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Cash Flow Mountain: The Financial Framework Every Business Coach Needs with Ben & Brittany Cooper · The Ambitious Coach Lab

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: This episode is brought to you by Amplify, a team of fractional CFOs helping business owners finally make sense of their numbers.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: If you've ever felt like you're guessing your way through financial decisions, you need to talk with these folks.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: Amplify helps with forecasting and scenario planning, but what really stands out is how their guides walk alongside you with clear reporting that shows the next best step for your business.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Their forecasts are dynamic, so you can actually see how future decisions will impact your cash in real time.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: I've also been loving their framework called Cash Flow Mountain, which visualizes how cash moves through your business like water down a mountain.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great way to see how your scorecard connects to the VTO through your financials.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: Head on over to amplify.business to check it out or schedule a free call so you can stop guessing about your numbers and start making confident decisions about the future of your business.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Ambitious Coach Lab, powered by Nike.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: Cam Lawson.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Each week we explore the real tactics, tough conversations, and breakthrough moments that drive coaching success.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: Let's jump into today's episode.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, hello friends.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: I am so excited to introduce my good friends Ben and Brittany Cooper with Amplify.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: They are a creative fractional CFO firm, which I'm so excited to like dive into what does that mean?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because I don't usually don't think creative and finance CFOs, they don't usually go together.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: But you guys sit in the finance seat and help business owners forecast better to make better business decisions.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna dive all into how you guys built your practice and our personal relationship of how we met originally.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: But welcome to the show, you both.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited about this.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Cam.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: We're so excited to be here.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having us.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: We love it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: We'll uh we'll uh let people behind the scenes a little bit.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: This is actually second run through for us.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: We did it originally one time and it was all messed up.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: The video and audio is crazy.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll blame technology on now.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Second time round.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you, like I'm I'm setting the bar high right from the start.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like we just like we got it, we gotta hit it.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: So uh no, but we're we're gonna run through this and it's gonna be awesome.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: But to kick it off, why don't you guys share a little bit of your just entrepreneurial background and how you got to building Amplify to what it is today?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So Cam, you mentioned creative CFO.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think it does go in that order in some ways because before um starting Amplify a decade ago, uh, I was in the music industry.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're watching the video version of this conversation, there are guitars hanging behind us.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that and even the name Amplify is tied to Yeah, you got one too, Cam.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the name Amplify is actually also a reference to the music background and I the time I spent in Nashville um, you know, as a professional songwriter and getting into the music industry, and it was really fun.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it's not just I'm not the only one who has the creative background.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Brittany also was a freelance writer and uh and journalist, so we got a chance to kind of uh do kind of the the freelance hustle um together in those early years of marriage.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then we started having kids.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: We had two at the time, and now we have four.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: But uh when we realized, oh man, buying diapers are it's really expensive as a songwriter and a freelance journalist.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we got to figure out uh how we can you know help people buy the diapers, make a living.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so that led to a transition out of the music industry.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and coming back to my numbers roots, really.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up around uh finance.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was in uh a few different roles in around finance, and so it was a chance to come back to numbers in some ways and got an MBA and we lived in Austin, Texas for a stretch, and it was it was just a neat experience to um realize that even some of the things that I was doing in the music industry, collaborating with people and creative problem solving, and even things like signal flow and recording and cash flow and finance, there were some parallels there that made it really fun to make that transition.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: So um had a chance to work with some investors in Nashville and in due diligence conversations, um, found that there were a lot of business owners who needed some help and needed to look at their numbers in a more creative way, maybe.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And um and had an opportunity to step into more of a CFO type relationship with them.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean Nashville is such it is funny because on one hand it feels like kind of an odd path to, you know, finance.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but also Nashville is such a creative city where there are all these, you know, people are always like starting companies and doing creative things.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we were Ben had been really involved in like an entrepreneur center and he had a minor in entrepreneurship, and so we had always kind of been involved in, you know, these really fun small businesses.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so then after grad school, it was just really natural to start helping them with their numbers.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so some of our earliest clients were actually like really fun artistic Nashville companies, like um that people knew of, and it was just really fun, it was just kind of a new way to engage in the city, and um, so that's I think it is we do the work we do connects really uh deeply with creative entrepreneurs, you know, founders who didn't start their business because they love spreadsheets or building forecasts, and it's a great opportunity for us to come alongside them in a really hospitable, empathetic way and recognize, you know, you're really great at the thing that you do and why you started your business, and that's why your customers come to you.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so we want to support you in a way that you may, you may honestly have some head trash and shame about.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's one thing that we run into with uh a lot of entrepreneurs, just because you know, it you might get to a point where you're making millions of dollars a year and you realize uh I feel a little nervous admitting to anybody I don't know how to look at a profit and loss statement.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so we really care about coming alongside in a non-judgmental way and say, you know, we love we love uh the creative work that you do as well, and we want to support that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: It almost puts the uh almost the psychological like walls that kind of go up around finance and like, ooh, I feel like if I'm a business owner, I should have, you know, my head screwed on straight around these things.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And there are often a lot of people, myself included, who would not be a stereotypical numbers person, that it is a little intimidating.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: And so it almost I think your branding on like the creative and amplify it, it kind of like lowers my not fear, but just that like psychological hurdle I have to get over about talking about finance, which is actually really it seems like that was an intentional decision from you guys.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think we well, and to be transparent, like I, you know, I have a journalism background.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was working for magazines in Nashville, and so I am very much like our I say I'm our words girl.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm also not a numbers person.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not one of our guides.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I do branding and marketing.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um so anything that we put out, I always want to make sure it makes sense to me.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that I'm, you know, and that I'm understanding any resource, anything we're trying to help business owners with.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I we have a very low tolerance for kind of industry speak and, you know, just intimidating words that we may understand or finance people may understand, but like the average business owner ends up feeling like they slept through a finance class in college that they were supposed to be at, right?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, um, so we've been really intentional.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's just come from years of doing the work and realizing like the pain point on numbers, people not understanding their numbers.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: There are multiple pain points, but it's not just about, you know, and coaches understand this, people understand this.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about everyone saying, like, I just want to get rich, you know, like let's 10x this thing.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's somebody coming to you saying, I'm building a thing that matters, I love it, it's going well, and I'm not sleeping well at night, you know, or and I'm really worried about if I'm gonna be a business in three months, even though I have X number of dollars in the bank, or I'm about to hire someone.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the pain points are are small and practical and very human.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, anybody working with these business owners knows like the numbers are just a means to an end, and they're more about like the opportunity that it affords.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's more about building a business that allows you to have the life that you actually want.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not just what somebody else tells you, or you know, sometimes people come to us and they're like, I think I'm supposed to grow 18% year over year because I listened to a you know podcast about it.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, let's actually look at that.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is that actually what you want?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you need?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is that going to align with the things in your life that you care about?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe you're a parent and you want more time with your kids or you're trying to hire someone.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that intentionality comes because you can have all the impressive numbers.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: You could have you we call it the multi-tab spreadsheet.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, you know, people go to a CFO and they get a huge multi-tab spreadsheet.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if you at the end of the day, if you don't understand how to use it, you're still gonna be awake at night.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we try to do everything with hospitality and a real understanding and a curiosity about who is this person and what does you know success, I guess, look like for them.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then how do we get there in that forecast, right?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and it to add to that, the there are a couple ways that we we like to use the language we want to help business owners avoid making million-dollar decisions with their gut.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And there are a couple ways that that could look.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: One is I just don't know how to look at the numbers at all.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so as I'm trying to evaluate, do we open another location?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Should we buy a truck for the business?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do we hire these next three people?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, those, or should we raise prices or change, you know, all these variables are at play, and that can be a place where you feel like you're making a million-dollar decision with your gut.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Another place is like Brittany was talking about, there's so many definitions of success that if you aren't really crystal clear on what the why behind and your business and what you're hoping the business can provide outside of the work that you do and the balance sheet and the cash flow saving, all that stuff.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's another moment where you might be following a very clear formulaic approach to you know 10x your business or do something that that you know, again, some podcasts may be saying, This is exactly if you want to grow this type of business, here's the playbook.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that can be helpful unless you feel like it's going going in a different direction than you really care about.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's another place where your gut is not going to feel good making big decisions following someone else's game plan.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there are a couple ways that that can play out.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I love the the intentionality around that, and I love the combo where you have kind of the quote-unquote numbers person and the words person because that probably keeps you guys grounded, and I think it it actually segues really well into one of the things that we talk about a lot on this show.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: For you know, when coaches or uh firms like you all and consultants that they when they're thinking about their practice, you have to be clear on your why.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: You have to be clear on the understanding of both your problem that you're solving for, and then how are we gonna position ourselves?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: It kind of goes a little bit into offering too of like here's what we're coming help to solve.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so one of the really one of the I mean, this was the start of our relationship was that in the at the EOS conference, right?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so can you guys talk a little bit about what led you to just choosing?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you guys focus it seems kind of in the EOS ecosystem, which is a lot of small businesses who run on an intentional operating system, usually growth-minded individuals.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: But can you talk a little bit about how your vision just played really well in that ecosystem?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: We had a season a couple years ago where we kind of just sent Ben off to multiple conferences.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, let's find our people.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Where are our people?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, where are they?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: We hadn't we had we had been a kind of smaller business, we were starting to scale, and so we just sort of sent Ben out to be like, find the best fit.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we tried a variety of conferences, and um EOS just aligned really clearly with kind of this life of meaning stuff that we're talking about.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the benefit for us when someone's using an operating system or someone's you know sitting with an implementer is they already know the why.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: So for us to come in, they understand already, like they've had to set some pretty big goals on their VTO, right?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: To say, where am I going in one, three, 10 years?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what, you know, why, why do I care about this?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Where do I want to be?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: But then at the same time, they're then tasked with, okay, so what do I do this week, right?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you've got to set those scorecard activities.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes when you're in a, you know, in a system like that, you're still left to do some of the numbers work on your own, um, even if you have a great implementer.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just, as we were getting more and more in the US community, people were just saying, like, oh man, this would be amazing to have, you know, this kind of forecasting and this kind of finance work to help you see if I make these decisions this week, you know, if I pull this lever, if I change this, how does that impact my ETA to these goals I'm talking about?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think whenever you can start with a really clear kind of end game in mind and a clear understanding of what what you're doing right now, um, that just is a great setup for us to come in and like do the forecasting work and be able to show someone, you know, in a really great forecast, you can say, like, what if what if you do this and this?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what if you raise prices, but you lose this percentage of your customers and then the economy does this, and you can just ask a lot of questions in real time and see kind of how things will likely change.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you have the initial inputs, it's just so helpful.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we're not the ones always having to guide through like what does, you know, what does an end goal?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you want to be in 10 years?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: What's your hope?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And just kind of leaning on the implementers for that work um and being able to add the numbers.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: What would you add to that?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: We fell in love with EOS also because we began working with an amazing implementer, Anastasia Toomey.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: She is the best shout out.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: She has really pushed us in all the ways that you would want a an amazing coach and guide and advisor to push you.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we know from the inside the the impact that the EOS methodology has had for us, and it's allowed me to really progress from wearing a lot of the hats on the accountability chart to now really focusing primarily on the visionary role for Amplify.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's been really exciting, and just like our experience, any business who is really committed to an operating system like EOS is going through some sort of transformation journey that is really um exciting.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they're not just stagnant, they're not plateaued, and that's really attractive for us as well because it's really more about opportunity that is available to grow and to increase the impact of what's happening through the business, um, whoever we're serving.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so um the the specific way that that looks, and you know, anybody who's ever tried to go through some sort of transformation, you know, getting better at anything, the the two bookends that Britney was talking about, you have this outcome that you care about.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's but then there are all these activities.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: There, and and so the um the opportunity that we see within uh the EOS uh, you know, if you read traction or if you're going all in and trying to build out your VTO and your scorecard, there is a gap sometimes that surfaces when you say, This is what I hope a year from now, revenue and profit looks like.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what a good week in in the business looks like today.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the trap that you can fall into sometimes is that the the targets that you set for those activities, whether it's sales activities or profit goals on the weekly scorecard, that may reflect where the business is at today.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it if you're a five million dollar business and you want to become an eight million dollar business by the end of the year, you have to set those targets toward the eight million outcome.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a trap that we see a lot of people, and it creates a frustration when you get halfway through the year and you realize, uh oh, the sales team is celebrating because all their numbers are green on the scorecard.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they log into 90 and they're seeing good results on the scorecard.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then, but the leadership team is looking at the progress toward the annual goals from a revenue standpoint, and they're going, uh oh, uh, what do we do?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're not on track.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so that disconnect can be very directly and powerfully bridged by looking at the financial performance of the business.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so um Anastasia and some other uh EOS implementers have been really encouraging us to uh simplify what it looks like to connect the scorecard to the VTO.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we have uh put together something we call Cashflow Mountain, which is a very simplified view.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: We kind of have thought about, you know, in the same way that Donald Miller has simplified marketing, you know, through story brand work, we want to approach numbers with that similar lens of saying, how can we take something that's really complicated and overwhelming, maybe for people, and create a simplified visual and framework that someone can follow, like water flowing down a mountain.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: How do dollars flow through your business?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And how does your sales and marketing team send water down the mountain?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: How's your ops team manage the flow of water really efficiently?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then what happens when it gets down to the bottom?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And Brittany was talking about life of meaning.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: We we call in the visual the the ultimate outcome of the business is life of meaning lodge, and it's sitting right next to Opportunities Pond, and it's just this beautiful little picture of you know, what are we working toward here?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's the system really designed to produce?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's been really exciting because ultimately, um, and if you've ever worked with a leadership team in any capacity, um, there's or if you've ever played the telephone game, uh, what can happen sometimes is one person understands the true uh message of what's happening, you know, and understands the financial picture of the business.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: But the challenge can be you turn and try to communicate that to the next person, like the telephone game, and it can get overwhelming pretty quick.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, what we found is even when business leaders, business owners are familiar with looking at the PL or balance sheet, really what we're trying to equip them with is an opportunity to align the rest of their team.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we had somebody we met at the conference last year at our booth who said, I, you know, I pulled up the Cashflow Mountain Visual and shared it with our leadership team.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: We have 80 employees who their bonus structure is tied to uh to the EBITDA pond app, you know, uh the after operating expenses and what's happening with operating profit.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it was complicated for a lot of their team members to understand how do we work together and how does the sales team influence our profitability?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the bonus structure became clear when he put it on the screen and said, This right here, this is what we're trying to maximize, and we can all work toward this common goal.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, really, at the end of the day, it's all about alignment, it's all about making sure that everyone's on the same page.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: That probably becomes a really powerful tool for coaches to help draw that line of connecting because I think that is something that a lot of I can speak to an organization that I was at, and it was hard.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: It was a high-end residential landscape company.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, you've got a massive mix of field workers into management into actual executive leadership, and the executive leadership team, we were all meeting on a you know quarterly basis, thinking strategically, always in, you know, really understood, had a deep understanding of that.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then you got down to the management layer and then even down the field work, and there, I mean, it's like I just I want to get as many hours as I can and work as much overtime as I can.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: That was just the philosophy, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think the owner actually did a really good job of this, but I feel like for specifically owners and coaches that are working with owners and leadership teams, that could actually be a huge asset to help educate because you guys talk a lot about financial literacy, right?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Which I think is something that is lacking.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so what how would you recommend, you know, coaches and consultants that are maybe in complementary industries, right?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe like an operations, like a fractional integrator or an EOS implementer is a good example.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what is the partnership?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Is the word that comes to mind?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that's necessarily the right word, but like, how do they tap into the resources that you all have to kind of benefit their clients?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that that's been one of the really fun things about Cashflow Mountain is that we sort of originally put Ben to the task.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, okay, you're the visionary, go, you know, set up the ecosystem.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: We had known for a while we like to be creative, we love a metaphor.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you hang out with us very long, everything's in metaphors.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we were like, Yeah, yeah.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's create something that we can use to anchor all these conversations for our clients, right?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: But then after Ben created it and we've been sharing it with teams, we've realized it and it had come because implementers had specifically asked for financial literacy.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it's now become this really fun thing that's sort of taken on a life of its own as we've seen like coaches and implementers and people be able to use it um just as a landscape, like as an easy place to anchor conversations.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's been really fun.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: We've had, we were talking to some coaches recently that are putting it in their kind of playbook, and they're like, We want, you know, we want all our coaches to have access to this.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I think when you're having this conversation and you're the coach and you have a pretty good financial understanding, you know, whether or not that's your background, kind of generally know how cash flows through a business.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Business to be able to have a visual to just anchor that conversation and one that makes sense.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, okay, you know, here is where money comes down like rain, right?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and the cool part is in the visual, it shows where each, you know, part of your team has the biggest impact.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, okay, your marketing team, you're trying to get capture as much of this rain, you know, into this pump house as possible.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's gonna flow down here.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, some of it's gonna run off here for your cogs, and some is, and so you're seeing how, you know, how does it flow down into this opportunities pond at the bottom where ultimately that's where you want it, but you're gonna take some of that and you're gonna reinvest it back in your business.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so the fun thing has been seeing coaches say, like, I'm trying to have these conversations with my clients, but it's a little bit hard to communicate if we're not talking about the same thing, if people don't really understand these terms.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so just giving a landscape.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we're always just trying to give it away.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, use it, please use it.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a free resource, like um, but that has kind of been a delight for us is people being like, This is what I this is what I've wanted to make this conversation easier.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, it's like that's something we deeply care about.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like if coaches have stronger conversations with their clients around finances, like that's super fun for us to be part of.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I was showing it to someone yesterday, and she is a uh marketing expert, and she loved it because it it's something she could pull up on her screen to communicate the work, the the value of the work she does.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes, and if if she helps win for the business, what that represents, what they are able to see is how it's tied to their longest-term goals.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what's always important in our opinion is that business owners understand or any team member understands how they fit in the big picture because otherwise it can feel like you're just showing up to the same work day after day, and it's it's mind-numbing, mind-numbing.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a little bit um, you know, it it's it's so important that whether it's uh you know a leadership team using something like Cashflow Mountain to objectively cut through one person's argument versus another, you know, there's a lot of emotion that can fly in a in a conversation if it's untethered to something that's measurable and objective.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so um what we have seen is that there's an opportunity, whether it's someone from the outside or somebody on the inside of the leadership team, being able to speak to what's happening and and use simplified language that everyone can understand.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there's just something too, like aligning teams.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like you talk about, you know, in the EOS world, you hear this a lot, but kind of that visionary coming in, you've got your finance person doing, you know, reporting, doing these day-to-day things, and the fine and the visionary's just blowing it up, like coming in and being like, what if we do this?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't we do this?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wait a second.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a visionary.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even just to understand from a visual perspective, like you can take all the water out of this place right now and you can divert it all over here, but you need to understand that you're gonna have less happy, you know, you won't then have it for this, or so just yeah, taking yeah, yeah, taking the emotion out.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: And like there is only a certain amount of cash in the bank.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like you, this is your cash flow situation, and you can choose to make this decision, or you might wait for three months and make this decision, right?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as you know, as people are coaching and guiding the even visionaries and their finance teams, like kind of having that clarity of like, here is the cost of doing this.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: It may be worth it, it may not.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's a limited resource.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you put it here, you'll have less here, you know.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the fun part then is setting that picture in motion.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a it's what we talk about a lot of times is this is a snapshot of the current version of the business.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: But what often, you know, again, if a business is going through some sort of transformation, we have to almost duplicate that picture and say, okay, well, what would happen now if we reinvest some of these dollars into a new machine and we become more efficient, or if we order inventory in bulk and save a few pennies on the dollar for every unit we sell?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that becomes a way of evaluating two different versions of the same business, but a pre-decision, post-decision, how do those play together?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And like Brittany was talking about earlier, what if we raise prices and some of our subscribers churn?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, complicated combinations of multiple variables.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's where we see the power of not just taking that snapshot, but saying, what does Cashflow Mountain look like six months from now if we do X, Y, and Z and it opens up maybe new flow in different ways, or we're more efficient in the way that we let the water flow down the mountain.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where it becomes really fun and dynamic.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it the importance then becomes so you know, really predicting the future and being able to say um the only way we can really confidently know whether we should go left or right as we encounter this crossroads as a business is we have to understand what's past you know this this what we can see in front of us.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we we kind of use the metaphor, as Britney was saying, we love metaphors, but like a GPS for the business.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not even just you you hear a lot of people talk about well, if you don't have any uh insights in your numbers, it's like driving looking in the rearview mirror.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're only looking at numbers in the past.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I've heard other people say, Well, what we do is, you know, uh we clear the windshield, and so you can see what's ahead, and that's great too.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: What I believe we're able to do is create not just what you can see through the windshield, but far into the distance, past what's visual, like we're able to look at many routes toward the same outcome.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's really critical when you talk about, and again, coming back to why we love EOS, there's an invitation to set a 10-year target there.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're if you're thinking about and dreaming and hoping for something that is way out in the distance, we have to have some sort of mechanism to show what that path looks like from here to there.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's so uh I love this because you can.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, obviously your 10-year target can be, you know, in a little aspirational, kind of up in the clouds, here's where we're going.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: But you start to get that three-year, and even that one year, if you want to be aggressive, a lot of it is gut-based, where it's like, well, in order to get to this big hairy, you know, uh aspirational thing, like we have to be aggressive, but then how we actually get there.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: So that's uh that's fascinating because this this actually ties really well into another competency that we talk about a lot, and it's one of those, it's kind of a sneaky competency for business coaches, but it's mastery, it's kind of how do you have the additional tools in your tool belt that you can bring out in certain situations, and I think this is a perfect example of that because I think the elite coaches, I think a lot of coaches and consultants start out and they think they have to be all things to all men, right?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: They go in and they have to have the answer for every single thing, and then you get down the path and you realize, okay, this is a lot deeper, or we need to bring the experts, which is where there are a lot of, you know, that's where I think a lot of fractionals and consultants come in because coaches really got into being coaches because they want to work with improving businesses and working with leadership teams and facilitation, and that's what they're good at.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I I will never forget I had a conversation with an EOS Simple Brenner one time, and he was talking about he said, Hey, if you can equip me to be able to talk about whatever it is you're you know doing for 30, 60 minutes where I can be the hero and go and execute and talk about that and then pass to you because he said, I don't want to be the expert on finance or marketing or whatever it is, but give me enough to where I can go out and and talk.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a great example of him tapping into mastery because he wants to have enough to where he can kind of have that financial literacy, but not necessarily have to be the expert in the field.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: So he brings someone like you guys in where they're going and struggling with something, and so I I see how Cashflow Mountain is a perfect anchor point for hey, let's get coaches enough, you know, where they can talk educated about this, and then all right, hey, this client really needs specialized help or whatever it is, we're gonna bring in the big guns of Ben and Britney to come in and kind of talk through things.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: But like, let's talk a little bit.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: If a coach, let's just say, wants to raise their level of financial literacy, right?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: There may be like let's take me for talk to me as marketing guy, you know, sitting in like a fractional CRO role, prior profession.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: So sales and marketing that is as far away from numbers as you can possibly get.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Usually it's a sales guy being like, yo, can we squeak this deal?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and um, but let's talk to someone like me who maybe doesn't have a lot of financial literacy.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: What would be two, three, one, maybe what tools or concepts would you lean into to try to improve my knowledge of that that discipline?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would what what I was on a call last week with 120 entrepreneurs, nonprofits, different varying levels of comfort, you know, around looking at the numbers.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: The encouragement I gave was just start somewhere.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: So, like if you have the ability to open up a profit and loss statement and a balance sheet statement, um, what we are trying to transform is the the habits that exist, maybe where a bookkeeper is sending the business owner the PL every month and you get an email and maybe you just mark it as unread.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's the first problem we see sometimes.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: You don't even open it, right?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing that we see is if people do open it, they're looking at the top line.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's an easy one to understand.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: Here's how much here's how much we made from a revenue standpoint.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Scroll, scroll, scroll down to the bottom.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Did we make more than we spent?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's also a good checkpoint to look at.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: But there's a lot in between there.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then the the next thing that somebody might do is go, okay, I'm just gonna open my bank account and see where we sit right now.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: And those those practical steps, while they can be helpful, they never show the full picture.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but it does tell you, obviously, some helpful information of how'd we do last month?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, are we performing well?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Are we sitting in an okay spot right now?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: But there's just because it doesn't show the whole picture, then it can be this complicated uh tangle of emotion, you know, it's kind of like, are we okay though?
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so what we always want to encourage folks to do is begin to look at the different checkpoints that we have in the cash flow mountain visual.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you can, if you can just scroll, literally, they're laid out the way that you would scroll down a profit and loss statement, and you would see the sections.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: And there are different ways that you could look at the total amounts of the categories.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're um, you know, a manufacturing business and you have right beneath revenue, then you have your cost of goods.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you have sort of all the variable expenses that are tied to we're gonna spend more here if we sell more product, right?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that's gonna fluctuate a lot.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: But what it'll show you is you know, how much are we making if you look at after those expenses?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can look at a percentage view of even that number and say, okay, out of every dollar that we brought in as a business, how many pennies were absorbed by just making the sale?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and what's left then to cover things like rent and some of the salary expenses and some of the overhead.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's where you you hear terms like break-even, and that you know may be obvious to some people, it may be confusing to others.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: But then when you say, okay, well, how many dollars do we need to generate then to offset and really just hit the equal amount of what our fixed expenses of running the business are every month?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: So there's some practical ways that you can just start looking at these shapes and just starting to play a little bit of like a Sherlock role in the business because if you start looking, you're gonna find things that go, Oh, I wonder why that's that way.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just the beginning of the the practical and intentional, you know, new territory that you might be able to enter into to just start asking good questions.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there the other tool that I would just encourage, like AI is amazing at answering some of these complicated, not that you want to just upload your you know sensitive uh documents up to but to ask certain questions of okay, I'm this kind of business.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what is you know, what are some things that I might want to look at my PL and have in mind?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a great place to start.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's really like having a partner in looking at the numbers and going into it's almost like having a guide into a scary, you know, new territory, and you're like, I'm in the wild here.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: What do I look for?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And at the heart of even why we started Amplify, it was to help democratize insights for business owners.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it got me, I was working due diligence, sitting down with these founders, and realized 10 minutes into a conversation, I might know more about their business than they do, and they're in it all day, pouring themselves into it.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that that got me on a heart level because I was like, I want you to see your numbers the way that an investor might look at your numbers and look at the future with all that sort of growth potential in mind.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um, in a similar way, you know, some people might feel threatened by AI coming in and the ways that it might, you know, in our perspective, it's an amazing democratization of insights for business owners everywhere.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: So as you look at the numbers, don't be afraid to just pull in, you know, your favorite AI and just say, How can I look at this?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is new territory for me.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: I feel nervous.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what should I be looking at and how can I think about these things?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Let's say they're all thinking, okay, you know, the numbers look fine, but something seems just off.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: We can't put a finger.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: What would you recommend a coach in that situation?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of what what are the prodding questions, or how do they kind of get to that deeper level where you kind of get the team to be Sherlock, where they're like looking in.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: What are some of the prompts that you would recommend that a coach can kind of open the you know jar, if you will, to get a little bit deeper?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I almost think of the way a doctor might approach if you're if you're a patient walking into a doctor's office and you say, This just kind of hurts.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like what you know, and and I think the first step is like, where does it hurt?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, understanding literally, like uh Cole who pulled up the Cash Low Mountain Visual with his team, it's like right there.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, this is the spot that really matters.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's it's really just understanding, okay, as a starting point, let's just anchor into where it feels strange, like there's something not quite right in which area.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's the first spot where everybody can go, okay, let's zoom in there and let's really drill into what's happening in operating expenses.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Something feels funny here, okay.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Another, then the next step can be, well, what how long has it looked like this?
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as you're looking at, you know, or how long has it felt like this?
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: So being able to look at a maybe it's a single line item, like, why is our insurance costs this way?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and then you can dig into the past six months and or even further back and say, uh, has it always been this sort of expense level, or or you know, has it always looked this way, or is something changed that's causing, you know, one thing that happens sometimes is there's an annual payment due with something like insurance, and it can come out of the nowhere, it feels like.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's part of the emotional roller coaster that we see businesses on where you just don't know to anticipate that, even though it's coming, it was always coming, but because you didn't know it was coming, it feels like a surprise and it feels like something's really drastically wrong, maybe.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: But all that's happening is hey, actually, you might zoom out far enough and say, actually, last April we had this same expense.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: So there maybe there's nothing out of line here.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Or you might say, you know what, this is a lot higher than uh it has been.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other question is, is it higher than we expect it to be?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where you're starting to look at more of a like if you look at the financial statement, like a profit and loss, one thing you can do is say, how did we do versus last month, or how do we do looking uh same month last year?
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one comparison you can do, that's backwards facing.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: The other kind of troubleshooting Sherlock test is how did how did these numbers look compared to what we planned on?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a different way of you know, you have to look ahead and set some sort of forecast or budget.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really where you get ahead of some of those emotional bumps in the road where you go, why is it gonna be this?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you build a good forecast, you're gonna know, okay, every April this expense pops into the picture.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: So as we're looking at the overall picture, and then we compare the results of April, we're not just comparing them against the past, we're comparing them against the plan.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that reveals, you know, we have a process we go through called a map review.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we're on a journey, we know exactly where we should be.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the the rhythm we can go through to look at the numbers, and this is something we encourage every business we work with, um, or even folks that we don't work with, just introduce some sort of rhythm every 30 days.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: As the financials close out, um, map stands for measure, adjust, predict.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's an opportunity to compare either what happened versus what we planned on happening.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's the ideal.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have a forecast, then compare what happened versus what had happened recently or same month last year.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you do have a forecast, that allows you to adjust.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can get into the formulas of the, you know, everything that's driving the financial picture, and you can tweak things and say, now we learned something new.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna go into the model and adjust that.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then that allows us to go to the third step, which is predict.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so measure, adjust, predict.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: We can zoom back out and see the impact of those changes to the model and see not just the one path forward, but like a GPS, multiple routes forward into the future, and be able to see, you know, do we like where this is heading now?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do we need to make some drastic course correction?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but really it all starts with just having some sort of like small step into it and going, how do we pinpoint where it hurts?
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: Does this seem normal or is it not normal?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and you'll hear, you know, we're talking a lot about forecasts, and it's interesting with the idea of forecasting because it can be a little hard.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about it almost like you know, kind of bookkeeping and reporting and stuff can be more like classical music, and then forecasting is more like jazz and it can get it's a different skill set, it can be very uncomfortable for people, or it can kind of feel like a novelty because it's like, well, you can't predict the future.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um but if you have some kind of a forecast that's visual that makes sense to you, even if it's really simple, you get to do, you know, when you're talking about being a coach and you're walking, you know, with a business and they, you know, feel like something's off or they have these concerns and worries.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the best parts about a forecast is that you can do scenario planning, excuse me, and actually plan out your worst case scenario.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's funny because we always think like, oh yeah, I could have a forecast to kind of see, you know, how everything's gonna grow and all that.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: But the some of the biggest value actually comes when you've got, you know, you're you're coaching, you're working with a business, and they have fears, right?
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like all of us running businesses, we have fears.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: What if X happens?
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the beauty of a forecast is you get to say, okay, what is your what is this fear?
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are you worried about?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: What's keeping you up at night?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, say this happens, let's make a plan.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then you kind of take the fear out of it.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, what you do mentally sometimes where you're like, all right, worst case scenario, worst case scenario.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: But having a plan for that and knowing like my business can actually weather a down economy for a little bit, or you know, we can handle it if we lose, if we have this much churn or whatever.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, even as a as a coach, um, thinking about how do you sort of how do you dig in a little bit to those worst case scenarios and how do you guide your client in planning so they get a little bit of that peace of mind in addition to the conversation of what if everything goes great?
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, those are both part of the same conversation.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: So that probably does subside those nerves because it's like, oh, okay, it's actually not I mean, maybe it is really bad, but or it's probably oh, okay, that's that's like worst case.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: And here's best case, it's probably gonna be somewhere in the middle, you know, like realistically.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so that probably does help set expectations, which is such a value add to a coach.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: So when in let's talk process here for a second.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: When is the right time where let's keep the hospital analogy going, right?
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, all right, you know, patient comes in, all right.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: This hurts how long?
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: Blah blah blah.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: We're kind of identifying on the coach, kind of figuring that out.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: There comes a point sometimes where it's okay, yeah, you need to go.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: To a foot specialist, we need to get somebody to like take a look at why you have 18 toes, you know, or whatever.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like the um, and so like what when is that what does that look like as far as okay, hey, this is a little bit bigger or more not severe, but serious, or we just need to bring in somebody that can really take a look, has the right tool set, skill set, background to take a look.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what does that look like for you guys from I mean, if we want to just call it from a referral standpoint, most of our audience will understand that.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what does that look like for you guys?
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of times it's when it really when people most feel their need for this, it's they're about to make a big decision.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, we work with businesses all the time where it's like someone's trying to hand the business down to the next person or the next generation and they have a lot of questions, or or they're just expanding and they're thinking about that second location.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, that's usually when the need is so strong.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're coaching someone, it's like, you know, the complexity, like we had one of our clients was like, Man, I when I started my business, it felt like a lemonade stand.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: I understood, you know, like I sell the product, I get the money, here's my profit.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: But as you grow, and the good, you know, it's a good sign that you're growing, but the complexity gets pretty intense and it can be really hard.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when I think um when people tend to bring us in, is that having that forecast and having like the financial picture would anchor their conversation, right?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Around a big decision, around some of these complexities, what if multiple things happen at the same time?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you're the one coaching and you're like, man, I would love if we were all looking at a clear picture and we were able to ask multiple questions at once.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, you're a good coach, so you know how to lead your client.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's just how do I have, you know, almost like an x-ray or something, right?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you're like coming in and you're like, all right, I'm the doctor, I'm gonna go send you for an x-ray, and then I can give you my best advice based on what I see.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it's generally around big decisions.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I what we see is there are so many amazing experts and coaches and advisors who have different areas of expertise than we do.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: So they're they're helping the business owners in in their specific ways and their specialists, right?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: So they are able to push them into new territory.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: And where we see the opportunity to to come in and and really make sure that the transformation is happening the way everybody wants is uh that there's a bottleneck that shows up and it's in the head of the the leadership team.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's the it's the founders or the leaders of the entrepreneur, uh the entrepreneur is saying, I don't, I know what I should do, but I feel uh a little unsure and hesitant to move forward with this big decision, even though I know it makes sense, my heart's there, my head's there, but they're not connected for some reason, and really there's an opportunity to um reveal what the path will look like if they take this big decision.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: And like Brittany was saying, sometimes it's the worst case scenario where if things go poorly, just showing that there could be a good contingency plan, you know, uh we're gonna do X, Y, Z before we ever hit that spot, you know, but we're gonna see well in advance that we're going in a direction that we want to course correct from.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we see a lot of times the work can be unleashed in some ways that other coaches are doing with, you know, whether they're working on the op side or in sales and marketing.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but if there are huge decisions, like Brittany was talking about, big decisions that are gonna change the long-term direction of the business, um, and there's hesitancy there to move forward in a way that everyone agrees this is where we should go.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: But somebody's dragging their feet, usually there's a chance to just say, we're gonna put all this into one common language and put a dollar sign in front of everything that we're looking at.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: And not because dollars are the most important thing, but because we are going to measure, you know, the way that dollars will be uh impacted by and all the all the moving parts that are tied to a big decision like buying a business or making a major hire within the company.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're gonna tie, we're gonna measure all that in dollars because we also know at the end of the day, dollars are just means to an end that come back to like, will this help support the long-term life of meaning kind of goals of the business?
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and so we want to be able to tie those big decisions, so think rocks in some ways for you know, those are the kinds of big, you know, next 30 next three months we're gonna be looking at moving forward with these big new endeavors.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: We want to show the impact of how and when those can happen.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's so good.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: I I love that.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, such a important thing, regardless.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, even outside of the US ecosystem.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_02: But um, you know, I think you're you guys are spot on.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's just a it allows you to kind of move a little bit quicker in the US space, but what a um gap you are filling uh to help so many business owners.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I I appreciate you guys coming on and and sharing all your wisdom.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: This has been so much fun.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: I've taken away so many things.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm not as scared of finances anymore.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: So job well done.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, the uh but I always like to ask guests on kind of tail end, and you guys um can answer this however you want if you want to answer it individually or collectively, whatever you want.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but first question is if you could go back to rookie, Ben, and Britney, you know, just starting out in your career, you can take it career with your specific practice.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, however you want to take this, but with all the knowledge and experience that you guys have now, what advice would you tell yourselves?
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: Our first client, you know, who when I was sitting down in the due diligence conversations and Josh said, Hey, we um we love the way you're looking at our numbers.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: Could we just meet with you every month and you keep us on track?
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't actually want to sell part of our business.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think he was realizing there's another way to grow the business than doing what Shark Tank says, which is go sell part of your business to investors, that'll solve everything.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: So Josh said, Hey, could we just meet with you every every month?
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: The first couple months together, he brought traction to our meeting.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Yeah, he said, uh, this this book is a perfect fit for the way we're looking at.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we've we've created these long-term goals, and we're looking at these variables and the way we're modeling everything, and saying, if we do X, Y, Z and spend this much on marketing, and there's this ROI on our spend, like it's gonna result in this sort of revenue.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, he presented me with the EOS methodology, and it took years before I it all clicked for me.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I loved it, I appreciated it and read the book, and um, and it was awesome.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: But before I realized, oh my goodness, this is exactly home base for us, not just as a company, that we should be running on EOS with Anastasia's help.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then also this any business running in US, these are the perfect building blocks for us to really step in and tie them together in that next layer of meaning.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think I would just say being patient.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, when you're running a business, when you're starting a business, you always think like it's about, you know, it's just gonna be quick and easy.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it is such a it's a long endeavor, and you have to put in your time and you have to kind of get those 10,000 hours and get your experience.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think just the probably yeah, the goodness of some of that work and that cultivation, um, that it's not fast, but it is, I think it's good.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to hear what about you, Cam?
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I resonate with the patience thing, but I think um you know, if I I would say just presence, you know, be in the moment, which is kind of piggybacking off of what you're saying.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you know, there there is something special about the journey that I think sometimes you can be so forward focused.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm uh I'm just a big picture visionary, like I'm always thinking 10 years out.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_02: I just I that's just the way God made me, and there's a lot of benefit to that, but the potential not downside, but you know, risk of that is that you don't live in the moment, and the lessons and the catalysts of growth is is in the moment, and so I think sometimes that's just been lost in in me specifically, and so I think that's if I would look back and you know it's been kind of a wild journey and it's really taken off in the last couple years, but it you know, just being in that moment, I think it's so important.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you can miss a lot.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's the advice that I say, hey, just be present in the moment and be comfortable in that, you know, sit in it.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think one of the things that happens ironically when you say we're gonna look to the future, you can get sucked into that and go, you know, I'm just gonna always be looking three steps ahead of where I'm standing right now.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a that's a trap.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I think in in a neat way, Cam, what you were just describing, being present, you can actually be present in some ways because you know or have some intentional thought put into how how is the future gonna play out if it if it's ambiguous and it feels like this massive you know region of darkness, there you know, there's no way to re-narrow that region of darkness into at least like this is the how the you know paths look like they could play forward.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, you hold it loosely and open-handedly.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um the best way to make God laugh is to tell him your plans.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: I heard somebody say it's like so true.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's that they the there's a uh unique irony here where we're saying, like, yes, plan the future.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about control, yeah.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about saying, like, this is you have to know exactly how the next 10 years are gonna play out.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna be right.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think yes, we talk about life of meaning as if it's somewhere out there.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: But Cam, what you just said is beautiful.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really about enjoying the things that God's provided and given us today.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, so I I think the other encouragement I would give my younger self too is like, yeah, go to the lake with the kids, you know, coach their teams, go on date night, uh, do the things that may feel like um you know uh like you haven't earned them yet or whatever.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that makes sense, but just enjoy the enjoy the things that are in front of you that God's provided and don't say, well, someday I'll I'll I'll take advantage of or be able to so don't let the perfect get in the way of the good, I would say.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's so good.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we're we're preaching.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: Come on now.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody needs to hear that.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um Bible verses, though.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only thing.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm preaching with like good.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know none of that, just feel good.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: So um, no, it's um, and then the second question, and I'm really interested because this segues really well into it.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_02: What is a lesson that you guys are in just the middle of learning right now in this moment?
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: We'll take it to the present.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, as a segue off of that, something we've started talking a little more about, and I think practicing more in our own lives, is sort of as you have that life of meaning conversation, this is kind of what Ben's getting at, but and you're saying, you know, in 10 years I would love to have XYZ or do these things, then the second question with that is always like, what part of those meaningful things is available to you right now?
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, for example, for us, it's like we love to get our kids on the lake.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: We love to, you know, we have uh our kids are fifth generation to visit this one lake, and it's a really special place for us.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have not bought a lake house, we haven't done, you know, but we have this really old ski boat from the 1970s, and we rent the same house every year, and it's like a very and that's even, you know, we've had seasons we couldn't even do that, but I think just what's like the smaller, more practical way that I can enjoy this thing because sometimes the the really simple version of something, instead of like someday I'm gonna buy a wake boat and have a lake house, and it's like that also introduces some complexity.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you, you know, or if you care about generosity, it's like how are you practicing like yes, you may have goals of like starting a nonprofit or fully funding a nonprofit, or you know, we have clients we work with who are really care about affordable housing or you know, these really big goals that are really incredible and generous.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: But how do you enjoy sort of the heart of that thing right now?
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think just to you know continue what we were just saying, you can get you can spend all your time now working toward a big goal and missing the ways that you can be part of those things now, um, especially for parents, especially you know, for people who um have have people in their lives right now who are in unique seasons, you can't use money later to buy your time back.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so how are you living into those things now?
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because then it's like whether or not you hit that huge goal, you don't have to have the regret of missing out on those things.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say my lesson um that we're learning right now is just the importance of the right people on the team.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have an amazing integrator that we just brought onto the team, and Jeff is awesome, and he um it's it's like Brittany has jokingly referred to him as my business spouse because as a visionary integrator, you're very much like linked, right?
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we talked to a good number of people um before feeling like he was the right fit for us.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um because the reality is you, you know, it is like a marriage in some ways when you and as you grow a team, whether it's investors or team members, you really are um going to be encountering a lot of unknown situations together that you just have to say, do we have the DNA together to endure this and and go through and be resourceful and creative in our problem solving together?
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so just I think alignment from a uh relational standpoint and giftings and skill sets and personalities, it's so important to just um enjoy the people that we are on the journey with.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what it comes down to.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm thankful that we have um found amazing people.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: God's provided incredible uh folks to join us on the Amplify team, and I feel like that sets us up to um avoid some of the distractions that might arise if there is team tension sometimes, or we're not all on the same page.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it feels like all of our energy gets to go toward how can we serve more people?
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: How can we do this work in a more powerful way, and we're all kind of um aligned in that way.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I that's a uh the lesson there I would say is um it was worth talking to a lot of not right fits to find the right fit and to not compromise and and think, oh, we're gonna check the box and fill the the integrator role in the business, and that solves everything.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's not you know, just having somebody in the seat doesn't fix it, it has to be the right person.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:40
  unknown: Yeah.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: What about you?
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: What are you learning?
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: I knew I wasn't gonna get out of that one.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, you're interviewing a journalist, you're gonna be on the seat if you don't interview people.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's fair.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I think on top of the presence thing, you know, because that's just a lesson that's just God has placed me in, and you know, just is consistently kind of harping on um in a good way.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think kind of off of that is just the importance of like tapping into the creative energy that I have.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because I'm a you know, I'm a strategist by heart.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's you know, like one of my strengths finders top five is you know, strategic, and then I'm also futuristic, and so it's it's like I'm constantly like in execution mode, you know what I mean?
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: And um I I think you know, I mean, I obviously guitar.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean I own a lot of guitars, I have a lot of musical equipment.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm looking at drums right now, like keyboard, amps, and you know, I love and I've played in multiple bands, and and you know, when you get busy, that's often the first thing to go.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like I'm the most genuine authentic self when I'm playing music, and I think there's uh if I'm not doing that, that is like almost a little bit of a danger zone, like not a red flag, but like an orange flag where it's kind of like you're not in a good spot, you know, and so I think taking time to go play and just sit down with the guitar.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I actually moved my acoustic downstairs that's like in a place where I will pick it up and play it, and so it's like to me, that's something that just I am better for that.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost like a regulation aspect for me, and so I think for a while there I didn't play and I still loved it, and you know, it just pick it up everyone if I play at church or something, but the just the enjoyment of playing music, I think can be lost when you get busy, and so I think that's something that I'm just kind of trying to bring that, introduce that back into my life, so yeah, but I think as parents too, it's it's so important to model that.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: It is, and include like the one of the most fun things for me.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I was getting paid to write songs at one point in my career, but I've had more fun yeah writing songs with our kids and like playing music with them than I probably ever had living in Nashville, you know.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's sort of like it's just been a fun thing to experience.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: So shout out who and the hollers.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm gonna link to that.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: That we didn't even talk about that.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but Ben's got an awesome little kids album.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's awesome.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_02: Would like to point out that it was in my Spotify.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: I was you I was number two in artists was who and the hollers.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: So Cooper and myself included.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, show them the tattoo that you got.
• 1:02:35
  unknown: Right.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_02: I am a true fan.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm by far their top fan.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um the no well, cool.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I I appreciate you guys coming on and sharing your wisdom, your passion, your expertise.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think of you guys as really good friends, and I I love and appreciate you guys, and I believe in what you guys are doing.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so thank you for coming and believing in me, number one, and also coming on the show and just talking.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: So let's say um, if somebody wants to get in touch with you, like what is the best place to learn more about Amplify, about you guys?
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what where where can people go?
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Ben's pretty active on LinkedIn, so you can follow Ben Cooper on LinkedIn.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_02: Go to amplify.business.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_02: Amplify.business.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: You'll see everything.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: People buy from humans, man.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_02: LinkedIn.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_02: LinkedIn knows that.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_00: I do love connecting with you're pretty good on LinkedIn, but also amplify.business.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's and you'll see the cash flow mountain visual there as well.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like if you're wanting to, if you're curious about that, that's a good spot to see.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to see random pictures of our kids, I'm just gonna go to LinkedIn.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: LinkedIn.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: Nice, nice.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: We do have four.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to humanize it, right?
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_02: We'll link out to all that on the show notes too.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and yeah, we we can put you know some even direct links to Cashflow Mountain, because I know we talked a lot about that, so yeah, we can put some direct things to that.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I think you have uh actually a PDF that people can download, which is really cool.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, please use it.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um awesome.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's been it's been fun.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_02: Round two.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_02: I think we killed it.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_02: So uh three.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there we go.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_02: There we go.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh gosh, if that is just the universe is telling us not to post this.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, cool.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you all for watching.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_02: I I hope you guys have a good rest of your day and uh stay tuned for more episodes.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's it for today's episode of the ambitious coach lab.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_02: My hope is that something here helps you sharpen your craft and keep building a coaching practice you're proud of.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_02: Before we wrap, a quick thank you to our sponsor, 90.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you're coaching leadership teams, having your clients run their entire world in 90 truly elevates your work.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_02: Vision, rocks, scorecards, issues, it all lives in one centralized place.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_02: The clarity keeps your clients aligned between sections and makes every conversation you have with them more focused and more impactful.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_02: I've used 90 with over 500 leadership teams, and I can tell you it makes great companies better and great coaches even more effective.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_02: Feel free to use promo code AC20 for 20% off.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_02: Again, that's AC20 for 20% off.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for hanging out with me today.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Cam.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_02: Cheering you on as you grow your ambitious coaching practice.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you next time.