2080 – The Role of Mentorship in Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders with Leadmore’s John Meyer

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1:05With us right now, it is the founder of Leadmore. It's John Meyer. John, your website is jontmeyer.com, M-E-Y-E-R.com. John, it's great to have you. Thanks for joining us. Hey, thanks, Josh. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Yeah, what's Leadmore? Yeah, so Leadmore, I help leaders become the best version of themselves. I believe it's our job to kind of become the 10.0 version of ourselves and then share that with the world. And so I believe everybody, well, one, the world needs more leaders, but two, you're a leader. And whether it be by title or profession or where you went to school, it doesn't have to be.

1:43At some point, you're going to be asked to lead and you got to step up and lead. So I do that through coaching entrepreneurs and kind of speaking in front of workshops and companies. Yeah. Well, I'm sure in your work, there's likely some trends that you've been seeing over the past six months or so. And certainly as we look into our crystal ball, looking into 2025 here. Let me ask you, what are the big issues that you are hearing from the folks that you work with? What are the most sensitive issues that leaders, maybe it's something that's stressing them out, or maybe it's something that you just recognize that they're really prioritizing, and maybe rightly so?

2:26Yeah, I think one of the things you'll always come back to hear from is people, leading teams, finding great people, hiring great people, keeping great people, keeping those people engaged, uh, giving them to work and focus on where we're trying to go as companies and teams and organizations that seems to never change. And so I think, uh, you know, we've moved on beyond the days of a leader saying our company culture is beer in the fridge or a ping pong table upstairs, right? We need to build these kind of values-driven cultures. And I always tell leaders, this is why you create content, stand for something, put it out into the world.

3:01What do you believe in? What do you stand for? How are you going to attract people, both customers and employees? So know what you believe in. And sometimes don't be in the middle. It doesn't mean offend people, but take a bold vision and stand for it, believe in it. Can you etch that out maybe a little bit more practically of ways that that might look? Yeah, I think inside an organization, it's like establish those core values, right? When I give speaking and do keynotes, I'll go into companies and say, you know, raise your hand if you have core values. And usually two thirds, maybe 75 % will raise their hand.

3:33And then I'll say, keep holding your hands up if you know your core values. And about half the hands go down, right? So you'll see, oh gosh, we have too many of them. I don't really remember. There are these long phrases. Like what are the three, four words that if you put those on a wall, really define your culture? And then how do we take them off the wall and bake them into our operations? When I ran an agency, Lemonly, adventure was one of our core values. And so when you hit five years at the company, we would give you a$2 ,500 check, another extra week of PTO and say, hey, this is your five year adventure bonus, but you only get it if you leave North America.

4:10You had to get out and go on an adventure. I believe when you get uncomfortable, traveling is a way to grow, right? And when you get uncomfortable, that's how you grow. So it could be visiting a new country, learning a new language. Some people had never even been outside of South Dakota, you know, or the Midwest. So that's an example of taking a core value, baking it into your culture, and then standing for that. So when we hired folks, we said, hey, this is a place of ask for forgiveness instead of permission. Take risks, try new things. You're going to make mistakes, but don't make them again.

4:41And that was a culture of adventure, right? So I think leaders today have to know what they stand for, and then signal to everybody, both employees and customers, why they believe that. Yeah. And when you begin working with someone, what are the questions that you're generally asking in your first get-together? How do you figure out where block one on the board is, where are we, I guess, just assessing? Yeah, you bet. Lots of times I work with founders who are in that transition from say six to seven figures. So they're starting to grow their teams, starting to hire and scale. They have some product market fit.

5:23And so a lot of it is, how are you as the founder, the leader spending your time? One of my favorite exercises is called an energy audit. And you can do this right now. You take a sheet of paper and a pencil, draw a line down the center of a piece of paper on one side, put a plus on the other side, put a minus. And on that plus column, I want you to write down all the things that give you energy. What are the things that you do for you? I'm guessing you love doing podcasting. You could do this all day long. You probably do do this all day long. One might say, yes. You know, and so - I keep showing up.

5:54You know, what you're talking about is straight out of Atomic Habits toward the very end. Great book. Oh my gosh, they talk about that. I'm sorry to interrupt, but yeah, such a valid point. I think we tend to get stuck on, I should probably do the most pressing issue or where the biggest emergency is, or maybe even our hourly rate. And I would encourage you to plan your day and your week by your energy. And so a lot of times with these founders, I'm talking to them and they're still doing the bookkeeping or they're still managing HR. They're doing things as they're headed towards seven figures, the things they hate, the things they dread, the things that drain their energy, but they feel like they have to hold on to them.

6:36And so a lot of the leaders I'm working with is like, let's get rid of some of those hats. let's focus on the things that not only give us energy, but also drive the business forward. And guess what? There are people who love to do bookkeeping. There are people we can outsource HR to. And so a lot of that is to really level up as a leader is focusing on your zone of genius and kind of living in that zone. Yeah. So, you know, there's obviously there's been some, big trends this past year. I think certainly the biggest, I think for most of us, is the advent of better or more accessible AI-enabled tools and platforms and things that can be used thoughtfully and carefully.

7:26Is this coming up in conversation at all? Where I've seen it the most with the folks I work with, because I believe that leaders need to also put themselves out there and share what they believe. I'm very long on building your brand and creating content. And that's where I've used AI. And a lot of the people I work with have, you know, sort of multiplied, cloned yourself in the sense of, you know, I like podcast. I always say podcast in is great content out. If you put it in this content machine, I use an AI tool called Cast Magic because I'm sort of an audio processor. And so if I want to put a thought in with my audio, with my voice, I can then control the outputs into a LinkedIn post, a blog post, a social media caption.

8:08So that's one example. I think what AI is going to do is scale the people who are already very efficient and productive, but allow them to sort of magnify that, right? I kind of subscribe to the theory of you're not going to lose your job to AI, but you're going to lose your job to the person who's using AI, right? The person who can be that 10X engineer, that 10X social media marketer. So we still need the humans, but the AI is going to amplify. And so I'm seeing a lot of hesitancy or curiosity, but I want to see more people diving in and tinkering. I think tinkering is where we figure out how to apply these tools to our business.

8:49So I think you're right. That's definitely been a huge trend that's changing a lot of things. And I think we're going to see where it lands. But it's been a really interesting tool. Can you tell me a little bit more about, I see that one topic that you've talked about is a concept called anti-fragility. Do you mind sharing just a little bit about that, what that is? Yeah, it's also a great book, Anti-Fragile, Nassim Taleb. And essentially the idea, the definition of that is some things when they meet risk adversity, they tend to retreat and they break and they kind of fold. This is things that are fragile, right?

9:26And so ever since COVID, I've been kind of giving this talk about this idea of anti-fragility is the opposite of fragile. So when met with resistance, with shock, with adversity, instead of retreating, they actually get stronger. They lean into it. They embrace, they change, they adapt. They actually, people, anti-fragile people love risk and uncertainty. They know that tomorrow the sun will rise. They don't know what it'll look like, but the sun will rise and we'll figure it out, right? And so I think both leaders and organizations need to become more anti-fragile. I tend to subscribe to the theory that COVID didn't necessarily instigate a lot of things, but accelerated a lot of things.

10:06So a lot of these trends were underneath and just really rose to the top. And so what we need to do, the world is spinning faster than ever. And it's those who can kind of stabilize themselves and embrace the change that will come out on top. Yeah. So, you know, you're a good LinkedIn follow, John. What else are you doing in terms of content? Obviously, I see you doing a lot of podcast interviews to folks that maybe aren't necessarily ready for a call or whatever, but they want to spend a little bit more time in your world. What thought leadership are you doing out there? Yeah, so my coaching business, Leadmore, started as a podcast in 2020 because I believed that the world needed more leaders.

10:49And so I started just interviewing great leaders, having conversations with them in podcast form. That was when I was still running an agency. Sold that company in 2021, left in 22. And now I'm coaching founders and leaders. And so I've shifted the podcast a little bit to be what are the frameworks and tactics and tools that we need to use as modern day leaders. And so each episode is a 30 to 40 minute episode with a thought leader about a framework. And so recently we just talked about pricing strategies with Marcos Rivera, or we talked about a really awesome concept from John Meese about a serve call.

11:26If we can rethink our sales calls as serve calls, how can we actually help more people and get more customers? And so that's a lot of my thought leadership is packaging podcasts. Every Thursday, I drop a new episode and then use things like cast magic to, you know, to make divisible content. In my previous world at Lemonly, we were doing infographics and videos. And so we always talk about this concept of micro content. You're creating just a wealth of content through this podcast, but what are all the things after that, that you can divide it up and use it? So, yeah, I think when you're in this thought leadership coach world, it's like, hey, subscribe to my podcast, join my newsletter.

12:05And I think I always say vibes matter when it comes to coaching. You got to connect with somebody if you want to actually work with them. Yeah. Tell me more about that. Yeah, I just think there's a lot of coaches out there. There's a lot of advisors, consultants. And I think some degree of, what's the right word? Like you want to be more like you're, like I have coaches. As a coach, I think you should have a coach. You're striving to be a better version of yourself. And so I think as a coach, I need to back up everything that I'm teaching, right? I got to practice what I preach. And so you join a call.

12:39I call this a serve call. You join this. We meet each other. I try to add value. And probably by the end, you'll know if you think you want to work with me or not, right? Because vibes matter. And you don't want to join your call with your coach and be like, oh, got to go do this call. And he's going to tell me or she's going to tell me to do this. And I don't really want to do that. I don't really respect this. It's not going to work. It should be a mentor. It should be a friend, someone you trust. And so that's why I create a lot of content as a coach. Coaching is unique because you kind of give it all away for free.

13:08And then you decide if the vibes are right, then you can hire me. Yeah, yeah. And what would be maybe some examples of some transformations when you've worked with your clients in the past? Like, where did they start? What did they want to accomplish? And then by the end of the engagement, where did they get to? Yeah, I got two co-founders, an agency out of Colorado. They were probably doing high six figures. We've grown probably about 50%,$500 ,000,$600 ,000 annual revenue as an agency. We've sort of been allowed both of the co-founders to stay in their lane and sort of instead of overlapping and sharing a lot of hats, kind of find their unique focus areas in the business.

13:49Repeatable sales is a big one, right? Agencies is a tough game because every day or every year on January 1st, you're starting over. So how can we kind of get repeat customers? How can we get longer term contracts? We've focused a lot on sort of that sales and marketing piece, telling the world about our thought leadership and our expertise. So that's one that I'm really excited about. They are not only growing, but they've even been approached by potential buyers as they continue to kind of grow in their niche, which is pretty exciting. Another one was a branding agency, probably five, 600K in revenue.

14:22You know, just having customers better understand the before and after transformation. It's not a logo, right? It's a brand. What does that mean? How do we get people to, how do we unpack the process so that you can get started a lower value or lower sort of time commitment and then work your way up, becoming a bigger project, bigger client. So a lot of it that's in my one-on-one program is just meeting folks where they're at, sort of trying to eliminate some of those bottlenecks, let them focus on their zone of genius. And then of course, it's always targeting growth. If you were at a higher coach, you should grow both personally and professionally.

14:56Yeah, your website, johntmeyer.com. To our friend that's listening, obviously there's the Leadmore podcast, which you can search for right now in your podcast player. You'll find it. And again, you can obviously engage there. But John, when they go to your website, what would you recommend they do? Yeah, I think subscribing to a newsletter is a great place to start because I always love, this is a good marketing line, Donald Miller from StoryBrand. You know, what's your go on a date? What's your get married? You don't need to jump. If you don't want to jump on a call yet and get married, that's fine.

15:28Just join the newsletter and let's go on a date. and I'll show up in your inbox and hopefully add some value to your world. If folks out there are booking for conferences, events, I do travel quite a bit to do speaking. A lot of it's on this anti-fragility, kind of that pump up, like let's become the best version of ourselves and let's not worry about the world impacting us. Let's go impact the world, right? Let's not make excuses. Let's become more anti-fragile. And I think that's just an exciting time. I think, yes, there's a lot of change. Yes, AI is changing the world. Things are moving faster than ever.

16:03But we got to be really confident in kind of who we are as individuals and leaders so that we can navigate that world. Yep, yep, love it. John T. Meyer, again, your website, johntmeyer.com, your founder of Leadmore. John, it's been great to have you. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Take care, man.

16:24Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from.

17:06I've got a free video that you can watch right now with no opt-in or email required where I'm going to share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. Make sure to hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed.

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