Momentum Podcast: 568

Interview with Heather Wright and Our Coach Deanna

by Alex Charfen

Episode Description

My favorite podcasts to record are the ones where we feature our clients. Needless to say, today’s episode is no exception. I’m so excited to share with you this podcast I recorded with Heather Wright and one of our Coaches, Deanna. 

A little background…  

Heather was the first member of our newest coaching program, Catalyst. In this episode, you will get the chance to meet her, hear about her business, and the progress she’s made in just six weeks. Get ready, Heather has an incredibly funny personality and made this episode a ton of fun. 

Before joining our tribe, Heather really wanted to grow her business in a way that would provide passive income. She kept searching for that magic pill or solution that would get her results fast. After trying multiple “pills” and looking high and low for that quick fix, Heather came across our content. It was the opposite of everything she had ever heard, but it made her stop and think. Just maybe, our approach was exactly what she needed…

Fast forward to 6 weeks later in the program – Heather has already had a massive breakthrough. She realized there isn’t a quick solution, and that she needs to put the time, work, processes, and systems into her business to grow. She is now more organized, reduced her shiny object syndrome, has clear goals, and a crystal clear plan on where she should be spending her time on.  

Full Audio Transcript

This is the Momentum Podcast. People always ask me what's the favorite podcast I've ever recorded, and when I think back to my absolute favorites, it's always where we feature one of our clients and today is no exception. I think you're going to absolutely love this interview with the first member who's ever joined our new Catalyst Program. She's the self-appointed president of the group. I think you're going to love meeting Heather Wright, hearing about her business, the progress she's made in just six weeks and her incredibly funny personality.

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.

Heather, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today. It's especially exciting because you are the... Well, let's just call it what it is, the self-appointed president of the Catalyst Program that we recently launched a couple months ago. You want to share with everybody what that means?

Heather Wright: Yeah, so I was the first member of Catalyst... Oh, and by the way, I am just as excited if not more excited to be here. Thank you very much for having me. But yeah, I joined, I don't know, maybe six or seven weeks ago. I was on a call with Jeremy wondering like, "What's the deal? I listened to your podcast all the time and I want more." But I didn't know what that looked like and I had been on a webinar and it sounded really expensive and I wasn't sure. And so I was talking to Jeremy and he's like, "Oh, we just launched this product today, do you want it?" And it was in my budget. I'm like, "Yes, I want it." And then I was the only person there. And I'm like, "What is going on here? I guess I'll take maximum opportunity here." And yeah, I became the president and it's self-appointed sure, but everybody knows and follows that. If I've been really thinking about it, I would've been this self-appointed queen and ask people to refer to me as, "Your majesty."

Alex Charfen: Well you know it's interesting, Heather, you have a kindred spirit. Her name's Marley Baird and she was our first member in our Accelerator program. And she hasn't designated herself any title, but she takes it just as seriously as you do. And when she comes to events, whenever she asks a question, she just says, "For the record, I was the first person in this membership. So [inaudible 00:03:18] a question?

Heather Wright: That's awesome. And I've heard of Marley. Actually, one of the reasons that I got super interested in your programs is because of the podcast that you did with her.

Alex Charfen: Well, then see-

Heather Wright: Truly kindred spirit.

Alex Charfen: This is so cool. And you know what, now you're paying it forward and somebody's going to hear this podcast and then maybe come to us as well. So I want to understand a little bit about your business for everybody listening to have context. Can you tell us how long you've been in business, how many people on your team?

Heather Wright: Sure. So my business, we have a couple of divisions. The main division, the moneymaker of my business is real estate. We sell residential real estate in Des Moines, Iowa. And I have a small team of agents that sell business under me and it's a family business. So my brother is on payroll and he's an agent working with me. My mother is our assistant... Well, our mother is our assistant. And so then I have a third person on the real estate team and she's a past client, not family, but she's become family at this point. Then a couple of years ago we had... My husband is a little bit older than I am, and I don't know if you know this, but when you are in your late 40s, early 50s in corporate America, it is not easy to be employed in that-

Alex Charfen: That's brutal.

Heather Wright: ... area. So he had this job that was just killing him. And so here I am, self-employed independent contractor and I said, "Oh, let's just do something together. I've got all this extra time on my hands, let's do something." So we created another division of the real estate business and he's a graphic designer. So we were initially going to design flyers for real estate agents, which is adorable in hindsight because what a silly idea. But it has since evolved into a monthly membership for real estate agents, where we supply them social media graphics, done-for-you resources that they can print and use immediately in their business like a marketing presentation for their listing appointments, buyer, seller timelines, various things that they can use in that regard. So my brother, my mother, my husband, and Heather all on payroll.

Alex Charfen: That's awesome. I also have on this podcast today, and I just want to make sure that we make the introduction, is Deanna [Dochina 00:05:43], who's our director of coaching and content for our company. Deanna, a lot of times we get the question like how do you work with a real estate agent and a company that does video production like Marley? How is it that we can work with just about any organization?

Deanna: Because we provide framework. And when you use the framework, I mean, it's magical. You provide the framework and it's the planning process of going through and looking at what annual goals are, quarterly goal, and really providing the entrepreneurs with the tools that they need to conduct a really thorough analysis of their business and make decisions about what's best for them as they move forward.

Alex Charfen: I want to understand that Heather, but first, can you tell us what was going on in your business that caused you to come to us and talk to Jeremy?

Heather Wright: Well, so I really want to grow the membership for real estate agents because the real estate market, it has highs and lows. And I've been working on this for a couple of years now thinking, "Okay, well, when the market slows down for real estate sales, I'll have the membership to back us up and we'll have passive income to save the day for the whole family." Which is such BS, like is there really such a thing as passive income? I'm so young-

Alex Charfen: All the passive income I've ever made has taken a lot of work.

Heather Wright: [crosstalk 00:07:03] 40 pounds of passive income, right? It is nuts. And so I've really struggled in doing that, and I am a magic pill seeker. I want the silver bullet. If you've got snake oil, I'll try it. And so you actually sort of preach the opposite. That there is no magic pill, there's no silver bullet, et cetera, et cetera. And I thought, "Okay well, this guy is saying the opposite of what everyone else is saying and it sounds like he knows things that I can use and I want to know them too." That's sort of what made me come to you.

Alex Charfen: What drew you towards us.

Heather Wright: Yep.

Alex Charfen: There's so many options out there for somebody in your situation, Heather. And geez, it feels like there's 100 being added every day. How many masterminds and groups and coaching programs and one-on-one coaches and group coaches and online products and podcast and... There's so much for people who are growing and scaling. I'm truly curious, what was different about our product besides just that I was [inaudible 00:08:09] saying the opposite things?

Heather Wright: Star power.

Alex Charfen: Oh, really?

Heather Wright: Yeah. Because people think they know real estate, but they don't know. People have a tendency to talk to me about wholesale real estate and I'm like, "Whoa, what are you even talking about? I have no idea what you just said to me." So there are so many different kinds of business that you can have in the real estate industry and it's a little insane. And so I've experienced people who don't actually know what it's like being in real estate, that I was drawn to you because you have that experience. So I've been to conventions where people have said, "Get out of..." Oh, what's Howard's quote?

Alex Charfen: Get out of judgment and into curiosity.

Heather Wright: Get out of judgment and into curiosity. Great time for me to forget what the quote was. And so you, you say that and... I don't know, it was a couple of months ago this summer I heard you tell the story on an older podcast about star power and how you bought the company and then ended up shutting it down because they had made... I don't know. They built it on a poor foundation by making-

Alex Charfen: Accommodations.

Heather Wright: Accommodations.

Alex Charfen: [crosstalk 00:09:18] accommodations.

Heather Wright: Yes, exactly. And so I thought, "Well, all right, this guy has sort of an idea of what it is that I go through and I'd like to know more."

Alex Charfen: Here's what's interesting, Heather. Now that you're in the program, do you feel like it's important for us to have specific real estate knowledge to be able to help you?

Heather Wright: No. Isn't that interesting?

Alex Charfen: Interesting, right?

Heather Wright: Yeah, it is. And when Deanna mentioned framework, for anybody listening you might be thinking, "Oh, well sure, everyone has a framework, everyone has a recipe, whatever. These guys are no joke. This framework is mind blowing. I couldn't even copy it if I tried. It's impossible."

Alex Charfen: Well, tell us what makes it so mind blowing. How's it different than other stuff? Because you admitted to being a magic pill seeker. I just want you to know I commiserate with you. I'm very much the same way. It's been probably $1 million in 20 years of pill seeking that I've gotten a lot better at it. But what's different about ours than the other stuff that you've tried and maybe hasn't worked?

Heather Wright: It's methodical. I think that is one of the differences. You go through step by step by step, and what is the difference? A lot of people I think leave things out or there's maybe inferences in what you should do next and there's nothing like that. So this is the program, this is what you do. And there's two calls to ask live questions to the coaches each week where I could ask Deanna question or Luke, and I can ask in the group like, "Hey, what does this mean?" Now, you guys have your own language, which I'm still trying to figure out like [inaudible 00:10:57], waterfalls, and TIs. What? So it's definitely a system that is unlike any other that I've seen and it makes sense and it works. It's confusing a little bit at first, but the more you dig into it, rewatch the three-minute video explaining something, it all clicks and makes sense.

Alex Charfen: Yeah. Take us to that. You've been in this program six weeks. And we tell almost everybody who's coming into the program, we explained to them, "This is a program that's going to restructure your entire business. It's not a quick fix." Like you said, we say the opposite. We actually tell people, "This is going to be work. It's not easy. It's going to be harder than what you're doing right now. But if you want to have a business that grows and continues to grow, we have a program that'll help."

It's been six weeks. When was the moment or time or maybe something that happened where you're like, "Oh wait, this is actually working"?

Heather Wright: Probably a couple of moments. So almost immediately, maybe within a week, I stopped the bright shiny syndrome where the magic pill seeking sort of controlled itself and I wasn't easily distracted to another program and I felt like, oh, I need to keep moving forward instead of wanting to give up because there was not enough direction or whatever the case be in another program.

And so then I think maybe the real moment was this morning. Because yesterday, yesterday afternoon, a local real estate agent who's a friend of mine, she was texting me and she was kind of freaking out and she's like, "Oh my God, business is so slow. I don't know what's going on. What do you think is happening?" And I'm like, "Dude, same problem here." But that got me spiraling out of control to the point where by eight o'clock last night I was thinking, "All right, well, I'm a big fat failure and I should just close the business up tomorrow and go find a job." Then I think, "Well geez, I've been self-employed for so long, I'm completely unemployable."

So this morning I thought I should ask for advice in the Catalyst group. And I ended up not having to ask for advice because it's so systematized, I knew what the answer was going to be. Deanna, tell me if this is correct. I imagined that your advice and answer to me would be when I explained why I think I need to shut everything down because I'm a big fat failure and nothing is working right. We're not making any sales. You know that total meltdown mode? I heard you say, "Well, Heather, is this on your waterfall? Is this on your five pillars evaluation? Is this a priority that you need to be working on? Do you have an OTA for this?" And the answer to that was, "Oh, yes." I'm like, "Oh, oh, I guess I knew about this problem. I don't really need to freak out about it, so let's just move forward on fixing it."

Alex Charfen: It's interesting because as entrepreneurs... And you know what Heather, you just described something that happens to some... Wait, I want to get confirmation from Deanna. Is that what you would have said?

Deanna: I would have, and I would like to add that from an outside perspective watching Heather, I knew that something had happened when she commented in the Facebook group one day that she was just making OTAs for all the things and I was like, "Yes, it's worked. She knows exactly what to do." And because she had struggled a little bit through the process of understanding them, but once she got them, it's like the light bulb went off and she knew exactly what the purpose was and the intent was. And what's even better, Heather, and I don't even know if you realize you do this, I'm like, she's like a de facto coach. She's like in there helping the people into program. And it's really, really fascinating to watch.

Heather Wright: I'm waiting for you guys to tell me to stop it and then I'm going to pull the president card.

Alex Charfen: Here's what's really interesting, Heather. Like you said earlier, especially when we were preparing for this podcast, "I've only been in the program six weeks." But here's what's interesting. You've been in the program six weeks and I've seen some of the coaching you're doing. It's actually really cogent, really clear coaching. It's crazy how fast you pick things up and you're able to turn around and give advice. What do you attribute that to?

Heather Wright: Well, I'm just as smart as I am good looking is what I [inaudible 00:15:13]. But actually no, I think that it's because the system is so clear, that there's no room... Oh, then that's the saying in the group too that I can never remember, but there is no room for confusion. So once you understand... And I still don't really get the difference between metrics and milestones, but I have the formula that I follow. I just think, "God, why do we have to have these same words meaning the same thing?" But I get it. Interview me in another six weeks and I'm sure I'll have a different answer on that. And so I really think that that is the easiest part of sort of understanding the system because it is so clear and then being able to explain it to somebody else. Because there's really just no room for an inference of your own or confusion.

Alex Charfen: Yeah. The phrase that we use all the time is it's to be easy to understand, impossible to misunderstand, and you've nailed it. And in planning and communication, when it's easy to understand and impossible to misunderstand, you're looking at it through those two lenses, it creates crazy momentum, doesn't it?

Heather Wright: It does. Yes.

Alex Charfen: So it's been six weeks, I just want to ask a broad question, Heather. Give us contrast to before you joined the program to now, how have things changed, maybe improved? What's happened for you in the last six weeks?

Heather Wright: Well, I'm able to talk myself off a ledge. So that's important.

Alex Charfen: I that new?

Heather Wright: I've probably always been able to talk myself off a ledge when you're in meltdown mode, but this was faster. So it's improved for sure. I have very clear goals. I think I mentioned earlier, sometimes I have that bright shiny syndrome thing. And that happens to me on a daily basis, where you can't see this right now, but my desk is a disaster. And so some days I come into my office and work and I'm like, "God, oh, I should clean my desk today. Oh, I should work on this. Oh, I should check on Facebook. I should do all these things." And then I end up actually doing nothing or focusing on a new project. "Oh, that person's doing this." You know how it goes. And so having the very clear plan on exactly what I should be spending my time on.

You have your normal work, but then once a normal work is done, what are you doing to move yourself forward? I always go back to the 90-day targets and what is on my 30-day plan and that is part of the waterfall for the list, if don't understand what that means.

Alex Charfen: But it's game changing, isn't it? What I always share with entrepreneurs is this, and especially entrepreneurs like you. See if he can confirm this for me, Heather. I have this theory that entrepreneurs like the two of us, if we're confident in a destination, if we're confident in the path, if we believe in our plan, we will stand on the accelerator pedal and forget we have breaks. But if we're not confident, if there's some ambiguity, we'll start to procrastinate, we'll start to have behaviors we don't understand, we'll start leaking out challenging behaviors out of the side, we'll start doing weird things. And that's why for me, I feel like your entire life shifts as an entrepreneur when you're confident in your destination. Does that resonate with you?

Heather Wright: Absolutely. And I think the opposite of having your foot on the accelerator is doing a brake stand. Isn't that what it is?

Alex Charfen: Yeah.

Heather Wright: It's, what a relief to move forward?

Alex Charfen: Yeah. Because so many entrepreneurs, it really does feel like one foot's on the brake and one foot's on the gas and you're just peeling out the tires and don't know where. And so once you really trust that destination, it changes things.

Heather, is there anything else that you'd like to share about the program or your experience? What I'd love to do before you go is make sure that everybody can get in touch with you just in case anybody wants to know who you are and see more of you. What's a good URL or a good website or where should they go?

Heather Wright: Well, if you would like to get in touch with me, you can visit my website savvyagent.co. We're very tech forward, so there's no M, it's savvyagent.co. And you can send me a message direct from there, refer business, sign up for our program, whatever your heart desires. If there's anything I think that people should know about this program is that I think it's risk free. And correct me if I'm wrong here because I actually don't work for the [inaudible 00:19:45]. But I know when I was talking with Jeremy, I almost had to pry the prices out of him. I'm like, "Dude, what's next? Give me a price. Tell me how to sign up for this." And he laughed at me because that's his non-salesy way of selling. And-

Alex Charfen: We call it negative pressure sales. Our team's not allowed to ask for a sale. We don't do any high-pressure sales at all.

Heather Wright: For this high D person who loves to be sold, it was very annoying. So if you're like me, you'll have to ask for more information on those calls with Jeremy.

Then there was a 30-day money back guarantee. If you don't want to be in the program after 30 days, we don't want to force you to do it. And I thought that was great and I could tell that it was genuine. You guys really meant that. And so that's I really focused on, I want to make sure that in this 30 days that I get as much value as I possibly can to make sure that this is somewhere I want to be. Because I don't want to be five months down the road and realize I made a mistake. And I appreciated that opportunity to have that time to give it a run.

Alex Charfen: That's so awesome Heather, because you're right. It is fully genuine for us. The way we look at a coaching group is if you're not participating, you're taken away. And those 30 days are just as much for us as for clients. Like there's been more than once where we reached out to a client and said, "Hey, this doesn't look like it's working in the first 30 days." So we want people who we can really effect change with and help, and I'm so glad that you're one of them. I appreciate you being here today.

Heather Wright: Me too. I can't wait for even more change. Thank you very much.

Alex Charfen: Yeah. And I think now that we know that you're the president, you're going to be with us for the next year. I mean, we have to do this at least quarterly so that we can get updates.

Heather Wright: Perfect.

Alex Charfen: And then we just have to have better presidential music or something next time.

Heather Wright: Oh yeah. I was like, majesty me... I don't know. We'll have to come up with a theme song or something.

Alex Charfen: I'll talk to Karina and see if she can come up with a seal for you.

Deanna, thanks so much for joining me with Heather and for being here for the podcast. It was awesome. And if anybody listening is interested in understanding more about the Catalyst Program or understanding more about any of our coaching programs, you can go to billionairecode.com, answer a few questions from my team, and you'll have an opportunity to set up a call with Jeremy just like Heather did, and he will explain to you the options we have for you.

Thank You For Listening!

I am truly grateful that you have chosen to spend your time listening to me and my podcast.

Please feel free to reach out if you have a question or feedback via our Contact Us page.

Please leave me a review on iTunes and share my podcast with your friends and family.

With gratitude,

Alex

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