Scaling Up Your Business: Advice from Authority Expert Mike Saunders

0:00Welcome to the Big Success Podcast. Cutting edge conversations on business and personal success, as well as how to level up. Here's your host, number one business coach in the world, Brad Sugars. You know, this week on the Big Success Podcast, we have the authority guy, Mike Saunders. He is the authority, authority, authority selling, authority marketing. He's going to, the stuff he teaches us in the second, first of all, his take on success is really unique. So that's really cool. Then we dive into all about authority on sales and how to make sales easier, faster, how to do better marketing. Love his take on that.

0:40His final segment, though, on scaling up, he just blows my mind on it. He's an adjunct professor at many universities. He is on the Forbes Council. He's an MBA guy in marketing, family man, heavily involved in his church. And I think you're going to really enjoy this interview because I know I took a lot of notes from it. Be well. Take care. This is Big Success. I'm Brad Sugars, and today we got Mike Saunders. So Mike, great to have you here. And I always start with a simple question. Well, it's not that simple. What is success to Mike Saunders? Yeah, it's not simple, is it, Brad? Because I think everybody has a different version of success, but I think we need to have a version of success that makes it attainable.

1:20And yeah, I think we need to begin with the end in mind. We need to have the 30 ,000 foot view. But I think that my definition is constantly making steps forward toward my attainable goals and always watching to give value back to people along the way. Okay. Let's break that down because there's a bunch of stuff in there. Attainable goals. Explain to me that because that's a really interesting thought. Well, I know a lot of people say, you know, have BHAG, big, hairy, audacious goals. And I think that's good. Fine. But I believe that when people make the goals too big, they become unattainable.

1:55So if you made$45 ,000 last year and now you made your BHAG goal$4.5 million, but somewhere internally, there's a disconnect. You don't believe it. So I think that you need to set goals that you believe and maybe make them incremental. If you want to make the 4.5 million, go from 45 ,000 to 145 to 445, but make them believable so that you can feel like you're making those steps forward and you're not like, you know, throwing the pebble in the ocean and it doesn't make a difference. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So then adding value back, take me more into the depth on that one. you know everybody talks about you know well if it's a win-win then well invariably if you detail out a win-win there's always a slanting one way or the other and it typically is what's in it for me you know everyone's favorite radio station so I think that we need to be watching for giving the results in advance you know like one of my favorite books and I've interviewed Bob Berg several times but the go-giver you know giving that value so that people almost feel compelled to say wow thank what can I do for you?

3:02And it's giving that value. And guess what? Value sometimes does not have to be a dollar figure. Sometimes value can be giving, I like to call it in my personal goal setting, FHV, focused high value. Because when I can focus in on talking to someone, when I'm talking to someone on a Zoom or a phone call or a podcast interview, when I am zoned in and zeroed in on them and asking them really detailed question, they feel valued. So that's giving value. So it It doesn't have to be, oh, I need to give away a dollar figure or something like that. Giving value sometimes can be your attention. Yeah. Yeah.

3:37Love it. Love it. So when in your life did you choose success? Was it as a kid? Was there a thing? What happened where you said, I'm going to be successful? I remember back to my time in college. And I remember a friend of mine, his dad was in a multi-level marketing company and always, And he brought us in and they had this thing, I think it was called the Standing Order. That's the name that stuck in my mind, but it was almost like a book of the month. Read the book. Let's talk about it. Success principles, setting goals. And I remember that as being one of my first forays into setting goals and developing and always like the Tony Robbins, Kanai constant and never-ending improvement.

4:21So I think way back in those days, I never went anywhere with multi-level marketing, but I love the concept and the mindset of always growing and always building upon something. So back then, and also a phrase that has stuck with me for all these years too, is sense of urgency. When you set that goal and you see those things you need, jump on it, create that momentum, because that momentum then helps you to take those steps forward and keep you drawn toward the goal. So, okay. So that leads me to the question, how does success happen? What is your formula for success? Well, I think coming back to what I was saying before is it's your own personal formula.

5:03My success, my dollar figure might be totally different than yours. But yet if I feel like I like to have freedom, flexibility, financial freedom, well, what that means actually to me, some of the tactical things is I've got a wife and four kids and I run my business around my family. So when I have a family event, I block it off on the calendar. That means people can't book sessions and I'm not going to go and be on my phone when I'm with my family. So meeting financial goals and taking care of them financially, yes. But also I feel like being available to them, being present and having the flexibility in my schedule to come and go and circle around taking care of family, that becomes a huge piece of success for me.

5:46Yeah, very, very important. So then if I was to say, okay, what is your strategy? How do you make sure you're successful? What's the step-by-step formula or the methodology that means you know how you're going to be successful? You know you're going to be successful because you do these things. Yep. I think maybe it's probably a goal setting methodology called chunking. So you have your big old goals and then you chunk them down to quarterly, chunk them down to monthly. And I'm very digital, but also I think that there's a time and place for having a paper. You know, and I've got a three ring binder here on the desk with me.

6:25And so I open up my goals and I look at them every day. And then I look at my weekly goals weekly. And then in my monthly, I do a further deeper dive. But I'm writing down each day, okay, for today to look successful, what does it need to happen? And I pull up my calendar and I go, okay, well, then I need to give focused high value, making sure I'm giving value to these calls here and these interviews here. and I want to make sure that I'm moving this project forward. So really it's keeping all of your goals in the forefront of your mind. And yes, it means daily and oops, maybe I miss it one day, but I'm going to get them, you know, five days out of seven.

7:02And then you're looking at your broader, longer range goals on a weekly and a monthly basis. Dang. I mean, that's a real focus, Mike. Is there a strategy or is discipline just a natural thing to you or is there a way you learn to be more disciplined? And I don't know that, you know, can discipline be taught? Maybe. I think that you learn from the pain of your mistakes, you know, because, you know, you feel like, you know, as an example, I grew up thinking or being taught that credit cards was a four-letter word. Don't get into debt. And I'm like, yeah, of course. Right, right. And then what did I do?

7:39I ran up a credit card to$30 ,000 when I got out of college. And it's like, ooh, that doesn't feel good. So I learned that lesson and now I'm able to teach my kids that lesson. Well, discipline, many times you need to be disciplined personally, professionally, financially, spiritually, physically, all the elements of our life. So I think that when you've made a couple of mistakes in those areas and you go, I don't like that. So how can I prevent it? It just means being disciplined. And sometimes what is the saying about an ounce of discipline is worth way more than four pounds of regret? So if you're not disciplined, where does it lead?

8:14Well, it can lead to regret. So let's take that then a step further. How does failure teach success or can failure teach success? I feel it can if you let it. I mean, you know, how about all these biographies of the people you see that said, I was this and then I term, you know, Napoleon Hill and all the different people that teach these things. But then you look on the flip side and you can see examples of people that are on whatever skid row or whatever you want to think of it that just can't pull themselves out of that. And that is an internal drive, right? I feel like when we're talking about goals, we need to set goals that motivate us and draw us and pull us.

8:52If I feel pushed, I don't respond to that. I don't want to be pushed. Just like in marketing and sales, we don't want to be pushy. We want to draw people and teach them. Well, in achieving goals and learning from failure, I think that's an inside of your mind, your psyche, your wiring. You need to be wired to go, didn't like this. How can I prevent it next time? And now I'm going to do it or else you're just going to wallow in that. So let's, if you think about that then, and it brings up two questions for me, is there a, is there a way to get someone to say, okay, I am going to learn from my mistakes or is it, is that just a natural thing about someone?

9:33Or can you actually step into becoming that type of person? I'm sure that you can get better at anything. You know, like for instance, I don't like numbers. I don't like bookkeeping, but I'm sure if I took a course, I'd get a little bit better, but I'm not going to be passionate about it. So I think that you can show people and what if someone was open enough to go, give me some input and here's this failure and it looked like this. And maybe the questions asked to them would be, well, how did that make you feel? And did you like the outcome of this? And hey, what do you think if you had a magic wand, how could you change that?

10:04If we could go backwards in time, how could you prevent that thing from having that failure, whatever that it was, and maybe getting that person to go, you know what? Hey, it was my fault. I did this and that and the other that's led to this feeling of failure. I didn't like it and I'd prefer not to have it happen again. So, well, I guess if I did this, didn't do this. So I think that if you can open someone's eyes to go, boy, it's right there at that moment of decision or here's some of the precursors that led to that, you know, kind of like if If you don't want to gain weight, don't go shopping at the grocery store when you're starving.

10:38You're going to buy things because you're really, really hungry. Maybe it's things like that. Maybe you go, oh, you found yourself snacking on things you didn't want. Maybe the next time you go grocery shopping for the week, make sure that it's right after a nice, healthy meal. And that might sound strange, but I think that your question and the point about learning from failure, you need to be shown. Here's where it happened right before the point of failure. And here's what you could have done. So be on the lookout for it in the future. I love it. Amazingly good perspective. All right. You're here with Mike Saunders on the Big Success Podcast.

11:14We'll be back and we're going to talk about authority. We're going to talk about sales. We're going to talk about marketing. Come back in just a minute. When it comes to attracting customers, the only difference between your company and Microsoft, Ford and Coke is great advertising. In instant advertising by Brad Sugars, you'll find everything you need to create killer ads that won't break the bank. Pick up your copy of Successful Advertising today. And we're back. Big success is what we're after. And Mike Saunders, you are the authority on authority. That's probably the best way to put it. Tell me, how do we succeed at gaining authority?

11:46I think you need to first start with what it is. You know, and you have to think about something. No matter what business you're in, you've got a competitor or a thousand, right? There's nobody that has the corner of the market of whatever you do. So what sets you apart from your competition? And I've asked clients this question many times and I get, well, I've got 20 years experience. Well, we've got one. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Because that's what your competitors talk about. You need to have something that sets you head and shoulders above the rest. And many times because our target audience and our sphere of influence is very busy, they don't have time to kind of sift through all the layers and go, eh, Brad's pretty cool because, well, let me look at this thing.

12:29They need to go, boom. They need to see it and feel it in an instant. And I think that what has to happen is they need to be seeing and sensing you as that person in a position of authority. Many times in my workshops, I teach this concept. There's a person by the name of Stanley Milgram, and he did social psychology experiments, I think back in Yale in the 50s. And one of the experiences that he did was he had someone that put in a room, kind of like one of those police rooms where it's like the double-sided window and here's a volunteer in the other side. And someone's at this table with electrodes connected to them.

13:06And someone is in a white lab coat with a clipboard and they're going, okay, you need to ask them these questions on this piece of paper. When they get the answer right, green light, when they get the answer wrong, buzzer, and they're going to get electric shock. And each answer they get wrong, gets more and more and more shock. And the volunteer is like, oh, that kind of is weird. But the person in the position of authority with the lab coat, the clipboard at a university is going, we must do this. This is an experiment for science. And so they ask the question and it gets worse, worse, worse, worse.

13:34And the person's like, I don't want to hurt that person anymore. I see they're in pain. And they like, you must continue. You must move on. And so what happened was they discovered that these people that were being asked and coerced to ask these questions. Now, obviously, no one was getting hurt, but because someone was in a position of authority at a university with a white lab coat and a clipboard, they're like, OK, I'll do it. And so same with people in, you know, authorities in law enforcement, police and military. You tend to look at those people as a position of authority. Well, how can we as entrepreneurs, business owners, thought leaders take that concept and position ourselves at that level so that our people kind of subconsciously go, yeah, I need to listen to them.

14:22Well, many times it's you need to be confident in your messaging. You need to have a good solution to the problem your target audience has experienced. Well, that presupposes that you know who your target audience is and you know the problem and you know a solution. well when you can articulate that well and communicate it to that target audience on platforms that are trusted you know and and so here's another example marshall mcclellan is a canadian media theorist back in the 60s wrote a book called the medium is the message have you ever heard of that book before but i have yeah never read it i never read it though so i might have to do well let me tell you something funny little example um the medium is the message meaning the medium that your message is given really elevates the message to be even more powerful than the actual message.

15:08The funny story is it got messed up and the publisher published it and it came out as the medium is the massage and he left it. And so it's really, you could find it online. I've got the PDF somewhere. It's an obscure, strange book. It's kind of like some real, but the point is where your content is seen gives as much value, if not more value than the actual content. So if you have the solution to whatever for your target audience and you put in a PDF and send that out to some prospects, they ignore it. Maybe they didn't even see it because their internet service provider kicked out attachments.

15:40Maybe you put it on your website and they're like, LinkedIn. Okay, that's nice. But as soon as that concept in the PDF is mentioned in the media, on a podcast, in a video interview, and mentioned in a book chapter or a full-on book, now they're like, oh, Brad, that's pretty legit. And it's like, it's the same thing I just put out on my blog post that got four hits on, but it's where your content is seen. So kind of wrapping all that up into authority, you need to have a good, good, clear clarity message for your target audience, but you need to have it so that it rises above the noise so people pay attention.

16:13So let's go back to then the formula, brevity and clarity. Explain that one to me. Have you ever read a book that's about 240 pages and you get to the end of it and you're like, that could have been said in about 12. Yes. Several times. Yeah. I mean, I've often joked that if you distill down someone's teaching in whatever topic, you could probably get it down into like two pages of really tight content. Yeah. Great. Let's publish a book with a wonderful cover and all these blank pages. But the first two pages was the zinger. And then at the end, the rest of the book is just filler. Because in reality, the rest of it is just filler to make that one point.

16:51So brevity, knowing how to clearly articulate, you know, Donald Miller in his great book, building a story brand talks about when you confuse, you lose. Yeah. Well, you need to know how to briefly and clearly articulate your solution to your target audience's problem. So let's relate that to sales. How do we succeed in sales then? Well, a lot of people feel like marketing your sale and sales are the same thing and they're very different. Marketing gets awareness, sales opens a relationship, not closes the deal, A lot of people think, oh, let me close the sale. No, because that mentally gives you the idea of closing next.

17:25Closing really should be considered as opening a relationship. But when you can have your messaging brief and clear and in the right marketing channels, that opens up the awareness to your target audience of, oh, I need to understand that. And in sales, really selling is just, hey, you explained your problem to me really well because if I understand it correctly, you're experiencing this, this, this. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, just consider this. We've got the solution, which is if it sounds good to you, let's chat. it's the prospect making a buying decision based on what you've taught them.

17:59And that kind of gets back to telling versus educating. And to be a good salesperson or marketer, you need to have a teaching, educating kind of an approach to where you know all the questions that they're going to ask. The frequently asked questions, yes, but what about the deeper should ask questions? And I learned that concept years ago from Mike Koenigs from Traffic Geyser. He's one of the marketing gurus out there that I just love following. I had the privilege of interviewing him years ago. And one of the things is whenever I mentioned this to people, they're like, yeah, of course, the frequently asked questions, we get the surface level.

18:35But if you go below the surface and go, but what you should really be asking is these questions. When you can teach and educate on those, you become an authority because they trust that and it's unique and it's not pushy. And then sales happen more frequently because people are coming toward you, you're not being a cushy salesperson saying, buy this now. Yeah. Love that. Love that. So let's, how do you succeed at social proof then? Because that's another thing I love the way you teach. Well, social proof is just without me saying I'm the best come to see me. Social proof is what is being said about you behind your back, next to you, in front of you, online, digital.

19:13And, you know, a lot of people look at social proof like reviews. Well, hopefully you've got good reviews out there. But also how about word of mouth referrals? That's social proof. If I hear, oh, I need this thing. And I went and searched online and I saw, here's this company with some good reviews. At least I can trust them. And then my friend happens to mention, oh, I use them too. That's social proof on several levels. I think another social proof is also as featured on, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox. It's like, oh, hold up. Now this person isn't just pushy, pushy. I'm going to sell you my thing. If they've been featured on and I see some good reviews and other good things, all of those things work well together.

19:52And here's the thing that I think a lot of people make a mistake on. They find this strategy and it's like, I'm all in on this one, but they all work together and it becomes like one amplifies the other and it amplifies the other. Love it. Love it. So then let's dive then across to marketing and then positioning. How do we succeed at marketing with authority? I think it starts with research. It's kind of like ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, aim, then fire. And too many people are like, fire, fire, fire. Let me just hope that... And it's like, let's sharpen this all before I start chopping down the tree.

20:30You need to research and understand your target audience. And how do you find that out? Well, interact. Maybe listen at some forums or social media or talk to a client or a prospect. Hey, what is your real... when you came on as a client last month and you've said you've really enjoyed our services, what were you really concerned about before you made the decision? What was going through your mind? So if you can research that and discover that they were really worried about this and they were really excited about that, you might even discover that what you thought in your sales copy and marketing copy is, yeah, it's close, but boy, this one thing they mentioned, that becomes the zinger.

21:03That becomes something. Now you can insert that into your marketing copy to get better attention and in your sales conversation, not pitch, to help them understand that you can be that trusted advisor to help them solve that problem. So then that leads me to positioning. How do we succeed at positioning given all the noise and all the things that are going on out there? Well, think about where your competitors are. Are they just doing, and there's all of these things that I'll mention, nothing wrong with them, but are they just doing Facebook ads? Are they just doing Facebook Live, YouTube Live?

21:38Are they just doing, just doing, you know, blast email and LinkedIn post and all that. All those things are necessary, but how can you rise above the top and be positioned and perceived and seen as that expert authority? Well, you need to know your messaging and your solution, all those things we mentioned, but work on getting them positioned on the right platforms. So maybe you start researching radio shows and podcasts and seeing And if you can connect and get all interviewed on some of those shows so that you can practice your messaging and your talking and keeping your messaging brief and concise.

22:12So I would suggest get out there and do 30 podcast interviews where you're really honing in your messaging. Count the first 10 as failures. I'm just going to be all over the place. And then listen back to it. And, you know, in fact, literally, my podcast, I've done 1 ,000 episodes that I've been interviewed for a few hundred more times, like what we're doing right here. But about two or three months ago, I was interviewed for this show. And afterwards, I was like, man, I just really make some great points there. I impressed myself. So I went and I transcribed my own interview. And I went through them like, OK, that's a good one.

22:47I want to make sure that I and we need to be students of our own messaging to make sure we are constantly keeping it on the cutting edge. Love it. Mike Saunders, he's the author. He's the authority. He is the man. We'll be back with him in a moment. We're going to talk about scaling up and going massive. Mike Sanders is an experienced entrepreneur, real estate investor, and author of the book, Return on Relationships. Mike has over two decades of experience in the business world and has helped numerous entrepreneurs and investors achieve their financial goals. To learn more about Mike Sanders, please visit his website today.

23:19And we're back on the big success. Let's think about leveling up. Mike, what's your thoughts on the difference between good and great or good and amazing type thing? How do people go from one to the other? I would say practice and experience. And here's something that pops into my mind. Do you have 10 years of experience in your industry or do you have one year of experience 10 times over? And the difference is someone that has 10 years of experience one year at a time, I'm just kind of punching the clock and I'm doing my thing and I'm out. But if someone has 10 years of experience, year one, you learn some lessons and then you go to year two and you amplify what you learned in year one.

24:00By the time you get to year 10 and beyond, you're learning, learning, polishing, polishing. So I think that's a huge mindset that people need to keep in mind. When you talk about scaling and going to the next level, I would say to you that it needs to be done with the correct momentum. Because if you scale too much too fast, you can implode. If you don't have the right foundation, it's been said that building capacity in advance of demand, that's what you need to be doing. Because if you have too much demand, if anyone watching or listening to this got 28 clients right now today, could they handle that?

24:32Oh, well, sure. I've got the onboarding process that. But if you don't, you haven't built capacity in advance of demand. I love that. Love that. So let's think then about the people that choose to go real big. What do you think is the difference between those who choose to play at a good level versus those who choose to play at that massive level? Instead of setting a million goal, a billion goal, what's the difference in mindset? Or can someone transition? I would think that if you look at some of the big leaders of today, and we can name dozens, right? But whoever comes to your mind in the world of business or whatever, they've got the same 24 hours in every day.