$100 Million Dollar Business Lessons: Recent Episodes
Shawn Hart
Daily lessons learned while building a $100M business in three years. Raw and uncut from serial entrepreneurs Shawn Hart and Seth Stevens.
So many things to unpack here today. Sometimes when you have so much opportunity it’s hard to choose which direction to go
Testing a new digital lead gen product “5 Day Challenge/Workshop” to generate revenue and engage our audience.
We are discussing where our next wave of growth will likely come from and how to take full advantage of the opportunities that are presented
On the road again at another event with an exclusive after party hopefully make some contacts let’s see what happens. Also testing out a new sales staff to see if we can increase our conversions on the phone
We’re talking about annoyances from recent overseas travel, events, presentations etc. Is the grass really greener on the other side?
We’ve come up with a creative way to leverage our book to open up more audiences through JV partnerships. This is exciting and creates an entire new type of opportunity. Were using the given way of our new book to gain audience and provide value for our relationships.
More doors are being opened each day, we’re leaving no stone unturned, we’re actually creating some chatter in the industry finally by taking advantage of every single opportunity
We need to be able to delegate any of those tasks that we find ourselves repeating over and over so that we could focus on what really matters
So we’re doing the second annual confluence retreat again on Gulf Shores Alabama. We use this free no agenda non-commercial event in order to open new doors by leveraging relationships we already have to find new relationships.
Implementing some new onboarding steps, still reading results from the new offer, looking forward to enjoying a long weekend after a crazy week
Tested the new offer…still reading results but looks good so far. Also calendar getting slammed! Crazy busy with events
Today I had the opportunity to present from stage a presentation I’ve been using since late January. I need to make a few tweaks to make it more appropriate for a live audience since it was designed for an online webinar but all in all things went well. The message was well received more doors were open and it further validated what we’re doing as a company.
We always try to optimize our offers to increase conversions. Testing a new offer in a few days. Fingers crossed!
We finally got the OK to do a live presentation at Kevin King‘s billion dollar seller summit. Stoked about this coming up in August.
Owning and controlling the data is paramount in your business. Without owning and controlling the data there’s no way to harvest all the gold in the follow ups.
Avoid chargebacks at any cost. This is a lot harder to do than it is to say but it’s very important to maintain a clean relationship with your processors
Don’t let anyone leave your membership program without a phone call. Even if you don’t win the customer back, at the very least you’ll find some really good data on why they are leaving and how you can prevent future clients from leaving your program. We call it a win-back call.
Say yes to almost everything in the beginning. Open doors and accept opportunity whenever available. Commit first figure out the details later.
Today things are looking up. We put some new players in place and looking forward to building up our systems so we can turn the sales machine back on. Basic ramblings about the book “make them believe“ by Dan Kennedy
Sometimes we have to build a stronger foundation before we can build a larger house. Today we hired seven more staff members to join our team and build a strong foundation before we start expanding our marketing department
We found that when we are faced with a difficult decision that requires a solution, that solution often times can be found from within the organization
Post Vegas. Our cakes at is filled every minute with opportunity. Feeling overwhelmed but blessed.
Positioning a product is one of the number one factors of a successful business. Listen to the logic here.
Sales are the life-blood-of-the-business but you must also be delivering a good product to your client. The client must also know how to properly measure the results of your product. If your client doesn’t know what you’re shooting for there’s no way they’ll know if you are scoring for him.
Everything in life and business is “give and take “. Be a giver but more importantly be a bigger giver than anyone else. As you’re giving don’t be afraid or timid about what you expect the gain. If you clearly communicate exactly what’s in it for both parties then you have a better chance of getting what you asked. Always remember too that the closer to the give the bigger the ask and the more likely you will be to receive it.
Sometimes we need to focus more on creating a better product and delivery to the client than in finding new clients
Where does a 800 pound gorilla sleep? The answer: anywhere he wants to!
Sometimes it gets very frustrating trying to remain patient while working with JV partners who don’t move as fast as you do.
Tag and track your contacts so that you can reward the best actions that are producing results
Even though the word “leverage“ sounds a little dirty, there are several ways to use leverage in every aspect of your business. That’s what we do to orchestrate massive growth.
Just because we are onboarding new clients at breakneck speed, and our pipeline is full of referrals and JV partners we should not lose sight that our product needs to continue to improve
Empowering your staff to grow is paramount to long term success. By allowing your existing staff to try on different hats you’ll likely discover some hidden talent just like we have.
At some point for your business to be sellable you need to systematize your sales process. Training sales people to take your place in your business is difficult and demanding but it’s a necessity. Here’s how we’re doing it
We’re talking about how we are hosting an after party at the biggest live event in our industry. How we use that connection to find and nurture new relationships in our industry hopefully leading to more clients and more JV partnerships
If you want to create a truly marketable business that you can sell for high multiples then you must systematize your processes. This includes everything literally from A-Z. You must also productize your business. Remember a buyer of your business is not looking for a full-time job they’re looking for a return on investment.
Good communication both internal with your staff and external with your customers can make a big difference. Learn from our mistakes in this episode.
Anytime you can demonstrate social proof and show that other clients and prospects are using your product or service it increases your conversion rates and new customer acquisition in a huge way.
Persistence and responsibility creates massive change in your business. Usually NO is only a temporary answer. It’s not your job to answer the question rather it’s your job to ask the question.
Lower customer churn by increasing the level of communication you’re having with your customers. It’s easier to keep existing clients happy than it is to find new ones each week.
It’s important and easier than you probably think to develop multiple revenue streams inside your business.
Give without asking. We often use relationships and introductions to create JV partnerships. By hosting events and inviting micro influencers from our industry we are able to open doors to those we don’t yet know.
Quickly and easily fund the growth of your business by using self liquidating offers. Through an upsell downsell process we are able to stockpile cash and sell as much of our services possible to every new customer. This cash is then used to fund the growth of our business.
We meet with our team each week to discuss the “State of the Union“. Our first 12 employees, and our first 270 for paying customers.
Sometimes we have to have difficult conversations with friends and colleagues. What we found is that it’s much easier to take those conversations head-on instead of delaying. If you delay and worry then you suffer more than once but if you just rip the Band-Aid off and take the conversation directly you only have to suffer once. It’s going to be uncomfortable just get it over with. Most people don’t want to hear the truth but it’s important that they hear the truth.
In the pilot episode we tell you what to expect and how to best utilize our program for your business. We take you inside, tell you a little bit of history, and the $100M mission going forward.
Welcome to the podcast. Each weekday the hosts Shawn Hart and Seth Stevens will document the journey as they build a $100 million business. At a current 10 million dollar valuation we are already 13 months in and decided to document the journey so that others can hopefully learn from our mistakes and leverage the lessons that we learn and post here on the podcast. Enjoy!