The Size Of Your Coaches Equation Matters

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the Momentum Podcast, made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds, those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure, we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny, we define it. We don't understand defeat, because you only lose if you stop, and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority, the few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future, and instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world, because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent positive human evolution, and we always will be.

The size of your coach's equation matters. There is an epidemic in the coaching industry today of entrepreneurs going out, raising their hand, asking for help and being let down. It's one of the most common stories you hear at masterminds and events, and when groups of entrepreneurs gather, this is a subject that comes up, how much money they've spent and have gotten little or no results.

In fact, I had a client a couple of years ago who had spent over $140,000 on coaching and information products done for you services, and all kinds of other stuff, and had barely gotten any results, like hadn't sold over $10,000 in product, but hadn't gotten any notable results of any kind, he had gone from one to another, to another, to another. And this is happening every single day.

In fact, when it comes to entrepreneurs, this is even more damaging than just not getting results, because for people like us, one of the hardest things that we ever do is raise our hands and ask for help; I call this the entrepreneur's dilemma. Entrepreneurs need far more protection and support than the average person to reach our full potential. I mean, our goals are bigger, we need more help. Yet, any request for help, any request for protection or support leaves us feeling vulnerable and exposed. We don't like to ask for help.

So when we finally get up the courage and the energy and the mindset to say, "Hey, I need help", it's a big deal. When we ask for that help from a coach that lets us down, it can be demoralizing, it can feel like you got the wind knocked out of your sails, like you got punched in the stomach. It feels absolutely horrible.

I want to save you from making a decision that puts you in a situation like this, because while you might not lose $140,000 like my client did, I don't want you to lose the time, the effort, the energy, the focus, and the emotional anguish that you experience when you work with a coach who doesn't really know enough to help you get what you want.

That's why I say the size of your coach's equation matters. Let me explain what I mean by that. When you are coaching with someone, when you are absorbing their materials and when you're in their masterminds, when you're at their events, everything that that coach has done in their lives, up to the point where you're interacting with them, is part of the equation they are using to give you the content, answer your questions, help you move forward, and create momentum.

That equation matters, because the more the coach has done, the more life experience they have in the category you need, the more that they've actually accomplished in exactly what you are trying to do, the easier it is going to be for them to answer those questions for you to help you create momentum, to move you forward. Here's the challenge in the coaching market today, there are a lot of coaches out there with very shallow equations, they're out coaching and teaching things that they learned a year ago from somebody else. It's like a copy of a copy of a copy in the coaching industry today. We have a lot of people who are out there literally teaching the things that they've learned a year ago to other people. In fact, a lot of the coaches out there are teaching things that they really have never learned or implemented and had a hard time doing, so they decided they'd go out and coach other people to do it instead.

That is going to challenge you if you hire a coach like that. It's going to be devastating for you, because that coach's equation is shallow. When you ask a question, when you absorb their content, when they're helping you, you don't really know how much information they have, and whether you should follow that advice or not. When you're working with someone who doesn't have the experience and the knowledge to help you, you will feel it, it will make you apprehensive, you'll have a hard time getting things done, you won't trust their frameworks, and as a result you will fail. I don't want to see that happen. Because when we as entrepreneurs raise our hands, ask for help and then fail, we are much less likely to raise our hands and ask for help again.

So here's how you qualify your coach. Before you start working with a coach or a consultant or a service provider of any kind, ask yourself some questions like, what have they done in their lives, what have they been through, what have they learned, what are their early experiences? Unfortunately, altogether too often today a lot of the coaches out there are just marketing people who have learned an avatar that they can sell stuff to, and they don't really have experience in what they're trying to help people solve.

You know, when I went out looking for coaches for myself, I work with two right now, I work with Taki Moore and with Russell Brunson, when I went out looking for coaches I asked myself, "Who is the number one coach for coaches like me in the world?" And it's Taki. Then I said, "Who's the number one coach on lead generation and marketing and finding your market?" And it's absolutely Russell Brunson. So I work with those two guys. The reason is, their equations are deep. Russell's been in marketing since I think he was still in college and wrestling, and Taki has been coaching coaches for 10 years. I mean, I spent a few hours with him yesterday and it was like a masterclass in every time he writes something on the board I was taking two pages of notes when he would put a simple framework up, because the level of mastery and simplicity and delivery that he has when he's explaining complex subjects made it easy for anyone to understand, especially me.

See, my coach's equation matters to me intimately because I want to make sure that if that person's giving me advice, they're not guessing. I want to make sure that that person's giving me advice, I can feel their certainty; here's why, when I can feel their certainty, when Russell Brunson told me I should do the Momentum Podcast, when he said, "This is what you should do. People are going to listen to this podcast. You'll have thousands of subscribers. You will be shocked at how much attention this gets." I wasn't sure of it at all. But when Russell told me, I was sure he was sure, so we created this podcast, and as a result, we've recently crossed 200,000 downloads, and we had 2600 in a single day, over 2600 downloads in a single day.

Part of the reason that I was successful was, I was using Russell's certainty. Part of the reason that I love sitting down with Taki Moore is, he makes me more certain about what I'm doing than I do. That's what happens when you work with a coach that has the right size equation, who has actually been there, done that, been in the room, worked with people.

So another question for you to ask is, not only what have they done in their life, but who have they worked with? What type of people have they worked with? Have they worked with people, and this is key, have they worked with people who have been more successful than where you are right now? And how many levels higher have they gone? How many people above you have they worked with? How many people past where you want to be have they helped get there?

When I look at Russell, I mean, you just look at two things, one is he's running a $50 million company, a $50 million plus company, that has a valuation in the hundreds of millions, that he created in the last few years, which is unheard of, with no investment and no outside money. So if he can market well enough to do that, I know he can help me.

When it comes to Taki Moore, like who have they worked with and what have they done? Taki's working with hundreds of coaches around the world simultaneously to help them create momentum. If he can do that, he can show me how to do the same thing.

So for you, when you go out to look for a coach, to look for a consultant, ask them questions. You know, I show entrepreneurs how to grow and scale businesses. I've grown a business to $250 million plus, I've grown another five to over $10 million, I've been on the Inc 500 list at number 21 in 2011, in 2007 my wife and I lost all of our money, everything, in the real estate collapse, we were liquid millionaires within a year, and we did it by creating a fast growth company and scaling it to over $10 million. That is the type of experience that allows me to help companies that I coach scale the same way.

I'm working with Brandon and Kaelin Poulin at LadyBoss. We started working together just a few months ago. I remember one of the first things that Brandon said to me was, "Oh man, I just can't see my team getting past 18 people, all of the stress and the people issues and the challenges, do you ever get over this?" I remember telling him, "Brandon, not only are you going to get over it, very soon you're going to be in a place where you love your team and time with your team is going to create momentum for you, and you're going to be excited about going into meetings, and you're going to get emotional about what happens in them." He looked at me like I had two heads. But you know what? Brandon trusted me, and he used my certainty, and he applied our content.

And Brandon and Kaelin, like I don't want to take too much credit here, because they are two of the most brilliant entrepreneurs I've ever worked with. Kaelin has this effect on women where she gives them this belief in themselves, they use her certainty, and as a result they've touched the lives of over 100,000 women that have bought their products, that's three football stadiums full. So I don't want to take too much credit here.

But in the case of building their team, where Brandon felt like he never wanted to go past 18 people, we've only been working together a few months, and they've doubled the size of their team, it's well over 30 people now, they have an entire sales team now that's working on the phones, connecting with their clients, helping them solve even bigger issues, engage with LadyBoss in a more profound way, and the business as a result is exploding. And Brandon's excited to see his team, and he's walking into rooms and getting emotional over what they're achieving, and time with his team is giving him momentum. One of the reasons that he was able to get there is because he accepted my certainty, my belief, my clarity that that's how it was going to happen. My equation is big enough that I've seen that happen over and over again, and I knew I could get Brandon there.

So the question for you is, if you're considering coaching with someone or if you're coaching with someone right now, have you asked yourself these questions: what have they really done in their lives? What is their background? What is their history? Who have they worked with in their lives? How far does their equation really go? Have they consistently created results with people like you over time? There's far too many coaches who are selling the, "I used to be unsuccessful and then I broke through, and now I've got this massive level of success, and everything's going great for me, and I'll share it with you right now." But the fact is, that is a shallow equation and one that will probably challenge you if you try to adopt it and move forward.

I'm happy to answer these questions for people who ask me. When they ask what I've done, I let them know, I've been running businesses my whole life, I started consulting with the Fortune 500 when I was 21 years old, I've worked with some of the largest companies in the world, I've helped create billions of dollars in value for my clients, I've sold tens of millions of dollars in a single day, I've worked with some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet, and I've been up close and personal with billionaires. Not just once, not in part of my career, but throughout my career, I have become connected with and helped create momentum with the most successful minds on the planet. And today I help entrepreneurs who have multi million dollar businesses or businesses that are larger than a million or approaching a million, go to multi million and get into the eight figures and beyond, because it's an equation I know intimately.

When I sit down with an entrepreneur who is scaling a company, within a few questions I've already identified where their challenges are, where their blind spots are, where they aren't seeing what can be done next. By the end of a 20 or 30 or sometimes 45 minute conversation I can tell them where their biggest liabilities and challenges are, with a level of certainty and clarity that surprises them, because I've had that conversation hundreds of times. This isn't something I just figured out, this is something I've been doing forever.

When you go out looking for a coach or consultant, you have to ask yourself, do you want the person who just had some miracle thing happen to him? Do you want the person who's talking about how they were broke and then figured everything out and now they've got all this success and they're going to give it to you too? Or do you want someone who has a real track record, an actual history, who's actually done things over time that prove they are the expert you should be working with?

For me, it's absolutely the latter, because I want to be able to trust the person I'm working with, I want to be able to buy in 100%. I know that my level of commitment to a coaching program, to the advice someone gives me, has everything to do with the results I get, so I make certain that when I hire someone, I've checked the size of my coach's equation, I know where they've been, I know how much they've helped people, I understand who they are as a person, and I know that I'm going to buy into them fully.

So the size of your coach's equation matters. If you've been coached and you've had a hard time, if you've been struggling to create momentum, if you've found that it just isn't working for you, a big part of the problem is you might not be feeling that certainty that only a coach with the right experience and the right track record and the right results can give you, because it matters.

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