Complexity > Simplicity

You've heard me make the argument that you should simplify your business, but tonight I want to share with you why if you're not able to get help, if you're not able to scale, if you're not able to generate consistent leads, if you're not able to consistently convert, I want to make the argument with you that you are unable to do those things because your business is too complicated.

Alex Charfen: I'm Alex Charfen and this is the Momentum Podcast. Made for empire builders, game changers, trail blazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers, and creators of all kinds. Those among us who can't turn it off, and don't 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 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. Why 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. 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.

Alex Charfen: So, I want to share the message that I've shared with you before of simplifying your business from a place that I'm experiencing right now. I'm in this place, and I'm in this place where we've already shared. Cadey and I are taking a business past three million dollars, we're going through all the transitions and the challenges and the changes and the complexity that that brings. It's causing me to do two things. It's causing me to look forward down the billionaire code, and project and say, "Where are we going?" But, because of our business is literally coaching entrepreneurs how to scale businesses. It's also causing me look backwards and say, "How did I get here? What was it that I changed from before so that we've finally started building a multi-million dollar information product?" Because if you go back five years, we had a ...

Alex Charfen: So, it's 2018. So, in 2013 we had an incredibly successful real estate product that started to dry up. We transitioned. We started coaching in real estate. We built a successful business there because we had a really good database. We didn't like it, so we stopped doing it. Then I came up with this content called the entrepreneurial personality type, and I shared it in a few places. It felt like I had this world changing, game changing content. I was being told I did. In so many ways I absolutely believe I do. It was this description of this personality type, the entrepreneurial personality type, that when I shared it I got invited on the biggest stages. I got invited to speak with people who used to be just authors that I had on my wall. Now, I'm in the same program they are. I was on the same stage they are, or they have been.

Alex Charfen: What happened was that is made it feel so big that all I saw was opportunity, and all I saw was this feeling that this could be anything. I was getting so much attention for it, and the problem was I wasn't focused in on any one problem I was solving. I had this content called the entrepreneurial personality type that I would share with people and it would help them understand who they were, and they would change behaviors immediately, and it would make them feel better about themselves, but we weren't solving a specific pain. I had an improvement offer. I had a new opportunity to say, "Oh, the improvement offer ... It was brutal. It was terrible," because what I want to do was everything. I could see the entrepreneurial personality type framework, the book that I wrote.

Alex Charfen: The view of the entrepreneurial personality type is this momentum based being. I could see that being the basis for a ton of stuff. For a coaching program, and for an information product, and for me to go speak. We could have a recruiting firm, and we could be consulting at different levels of corporation, and you know what ended up happening? I took it and I did all of those things, but one after the other. They were complicated, and I didn't focus on any one of them long enough to really make something happen. I didn't put enough commitment into any one and kept things so complicated that we really didn't scale the business because I kept thinking everything was an opportunity. I wouldn't give anything up.

Alex Charfen: We'd do an event that was successful, and I wouldn't give it up. Then we'd have a small coaching product that was successful, I wouldn't give up. I was doing everything, and all over the place, and it was messy, and it was difficult to deliver, and it was hard to get help. I was having trouble with scale. I was having trouble selling. I was having trouble converting, and it was because we were literally the solution to just about everything. That I had so many different places we could apply the EPT in so many different ways that people came to us. Alex Charfen: Then in early 2017, I started working with two coaches. If you're coaches don't have coaches you should be suspect of them because they don't believe in their own product. There's two things that I do in my business is we coach entrepreneurs to grow and scale their businesses, and so I'm coached by someone who coaches coaches. He's name is [Taki 00:05:57] Moore. We sell our product, so I'm coached by Russell [Brusen 00:06:02], who runs quick funnels. Taki runs a coaching group called Blackbelt. It's incredible.

Alex Charfen: what happened was in early 2017, I connected with Taki and Russell, and they both told me to simplify. They said it loud and clear. When Russell said it I remember being with Russell in July of 2017, and he's so kind, and it said it with such love in his voice. I remember him just saying like, "Alex, I think you're just trying to do way too many things, man." He's like, "Why don't you just focus on what you really know you can do? Who are the people that you know you can help every time, over and over again, and you can help them on something that pretty much nobody else can? Narrow that down." So, I had to do soul searching because at the time we were helping everyone.

Alex Charfen: We had events where the avatar was the entrepreneurial personality type, but there was no one specific pain point, and the avatar was so broad that it was hard to find them all congregating in one place. So, I simplified and said, "What the effect we really have? What's the avatar I really like working with?" I like working with entrepreneurs that are growing and scaling massive opportunities. I know the personality type. I know what is going through their heads, what's in their hearts. I know because I am one. I know how to help them in ways that other coaches and consultants don't know how to help them, and we've proven it. I know what it is that they need, and what it is they don't need. So, I can guide them in both directions. I realized that's who I should be talking to. When I started talking to that person exclusively, very clearly it emerged exactly what we should do. Alex Charfen: Our company uses a very similar framework to solve just about everything, but where they're very effective is in growing and scaling businesses. We started looking at the frameworks we had there for planning, and for communication, and these were things that we had coached forever, and realized that's some place that there really isn't a lot of people out there coaching at all, and certainly not in minimum effective dose and making it easy. I started talking just to people who were growing and scaling teams. Within under a year, under a full 12 months in business. Because in our first year of six months we did about half a million, but in under our first 12 full months we were well over a million dollar. As soon as we simplified down to one deliverable, one coaching product.

Alex Charfen: I stopped doing everything else. I know I've said this a lot lately that when you say yes to something you say no to everything else, but you have to realize that when you say yes to something you also say no to all the other distraction. When you say yes to something you might be saying no to something that would really move your whole business forward. So, you have to be cautious. If you can't scale your business is probably too complex. If you can't get help your business is most certainly complex.

Alex Charfen: Whenever I talk to a coach or a consultant or someone who is running a service business an they say that they can't scale the business I tell them to go back and look at why it is they can't scale. If you can't scale the business is most likely to complex, and if you can't get help, it's because you're doing too many different things and you can't build processes around everything you do. Think about that. If your business is in the place where you're doing so many different things you can't build clear processes that can be repeated it's too complex. You can't get help. That's where I was.

Alex Charfen: There was so many different deliverables we had that I had to be involved in everyone in some way all the time, and I think that sometimes we get into a place in business where being that involved with so many different things makes us feel significant, but you have to slow down and say, "Am I really having an impact?" If you can't generate leads and convert your business is probably too complex. Because, once we started talking to business owners that had the right size business to grow and scale, that were high margin businesses, that were in fast growth opportunities, that wanted to build a team the right way, the couldn't turn it off, and that were excited about growing their business to at least eight figures and wanted to keep going we started converting a ton.

Alex Charfen: We started attracting a ton of leads. We started getting the exact right avatar in our programs. Our margins went up, and our income became more consistent. Now, it looks like this year we are approaching a three million dollar run rate. We might have a three million dollar year if we keep selling like we're selling, and we experience any kind of an increase. We could actually hit three million this year. That is incredible for us. It couldn't be more exciting. I think the only reason that we're actually doing it is because we've simplified. We have one deliverable. Our whole team's focused on it. We're making a massive impact with our clients. All of those things are adding together for our company to grow and to scale faster than it has in years.

Alex Charfen: When I think back to when Cadey and I put a company on the INC 500 list, we had one product, really one sales process, and one promotion all the way through until we were over 20 million dollars. Then in gross revenue total, cumulative not per year, but in gross revenue total cumulative. Then we added the continuity ... Sorry. We were over 10 million dollars in total cumulative before we added our first continuity product. Then we added a $99 a month product that took that business through the roof. That company ended up number 11 ... I'm sorry. I always want to give us a better ranking. Number 21 on the INC 500 list, but it was simple, and it was easy, and it was easy to execute, and we could build a team around it. We got help. It was easy to find endorsements because we created the same effect over and over again, and our testimonials were amazing.

Alex Charfen: At one point we have over 30,000 testimonials on our website because we made it part of the graduation that if you wanted to write a testimonial you could write a testimonial if you checked a box it would be included on our website. We just had a page where you clicked, and it was literally hundred of pages of testimonials with live links to people's pages on our site. So, people could out and say, "Did you take this course, and what did you think?" They would say, "Yes." The reason we were able to have that effect, and have that many testimonials, and have that much of a momentum, and all of it is because it was so simply that even I was able to execute it at the beginning. I was able to get it to the point where we could start growing a team like entrepreneur has to.

Alex Charfen: But, I did not follow my own lead when this business ended up having to be scaled down. Because the foreclosure recovery happened, we had to scale down this 12 million dollar, at the time, information product's business. I didn't take my own advice, or my own consulting, and I totally forgot that you just have to keep it crazy simple. When we finally did that a year and a half a go, or a little more than a year and a half ago, everything changed. The presentations that I used to go out and do where I would get standing ovations, and people would be so excited, but then question I would get most often was, "What do you do, and how do I contact you? What can you do?" Went from that to, "Hey. I'm an entrepreneur trying to build a team." I was doing essentially the same presentations, but I just talked to people who were building teams. Then they would come and talk to me.

Charfen: As soon as I quit ... Then the presentations that I was going around and doing. Before I was getting a ton of attention, but really leaving people with no next step. Now, become ton of attention with a clear next step and a growth curve. That's happened in everything I do because I simplified, and because I made it easy. So, the more you simplify your business the faster your business will grow. Alex Charfen: If you're ready to dramatically simplify your business, if you're ready to dramatically simplify your business and grow it faster than you've ever been able to with the right system and processes in place to help you strategically plan, communicate that plan to your team, and then surround yourself with the right people who put the right processes and projects in place, and then execute them to grow your business then reach out to us. Because, if you're ready to start scaling faster and not feel like you have to do it all yourself. Put a team around you that you can actually point in a direction, put them out in front of you, and have them help you get there. We can help. It's what we do, and we have a track record, now, of helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses incredibly fast, and we've helped some of the fastest growing companies in the country. We can most likely help you.

Alex Charfen: If you could the billionariecode.com you'll be giving the opportunity to fill out a short application, and talk to a member of my team. We will show you where you are on the billionaire code, and help you understand where your business is, where your business is today and put together a plan to get it to where you want it to be. So, go to billionairecode.com, connect with a member of my team. I know you'll find them amazing. We have an incredible team, and I look forward to seeing you soon.