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The Virtual CMO podcast is sponsored by the strategic marketing consulting services of The Five Echelon Group.
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If you’d like to work directly with The Five Echelon Group and receive personal coaching and support to optimize your business, enhance your marketing effectiveness and grow your revenue, visit Five Echelon.com to learn more and schedule a free consultation.
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Welcome to The Virtual CMO podcast.
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I'm your host, Eric Dickmann.
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In this podcast, we have conversations with marketing professionals who share the strategies, tactics, and mindset you can use to improve the effectiveness of your marketing activities and grow your business.
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this week, I'm excited to welcome Jason Osborne to the show.
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Jason is a highly accomplished speaker, coach and consultant in the fields of digital marketing and mindset.
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Jason established himself as a life coach back in 2009 and built his personal development business.
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And within 18 months was making full-time income with clients in over 13 countries.
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Following the success.
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He switched gears and became an online marketing consultant and has since become a highly sought after coach and advisor head hunted by rethink Academy in 2018.
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Jason is now the head coach and his steering, the company towards becoming the number one coaching program in the United Kingdom.
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Please welcome Jason to the show.
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jason welcome to the virtual CMO podcast.
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I'm glad you could join us today.
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Hey, Eric.
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It's great to be here, man.
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It's my pleasure.
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I always like to start out these as most podcasts do, just getting a little background on you as a guest.
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And one thing I found interesting in reading your backstory as is that a young age, you got bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, like so many, do I think you hope we started selling sweets or candies?
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Give us a little bit of history in terms of how you got started as an entrepreneur and how you ended up today as a business coach.
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Yeah, sure thing.
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So, um, I I've, I've always been really interested in, in, uh, in business just in general.
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I didn't come, I'd come from an entrepreneurial family or anything like that.
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And I was in middle school, middle school, and it didn't come from.
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Uh, you know, a wealthy family at all and quite the opposite we were struggling to get by.
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And I just thought, you know what, I'm just going to go figure this out myself, you know?
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So, um, I I'd heard of some other kids that were doing.
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You know, selling candy and stuff like that.
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So I thought, well, I can do this.
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So I just went out.
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Bought a pack of stuff and just thought, well, here we go.
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So on breaks or at lunch or whatever.
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I'd go around and sell it.
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And people are buying it.
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I couldn't believe it.
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And so it just kind of build up belts and belts and belts, and I was doing pretty well.
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Um, then of course teachers got wind of it and, um, Didn't last too long after that, which.
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Which I think is disappointing, you know?
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I understand one side, I guess you have to be protective of maybe a edible type of things that you're selling on a school campuses, but, um, I in my personal opinion, I think it'd be great.
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If there was more, a kind of entrepreneurial.
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Encouragement at schools to be able to help kids really.
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If, if they, if there's a kid that really has that spark or shown to be kind of entrepreneurial, how teachers can kind of.
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Build that up and encourage that.
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Um, so I never, I never really lost the bug of it, but it just was quite disappointed, you know?
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Cause I was like, why are you shutting me down?
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But yeah, it was really good.
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I love, I love doing it.
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I remember when I did my first lemonade stand and started to realize that, there is money to be made in business if you know the basics.
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So you've come a long way since those early entrepreneurial adventures.
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And now you're a business coach.
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Talk a little bit about what you do today.
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Yeah.
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So today, uh, what I do, I do two things with my company.
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The first thing is I'm contracted out with the rethink Academy, uh, which is a, a large social media training agency.
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And we have hundreds of clients that come through every year through our training programs.
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From starting up a online businesses from scratch all the way to businesses that have been around for 20, 30 years, but they're just wanting to learn how to market themselves better online.
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Um, and then my kind of speciality is LinkedIn showing people how to.
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Use LinkedIn, which is probably the most misunderstood and underutilized platform out there at the moment.
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But how do you use that to really generate leads in business from the platform?
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So, yeah, it's a big transition.
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It was a journey to get to this place right now.
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But, uh, but I love doing it because I love coaching.
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I love helping people through that process.
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I just get a kick out of seeing clients get results as well, which is pretty cool.
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We're going to drill down into Rethink a little bit more and also this whole idea around LinkedIn and how to generate more leads from it.
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But before we go there, I'd love to know.
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Have you had a mentor along your journey, somebody who has really helped you in terms of developing out your own entrepreneurial and marketing skills?
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Yeah, few actually.
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Um, so a part of it is just, you know, when your, um, when.
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When I was growing up, I loved kind of business as we were talking earlier.
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So going through that process of being around other people that were in business.
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So one of'em.
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Some of my friends growing up, their dad was quite entrepreneurial and I hung out a lot with him.
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Um, I worked in a company when I was probably 19.
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Um, that, uh, they, they were good friends of mine as well, but they own the business.
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And so they would let me kind of go out with them on business meetings and things.
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So I was able to be around people that.
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Uh, supported me and encouraged me through that process of being an entrepreneur.
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And then I've hired coaches as well have hired mentors.
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I have a mentor now.
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Uh, that are higher and pay.
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So yeah, it's, it's something, in my opinion, you just ha you have to have.
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That's interesting because we're living in this time of COVID.
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A lot of people are changing professions.
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A lot of people are working from home is solo preneurs.
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So, what do you think makes a good business coach or a mentor?
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Alright, well, one, I think it's about someone that is able to explain things in a simple process.
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Uh, I have been around.
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Or heard business coaches, they over-complicate things.
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And I think that's the first thing if it's over complicated.
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So it's not as simple process, it makes it really challenging to really listen to them.
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For me personally, I like to be around people that have also experienced and done it themselves.
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So it doesn't mean that there aren't people out there that can't be, be helpful or advantageous to your business.
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But when I personally go out and look for a coach, I am looking for a particular element in my business or in myself.
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So whether that's my mindset or things that I need to change in the way that I work that has an.
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A benefit to my business and life.
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I'm looking okay.
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Oh, At a coastal County, this is the specific thing I'm looking to achieve.
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Who has been out there and done that, or has helped people achieve those similar types of results.
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So for me, that's, what I look for is, is.
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Proof that they've been able to accomplish that before.
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I think that's a really good point because I think there are a lot of people who are in the coaching business who really don't have all that much life experience.
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They've got a lot of enthusiasm for the kinds of.
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Things that they want to help people with, but they don't necessarily have the background and experience.
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And I think you have to be careful when you're hiring coaches to make sure that they are offering something that is truly going to be a benefit to you.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And there's, you know, There's always a start.
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Right?
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You have to start somewhere.
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So if you're starting off, whether it's a business coach or any type of product or service that you're promoting, you always have your first client, your first customer.
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So there there's a starting point, but one of the things that, that I teach when we go in and help clients is if you're going into a market that you haven't worked in before.
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So if you're a coach or whatever, You know, going into it and look at how you can add value first.
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And now it might mean either having really reduced prices or do beta testers, better clients.
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That potentially, even for free that you work through that process and help them get results.
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A lot of people get frustrated by that because I think, Oh no, I came in, I'd make money.
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And now you're telling me not to charge or whatever.
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It's like, Yeah, that's such a short term mentality looking at it that way, you know, because you need that social proof.
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You need to be able to help people through that process.
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And I have some really good friends that have been very successful in particular niche or niche, depending on where you are in the country or the world.
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Um, and they have changed their, their niche.
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And they, so while they would have been really successful charging, really good money on area, they will actually go in CRE have beta testers will do something for free because they want to validate that process have clients on there.
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And they do it in exchange for a video testimonial so that they have is social proof.
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And then when they actually go and start charging it, they're not saying, well, I haven't done this before, but I want to charge you$5,000 or pounds, whatever.
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And people like client, you've never done this and you want to charge me that much.
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I'm not To be your, your, your Guinea pig on this.
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So, um, yeah, there's so there was always a starting point, but for me, you know, I, I, I'm kind of.
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Uh, without trying to sound egotistical or anything, but, you know, at this point I want to work with people that have, have had that experience and the proof to back that up as well.
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It's a great point though, because everybody has to start somewhere and offering those proof points, offering maybe a different way to sort of engage with somebody or in a new industry for the first time, but providing something of value that, that can then give them the comfort level that they need to make that engagement happen.
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I think that's great advice because like I said, a lot of people have to start somewhere.
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Absolutely.
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so you're the head coach here at Rethink Academy?
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Talk to me a little bit about what coaching looks like in that business.
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Is it one-on-one coaching is a group classes.
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Is it online?
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How do you coach your clients?
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So mainly what we do.
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It's more of a group, um, element that we do.
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We have training sessions once per week.
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Um, and we have things built up within kind of phases where we take people through a, we kind of call them sprints so that we are able to focus on something.
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Um, because what we used to do is have something built out over a six or nine month period of time.
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But when you get started the very beginning six, nine months, that feels like a long time.
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And so what we do now is we have sprints where we're looking to achieve specific objectives and outcomes or, or teach certain things.
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Uh, well, obviously we can't make our clients do the work, but we have certain things that we teach within that timeframe.
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To be able to help them.
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And then we have group masterminds as well.
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So we're able to get in and we have specific tasks each week that they're supposed to be working on in accomplishing.
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And then we have a, a, a Q and a mastermind each week as well, to be able to go over that do share screens and all that sort of stuff to help clients through that process.
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And of course we're there for them in between those sessions too, for them to swim, you know?
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Quote unquote, their homework or tasks or whatever for review, and really help them through that process.
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And it's great because having a very structured training, here's what you need to do then each week.
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Do you have questions around that?
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And you have access to the coaches in between those sessions.
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It's really powerful and we're seeing some incredible results with our clients as well.
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Um, you know, people that are just starting off.
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You know, that are getting business and earning a full-time income or, you know, in between kind of three and six months, period of time, which is pretty good.
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And obviously can't guarantee that, but we're seeing those types of results come through, which is pretty cool.
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Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to the podcast.
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But first, are you ready to grow, scale, and take your marketing to the next level?
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If so, The Five Echelon Group's Virtual CMO onsulting service may be a great fit for you.
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We'll focus on areas like how to attract more leads.
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How to create compelling messaging that resonates with your ideal customers.
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To find out more about our consulting offerings and schedule a consultation, go to fiveechelon.com and click on Services.
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Now back to the podcast.
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I want to get into your methodology a little bit.
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And obviously during this short podcast, we're not going to be able to do it justice, but I really like, the topics that you're going into, because I see so much of this in my own consulting practice when I talk with various businesses.
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So you've got this rethink methodology and you start out by talking about, finding the right niche for your business and over and over again, I see with It's that they're too broad that they're going after too big a market segment, and they may have a great product or service.
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But they're too afraid to give up anything.
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And so they try to go after it all and ended up getting very little of it.
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Talk to me a little bit about the importance of finding the right niche.
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Uh, I lo I love this.
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So yes, it's something that we come across all the time as well.
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So, um, The importance of not only the right knee, but also what you said on narrowing down and becoming a specialist in your area.
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And there's different variations of that.
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But the thing that I always refer back to you and I talked about this with our clients all the time is you want to remove yourself from a commodity market, which is what most people do they go in.
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They say, I'm a life coach.
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I'm a business coach.
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I'm a marketing.
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Uh, agency or, you know, whatever it is, even one of our clients is an independent financial advisor.
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You know, an accountant or whatever, it becomes so broad where people will instantaneously make a snap judgment based on what you do and the services you provide based on how you label.
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You'll see yourself.
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And most people put themselves in a commodity market.
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The, the, probably the best one that I can, uh, just as an example, as a personal trainer.
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Everyone knows where to find a personal trainer.
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When you go there, you ask, and what do they do?
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They can either help you lose weight or put on muscle mass.
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Right.
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Simple.
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We know they're going to do that.
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So what's the next question.
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How much do you charge?
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And so that's how you, how much they charge per session or per hour or whatever it is.
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So, what do you do you go to the next personal trainer because you want to start saying, okay, well, who do I like.
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And who's the cheapest.
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Okay.
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And we probably won't go with the cheapest would probably go with the one right above the cheapest, because we don't want to feel like we're cheap.
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But we were basing it on price.
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And that's what a lot of people do is they put themselves in a commodity based market because of how they position themselves.
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And then they compete on price.
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So a personal trainer just saying, Hey, I can, I can help you lose weight.
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Well, so can every other personal trainer.
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So what makes that personal trainer different?
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Where if you position yourself saying, look, I help athletes.
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To get into peak.
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Performance.
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Within 90 days, assuming that's possible.
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I'm not a personal trainer.
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So I don't know if that's actually possible, but that all of a sudden you positioned yourself very, very differently in the market, because if you're an athlete, you're going to go, Oh, okay.
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That's me.
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You helped me.
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And you can help me get in.
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Peak performance, which is a very tangible, specific outcome.
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As opposed to a life coach saying, Hey, I can help you reach your dreams.
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What does that mean?
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And he, and a timeframe you can help me do that in 90 days, or maybe it's, you know, 120 days or whatever.
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But all of a sudden, because of that positioning.
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I know that I'm getting something very, very tangible.
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And if I were an athlete, Looking to get into peak performance within that timeframe.
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Yes, there is an element of price, but are more.
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Concerned about the outcome.
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And if I know that that person, that personal trainer can help me achieve that outcome, I will be willing to pay more for that.
00:15:56.783 --> 00:16:01.373
So it's a huge, huge thing that people need to understand how to find the right niche.
00:16:01.403 --> 00:16:02.393
And then also are we.
00:16:02.783 --> 00:16:07.643
Uh, to, to move into the element, which is evaluating your avatar and how to position yourself.
00:16:07.643 --> 00:16:10.102
So those two things are really, really important.
00:16:10.493 --> 00:16:23.962
Um, when you're we either, whether you're starting off in business or even a few business, been in business for a while, um, oftentimes with clients that have been in business for five, 10, 15 years, when I start asking them these questions to really start fine tuning.
00:16:23.962 --> 00:16:24.113
Okay.
00:16:24.143 --> 00:16:26.663
Well, what makes you different from everyone else?
00:16:27.263 --> 00:16:28.342
The mind goes blank.
00:16:29.393 --> 00:16:30.202
And I'm surprised.
00:16:30.232 --> 00:16:34.432
You've probably seen this as well, but it's like, you've been in business for how long, and you don't know this.
00:16:34.732 --> 00:16:41.903
So, but it's one of those things that I look at it from a positive, because once you land that once I can help a client understand that.
00:16:42.263 --> 00:16:44.363
It changes their whole positioning in the market.
00:16:45.082 --> 00:16:47.153
Um, and, and it's just amazing.
00:16:47.212 --> 00:16:58.133
And one of the things we can chat about if you'd like is just that whole kind of fear based around going so broad and, and, and why people don't narrow down, which I see a lot of people they're just afraid to do it.
00:16:58.552 --> 00:16:59.903
Are afraid of giving up business.