Sometimes we need something to shake up our lives.For my director of sales, he’s training for a marathon.For a friend of mine, it’s making a new youtube video every day for the next 100 days.Recently, I decided I wanted a new “shake up”.  So borrowed the “100 day” idea, and added my own twist.In today’s podcast, I break down my personal 100 day challenge that I’m currently in the middle of, to end the year.And although the challenge is 100 days, I’m hoping it’s something I can continue indefinitely. This challenge not only is helping me personally, but professionally as well.It’s cliche’ to wait to the 1st of January and set yourself a resolution…But why not end the year with a challenge to yourself?  Start 2024 having just accomplished something important.

Can you be a better coach?As entrepreneurs and business owners, it’s easy to get caught up in the sales & marketing part of your business at the expense of actually fulfilling the thing that people hire you for - your expertise.But coaching and consulting goes further than just the special knowledge that you have.Coaching also involves dealing with your clients and the different emotions they may have, especially when they bring an elevated emotional state towards you.Today I want to share the training that I did internally with our coaches here at Growth Tools which involves using the SOAP method (listen to this podcast first if you haven’t already), when dealing with clients who are in an elevated emotional state.Click here to listen to today’s training.As a coach, I would almost consider this required listening because as your business grows, elevated emotions are unavoidable.

I’ve got a (very) short little knowledge nugget I want to share with you today on my number 1 hiring rule. It’s something we do before hiring ANYONE (with one small exception).I’ve shared it in my short 1 min podcast today.Have a quick listen and let me know if you think implementing this rule when hiring more coaches, assistants, or contractors for your business work would work for you?

One of the most uncomfortable things that comes with running a business and managing a team, is addressing when sometime is underperforming either operationally or relationally.Maybe they’re not hitting the numbers they own, they’re late to meetings, not behaving transparently etc.The best mechanism I’ve found to either A) get that person performing back above expectations and further engrained into the company or B) get that person to eject from the company is:An Improvement Plan.There’s four critical parts of this improvement plan which I map out for you in today’s podcast episode.Now you may not be in a place with your coaching business where you are running a team…so can this still be useful to you?Absolutely.Look at your business critically. As your own boss, honestly evaluate where you feel you are underperforming. What numbers are you not hitting? Where are you not showing up the way that you should be?Create your own improvement plan based on the four parts I outlined, and hold yourself to the timeline.You’ll either see incredible results, or you’ll see that there is a deep misalignment in your current life or processes that need drastic change in order for your coaching business to succeed.

One defining characteristic of ultra successful coaches is that they are always looking for ways to improve:How can I improve my offer?How can I improve my marketing?How can I improve my sales?How can I serve my clients better?How can I be a better leader to my team?But there’s a fine balance between being ambitious and celebrating wins.  I often find this balance a bit tricky to navigate.Finding that balance can be tricky, but here’s what I do that has worked fairly well.With our GU clients, we work really hard to navigate this productively. We definitely hold each person accountable. Your coach will get tough with you when they have to, to make sure that you’re hitting the numbers and goals you’re capable of.We also celebrate wins in a huge way! We love our GU community and every win you get, is celebrated, and your coach may brag about you a bit :) It’s all about balance - and finding it with ambition vs celebration is a formula for success.

One of the exciting growth points we reach with GU clients is when they hit a revenue mark whereby they need to start hiring a team.Whether it’s an assistant, another coach, sales person, etc, growing your revenue to the point of being able to add a team member is exciting!But it also has challenges.  One big question we get is “how much do I pay them?”Determining salary can be pretty tricky.Where should I pay them in comparison to other companies? How much of the pay should be base salary vs variable (incentive) pay?  How often should I re-evaluate my employees’ pay structure.I’ve outlined exactly what we do at Growth Tools in today’s podcast episode.

Is there anything more draining / disappointing / upsetting than investing a ton of time and effort into something, and then it NOT coming to fruition because of something you missed?Our hiring process at Growth Tools is fairly involved.It involves several interviews as well as a paid project.And recently, one specific candidate blew me away with both his interviews as well as his paid project.I was excited for him to join the team……only for the rug to be pulled out from under me, and he declined the offer.But if I had asked this ONE question, I could have avoided this surprise.And I ask it with every potential hire now.Check out today’s podcast in which I explain the situation, as well as the “key interview question”.And let me know what you think.  Are there any key interview questions you use that you think I absolutely need to include as well?

In case you haven’t guessed yet, I’m really into habit forming :) In my experience, powerful results come from consistency, and consistency is built with habits.A concept that’s really important to me is to “happen to my day rather than my day happening to me”.A simpler form of that is simply being proactive vs reactive.In order to do this I have a weekly 5x5 that I’ve put into habit.It’s 5 minutes a day, 5 days a week.I go over exactly what that is in today’s short podcast episodeIt’s been enormously successful in creating highly productive days for me, and hopefully it can be for you too.

A concept we strongly believe in at Growth Tools is “radical FIO (Figure. It. Out.).We recently changed our strategy on the sales side of the business which left one of our business advisors, Alex in a bit of a limbo.So what did he do? He created a completely new funnel that in its first month of being live has generated a 3x ROAS (return on ad spend).I’m excited to share the conversation we had around that funnel today where I interviewed Alex on the funnel, how it works, and the results it’s generating.I’m a big believer in the “flywheel” concept - namely that we test stuff out, and we share what works with you.Hopefully you find this valuable.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about recently is a concept from Gary Keller’s book “The One Thing” (which is one of my favorite books BTW).“The One Thing” is literally when faced with some uncertainty or issue, what is the one thing you can focus on in your life that will make everything easier.I unintentionally borrowed that concept and have started applying it a bit more specifically.And it has become the “lead domino” for everything that I’m focused on in life.Right now, I have three different lead dominos that I focus on every morning that make all the dominos in their respective lines follow suit.Every morning I tip over each of these lead dominos. And by doing so every day, it has set me on a path of success in each of those areas of my life.I outline them all in today’s podcast episode here.Have a listen, then let me know what you think. What are your lead dominos? Reply back and let me know.