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Enjoy Your Entrepreneur Life and Time with Jeremy Shapiro · Inspiring Stories

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Thank you for listening to de Pictures Media Radio. You rat you readything to
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me? Oh well, jus well not a bad I see you so shupon
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nash along is it as an okay, welcome back everyone. As a business
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mentor coach to entrepreneurs serial entrepreneurs, Jeremy B. Shapiro helps founders find entrepreneurial
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freedom as a true business owner, an important distinction that many entreprens can easily
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miss when working in their business instead of on their business over the deck.
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Over two decades, through structured masterminding, one on one coaching and consulting work,
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Jeremy has been helping entrepreneurs discover the core strengths in themselves and their businesses
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and attain freedom they deserve. Jeremy has had a number of businesses started.
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He is when you hear the number of businesses they actually started, well ask
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him about that you will be astounded. And at the same time, if
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you're looking to help your business grow in all the right ways, he is
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the guy to get it done for you. So why don't we welcome Jeremy
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to the show and let's start finding out how to turn that project into something
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much bigger than what we might have ever imagined one. So welcome to the
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show, Jeremy. Now two decades of entrepreneurship and you you have we'll get
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to your mastermind and everything what that actually looks like, because it's one of
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the core things that you do. Where did it all start? You know,
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twenty years ago? Where were you? Yeah, so you know it's
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twenty pushing the thirty. I hate to say, but we're on that.
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We're getting towards the other side of, you know, twenty plus years now.
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I've always been an entrepreneur, going back towards my high school days.
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I was both attending high school and building up one of my first businesses.
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And as I got towards college, I was trying to do this really challenging
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thing, which was balancing full time university and like a business that was starting
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to take up like forty hours a week. So it wasn't just me.
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I'd expanded out. I'd been building out a team, but I was at
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this inflection point of my business needed more of my time, and so I
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made a really difficult decision as I look back, of putting university on hold
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for a semester, because in my mind, this was just a little bump
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in business, and then you know, I'd come on back and get back
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to school and the business would be off and running. My wife, who
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met me around that time, will tell you even till today that she looks
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back when I told her that was gonna be going back to school, and
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she knew even then like now this guy's not going back, and she wasn't
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wrong. But you know, here we are, all these years later,
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and you know, I've been a serial entrepreneur. Most every business I've launched
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has been a spin off of one of my previous businesses, or filling a
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need that I had in one business, or somehow related to you know,
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the people I was already helping. And that's always been entrepreneurs and helping entrepreneurs
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move towards what I call entrepreneurial freedom. Yeah, well, entrepreneurial freedom.
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That that's that's a really cool worp. What does that actually look like?
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So you know, it's funny when I use the term entrepreneurial freedom, some
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folks think we're talking about just the financial freedom part, and yeah, done
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right, that can come from owning your business. In fact, many folks
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get into business because they want to, you know, find that financial freedom
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part, but entrepreneurial freedom is really about freedom of time. It's freedom of
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choice, it's optionality. It's you getting to choose how you spend your time.
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So when you build your business in what I would call the right way,
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you have the right people, the right systems, and so on,
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that lets you spend more time giving back in your community with causes that are
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important to you, spending time with family, spending time with you know,
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spirituality, in your business, hobbies, whatever it is that's important to you.
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It lets you have choice in how you do that. And for most
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of us, look, we're entrepreneurs because we love the work that we do,
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and so we spend some of that time I have gotten back within our
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own businesses, and that's totally fine. But it means you're doing the work
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that you want to do, in the work that's important to you, with
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the clients you want to and the kind of projects that are interesting to you
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and so on. Yeah, because they hear here's just a lot from people.
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They're they're like, I know some people they started their own foundation and
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stuff like charitable foundation, and they're like, oh, they're like, oh,
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I have to work seven days a week, but didn't you choose that
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because it because you're also because that's same business is also giving to the community,
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And I'm assuming that it means that they're doing things that are also giving
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to the community. And then you find out on the back end is like,
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oh no, it's paperwork, it's this, it's that, it's everything
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anything but being able to go out and help people. So it's so interesting.
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Many people who get into business there are right along the lines of what
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you're sharing there. They are typically what we call a technician, right,
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they're doing the work of the business. Right, You're an accountant working in
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an accounting firm and you do accounting work. Right, You're a plumber and
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a plumbing company, you do plumbing and so on, and so the next
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natural step is you go and you hang your shingle and you run your own
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business doing that same trade. But along with that comes all the rest of
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the work of owning a business, not just the work of the business,
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but now you're dealing with, you know, your bookkeeping, you're dealing with
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your marketing, you're dealing with the sales, you're dealing with everything that supports
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that core work of the business. And what I find is a lot of
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times you find solopreneurs that are in this solopreneurship space of having the worst parts
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of a job and the worst parts of a business. And so when we
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move towards entrepreneurial freedom, we're helping folks move from being a solopreneur to a
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true business owner where you have a business that actually supports you as opposed to
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you putting in ninety hour work weeks, you know, supporting the business.
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No being a solopreneur because I'm a control freak myself, right, I say
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that with with with great conviction and affection. That doesn't mean that I don't
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know when to pass a job on to someone who's better suited to do it.
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It just means that the core thing you are going to be in control
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of the of the direction. Right. Yeah, So you as a founder
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are typically still the visionary you well, office still set the direction for the
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company. But one of the challenges of you know, being stuck in you
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know, a job in a prison that you've created for yourself, is that
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it can be hard to a recognize that and be to get out of that.
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But it doesn't have to be so hard, you know, as a
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client, I was working with who himself was a solrepreneur, and he wanted
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to be there for his customers when they needed support from him because his name
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and his pride is tied up in the product, and that's good. You
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do want to stand behind your products, so that's it's commendable. Yeah.
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The downside to that is that he loved mountain biking, hiking, getting outdoors,
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being in nature. It was good for him as restorative for him,
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it was good for his health, well being, et cetera. But there
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wasn't much cell phone coverage where he'd liked to go hang out, so he
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felt tied to having to be available to his customers all the time, and
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so he wasn't getting out and recharging himself. So one of the first things
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we did was we got him a support person. So simply having someone on
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the front lines to receive customer inquiries and get to them, freedom up to
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handle sales meetings and not worry about looking at his phone during a sales meeting.
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Let him get back into the outdoors where he got recharged and was good
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for his health and mental well being and freedom up to do other things in
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the business that weren't just the frontline support. Yeah, and so that was
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like this first step towards getting back some in that time and climbing back some
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of that freedom. Yeah, but getting a support person that doesn't necessarily mean
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that you have to take one an employee, does it. No, So
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in this case that was, like you know, it was an outsource.
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You have freelancer, and for a lot of businesses sometimes the first hire there
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are freelancers, and in fact, you can build entire businesses where all your
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team members are freelancers. You can also go the employee route. There's pros
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and cons to both of those, but the point is you're offloading tasks from
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yourself somewhere else, and that typically comes in one of those three forms,
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right, an employee of BA or a freelancer right. Or thirdly is like
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an agency or a vendor. Right. So you hire a company to do
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something for you. So you can hire, for example, an answering service
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where you have a business arrangement with them. They enter your incoming calls,
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they route calls, do you take messages, take orders and so on,
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right, Or you can have a freelancer do that, or you can do
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it which one of those you know is going to let you scale and be
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less distracted when you're focusing on the deep important work in your business. Yeah.
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No, I know when when you find you talk about the entrepreneurial freedom,
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then when people find it, they something else seems to light up in
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them. Right, Yeah, yeah, we all know that feeling, or
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many of us do, of having to do something you don't want to do,
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but you quote have to do it for the wrong reasons. Right.
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Many times, if you think about you know, you probably have friends who
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have jobs and don't particularly love them, but they have to go to the
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office and sit through the meetings they don't want to be in, and you
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know, have the one on ones they don't want to be a part of
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and so on, because they get a paycheck and benefits and so on.
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So you look at sort of the energy that comes from someone they're talking about
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the job they don't like, but they get a paycheck and benefits from,
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right, versus someone who spends their time how they want to and is able
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to pursue their passions and interests and actually make meaningful change on the people's lives.
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Right. There's a different level of excitement and enthusiasm that comes with that.
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You are charting and choosing your own way, and you're doing what you
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want to do and what you feel is the right thing to do and not
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what you quote have to do. There's a big, big difference in those
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two perspectives. Yeah, yeah, and of course you help people find that.
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Now one of your biggest tools. We've talked about this in the pre
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interview and everything about you have this mastermind where you start helping, guiding and
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molding people into this would you like to call the entrepreneurial freedom. I keep
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going back to that word. I like it. It's great, it's wonderful.
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So for me as a business owner for decades, masterminds were such a
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powerful tool that helped me move ahead, get unblocked, and so on.
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So, like the idea of like a mastermind goes back to Napoleon. Hill
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came out with a book in the thirties called Think and Grow Rich. So
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within Thinking Grow Rich, chapter ten is called power of the Mastermind, the
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driving force, the ninth step towards riches. Now, what he talks about
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in there is that when you get together more than one person in the same
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room at the same time, it's not just this like additive collective wisdom of
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what you both know. By being together and sharing that space, you actually
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create this mastermind, which is the combination of everyone's thoughts working together towards a
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common goal and a harmony. Right. So you think about like, if
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you've ever ever been like in a brainstorming SESSI where you spitballing ideas with a
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bunch of folks. Right, It's not like you picked the one idea that
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one person had that, thank goodness they were there. It's usually a development
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of layered building from the conversations that you're all having together that would never have
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had and if you weren't all together in the same space. So the way
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we use masterminds in business is we get folks together once a month for full
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day Bay Area Mastermind Meeting, and that's where we really delve into what's going
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on with everyone, what they've accomplished over the past month, what they're working
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on, what blocks they have or what challenges they're facing, what's been working,
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what's not, and so on. And what you get from this is
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not just peer advisory and feedback and input from those that are around you,
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but you get this really powerful facilitated conversation. But even more than that.
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What I love is that when we have people join us for a test drive
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to see what the mastermind is like for a day. They come in with
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an idea of what they know. This is usually their area of expertise,
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the stuff they're doing really well in business, right, so that's the stuff
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they know they know. They also come in with the stuff they know they
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don't know, and this is usually their block or their biggest question that they
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felt if they could only get this big question answered, they could move forward,
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right, So there's something they know they don't know. But the real
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opportunities I see again and again around the table are the third category, and
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those are all the things you don't know. You don't know, and when
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others are sharing what's going on in their business, what's working, what's not,
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what the challenges are, that's where those big aha moments come from.
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That's where those real mastermind breakthroughs come from, because you're getting exposure to new
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ideas, new ways that people are doing business, new ways people are generating
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leads, closing sales, building their business that you never thought of before.
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And so this isn't just like a presentation format where a person is broadcasting the
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hot seats and interactive conversation. So from that conversation, what's coming up is
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you have a different business owner sharing what's going on in their business. Maybe
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you know how they're growing their business, and you then ask the questions around
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that. And so one of my favorite examples of this is we have,
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you know, an e commerce business owner sitting across the table from a retail
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store. Right. Ok. The retail store has been growing their business through
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direct mail, right sending you know, buying lists, sending out you know,
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physical mailers, and people come into the store. The e commerce business
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owner has been doing email marketing as one of their channels, sending out emails,
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people click and they buy online. Both business owners are very successful.
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Both also want to grow, and so the questions start coming up to each
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other around what vendors to use, what best practices, how you're finding the
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list, what the offers are, and all these things, and next thing,
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you know, the e commerce business over the next month. One of
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their accountability items that they follow through on is the e commerce business owner worked
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in the list broker, bought a list, put together a print mail advertisement,
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sent out direct mail, got new customers who never heard of them in
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the door, buying online, now on the list, and so on,
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all because of what a retail store owner we're sharing. And on the flip
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side, the retail store owner starts asking customers at the front counter in the
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store for email addresses, creates a VP membership club like the e commerce business
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had for repeat customers. Start sending out email market with permission to these customers,
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and what do you know, starts getting additional incremental sales from a whole
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new channel simply by hearing about someone else's success and being able to ask them
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directly in that closed door, confidential space where you can have the real conversations
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about real numbers, what's working and what's not. So that kind of cross
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pollination is what happens when you're exposed to what you didn't know you didn't know,
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and that gives you direction and helps you find those new opportunities. There's
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real power in those I didn't know that even I didn't even know to ask
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I didn't's real power in those in those situations, real learning too. Right.
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So yeah, what's interesting too is that when you know, if you
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think about working like with a coach, for example, right, you have
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one person you're talking to or if you're spit palling with a friend or one
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other business owner, that's great. But when you have a group, a
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troop, your advisory group, you're getting feedback from all around and that can
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challenge your beliefs, your paradigms. We had someone who came into the room
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to see if you know, the group would be a good fit for his
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business, and one of the first questions he was asking was around what he
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was charging per hour for his work. And in his mind, the paradigm
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that he was working within his belief system was you're paid hourly and the more
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experience you have, the more you can get paid. An understandable approach many
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folks share that belief, but we were able to provide the feedback of going
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switch into a value based pricing model of what is the value that you're providing
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to your clients? Can you price yourself that way? And that's a totally
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different way of viewing what your value is and how much you can get paid.
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And even still this guest was you know, was challenging back saying,
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well, yeah, maybe I'll do that, but first I want to get
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like, you know, X number more clients, because in his mind he
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wasn't work, And here the groups saying, no, you are, because
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you've just shared with us the benefit you deliver and the value deliver you can
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charge based on that. So we're able to sort of help people get unstuck
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in areas they didn't even know they were stuck, just by sharing them with
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them the group's successes and getting unstuck from the same place. You're in a
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room of folks who've been there, who'd done that, and want nothing but
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the best for you. Yeah, now hang on one second. There for
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everybody listening is a this is a more common problem than you think, and
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you should be looking at a more value based system of because because you are
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actually putting putting your value into into other people's businesses. So jere me because
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we did in our own networking group. We we just had a conversation around
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value based UH pricing, And I told a wedding photogra it's in our group.
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I said, you need to take your price and multiply it by five.
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And he's there and he looked at it and he's like, but that
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puts me up over close to ten thousand dollars a wedding. I'm like,
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yeah, exactly, sounds good, I said, trust me, you need
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to. This is where you need to be because because if you see his
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photography and everything that it's like, wow, this is awesome stuff you're doing.
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So make people. It's interesting with with the price elasticity, what we
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see again and again is almost always, not every time, but almost always
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when you test a price increase, profitability goes up. You typically don't lose
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new customers, no, and you attract better customers. So it's okay,
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our listeners, you have my permission to raise prices. Yeah, can I
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show you one other quick stories? Just because we're talking valuate for valuations.
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So we remember in our group and she had a business with seeing success with
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it was you know, had built relatively quickly a six figure business, and
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someone reached out to her out of state and found her and was like,
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hey, can you you know, can you come out here and teach me
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how to build the same business you have, but out here in my market.
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And so that wasn't her core business, right, Her core business was
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doing what she did, not showing people how to build the same kind of
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business. So she came to the group and she was trying to figure out
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like what to charge for this, and she was like, well, like,
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maybe if a charge like I don't know, one hundred bucks an hour,
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you know, if I'm out there for a day, that's like eight
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hundred bucks, But then I have to pay for my flights and have to
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pay for my accommodations and so like, I don't know, right. So
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she's noodling this through and we're like, hold on, you're going to show
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someone how to build like a six figure business and not make the same mistakes
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you did and just give them the blueprint for the exact same business. Shouldn't
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they be covering all your expenses and shouldn't that be like, you know,
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easily tens of thousands of dollars? Yeah, And you know she's looking at
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us like, well, but like, that's my time's not worth that,
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Like, hang on, it's not just the time you're spending with him,
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it's the time of your career that has gone into you learning how to do
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the thing that you're doing. Right, that's where that value is. Right,
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you learned a thousand ways not to create the business that you have.
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Now, that's the value you're bringing is how to and how not to.
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So don't think about this from like a my hourly time is think about the
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value that you're bringing. So the end of that story is, you know,
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with a deep breath, she you know, went home, practiced in
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front of the mirror and then you know, offer that five figure price to
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that prospect too. Is like done great and she got that so she well
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over ten xt you know what she was going to make on that by moving
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to value based pricing simply by getting that feedback from peer advisor who wanted nothing
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but the best for her. That's a huge one. Well, we love
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those. I want to ask this question though, with value based pricing,
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people are going to if they if they have it or they have the ability
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to get it, they're just going to pay the price. Don't you think
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the people are going to the values that Yeah, yeah, they're just going
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to look to look to find to pay the bill if they see the value,
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right. Yeah, if your value is there, then the price isn't
23:30
an issue, right If your value is not there, and that's where you
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run into price crailings and run into issues. Right. So the wedding photography
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you were talking about, if the work was sort of mediocre at best,
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probably couldn't five x that price could you right? But when you when you
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do excellent work and you truly differentiate in an done right. You know,
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one of the things we talk about is how you don't have any quote competition
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when you're talking to a prospect. It's just a matter of checking for you
23:57
know, lead qualification on their side and it's a done deal. Right.
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If your prospects view competitors when they look at you and they think that you
24:07
are just one of many, then that's a positioning challenge and we've got to
24:11
fix that. So you are the only option, and that typically comes from
24:15
niche and branding and dialing in who it is that you serve and how you
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offer more value than anybody else out there. So there is no other option.
24:21
Yeah, Well, going back to our word entrepreneurial freedom. I told
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him this because everybody knows that we're basically we're also filmmakers as well as podcasters,
24:33
and that we also do film editing also, And I told him,
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I told him like this, I said, I said, if you charge
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more and that person sees the value in what it is that you're doing,
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you have now the time to sit and put your style to it, because
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that's what they want. Yeah, and yeah he's It was like I could
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see see the the Demmer switch coming on. It's I love it. I
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love it. Yeah. If if you think about, like in photography,
25:18
if you have just any old photographer who's like, look I do pet photography,
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I do portraits, you know, I do you know headshots, I
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do weddings and all this, Like is that who you want as your photographer
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or do you want someone who's like, look, I only do you know
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beach weddings, you know, for sunset of you know, couples who have
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you know, wedding party this size and sort of niche down right, and
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someone's like, yeah, we're doing a beach wedding. I want the person
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who knows about all the challenges that come with that and the guy who's like,
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oh yeah, like the reflection that comes off the water, we handle
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this way and like that's just what we do. Right when you when you
25:51
if you need cardiac surgery, do you want the general practitioner slash veterinarian slash
25:55
barber, or do you want the person who's like a cardiac specialist who just
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does hearts, you know, on people like you. You want a specialist,
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and that's always worth more. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. It's
26:07
like definitely, And that's a good example, you know, heart surgery.
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You know, we all need to That leads us into we do need to
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kind of specialize in what we do, don't we. Yeah, yep,
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it's it's easy, especially early on if you don't have that mission, that
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mission, that vision, the purpose dialed in to take whatever work comes your
26:30
way, and then you start to get defined by all the projects. So
26:33
you say yes to and there are gonna be some kinds of projects clients,
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et cetera that just aren't a good fit, but early on you feel sort
26:40
of a need to do whatever pays the bills. But ideally you grow to
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that next step where you niche down to really where your specialty is and you're
26:48
able to start saying no to projects that aren't a fit or conditional nos where
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the client knows what would make it a fit. You know, many years
26:56
back, I had a prospect that I was talking about doing consulting work and
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for what they're looking for, you know, I basically had three terms that
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I came back with and said, like, look like this this isn't going
27:07
to be a big a fit for what I do. You know unless you
27:10
know the following three things happen. And so he said, okay, and
27:14
may those three things happen. And next thing, you know, I had
27:15
a great client to work with. Right, So when you know where your
27:18
line is, you can communicate that and then some folks will disqualify and other
27:23
folks will more consciously qualify because they'll be attracted to that that's special. Again,
27:29
it goes back to do do if you put enough value into yourself,
27:33
they see the value and then like, oh well, let me meet those
27:37
conditions and get back to you. Right, yep, exactly, so awesome?
27:44
Oh is it? I don't know. I just think that that's like
27:51
a huge problem. And how do you how do you walk a person through
27:56
to that so that they start to see that they have with specialty, that
28:00
they have that talent and then that talent polished up bring them. Yeah.
28:07
So at a certain point, so most of the business owners we work within
28:11
our Mastermind group are established business owners with people, systems, proven sales process
28:17
and they're scaling right, and they want to continue to grow. But I
28:22
also we have for our founders. We have a founders group that we actually
28:26
launched last year for folks who are earlier stage right. And what I found
28:29
is really those are really two very different avatars. Right. So when we,
28:34
you know, talk about having our mastermind group for established businesses with proven
28:38
sales processes that consciously repels the earlier stage founders but attracts the established business owners,
28:47
right. And what was funny is I still found myself talking to founders
28:51
who were saying, Jeremy, we wanted to do something with you, we
28:52
can we hang out with other founders And that's really what started the Founders Group.
28:56
And by having that separate home for them, we can make sure people
29:00
are in the right place. A founder is going to ask the how do
29:04
I questions right, and the established business owner is going to share here's what
29:10
I'm doing, how do I do it better? Right? And those are
29:14
vastly apart, which is why, like you know, you don't put those
29:17
in the same fish tank by design. So in terms of like you know,
29:22
some of these challenges, there's different challenges you face as an earlier stage
29:23
business owner then you face as an established and scaling business owner. So this
29:29
idea of nicheing is typically figured out by the time you are more established and
29:36
starting to scale, but not always. And what's nice though, is at
29:41
that point you have had enough customers that we can start to look for the
29:45
patterns. So we can look at you know, which customers do you enjoy
29:48
working with the most? Like what category where do you see the most success?
29:52
Right? Where do you deliver the most value? Right? What has
29:56
the most profit? What takes the least time? Like, we can look
29:59
at any of these metrics to dial into where you want to niche. And
30:04
then the cool thing with nicheing is no one's saying you have to say no,
30:11
but you're just choosing who do you want to attract in terms of your
30:12
branding, your website, even your company name, your product names and so
30:17
on. Right, So if you think about even I use the example sometimes
30:22
of pizza shops. Right, pizza could be viewed as a commodity. You
30:26
want pizza, pizzas pizzas pizza, not really, right, there's a lot
30:32
of companies out there who you sell pizza. Right, there's a lot of
30:37
companies out they're selling pizza and they're all still in business for some reason.
30:41
So clearly it's not just commodity. People aren't always going for the cheapest,
30:45
are they? But people aren't always going for the fastest delivery, are they
30:48
right? So you look, if you think about going out to a nice
30:52
sit down restaurant, white tablecloth, table service and all that, that probably
30:56
narrows it down to a certain restaurant for pizza. If you're thinking about we
31:00
want pizza delivered in thirty minutes, guaranteed that's going to be going to a
31:06
different direction. Probably not the tastiest pizza, no table service, right,
31:10
but you're getting pizza delivered quickly. If you're thinking highest quality ingredients, you're
31:14
thinking it a different brand, you're thinking cheapest. Right. So we move
31:17
around as consumers based on what it is we're looking for beyond just that broad
31:22
pizza. And then if you want to get super nerdy, you can start
31:25
asking, well, do we want like Chicago deep dish? Right? Do
31:27
we want Detroit style? Do we want you know, even with an ala,
31:32
do you want Roman style? Right? Which style? Which kind of
31:34
pizza do we want? Specializes as a one? Yeah? Right, there
31:38
answered your questions like, yeah, new York Neopolitan, I mean, come
31:42
on, even in New York, right, my family is originally from New
31:45
York, New York. Someone from the Bronx is like, oh, Brooklyn
31:48
pizza. I don't want that of Brooklyn saying, oh, I don't want
31:51
pizza from Queens, Like that's even within the city, right. So yeah,
31:56
it's just you think about nicheing and knowing your customer. Right. When
32:00
you niche, you will very much attract the customers who want you most,
32:04
who will value what you have a lot more, and you'll actively repel those
32:07
who don't. So we typically look out to answer your question, Michael,
32:09
we look at who are the customers you are working with, where you've see
32:13
that success, what's the best to work with, and so on, and
32:15
then we play with nicheng there. That comes in the form of, you
32:19
know, more targeted ads, right, using the language of that audience,
32:23
going to landing pages, going to offers that are all much more tailored to
32:27
that language. Yeah. So for a lot of people listening out there,
32:31
they keep hearing the the the phrase ideal customer. But you've just talked about
32:37
is a scientific and logical method of formulating who that ideal customer is? Yeah.
32:47
Yeah, And when you get started and you have zero customers, you're
32:51
looking for that first one. Well, at this point the question is like,
32:54
well, who do you want to work with right, you got to
32:59
pick something. Otherwise, if you're going out there saying, you know,
33:02
I can do anything for everyone, who's going to hire you for anything?
33:07
We've all hard like the you know, jack of all trades, king of
33:09
none phrase before, Right, But when you start to narrow that down a
33:13
niche and niche and niche more, it gets better. Right. You can
33:15
have like a general contractor who's like, yeah, I can do roofing and
33:19
plumbing and electrical and everything else. Or you have a GC who brings in
33:23
the specialist and brings in the roof for the plumber or the electrician, the
33:27
people who were doing just that skill all day long and can bring the expertise
33:30
to the table. So our goal for you is to figure out sort of
33:35
what that niche is. You can still work with an industry, but who
33:37
was it you work with? Right? There was in a Mastermuink group that
33:39
I was part of, we had a member who did like financial planning,
33:45
and so within his customer base he sort of said, look, I only
33:47
want to work with people with a million dollar net worth and hire and he
33:52
had some more niche and beyond that, but that was sort of one of
33:53
the categories and he decided he wanted to do like a customer appreciation event,
33:58
get his clients together, go do something thing and bring in some speakers and
34:01
that kind of stuff. And so it ended up that that turned into the
34:05
idea of a cruise. It was like, all right, cool, we'll
34:07
get everyone together on a cruise. We'll cruise together. And he's asking like,
34:10
you know, what topics are of interest? What speakers should I bring
34:13
in? And people are like, look, I just want to hang out
34:15
with people like me. So I was like, oh, okay, so
34:17
fun. We'll make it fun. So he does. They have a wonderful
34:20
cruise, They have a few speakers, no one cared, but they mostly
34:22
really enjoyed to hang out with people just like them. But as he did
34:25
his feedback surveys after the fact, which we all should be doing in our
34:29
business too, right, right, right, he got some interesting feedback.
34:34
Many of the folks said like, hey, love, the cruise was great,
34:36
but I want to hang out with people more like me, people with
34:38
like the five million dollar networth and higher, like that's why I want to
34:42
hang out. None of is riff raff at like the million up. And
34:45
he's like, oh, okay, got it. Like good feedback, thank
34:47
you. Into the next year, he offered a separate event for those with
34:51
the five million dollars networth of and he's like, there we go. Now
34:53
people can hang out people like them. I've got my niche for how I
34:57
take out those clients and what we do. And wouldn't you know what,
35:00
He did the feedback survey again and got basically the same feedback folks who were
35:04
saying, you know, it was great, but like, we really want
35:06
to hang out people with like the fifty to fifty million dollars net worth and
35:08
hire not these folks that like, you know, the five So it ended
35:12
up he found he really had three segments within his own client base. He
35:16
was he'd attracted them over time, some he'd been working with longer and so
35:20
on. But even segmenting within his customer base and changing the offerings he has
35:24
for his existing clients comes down to, you know, a few different avatars
35:30
that ideal client. So then who do you think he went out there to
35:34
look for more of among those avatars? Who did he start to specialize more
35:37
in? Right? And so that was that's sort of a good example I
35:40
think of about looking at where the niches even within your current clients beyond what
35:45
you've been attracting so far, and how you change your offerings up for those
35:47
different audiences. Right, So let's get to some some some tangibles of of
35:54
of what this actually looks like, because we're gonna start running short on time.
36:00
You got to get to the kind of beautiful world you want to create
36:01
with all this. Yeah, so what are some of the tangibles the results
36:07
that people have gotten from from this, from your mastermind and from your coaching.
36:15
Yeah, so, entrepreneurial freedom is really is a big thing we're going
36:17
for. And you know, one of the stories I love to share is,
36:21
you know a lot of our members are serial entrepreneurs. So they come
36:23
into the group with one business and maybe they've had business in the businesses in
36:28
the past, but they often end up launching some new business during the tenure
36:30
in the Mastermind. And that's really cool because that's where we see these big
36:35
pivots that come from the aha moments and those big light bulb ideas, that
36:39
dimmer switch going up, you know, within the group. So we've had
36:44
many of our members who have launched entirely new businesses that be eclipses the initial
36:49
business they came in with, and that comes from those conversations and ideas that
36:52
come up in the room. We also have members. You know, one
36:55
of our members came in with one business, had been doubling it year over
36:59
year, had the need for a little side business to fill a gap in
37:04
his market, and sort of throughout this little side business that required zero time
37:07
of his had a VA doing all the work and just had like you know,
37:10
an ad to carte buy now button online that flowed into the VA who
37:14
took care of everything the business needed none of his time. Well, that
37:17
business grew and grew and grew on the side. In the interim that main
37:23
business he came into the group with, he sold, he exited, had
37:27
a seven figure exit on that business, packed up the family in an RV.
37:30
They drove around the country for a year doing the whole like, you
37:34
know, let's see all the things with their young with our young family,
37:37
this is the time to do it, and ended up settling, you know,
37:39
in southern California, and you know, found found a home down that
37:43
way and has really lived this wonderful like post exit life that many business owners
37:47
are going for. But in the meantime, beyond just that sort of payday
37:52
from selling the business, that little side business has continued to produce, and
37:57
that little side business that still requires like none of his time, has just
38:00
continued to scale and grow. And so we love when that happens. When
38:05
you have cash flow businesses as well as sort of chunky you know, exit
38:10
size transactions as well. And this is thing is one of those cool stories
38:14
where there was a bit of both. But yeah, those are the kinds
38:16
of things we love to see and our members get to do because at the
38:20
heart of it, we're entrepreneurs. We see gaps in the marketplace, but
38:27
more importantly than that, we feel that we found a solution to those problems
38:31
in the marketplace. But most importantly is we then do something about it.
38:37
So starting one business is rarely the end game for entrepreneurs. Many of us
38:42
have started multiple businesses and continue to do so because we see the gap in
38:45
the marketplace, we find a solution for it, and then we do something
38:49
about it, and you've got a business there you go, so fill the
38:53
gaps exactly. You probably experience these every day, right, You experience to
39:00
frustration as a customer, you experience a frustration, you know, as a
39:01
business owner or you know, somewhere in your life. Yeah, and then
39:06
you realize you can do something about it, and maybe there's a service that,
39:08
maybe there's a product, maybe there's education, maybe there's consulting, maybe
39:13
there's something that can help others not have that same problem you've had again and
39:15
again, speaking for myself, you know, I was in a mastermind room
39:20
and had a gap in my business and we couldn't find a solution for it.
39:25
So I threw out the idea of a software solution for that to our
39:30
group, as I would, this be a crazy idea because I kind of
39:34
want this for my own business, and people around the table all said like,
39:37
yeah, yeah, if you built that, like, we want that.
39:39
And so we had effectively beta customers who are ready to test this thing
39:43
before as ready for the public right there in the room. Launched a multimillion
39:46
dollar business from that, and you know, and that still runs to this
39:51
day, and that kind of thing happens all the time and we love it.
39:54
Yeah. Yeah, those sort of things do actually have and we had
39:59
some in our own group. He went from repairing websites too to actually finding
40:07
his own passion. So and and he just pivoted off into that he is.
40:14
I still still would call him to to fix up a website or help
40:17
me, help me put a website together or something. But I know that
40:23
his real passion is is there and that's why I refer him as yea.
40:30
And again, no one's saying he has to turn the work down that you
40:31
know that was that that you knew him by before. He can still take
40:34
it. It just might not be what he leads with when when he's talking
40:37
to you know, talking to prospects about more more the passion stuff. But
40:40
done right, What what this does is it gets you that time back and
40:44
you get to choose how to spend that time. And for any folks it's
40:46
with families. For others it's pursuing passions and hobbies. Others as travel,
40:52
others is all the above, you know. It's it's really a beautiful thing
40:55
when you when you gain that time back. We all have the same end
41:00
destination. Yeah, but wouldn't it be nice if we had to say,
41:02
and what we do between now and you know, end of life? Yeah,
41:06
it leads back to it sounds cliche. It's not the destination, it's
41:09
the journey, you know. Yeah, And you know when when our kids
41:15
were younger, our kids are still young. When when our kids were you
41:19
know, one or two years old. I remember we met this this other
41:22
couple. It was funny is we at that time had like a one year
41:24
old and they had us a business card and the business card has the kid's
41:28
name on it. It has both parents phone numbers and the nanny's phone number,
41:30
and they're like, hey, like, would love to love set up
41:32
a playdate for our kid, you know, text our nanny figure something out.
41:36
There was this very business y, transactional thing and we got talking and
41:39
ended up there. Both attorneys, so they both have paid for law school.
41:44
They hated their work, like hated it, but the money, the
41:50
money was good. So they're like, look, we did the numbers and
41:52
they're like, we put in five years and then we're done. And I'm
41:58
like okay, but like so like the first like five years of your kid's
42:00
life, you're just not around for them at all. You're not present for
42:05
any of it. You are have this tension and you know, sleepless nights
42:10
and everything, living a life you hate for five years. So then you
42:15
can show up and say, hey, the financial parts figured out and now
42:17
we can do nothing and just be there like that. I guess that's a
42:22
plan. That's just not the kind of plan that you know, is attractive
42:25
to me. I'd rather enjoy the journey along the way too. It's not
42:29
the plan for me. Let's put it that way, right, right,
42:32
So I'm always curious what happened with them, how that how that plan worked
42:36
out. Yeah, so it's gonna say, speaking of kids, is like,
42:44
my kids are all well, last one's getting getting ready to graduate from
42:47
high school and and he got the uh, the the cooking and the travel
42:58
bug from me. I had one kid, they get the science bug from
43:01
me. So yeah, and he's going to go to chef school and then
43:09
he's gonna then then he's he's saying that he wants to go off to uh
43:15
to the Czech Republic and learn how to emmerg himself in a culture and cook
43:20
the culture. Like yeah, there you go, Yeah, right, let's
43:24
do this. It's like that's fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. When when my
43:30
wife was graduating in college, uh, well, torture last year. We've
43:34
been dating for four years and she sat me down to have a difficult conversation.
43:37
She's like, look like there's this really prestigious scholarship that if I apply
43:42
to and get a Fullbright scholarship, you know, but it's very competitive and
43:45
I probably won't get it, like no one gets these. But like,
43:46
if I apply and get this, like after graduation, you know, I'm
43:51
gonna be off in Europe for a year, so you know, what do
43:54
you think? And my response was like, well, that's amazing, Like
43:58
where where would we live? And she looked at me and she's like,
44:00
what do you mean And I'm like, well, like that sounds amazing,
44:02
like you know, of course you're going to get this, but where are
44:05
we going to get to live in Europe? And that light bulb went off
44:07
and she's like, wait, you mean you come with me? And I'm
44:10
like, well, of course, And in her mind she was like,
44:13
oh my gosh, I've got this, you know, long term boyfriend,
44:15
we're in love. This is great, you know, but how don't want
44:20
to make a decision. And my answer was well that like it was clearly
44:22
the answer was both, and so we did move overseas for a year,
44:27
and you know, my business continued to build up and grow. When I
44:30
ran a business from six time zones, you know, different, and it
44:34
was it was fantastic. We you know, having an entrepreneurial freedom. I
44:38
matched her schedule, which was, you know, we worked Tuesday and Wednesday
44:45
and Thursday morning, but then by lunchtime Thursday, We're off to a train
44:49
station, you know, airport somewhere and off for like four days and then
44:52
we're back on for two And it was incredible. But that was only possible
44:57
because I'd been running my own business. I wasn't at asking to someone for
45:00
permission. I wasn't quitting a job, I wasn't looking for work. I
45:04
just continued to build things, just from a different time zone. So that
45:07
entrepreneurial freedom gives you that freedom of choice of how to spend that time.
45:10
And that was at this point twenty years ago. So it since we are
45:16
actually starting to wind down to see in this show. So using an entrepreneurial
45:22
freedom, how what is it that you want? Want to teach people to
45:29
choose for themselves? Obviously not your choice, but they need to choose for
45:34
themselves. So entrepreneurship isn't for everyone. It's only for us select weirdos who
45:39
you know, don't want that comfort of a job but want to create something
45:44
want to truly build something and want to have a say in what we build
45:46
and how we build it. So for those who are on the fence and
45:51
wondering like can I do this as it possible? The answer is yes.
45:54
Are you willing to give up the things that come with a job to go
45:59
create something arguably much better? And if the answer is yes, then entrepreneurship
46:04
can can provide that true entrepreneurial freedom for you. M very cool. So
46:12
best way is to work with you in in get just just get in there
46:17
and start building. Yeah. I love writing about this stuff. Clearly you
46:22
know you and I could talk about this for days. But you can find
46:25
you know, my writing and everything about this that's all over at Bay Area
46:29
mastermind dot com b A Y A r e A mastermind dot com. You
46:34
can also find out about our Mastermind groups. You can apply for a test
46:37
drive to see if a Mastermind group is a good fit for you. You
46:39
can read about how to start your own Mastermind groups, how to find Mastermind
46:43
groups, and all those kinds of things. That's all over at pay areamastermind
46:46
dot com. Awesome cool, It's been great talking to you. This is
46:52
fun. It was good to connect and I'm it was great to be on
46:54
the show. Yeah yeah, So thank you everybody for listening, and go
47:00
to the Bay Area mastermind dot com connect with Jeremy and it's like and let's
47:08
have some fun with our new entrepreneurial time seven. All right, Thanks everybody,
47:17
find that subscribe button wherever it is. Help us to idam know what
48:00
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48:23
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