SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Cut the Tie Podcast. Hello, I'm your host, Thomas Elfric, on a mission to help you cut the tie to whatever it is holding you back from success. And that success, you have to own it. Otherwise, you're chasing someone else's dream, and that's no boy no. Uh today I'm joined by Robin Waite. Robin, how are you? Yeah, I'm great, Thomas. Pleasure to be here. I I I appreciate you being here. I I I can detect from your accent you're from Alabama. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01: 0:23

Do they speak like that over there? Do they no? I'm I'm in the southwest of the UK, England. South? Just blonde part of the world.

SPEAKER_00: 0:30

Um Robin, uh take a moment to uh introduce yourself and what it is you do.

SPEAKER_01: 0:34

Yeah, of course. So um I'm the founder of Fearless Business, which is a coaching accelerator for coaches, consultants, and freelancers. Uh my superpower is helping people escape the time for money trap and productize the services so they can confidently charge more.

SPEAKER_00: 0:50

You know, the uh I'm in the middle of that right now, of trying to get out of being the the the bottleneck, effectively. Um anyway, would this would be a great conversation? I probably will go off topic knowing this now, just to be clear.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01

Oh, that's fine. You'll just and my speaker coach used to call me the Gatling gun. So when I get going, I'm like and he's like, just you've got to do the international sign of distress just to kind of get my attention if that starts to happen.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13

All good. Listen, we have an AI that's gonna listen to this, write stuff. The more Gatlin gun you get, the more content we all get to use. All right. So uh there's a lot of people in your space. I always like to ask people kind of uh, well, you know, why do they choose you? Because there's there are, you know, there's a lot of people trying to do what you're describing. So what's your guys' secret power there?

SPEAKER_01: 1:30

Yeah. So uh when I when I first started coaching, I kind of thought I I needed to show up in a certain way. So I used to uh, you know, wear the button-down shirt and the the chinos and the pointy brown shoes because that's how I thought business coaches dressed. And um uh what that started to do was attract a lot of corporate clients in, but I come from a very sort of small grassroots like entrepreneurial background. I used to run a very uh local web design and branding agency. And um, so I'd I'd get these corporate clients and I'm in my button-down shirt, and I used to feel incredibly awkward and really didn't feel that I could coach to the best of my abilities because of it. Um, so when I started to um, you know, strip off the the button-down shirt and the suit and all those sorts of things and actually just show up as I am. I'm a I'm a surfer, I'm a cyclist, I'm a uh I love being in the outdoors and things like that. I'm most comfortable when I'm I'm wearing, you know, t-shirt jeans and DC trainers. Um, I realized that I started to attract my my people, you know, who are basically just the same as me. They are small grassroots business owners. They all they want to do is just um not work quite as hard, have a greater impact, make a bit more money, um, so they can ultimately spend a bit more time with their family, um, you know, which is what I aspired to when I first sort of transitioned into business coaching. Um, and ultimately, I think that's why people buy me, because I I like to think I'm quite a sort of down-to-earth chat, you know, there's no no airs and graces here. What it's about is about making business fun, um, getting results in a reasonable amount of time, and you know, living the life that you want to live, basically.

SPEAKER_00: 3:01

Yeah, I mean, and let's dive in a little bit because many business owners, when they get into it initially, me included, you're you're doing something you did typically maybe in a full-time job. So you just go and do it yourself and you're trading hours for time. It's in in and it's nothing wrong with that. It's just normally how you start. Uh not always, some people figure figure it out earlier than others. Uh, what do you think maybe like the the top three things are from going from you doing time for money to to transitioning to uh, you know, not that, like to to more scale, one of the many.

SPEAKER_01: 3:34

Yeah, the the the key thing is like the the reason people charge time for money in the first instance is because they go and go out and look at their competitors when they're first coming up with a concept for an idea uh you know their business, whatever the idea might be. And we're primarily obviously we're talking about service, service businesses here. They'd look at their competition and see what they're doing, and then they go, oh, well, they're all charging hourly or day rates, you know, as a consultant or a freelancer or whatever. And so I should probably do that. But what they don't realize is that, you know, you've got Derek who's looking at Patricia's prices, Patricia's looking at Pete's prices, Pete's looking at Charlie's prices, and Charlie's looking back at Derek's prices. And like, none of those four idiots are like any, you know, they know nothing about pricing. They're actually all losing money in their businesses. So if you go and copy the competition, who are all doing the same thing, charging hourly rates, well, you know, you're about to copy a flawed business model. So I'm always like, it's okay to look at your competitors, but you have to set the business up, you know, based on your own metrics, your own numbers, you know, do the one-page business plan, and then you can um start to figure out what prices you should be charging in order to build a sort of profitable and sustainable business. So, and then when it comes to sort of packaging up a service, there's there's three things really, which are key to um how you deliver value. So I I want when somebody's charging time for money, what they're selling is their time. So it they're making it all about them, basically. They're allowing their ego to kind of take over. And in order to make more money, not that you know, necessarily we would do this, but in order to make more money, you've got to sell more hours. But as you progress through your career and you get better at it, you learn how to do it faster and better. So actually, you get penalized on hourly rates for doing a faster and better job, you know, as you as you as you learn. So, what we do instead is we shift focus from charging based on what we do to charging based on the results or outcomes that the client gets based on what we do. So the first of the three things is you've got to figure out what is the dream outcome or result you're offering to your clients and clearly articulate what that is. And it needs to be hyper-specific. You know, are we gonna double your revenue? Are we gonna three extra leads you're getting for your business? Are we going to be able to um make your make your operations 12% more efficient so you can save you a million dollars a year? Like really clearly define what that that that result is. The second thing is then can it be delivered in in a fixed time frame? And again, a lot of people use two words, which are swear words at um or cuss words for you, Yanks, uh uh at fearless HQ. Uh it depends. So, what it depends is code for is the fact that you do too many things for too many different types of people, which means you've got too many systems, too many moving parts, you can't really like build any processes around it. So, and every time you deliver it, you get different results. So, the job of a business owner is to kind of whittle away all of the variables to make it really predictable when you deliver that dream outcome or result, that you can pretty much, you know, on the nail guess exactly how long it's going to take to deliver it. So the second feature is can it be delivered in a fixed period of time? And then rather than charging time for money, we charge based on the results. So the final, the third feature is then charging a fixed fee for delivering that result to a client. Um, and the example I always use is imagine if you had like, so this is like harking back to my web design days, which I did for 12 years. But imagine you had three web designers. The first one's charging 50 bucks an hour, and he thinks it will take him 20 hours to build the website. And then he goes away and he comes back and you look at the site and you're like, Well, where's the shopping cart and the the blog which you promised me? And he's like, Oh, well, I can add them on, but it's gonna cost you extra. And you're like, Well, that's not what we agreed. It was gonna be a thousand bucks, 20 times 50. And so he reluctantly agrees to add it on, not charge you for it. You're kind of annoyed it took so long and it was a bit frustrating, and he's annoyed that he didn't get paid his worth. So there's our first clue that hourly rates don't work. The the second web designer comes along and they've been doing it for ages. So they do it faster and better, also 50 bucks now, because they don't know what Thomas and Robin now know about pricing. Um, and because they're faster and better, um, it only takes them 10 hours of billable time. So now they get paid half what the lesser experienced guy did a worse job gets paid because they're getting penalized for that. But then you get the the website ninja who knows now what Thomas and Robin know about product size and services. And their promise is look, I'll I'll kick out a website for you. We don't care about the shopping cart and blog because what you need, Thomas, is leads for your business. So we'll build this website with lead gen in mind, and by in the next 30 days, we'll start generating you 20 solid leads for your business. And you, as a consultant or whatever, know that the average client is worth like five to 10k to you. So if you get 20 leads through, convert even a quarter of them, you're up, basically. But this web designer charges 10K. So it's significantly more expensive, but they're really clear on what the outcomes are that they're going to deliver. And the really cool thing is you can then start to wrap, you know, promises around that, guarantees if you like. So, you know, that person could say, well, listen, um, if we don't if we don't achieve that in 30 days, we'll refund you your money and give you a thousand dollars for wasting your time with that confident we can get you that result. You know, and then you can go and spend it on the other two idiots who are building your website for you. Right. Um, you know, so so it's all about getting the dream outcome, basically, you know, so you can really clearly articulate what that is.

SPEAKER_00: 8:47

Yeah, and and you know, it's some Alex Hermose principles of the offer, right? You know, reasonable time, crazy. Uh very rarely will you ever have to give a thousand because there'll be a ton of conditions that'll have to be met as well. But uh, but I will say, like, as a company that we do, you know, we do Legion for effectively it comes out to$5.30 an hour. We are a no-brainer pick. We do all the Legion, the outreach, the content. It's like we're we're a productized no-brainer. And I'll even get to the point like if you think five dollars and thirty cents an hour, you you think you should go figure it out yourself, and by all means go do it. We're like our our entry product is like, you know, around a thousand bucks a month, right? And it's like it's all done for you for LinkedIn. Um that being said, we don't guarantee leads. And the reason being is I don't know what your funnel is. I don't know, I don't control, like, I have no idea your offer is. There's we we add some consultative pieces because there is a lot of depends downstream that make any good offer or anything what you're doing as a company. You know, when people say, Oh, I'll get you 30 leads a month, I I really struggle with that because I'm like, yeah, my profile is different than somebody else's. So you're saying we both will get 30? Like that that shouldn't even work that way. Once you get one, wouldn't you like in that those models? Because I'm I'm serious, I struggle with with that kind of guarantee because I'm not gonna get 30 for every client. And some clients, like you get two clients, like like you don't even have 30 clients total. Like, so like my point is like you only need two a year to be so how do you deal with some of that um parts? Because that's I really struggle with that.

SPEAKER_01: 10:11

Yeah, no, I get it. So so first, we're not talking here necessarily about having like off-the-shelf products like tens of baked beans, for example, or stuff like that. It's it's okay for you to qualify your prospects in advance and then actually design the dream outcome for the individual. That's still a productized offer. Because probably whether you're generating two leads for somebody or or 30 leads for somebody, I'm guessing the value of them um will vary, where you get them from will will vary. But overall, probably if you designed like three core products, it would satisfy 80 to 90% of your dream clients. So, and it could be there could be a couple of sort of criteria which you put in there based around industry or size of, you know, the prospects, uh how much they might spend with that person. The other thing which I heard you say as well is like downstream of the lead, what happens then? So you've got to rely on the person being good at sales, basically, and actually converting that and making decent money from it, customer lifetime value afterwards. So I would push back on that and just say, um, well, how could you get more control over that part of the process? What if actually you built a solution that would then help the person with their conversion on the back end of the leads and turn that into a product? Because then that makes your front-end offer of lead gen far more secure because you then we do.

SPEAKER_00: 11:29

We we offer some of the coaching and audits and that piece, and that's an upsell for us. Uh, our positioning typically is I I don't know how many leads you're gonna get, and I'll tell you why, because there's a lot of parts we don't own. But we're gonna do it better than you're gonna do it, and it's gonna be the best possible outcome you're gonna get.

unknown: 11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:44

Period. Now, well, if it's not working or it's not working well enough, let's look at what's broken on the other parts, the system or process. Yeah. That way it's more independent of this is just being executed as well as it can be done. Let's figure out downstream then what other things. And those become upsells. Uh, and for some people who have it productized really know what they're doing. It works really well because they're just not doing it now. We're just executing their methods. Um, and I and listen, I would love to say you'll get 30, 40 leads. The truth is, there's absolutely no way to guarantee that. Like in in and it's almost like the number one thing where I'm like, you know, I like the idea that hey, we'll work with each of you double your revenue if it's a fifty coaching.

SPEAKER_01: 12:20

One good example. So so something else you might want to consider is like um, because leads are one thing, but is that what every expert wants, for example?

SPEAKER_00: 12:28

So for for like our billion dollar client, it's all about brand awareness. They don't need leads, it's a two, three-year sales cycle. So it's all about employer branding, it's my thing. Different play. This is more focused as a solopreneur buyer. It's uh it's it's the revenue de-risking part of our company where we do more volume, just more turnkey stuff where I'm not involved, the higher stuff I'm involved in.

SPEAKER_01: 12:48

So it's like it's because it's just as an example. So I I guess I don't know if you're familiar with him, but there's a productivity YouTuber, a guy called Ali Abdal. Um, and I was fortunate enough to guest on, so he's got something in the order of about six, six and a half million subscribers now on YouTube. Um uh um and I guess it on his deep dive podcast, and that one two-hour interview generated 3,000 leads into my, you know, for my humble little coaching practice, right? Um, so then what I was gonna say was actually, what a would a better product or if a different product be will actually will get you placed on five or ten high-value, you know, partner podcasts on YouTube, or we'll get you on five stages where, and then again, it's yeah, in part down to the individual how many of those they then convert. Um, you know, but for me, if I were to guest on five Ali Abdal-sized podcasts, I know the value of that now because on the back end of that, we converted about$300,000,$350,000 worth of new business just off the back of that.

SPEAKER_00: 13:46

Exactly. That's a it's a it's a different way of thinking about it. Um like you described, that product is for the solopreneur that just doesn't want to do content creation or outreach. They're just not they're lazy, just don't cut like it's it's for them just to pay someone basically to take care of it. Um, it and that's a very specific product that we do. Um, if it's not working and you see it's just not gonna work for you in the first seven days, let's call it quits. Yeah, done. Otherwise, you're just paying month-to-month service. It's like it's a very simple offer. It's not, you know, high enough value to um, you know, you're not paying 20K and wondering, right? Will you subscribe is is something we'll do for more high-end clients that say, hey, listen, what is a really good strategy for building my business? It might be let's do some podcast appearances. You might need your own podcast. That's a different play. Um, yeah. And then then all of a sudden, that's a lot more to you in my time.

SPEAKER_01: 14:33

Well, because I know the value of that now, you know, you get me on uh that's the sort of thing where I'd be sort of looking to spend 25 to 50k just to guest on like four or five small podcasts like that, which I normally multiply out, you know, over time. So so yeah, but the the thing which people get really stuck on though is the pricing side of things. So the saying the big number. So it's it's actually easy to say five bucks an hour and sell lots of five bucks an hour. But let's say, for example, if you then had to um to guest on one big podcast, all of a sudden you're saying to me, Oh, it's gonna be 25k. This there's quite a big jump between saying five bucks and like the big number and how the buyer, right?

SPEAKER_00: 15:09

The the person comes and says, I'm gonna get you on this, you're gonna get this as much exposure. But downstream, once again, you better have a link, you better have one link to give them. Yeah. Like go to this place, make it simple. And that landing page, you better be ready to talk about what you just talked about. Like, if you don't have the stuff downstream, which you probably did to get the business, if you don't, you lose the value. Yeah. Um, and that that's part of the now. You're back to coaching for hours stuff. Yeah. For for me, it's like as a business, right? And this is where I think a lot of businesses struggle. For a long time, we've been doing more of this custom stuff, which is a little longer, it's a lot longer sales cycle. It's a different, it's a different buyer profile profile and it's different revenue risk. So if you get a few whales and they leave, you're like, oh shit, I gotta recover that revenue now.

SPEAKER_01: 15:49

Um yeah. Well, we're just gonna even in even with coaches, yeah. Even with coaches though. So let's say they're charging a hundred bucks a session and they're gonna deliver 12 sessions, you know, on average for a typical client to get that's to start to see their result, they they will still have a problem with saying$1,200 versus like, oh, it's just a hundred bucks a go. They they they struggle with that. So that's what they're stuck, you know, where where you're talking about cutting the tie. We've got to cut the tie from like playing safe and saying small numbers and actually, you know, say getting used to saying the big numbers. And quite often I get then challenge people. I'm like, well, just just go out and pitch to 10 people at 1200 bucks. Like that, it's still the same amount. It's that hasn't changed, but it's just we're packaging it up about saying the product.

SPEAKER_00: 16:32

From from a coaching standpoint, one of the things I've never done this, it yeah, what works better? Is it, hey, let's do 10 sessions for whatever number, or you pay me 5k, you have access to me lifetime.

SPEAKER_01: 16:42

Uh I mean that to be fair, that's what I do, the latter. So I do I do four and a half thousand pounds, lifetime access. Um, what I've noticed is most clients get their result within about three to six months. For us, that's the bell curve, so it happens quick. Um, but then what we find is then you know, they'll go away and consolidate, maybe even work with another coach. But then what we've like, one of our core values, for example, is community. So we want people to keep coming back so that what we end up with is a whole community. We've got about 200 now fearless business owners who all have skill sets in different areas, they're all different experts. Um, and when they go through the next iteration on their business, they just get full and unfettered access to us again. And it's the community aspect.

SPEAKER_00: 17:23

And you actually charge pretty fair price, but is right. Actually, we charge I charge around 9,100 or something like that for it, US. And listen, I'll help you implement our system and do it. And the idea is that actually a lot of times we want you to be successful enough where we actually end up doing it. I end up just crediting back your coaching fee if we do it for you. So it's like it becomes like a value piece, um, which tells me I have more confidence in saying you can get lifetime access of coaching for it, are things around AI marketing done right. Like basically deliver it, right? Um, I'm a big fan of you should not be learning AI. You should just know what you want from it. Yeah. It's like it's just a really good tool and a lot of them, and they're changing a lot. So that's not your core. Don't learn it. Just what do you want from it and find someone who can go deliver it for you. Anyway, yeah. Um, for five dollars and thirty cents an hour, if that's Legion. Anyways. Nice. I think I think I know we got off topic a little bit, but you know, you're also part of this new brand of show we have coming out that's more about solving shit, learning stuff. Um, oh, I've used my one customer. You can't use your customers for YouTube. I took it. Uh let's talk about you a little bit. What is kind of the biggest metaphoric tie in your business today uh that you're struggling to cut?

SPEAKER_01: 18:30

Um, so that's a really great question, actually. I mean, again, it's it it links in with kind of some of the stuff we've been talking about. So I I have I'm quite fortunate in 2019, um, through the books which I published, I I got sort of had a lot of demand basically for my services. Um, and I was predominantly doing one-to-one prior to that. Um, but 2019 rolled round and I had too much, too many leads basically coming in. So I created the group version of the accelerator now. And what was quite interesting was that um one obviously is far better use of my time, so it's very well leveraged. But the second thing is actually the results went through the roof compared to my one-to-one results that I was getting. So I kind of doubled down on the um on the group, but occasionally what happens is so that that's for those small one-person businesses, but occasionally I get more agency-sized businesses where they have a different selection of product problems, so HR problems, scaling problems, funding issues, and things like that. And they they need a very different style of coaching to the group. Um, so so I end up getting drawn back into doing these one-to-one clients. And um, you know, at the moment I'm doing a bit, you know, the group, I probably my group work is probably only about four to six hours a week of my time. But then when the one to ones come in and I have some associate roles, actually, all of a sudden my workload doubles. So my biggest tie at the moment is probably just spending too much time doing coach, you know, the the coaching work. And like to quantify it, I think my associate roles make about 20% of what my group makes, but yet it takes up an equivalent similar amount of time. Yeah. So there's the thing where I'm like, actually, maybe is it now time that I let it go?

SPEAKER_00: 20:04

Well, I and you struggle with your own problem you saw, which is yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:07

I mean you just mean yeah, you're right I love the arrow at the business and things like that. So it's just like I kind of it's hard to like let it go. I'm I'm fortunate that things like I don't do any social media now really or anything like that. Um, I guess on podcasts, which I love doing, I speak on stage, um, and that's a great way to grow the brand. Um, but you know, also, you know, my time is precious. I want to spend a bit more time in my family, and actually, should I be doing those things?

SPEAKER_00: 20:35

Exactly. And I I'm with you on so it's funny as a Gen Xer, I'm kind of like, you put the right number in my bank account that makes enough per month, and you know, 5% interest model, no, no burn down, I will delete social media. Yeah, it'll be gone. You know, it'll like but it for what we do, my team pretty much runs my social media. So I I I just show up to meetings now, which is good. Uh I I will tell you it's sometimes you gotta check your ego out a little bit to say it to be involved. But I I do know when I'm involved, our customers are three years long, not 90 days. Yeah. And so it's kind of like that that's a you know, you show up to a meeting once every couple weeks for it basically ends up being a$500 meeting. You're kind of like, all right, I'll do that. That's like you know, it's like it's a you gotta really kind of ask yourself sometimes of like anyway, it's it's that's a trade-off, right? That's a tie to cuts. Like, do you do you risk uh a very simple meeting and just making sure you're there to make you know maybe a little pain when you you know you get called the carpet because the team did those become the kind of ties you struggle with, and you're you're struggling with too is like can I really remove myself fully from and then your business becomes sellable though as soon as you can. So are you struggling with like what do I do? You know, you're you're you know, how old you are, probably 40s, right? You're you gotta think about them, but do I want to be doing this shit at 60?

SPEAKER_01: 21:48

Well, I I so my wife didn't like it, but I keep telling her I will be coaching on my deathbed. I love it that much. So I'm quite fortunate. I fell into a career that I I absolutely love. And I don't think you should retire.

SPEAKER_00: 21:58

I agree with you on that, but the point is if you ever wanted to sell it, like Tony Robinson can sell it. It's not his name. You have at least a fearless name that you could have founded. His is he is the guy.

SPEAKER_01: 22:07

So anyway, it's it well, there's there's a great, I don't know if you followed Dan Sullivan's work, but he wrote a great book called Um 10X is better than 2X. And I'm in the chapter at the moment where he's talking about like the difference between wants and needs. And there's this thing where you you need to show up because you've got to pay your mortgage or rent and put food on the table and things like that. So you kind of end up having to do stuff that you wouldn't ordinarily, you know, if you had the 5% coming in and it and you didn't have to do it, it would be a different choice. And I think I think far too many business owners end up getting stuck in that that sort of space where they're doing stuff where they have to show up, they need to show up. Right. Um, I'm fortunate that the the stuff I'm doing at the moment, I want to do it. I don't have to, because I I don't quite have the five percent covering everything just yet, but I'm not far off it. Um uh so I'm kind of in in a very fortunate place where I get to choose to do what I want a lot of the time, and I get to do this stuff, so it's fun. But yeah, give me give me another five years, and I, you know, that might change, I don't know. And I'll I'll quantify this as well. And um uh it's not something I share or talk about a huge amount because it's uh is personal. But in August 24, I got diagnosed with a tumor on my brain stem. And yeah, that that my face did that and a lot worse. Um, I can tell you when they when I found out. Um thankfully, like so far as brain tumors go, it's like number 360th on the most deadly. It's it's benign and it's slow growing and it and it's all fine. But when you get that news in that moment, you know, when I got that news, and your legs go a bit wobbly and you can feel the tears sort of welling up and everything, and it brings life very sharply into focus. And I realized in that at that particular point in time, there was stuff with my career that wasn't complete. There was stuff that I still wanted to achieve. Um, my my passion is numbers. I love like pricing, money mindset, and having all those sorts of conversations. And I'd always I've got several books, but I I wanted to take all of the 20 plus years of business knowledge I'd gained around pricing, um, you know, across a multitude of different sectors and squish it into a book. Um, so having had writers blocked for the best part of five years prior to that news last year, bang, I was like, right, I'm in a hurry now, I've got to get this book written. And it and all of a sudden it just changes. You realize kind of what's important in that moment. And also I'd I'd spent, you know, I'd missed most of the summers with my daughters, like because I was busy working, because I I had to work, uh, you know, to to pay the bills. It's only the last sort of two, three years where I've hit a little bit of financial independence and stuff is a bit more passive, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00: 24:41

It's I mean it's never truly printed, but what was the uh what was the it was it this what was the turning point though? Like that the that's a big moment to describe of how do you make what was the move? It was at the st- I mean it had to be before the brainstem stuff. So what was the what was the movement?

SPEAKER_01: 24:54

Yeah, so so first and foremost, getting over like the grief and just taking time out to kind of deal with that. So that showed me that I could step away from my business and it wouldn't break. That that was quite a big learning, learning point. Because again, you mentioned the word ego. I think a lot of people see the word ego as like quite negative has negative connotations, but it's really not. It's just about like the stuff you're attached to, essentially, on it like internally. And I I just realized I was just trying to control too much stuff within the business that unnecessarily basically that I thought was making a difference to the business. So when I stepped away from it, when I got this news and started to step away, I realized that there was fundamentally there were some things which I could put minimal amount of effort into, but it would produce really great outcomes. So, for example, like giving up social media was one of the big ones. I I went I went antisocial prior to the couple of years prior to that, but last year when I got the news, I was kind of like done with it because I hated, I hated like having to show you.

SPEAKER_00: 25:49

That's your personal versus business, correct? Uh say again. You you still have a business presence on social media, but not a personal.

SPEAKER_01: 25:56

Yeah, I've got a I've got a business presence. Um, the stuff that you see me post on social is because I get to do it, because like it might be a Friday morning when I don't typically work, and I'm like, oh, I'm inspired to like post a bit of content, but it's not because I have to grind it out. Like before you know, before I was spending probably like third um between me and my team about 30 plus hours a week, just on social alone, you know, doing long and short form videos, um, uh posting social posts on LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook and all those things. Uh, blogging, we're doing tons of blogging as well, blog content, um, as well as all of the other stuff. Um, and actually, like we switched it off and it didn't make the blindest bit of difference to the business.

SPEAKER_00: 26:34

Well, and so let's dive into that. So, what where were where were your leads coming from?

SPEAKER_01: 26:39

Uh so so essentially things like the podcast, which I mentioned earlier on. So I do podcast interviews. Um, I've got several books which I've written, and and I've so essentially if I speak on the stage, if I guest on a podcast, I'll always like drive people into downloading one of a like a free copy of the book. And it's a physical copy, so I like to send them out to people. And I've been doing that for years. And every time I get distracted by the next shiny thing, I always come back to talking on the stage, podcast interviews, give away 5,000 books.

SPEAKER_00: 27:10

So so I love that model, but the next piece is how do you get on stage?

SPEAKER_01: 27:15

Uh how do I get on stage?

SPEAKER_00: 27:16

I mean, is there paid like are you paying to go save from self on stage? Like what the what's the methodology? Because a lot of people are like, I'm gonna go on stage. I'm like, well, you you do pay to go often.

SPEAKER_01: 27:24

No, well, I I have not hate to be on stage for a while, actually. Um, so I I do a lot of showcases. I'm not ashamed to admit it, I don't necessarily get paid for going on stage, but I convert obviously the business on the back end, so I'm fairly confident in that. Um, but how I've managed to create opportunities with myself is just um basically partnerships. So I as a as a part of like getting a bit more intentional last year, I wrote down a list of 10 entrepreneurs in my world who I thought, do you know what? Is life's too short, business needs to be fun. Who would I love to hang out with the most? So I had people, these are probably names that you won't have heard of because but they're they're important to me. But um, there's an amazing uh uh creative coach over in um LA called Chris Doe, runs a channel called The Future. So he's awesome. He was on list. Um guy called Simon Squibb, who's got 17 million followers, um, Ali Abdal, obviously, uh Steve Bartlett, Dariver CEO. Um, so there was this list of people where I was like, it'd be just really cool to hang out with these people. And all I started doing was I went to their, I'd go to their events, I volunteered to help out, I'd make sure that I was useful and I'm quite bright and I'm quite good when it comes to business ideas. So I found it quite easy to make myself useful to them and their teams, especially. Um, and when I started to, you know, get to know their teams, and I I offered to coach their um their teams as they grow them. So I'll coach their team members for free occasionally. Um, and then that's where the real magic happens because I'm showing people what I'm capable of, and inevitably what would happen. So, like, take the Ali Abdal interview, for example. I coached Joe on his team, and Joe was like, Oh my god, this was brilliant. Like, I have to pay you. Like, where do I send the money? I was like, I agreed, I wasn't gonna charge for this. Like, and he's like, but I have to do something. I was like, Well, there's this one thing I know Ali's recording the next like two seasons of his podcast, 24 episodes, and people are flying in from all over the world to record this in person. I said, if you get a cancellation, could you just put me in like on the bench? I'll I'll sub on or come and like step in if you if somebody can't make it. And literally that evening, because it turned out Joe was dating like Amber, who was Ali's podcast booker, like who knew? So I get the call that evening to say, Oh, so-and-so's dropped out on Tuesday, can you make it? So all I did was I just built these amazing partnerships with people at a very deep level, offered a ton of value and service to them. And then lo and behold, like the good stuff gets paid back afterwards. And even if it doesn't, I'm still having a good time. Like I went to Dubai at the start of this year. Again, that was partly driven by um the the when I got the tumor diagnosis. I was like, I had this just calling. I just had friends out there, there's a lot of business going on out there, it's a hot market. So I was like, I need to just pop out to Dubai, see what it's all about. So I booked it, and then I knew that one of the keynotes who was going to be at this event out there, um, it's called the Billion Follower Summit, um, was into boats. So I thought, well, screw it. It's Friday morning. I went onto an app, I booked a boat to sail around the Dubai, um, the palm in Dubai at sunset. It's like 700 bucks. It was like getting an Uber. Um, and it's slightly expensive Uber. And I thought, worst case, I'm on a boat on my own, sailing around the palm at sunset. So got the boat organized, and then I just started to put the feelers out. So through a connection, I said, Oh, hey Matt, do you want to come on the boat? And then, oh, you know Chris, don't you? Do you want to see if Chris is free? Because I know you you're out there meeting him. And lo and behold, next thing you know, I get Chris Doe, two point two and a half million subscribers, big deal in my world. Um, said brings his two sons with him. Also, he's got a couple of his teams team there as well. So now I'm on this boat in Dubai for three hours at sunset with Chris Doe. And it's like apps, like those are just the sorts of things, opportunities you've got to create for yourself that aren't just gonna magically happen, basically.

SPEAKER_00: 31:10

I love this, and and just conscious of time too. Uh I think the takeaway, guys, is you know, all this tech, all this stuff in the world, it still comes down to shaking a hand, offering value, showing what you can do without asking for something in return, um, and and putting yourself in a position to be selected. Uh, there are people who probably sometimes take advantage of that, but most of the time the people who've made it recognize that value and they want to help you because they've already made it. Um, I think what you did is it's not just even brilliant, it's it's fun, it's the right way to do business. Um, and I know personally, like, you know, on LinkedIn, I've gotten rid of, I'm in the process of getting 20,000 connections and I don't really have a clue. And I'm replacing it with all Atlanta people because just Atlanta's a huge market. Yeah, you know, it's the six biggest city in the US. And it's like I did a search, and like there's 3,500 founders that around 10 to 100 million dollar companies, which is our sweet spot. I'm like, within 10 miles, I'm like, I don't need to do anything except focus on that. Like, yeah, 30, 30 of those, like not even one per like one percent. And I'm like, I'll pull up in a Lambo. I mean, like, my point is like we don't need to, you don't need to, I want to go shake some hands. And the way you just describe is is a really good piece. Now, final question. I know we got off topic a little bit, but if you're you're such a beautiful speaker and you know, I love what you're doing. What's the one question I should have asked you today that I didn't?

SPEAKER_01: 32:24

Well, quite often I I get asked, like, what why fearless business? Um, and again, it's quite relevant to the topic of the podcast as well. So I did a talk in front of a hundred people, and um, somebody asked me, What's what's how do you define success? What makes a successful entrepreneur? I just turned around and said, successful entrepreneurs just fear the things in life and business ever so slightly less that stop them from achieving their goals. And I had a friend in the audience in the middle of my talk, he stands up and he points me and he goes, Robin Waite, the fearless business coach. But yeah, most people they have great ideas for businesses or maybe products that they want to sell or people they want to serve, and they always just hold themselves back. And if they just feared those things ever so slightly less, like the repercussions, they're never as bad as what anybody thinks they are. And you you don't need to be like reckless and do crazy stuff. It's just get over that little bit of fear, step into it, and then you'll get like really good stuff on the other side.

SPEAKER_00: 33:19

I love that. You're right. It it is uh, you know, the other part for our show is like it's one thing to be fearless, but you better be chasing a success definition that you define for you and only you. Yeah. And if you don't, you're you're gonna get there and be like, yeah, it's not really what I want. And so I I love that. So be let nothing stop you. Cut the tie to whatever's holding you back. Robin, wait, thank you. Um, you know, I I did I I usually I forgot to do this. This is terrible. Usually I want people to stalk you while you're talking. Now they had to wait to the end. So who should get a hold of you and how should they do that?

SPEAKER_01: 33:47

Yeah, anybody sort of in the coaching, consulting, freelancing space. Um, I've got a YouTube channel where we put out a couple of videos each month talking about some of the fun stuff around pricing money mindset. So just search for Robin Waite on YouTube. You'll be able to find me. Um, I've also got a gift as well for your listeners too, Thomas. So um uh copies of my book Take Your Shot, which they can get at fearless.biz forward slash T Y S for Take Your Shot. And I'll sign it, post it out anywhere in the world, wherever you are.

SPEAKER_00: 34:14

That's wonderful. That's a really nice gift, actually. That's very generous of you. Thank you so much for coming on, Robin. Um listen, I really do mean it. You you rocked it. One of the best shows we've had. I appreciate it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 34:23

Thank you. My pleasure.

SPEAKER_00: 34:24

And let anyone who's still listening and watching, you rock for getting here. If this is your first time, hope it's the first of many. You come back. Get out there, go cut the tie to whatever's holding you back in life. Um, and define that success. Whatever that means, business life, we get out there. Don't wait. You only get one shot at the life to do it. Cut the tie.