The Best Way to Scale Yourself and Your Business

0:00Hey, y 'all. Joel Miller here, Chief Product Officer at Full Focus. And today we have a very special episode of the Business Accelerator podcast. In fact, I'm actually going to more or less stop talking at this point because I've got Michael and Megan here and they're going to take over right now. But I will be back in just a little bit. So hang on. Hi, I'm Michael Hyatt. And I'm Megan Hyatt Miller. And this is the Business Accelerator podcast, a weekly podcast designed to help you scale your life and your business. And this week, we're going to be talking about what you need in order to scale your own life in your own business.

0:36Yeah, I'm really excited to talk about this because I'm not sure that we've ever done an episode on this before, but we're going to be talking about what hundreds and hundreds of our own clients are talking about all the time, how our Business Accelerator coaching program has enabled them to scale their business in a way that's sustainable so that they can achieve the double win, winning at work and succeeding at life. And I'm really excited because this is for the first time ever, we're going to be letting you kind of in on something that up until now has been kind of top secret, which is our business growth coaching call, just kind of the first step of the program when you're finding out about the program.

1:20With our business consultants, everybody gets an opportunity to have a conversation about their unique challenges, their goals, the struggles that they're facing, the opportunities that they have coming up, and a path, you know, to navigate through those successfully. So we're going to let you guys in on that. What is a business growth coaching call all about? We're going to give you the opportunity to book your own call. It's totally free if you want to. And it's a great opportunity to really level up in your leadership through gaining clarity about those challenges that you're facing right now and what are some of the most effective strategies you can use to get through them.

2:04Before we dig in today, I think we should just talk for a second about why coaching is such a powerful lever of success, because I know that not everybody listening to us today has had the chance to pull that lever before. And so you may not know what you're missing or why you don't want to miss it anymore. So let's just talk about that for a second. You know, I hired my first business coach in 2002. And I can remember going to the CEO for the company that I worked for. And I asked him for permission for the funding to hire an executive coach. And he said to me, why do you need a coach? I mean, you're doing amazing.

2:43You're running the best performing division in our company. Why would you possibly need a coach? And I said to him, the world's best athletes all have coaches. And at that time, Tiger Woods was a phenom, all kinds of other athletes. And so I just cited those. You know, the best players, the best performers want to get better. And for those that aren't the best performers, literally the only way to improve is either trial and error or to have somebody come alongside that's already made the mistakes so that you can go to school on their mistakes. Absolutely. Well, you know, this is something that you and I continue to invest heavily in currently after all these years, I've had an executive coach for about seven years, you've done it for decades and decades at this point.

3:28And from my perspective, you know, if you want to go further faster, you need a coach. And if you want to really be concerned with return on investment, coaching delivers an ROI like almost nothing else. You know, for example, my budget for coaching this year is$120 ,000. And I expect to make a five to 10x return on that investment at minimum. and you know fortunately our own coaching program is way way way way less expensive than that but just to show you how seriously we take this as coaches as people who have designed and lead a coaching program this is something where we really put our money where we're mouth our mouth is because we believe so much in it you know if you want to do it you know kind of the diy version without a coach just like if you want to learn to play golf or you're a professional athlete of some kind.

4:17I mean, that is a long, slow, painful, expensive way to learn and learn how to scale your business. So I think that's just a helpful prerequisite as we get into these features today. A metaphor I thought of when you were saying that is it's like lighting a fire. You can either do it the old fashioned way, or maybe you could do it with a match, or maybe you could just pour gas on the wood and then light it. Coaching is an accelerant to your progress. That's right.

4:46Okay, so let's talk about the four features that make Business Accelerator unique and why this is important to you who are listening to this today. Feature number one is a roadmap for success. In Business Accelerator, we give you a roadmap to success. Now, the reason that's important is because I don't care if you have a B.A. in business or an MBA in business. This is something you didn't get in business school. And honestly, most people that start businesses, most people that are business owners, don't have any formal training in business. They've just got some idea that caught fire and took off to some level, and they want to take it to the next level.

5:23They want to scale it up. They know they've got a tiger by the tail, but they don't know where to go. And the sequence is critically important. You've got to lay the foundation. Then you've got to build the rocket. And if that rocket's going to take off, there's certain other things you have to do. So in Business Accelerator, we have a very specific roadmap for success. We're opinionated about that. There are certain things that you have to lay down if you're going to be successful in subsequent stages. Well, and I think a good point of reference for this is that, you know, I was talking to some new clients in the last week, and they were kind of telling me why they joined the program.

5:59They just joined, what their challenges and struggles were. And what I think is always interesting is that the reason that people think that they're coming, you know, whatever, we might call this like a presenting problem or, you know, kind of what your first awareness is of whatever the challenge is. Maybe for you it seems like hiring or maybe it's, you know, financial management or maybe you just think, gosh, I'm just working way too many hours. I cannot keep this up. Usually there's a root problem to that. The things that you're experiencing right now that are driving you crazy in your business or causing you pain or frustration in some way are symptomatic of something that's deeper.

6:38And I think what we've been able to do within Business Accelerator is identify what are those root problems that if we can solve for you through this roadmap process that we have, will actually eliminate the downstream problems like working too much, like having a hard time getting the right people in the right seats in your team, you know, really figuring out how do you scale things so that you can handle the weight of what you're building. all these challenges that are so common among business owners, what we want to do is not just sort of treat the symptoms. We actually want to resolve the root issues so that you lay that foundation for many, many years to come and scaling becomes a whole lot easier and you can really fall in love with your business again and fall in love with your life again when you do things in this way.

7:35Okay, so feature number one, a roadmap for success. Feature number two, personalized one-on-one coaching. You know, I love one-on-one coaching. We pair you with a coach who can address your unique needs and provide custom training on our proprietary tools, as well as troubleshoot your business so that as issues come up in your business, as challenges need to be resolved, as obstacles need to be overcome, you've got somebody that's there with you in sort of as a co-pilot to help advise you so that you're not just left to your own experience and your own skills, but you've got somebody who's been there, done that.

8:16All of our business coaches are business owners. They started and run successful businesses so that you don't have to hit the same potholes that everybody else does, so that you're able to get from where you are now to where you want to be with the least amount of stress and frustration. Well, you know, I had an interesting experience yesterday with my own coach. So I meet with him every two weeks, and I came to him with a problem, you know, something that was just, you know, I couldn't quite figure my way through. And he said, yeah, we'll get to that in just a second. But he said, what I actually think is going on.

8:49And it was this whole other thing. And he was dead right. I mean, I just felt like my head exploded on the call because I had an insight that I could have never gotten to on my own. I was so kind of obsessed with solving the presenting problem that I had. But because he knows me and because we've been working together for a period of time, and he kind of knows where I get myself in trouble and what my strengths are, he was able to say, actually, Megan, I think it's this other thing. And let's talk about that. And I left that call prepared to lead at a level that was a serious level up for me. And I think that's exactly what our coaches do.

9:28You know, they're able to build a relationship with you that enables them combined with their experience to say, maybe that thing is actually a symptom. And let's look at what we could deal with at a root level to not just resolve that annoying thing that's happening right now, but to put you on a whole different level of leadership that you could not access for yourself. And that's what I love about one-on-one coaching. I love it too. And we've said, we wrote about this in Mind Your Mindset, our most recent book, that the key to success is in our thinking. And one of the biggest challenges for any of us as leaders is to see our own thinking.

10:05Some people call that metacognition. But the ability to think about our thinking is really difficult. But a coach makes it infinitely easier because what's obscure to us can become clear to them. And they can pinpoint sort of the problems with our thinking that if we resolve that, not only does it usually resolve the problem or the symptom at hand, but it usually solves a bunch of problems at one time. So to me, that's one of the biggest advantages of a coach.

10:35Okay, so feature number one, a roadmap for success. Number two, personalized one-on-one coaching, feature number three, quarterly group intensives. Megan, why don't you describe what we do in our program with these? Well, I love our quarterly group intensives. We were very intentional when we were designing the Business Accelerator Coaching Program. We had the choice. Could it be only group, and that's how we started out? Could be group plus one-on-one, or it could be only one-on-one. And there's lots of different programs with different configurations of those. And as we studied how our clients were getting the results that we were promising for them, the clients who were really accelerating their financial results while also having the margin they needed to attend to their life outside of work, what we call the double win, winning at work and succeeding at life.

11:23You know, they've got time for their family, they've got time for their health, their most important relationships, their contribution outside of work, all that kind of stuff. What we found is that the most powerful combination was this combination of personalized one-on-one coaching and quarterly group coaching intensives. So the group coaching intensives are designed to give you the information you need in terms of frameworks, systems, processes, thinking strategies, et cetera, to really lay that foundation for the next level of your business growth. you know, what you have done to make you successful up to this point is not going to be what you need to do to go to the next level in your business, you know, to double your business, for example.

12:09That's going to require a different set of skills, a different kind of operations, a different kind of leadership, a different kind of team performance, a different kind of culture in your organization. But the question is, in what way? How do you do it? Well, we demystify all that and we tell you exactly what to do and where to focus to get to the next level in your business. And so when you come to these quarterly group coaching intensives, they're both virtual and in person. You have an option to do either one. We love the in-person option. We have a great virtual option, but we encourage you to come in person because there's just something special about being in the room with people.

12:42And you're going to learn stuff that's going to change how you think about and operate your business so that ultimately you can run your business without your business running you. I know a lot of you guys listening right now are thinking to yourself, God, I feel like my business is the boss of me. I feel like my business is running me ragged, and I'm just so over it. And so the question becomes, well, how do you get out of that? And that's what we're going to teach you at these Group Coral Intensives. You're going to be there with other like-minded business owners who are committed to the double win.

13:16They're committed to scaling their businesses in such a way that it actually creates more margin financially, but more margin in their personal lives for their family, their closest relationships, and their health, etc. And that's what you're going to learn there with people who get it, who understand what it's like, who can be a resource to you, a support to you. And that's pretty unique. You know, just to give people a little bit more specific idea of what to expect is when you come into Nashville once a quarter or you dial in via Zoom and connect with us virtually, you're going to have a choice of a handful of topics to pick.

13:55Now, we may or your one-on-one coach may have a recommendation, but we usually offer three or four different sessions, different workshops their entire day that you're going to spend with a cohort of other clients. And you're going to be covering topics like business goal achievement or delegation mastery. That's an important topic because until you can delegate, you can't scale. Why? Because you've only got so many hours in a week. There's only so much that you can do and you've got to be able to delegate and get help. We talk about things like a workshop on recession-proofing your business, scalable sales and marketing, maximizing your personal ROI through a tool we call the Freedom Compass, avoiding the five most common money mistakes, team culture and alignment, and a whole lot more.

14:42And I do one of these every quarter, and it's usually something that's brand new. That's something we've just cooked up before that particular workshop, and it's my latest, greatest thinking on that topic. Yep. And people get a ton out of those. You know, I was talking to some clients the other day and I was just saying there's something that is so valuable about this appointment with yourself once a quarter to get out of your business and give yourself the gift of working on your business instead of in your business. And for most business owners, they're so sucked into the day-to-day, their business really is running them, that they don't have the opportunity to kind of pull back and, you know, come up to a higher level and really think about their business and think about what it's going to take to get to the next level with a plan for implementing those things.

15:28And that's one of the greatest gifts of these group coaching intensives that we do on a quarterly basis. So good.

15:39Okay, feature number three, quarterly group intensives. Feature number four, and this may be my favorite, a like-minded community. The real challenge you have as you become successful is that it becomes increasingly difficult for your current peer group, your family, your close friends, all of that to relate to your success. And so what we find is that a lot of business owners, they can't really discuss their problems or their challenges or their obstacles. Nobody can relate to those. They can't discuss their wins and their successes because nobody can relate to those. But inside a community like we've built at Business Accelerator, there are going to be other entrepreneurs, other business owners who will cheer your success, who understand the challenges, who know what it takes to meet a payroll and know what it takes to run a business.

16:26And that's an amazing, amazing asset to have if you're going to succeed and go to the next level. Well, I think that when we're sort of in our own echo chamber, our own thoughts are the only resource we have. And in addition to your one-on-one coach, in addition to the coach who is leading the intensive that you attend on a quarterly basis, that doesn't have to be true within Business Accelerator. You have the benefit of other people's perspectives who really get it. And I'm reminded, Dad, what John Maxwell said to you when you became the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers many years ago. And he said something about the idea that people say leadership is lonely at the top.

17:10And I think that a lot of us feel that way. And a lot of us have experienced that. And he said to you, that's a choice. And I think that that's an arresting and a powerful thing to say. It's confrontational, but it's really true. You don't have to be lonely as a business owner. You just have to get with other business owners because you no longer have peers within your business unless you have a business partner. Otherwise, you don't have any peers and you need peers. You do. And it's not just those quarterly intensives where you get that face-to-face, and certainly that can be in-person or it can be virtually, and it's enormously helpful.

17:46And people leave those quarterly intensives just energized. They feel like they've been understood. They feel like, hey, I'm not alone in this. I've got a group of peers that are for me. But it also happens in between those meetings in our online community. We know how important this is. And people often say, you know, I came for the content, but I stayed for the community. And this is why, is we want to facilitate that, provide that opportunity for you to get that peer support that all of us so desperately need. You know, this is so often quoted that it's almost, you know, we've all heard it before, but Jim Rohn says that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

18:24And this is a way to operationalize that. You know, that becomes just some kind of cute quote that you put on your wall, or it becomes part of the operational fabric of how you work. And we give you the opportunity to do that. We're very intentional at the in-person intensives because we do something called facilitated dinners, which are basically where our team sets you up with other people and a list of conversation questions for a dinner where you can really get to know other business owners at a meaningful level. Instead of it being sort of like chit chat at a cocktail party where, you know, it feels like a best networking.

19:01We really want you to develop relationships with people. And so one of the things that we've done to facilitate that is to create this time where people can go have dinner with a small group of people and really go deep with them and get to know them. And hopefully those people become really good friends over time.

19:20Okay, so let's summarize. What we've said here is that there are four features that make Business Accelerator, the premier business coaching program available today, and four things that you absolutely need to succeed as a business owner. Number one, a roadmap for success. Number two, personalized one-on-one coaching. Number three, quarterly group intensives or workshops. And number four, a like-minded community. Megan, anything you want to add to that? Yeah. Well, you know, you're probably listening to this and thinking, gosh, that sounds great. I mean, I'd love to learn more about what it would what it would mean for my business if I had access to that kind of support, that kind of coaching, those resources.

20:01And the great thing is, as I said at the top of the episode, is that we have a really easy way for you to find out more about the program and really get clear on where your unique challenges are and where this business accelerator program could help to provide you a roadmap through those challenges. to somewhere that you really want to go. And that is the business growth coaching call. So this is a taste of the coaching program. It's a 45 minute call with one of our business consultants. Here in a few minutes, you're going to get to hear from one of those guys, Brent High, about exactly how that works.

20:34But basically, we're going to understand what's challenging for you, what your goals are, what you want to accomplish, and what's standing in the way. And then we're going to tell you some things that we see that you could do to navigate through that successfully. And I promise you, it will be inspiring, it will be clarifying, and it will be really energizing for you. And you will leave that call with a clear path for how to move forward in a way that you're really excited about. So all you have to do, again, this is totally free, is just go to businessaccelerator.com slash coach, and you could book your 45-minute coaching call right there.

21:10Just a little kind of tip for you on this. this call and the program in general is intentionally designed for businesses with at least$500 ,000 in annual revenue. So if you don't quite meet that threshold, it's probably not going to be the most helpful for you. But if you do meet that threshold, I just want to encourage you've got nothing to lose, there's no obligation, and you're going to get a lot out of it. So go ahead and sign up for that business growth coaching call at businessaccelerator.com slash coach.

21:42and as promised we're now going to transition to hearing from brent high who's one of our business consultants who regularly talks with new clients in the context of this 45 minute business growth coaching call so you're going to get a chance to really understand what that's like what you have to gain from that call so brent i'm going to turn it over to you I am Brent High, Senior Business Consultant here with Full Focus, and I'm a real-life person. I'm not AI. I'm not a chatbot. You'll actually get to visit with a real human being that is a business owner. I have two businesses that I've owned for 20 years, another one that I started five years ago.

22:26You may see my family over my shoulder here. I'm married to Emily for 26 years. I've got two boys, 21 and 19, Houston and Hunter. I like to be on my tractor. The farm you see in the background is down in Hickman County, Tennessee. So when you punch that information in, it's not going to some random system. You're actually going to get a real life person. And I will get your information immediately. I will immediately call you on your cell phone. I will let you know that I'm going to be doing some research on you and your company before our call. And I'll come prepared to help you in a way that probably most people are not able to help in an initial discovery call in that I have 27 years of business experience.

23:22Tell me a little bit about how that call works. So let's say I am doing that call. I don't know what to expect. Tell me what to expect. Give me a little tease. How's this going to work? Well, the first thing I want to do is make every effort to be helpful to you in some tangible, measurable way in 45 minutes. If you're willing to give me 45 minutes of your day, the least I can do is try to trade you something that you'll say, you know what? I was really glad I met with Brent. The calls go completely different directions. I think in the three years that I've worked here, I've done over a thousand of these discovery calls.

24:01A thousand. That's incredible. Yeah. And they're fascinating. I'll end up with a lady that owns a coffee plantation on the side of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Then I'll talk to a sod farmer in Florida. I'll talk to a hedge fund manager in New York City. I'll talk to someone that has 300 employees in a liquor business. It's anybody and everybody. And it's really what keeps me on my toes and makes this job very, very interesting is you meet all kinds of people literally from all over the globe. Walk me through how a call might progress. I've entered in my data. You've called me. Tell me how that call works.

24:48The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to summarize what I know about you from my research. Okay. Typically, it's a web search. It's going to your website. It's going to LinkedIn, Google, whatever I can learn about you. In addition to some of the things that you've shared in the initial booking with some of the challenges that you're facing as the business owner, I'll want to know more about that. I'll specifically very early in the meeting steer you toward a scoreboard that has six tangible numbers on it that we talk about every day as we're coaching people that really set us apart from the rest of the coaching world.

25:34Because there's nobody out there that we found that really focuses on six numbers that we look at simultaneously. So I want to dive into the scoreboard. And Joel, that's a world that you guys have helped us with from the coaching side, be able to zero in on there are some tangibles that we want to lean in on with any business owner. Why don't you walk us through those six? Sure. The scoreboard that we're looking at has three numbers on the left side, three numbers on the right side. The three numbers on the left side, we're going to want to know are money related. The three on the right have to do with time.