ideas. The minute you've done this, create a podcast. I know it sounds crazy, but believe it or not, Spotify, you can now launch on Spotify for free. So get yourself set up with a free podcast.

15:55and don't use it as a soapbox. Use it to interview other people that have good tips and ideas that can help your community get some good insight. The minute you've done all this stuff, right? Go to something like HARO, H-A-R-O. HARO means help a reporter out. Get yourself listed there for free as a subject matter expert. That'll get you on Fox and ABC and NBC all for free. See, what most people don't realize is that people like to buy from an authority figure. They like to buy from someone that knows their space. So don't try to say, I can paint your house, I'll fix the boat, and I'm also your favorite LASIK surgeon.

16:32It's like, no, you're not touching my head. So be great in your niche, whatever your niche is, and get yourself positioned there right away. And most of these tools cost you nothing. You're talking about so far what I just gave you, you spent less than 50 bucks, and believe it or not, you're now becoming one of the go-to sources in the space. and then sure that you're doing an outreach. Number one, have a good referral program. I don't care what your business is. Every website should have a button that says referrals, referral program. We love referrals, something like that. You're going to find that no more business cards, only gift cards.

17:11Gift cards should have a QR code in the back, five tips before you hire a plumber. And I like a company, if you're not using them called Next Day Flyers. Easy to get 5 ,000 gift cards for 50 bucks. So no more business cards that get thrown away. No more AOL, no more Gmail, no more Yahoo on your business cards. Believe it or not, it's really important that people's first impression, they want to get to know more about you and what you do. And people go to, I see this thing called Spray and Pray all the time. Stop the Spray and Pray. You know, create little short one-minute videos. There's an app called Captions.

17:45You can use that. And I do like, and if you're not using an app called InShot, I-N-S-H-O-T, It's like 20 bucks a year, but it literally takes those little videos, puts them onto all your social media, all for 17 bucks a year by simply doing one upload. So the idea is to pass exposure, but be very frugal. Utilize great technology and tools, you know, that people don't even know what Synthecia is. You know, Zora, there's some new tools out there that are going to be able to allow you to speak multi-language within a matter of minutes to bring on new customers. So I believe, Brad, that 90 % of your success is marketing.

18:23Yeah. And you're going to have to back up a great product, but you've got to get yourself to market. And you've got to have bullets in the gun or you've got to have money in your marketing, in your budget to bring those clients on. And if you'll use some of these simple tools that are out there and get yourself more exposure, the secret is not to go find a good team. It's become so good you attract a good team. And that really is the same thing with clients. Don't try to just go find a client. Be so good you start to attract great clients. Right. The history of your business is that, you know, and I've watched your company grow into a global brand that's helped.

19:00I don't know, probably hundreds of thousands of small businesses now because you've done such a great job, helping identify their problems, really become even better in their niche, get themselves out to market. And because those brands that you served over all this large point of time through your coaching network, because we don't do coaching network, right? We coach the companies we fund or turn around. We have business courses, speaker courses, mastermind events. But you dive right in with coaching network worldwide that helps these small businesses win. And if they weren't winning, your coaches would not be out there serving.

19:33So you've trained, they've duplicated that. And that's why you built one hell of a business. Because at the end of the day, results is all your clients are looking for everyone. Yeah. Three pillars of success. Let's go through that for a little bit. So if I was to define three pillars, I'd say, number one, you know, you've got to own your space. Whatever that space is, stay in your lane. I think so often I watch really talented people. I mean, could you imagine? And you've probably seen a few of this, but could you imagine if, you know, NASCAR driver Jimmy Johnson decides I'm going to play in the NFL?

20:10Yeah. And now all of a sudden he just gets run over. You know, a Shaq wants to now be a NASCAR racer. He wouldn't even fit in the car. He wants to drive cars. It's not going to happen. So what I have found is that in your niche, never stop reinventing yourself. Never stop investing in yourself. Never stop going to events. Never stop learning. So number one is that you have to always be a work in progress in your own niche. I've been, you know, turnarounds and helping business owners and speakers get better results in their business for now almost 30 years. I'm not trying to be a tennis pro. I tell people all the time, I'm not a life coach.

20:52I'm not a fitness coach. I'm not a relationship coach. I'm not going to make you feel good, you know, but I'm a damn good business coach. You know, and I know very, very well. So number one, if you're listening today, stay in your lane. Pick your niche and stay in your lane. Number two, I would tell people that systems win. Systems win and people fail. So when I think about pillars of growth in life, if you look at leadership communications as something together, the second batch would without a doubt be systems and process. You know, if you don't have good systems and process, you're done. So, well, this software costs money.

21:35You're damn right it does. Well, going to this costs money. You know, if you don't have good systems and process, you're done. Even for, I know it sounds crazy, but do you have a way to invite clients? Do you have a funnel just for prospecting? Do you have a funnel for activation? Do you have a funnel for retention? So look at the systems in your business and think, do I have good systems? And here's where I would start. Every business I've ever seen, whether they're public or private, get yourself a good attorney and get yourself a good accountant. You can have those two things when you start in a business as systems and process.

22:12You're way ahead of probably 80 percent of the market that's out there because they don't realize how important those things are as you're launching your company. And if I looked at number three, I would probably lean very, very hard. And I know people probably don't want to hear this, but it's execution and accountability. It's do you have a great DMO, a great daily method of operation? Have you actually taken the time to map out your legacy? What's your 100-year plan? What did you leave behind? Do you actually have a big vision for your business? Do you have a vision so big that it pulls you?

22:46I don't believe in motivation. I believe if you motivate idiots, you got motivated idiots. And where are they going? They're going nowhere. They'll tell you how busy they are, but they're not moving anywhere. And so at a much higher level, when someone has a vision so big that it pulls them, they're inspired and you can feel that around them. You can feel the energy around them that they don't need motivation. They don't use alarm clocks. They wake up every day so inspired by what they're doing. And to me, when you meet people like that, spend more time with them. spend more time with people that truly inspire you at a core level to be a better person.

23:23But the accountability means you got to keep score. And I know you don't like this, but you love this, but people don't like this, that, you know, how many leads, how many presentations, how many customers, leads, presentations, and customers. If you were to do one simple report per day for any business, how many leads, how many presentations, how many new customers you serve? See, the challenge people do is they chase the money, right? I'll tell you why people are broke today, they chase the money. See, but if you chase serving well and serving customers, the money's a byproduct. Shift everything you've learned about your business today as you're listening and just look at one simple metric.