Cause For Immediate Termination

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 kind. 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 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.

Welcome to this episode of The Momentum Podcast, Cause For Immediate Termination. This is one that is so crucially important because if you're building a business, if you are building a organization, if you're an entrepreneur who's trying to grow something, if you're trying to attract people towards you, then this should be cause for immediate termination, and heres what it is. If anyone on your team insults your customers, if anyone on your team talks badly about your customers, if anyone on your team talks in a negative way about the movement you serve, you should have a zero tolerance policy about that. Because, in order for you to be a successful entrepreneur, you must love your market.

Now, I know that sounds crazy, but if you want your business to feel like you're never working, if you want it to be exciting, if you wanna be passionate and have fun with it, then you should fall in love with the market you serve. They should be as important to you as anything else in the world, because they are your movement. You lead them by opening a business and saying this is who I serve, this is who should come here, this is who I wanna work with, this is who I wanna help. You are literally saying that, that is the market that you take responsibility for.

You, as an entrepreneur, can never insult or never bad mouth or talk poorly about any part of your market because they are your movement. You know businesses aren't just a business that attracts leads. Businesses grow a social movement and if you do it right, that movement will grow like crazy. It will explode. It'll be huge, and the challenge is that so many people today think it's funny to casually insult who you serve. So many entrepreneurs today do it without even really thinking about it and if you do it, even if it's a joke, you're gonna end up with a team that does, and I team that doesn't fully support your clients and that will slow your entire business down.

Cadey and I were part of a coaching group a few years ago. It was highly recommended. A ton of people really spoke highly about it and explained how great it was, and I got into conflict the very first time we went to one of the meetings because the coach, who's very well know, is fond of saying he likes to attract slow learners with big checkbooks, and it's a joke. He thought it was really funny to say slow learners with big checkbooks. In fact, the way he taught the class, was as if he was teaching it to slow learners. We went to his offices four times in a year, and he taught literally the exact same class. It was insane. It drove me crazy.

But honestly, I checked out day that he said, hey I like to attract slow learners with big checkbooks because it was an insult to everyone in the room including Cadey and I. I knew that if the CEO, the person running the company, the thought leader of the organization felt that way, that that's an endemic challenge that they're gonna have throughout the entire organization, and honestly we felt it. We felt it, like there was a little bit of a dismissive attitude towards clients from some people in the organization. When I asked questions in the room, I definitely got dismissed. He did not like being challenged or have questions that maybe he didn't have the perfect answer to. What he really wanted was people who would just sit there and listen to him talk.

It's shocking to me that we are so used to being insulted as clients that tons of people still went and joined that mastermind, still in that mastermind and they hear that joke all the time. Hey, you guys are all slow learners with big checkbooks. For me, that was a deal breaker. I don't do well with people who insult their market. I don't do well with people who look at the weaknesses their market have, unless they're looking at them to help them.

It reminds me of when I was in an early, early days in public speaking. I don't remember what event I was at, but I was there with one of the really well known speakers in the speaking industry. I'll just leave it at that. It was somebody who was really well know, somebody who everybody in the room would know who it was. You would know the name if I told you. We were back stage. This was 20 years ago, maybe a little more, and the speaker made a joke. He said, "You know, going out there today I just want us all to remember only about 2% of people in the audience are gonna do anything that you tell them. Only about two out of every hundred is going to implement anything you say. Only about two out of every hundred is going to get any type of progress out of what we do today" and I was thinking like, man how depressing is that to even look at it that way. Then he said, "I call that job security".

Oh, I remember feeling like I got punched in the stomach. Here was somebody I respected who I had looked up to for a long time who I might even say there was times where I wanted to be like this person, and as soon as he said that, I got sick to my stomach. I was like how can he insult every person in the room and by job security what he meant was people are going to have to keep coming back over and over and over again because we're not effective the first time. We're not actually making anything happen. That's why in or organization, with out content, Cadey and I obsess, and when I say obsess, we aggressively obsess over the client effect we are creating. What type of an effect are we causing for that client? What type of an outcome are they getting? What type of solution are they getting? Are they actually adopting our products? Because, then you know you're having the effect on your market. Then you know you're actually moving them forward.

So, heres what you do instead of insulting your market. There are four parts to creating a movement. First you have to define and unify your movement, then you have to provide a plan, and then the next two are so important. You have to advocate for and defend your movement. So first you advocate for it. When you advocate for everything that your movement does well. Everything that your clients are doing in the world. What is it that your clients are making happen? When Cadey and I call primarily on real estate agents, we let the entire world know that real estate agents were going to solve the foreclosure crisis one home owner at a time, and I went out and advocated for them. I talked about how important the real estate agents were in the market recovery that we had from the mortgage crisis that started in 2007 or 2008. I talked about how they were the ones that were skilled. They had the clients. They had the ability to go out and help.

Then I defended them because in a lot of places real estate agents were being blamed for the market collapse, for the value increases, which was just ridiculous. It was a market condition. It was not real estate agents, so I went out and said hey, not only realtors not responsible here, realtors can be a massive part of the solution. I defended them against the people that were saying realtors weren't doing the right thing. In fact, I got into a pretty epic argument on Fox News with Bill Clinton's ex economic advisor, where he said, Sitting down with real estate agent was like getting a proctology exam" and on live television I said, "I think your choosing the wrong real estate agents because they're going to solve this crisis" and by doing that, even though I wasn't a real estate agent, even though I never had a license, even though I had only bought and sold property as an investor, I become the defacto leader of real estate agents by advocating for them and defending them against the people that were attacking them.

So, not only can you never insult your market, or talk badly about them, or come up with one of these lame sayings like I want slow learners with big checkbooks. Gosh, I wanna just like wash my hands after I hear that. Instead, you should be constantly advocating for your market. Sharing what they do, how they're causing change in the world, what outcomes they're creating and why your market is important. Maybe important than any other market, for you, because when you insult your market, it doesn't matter if you're joking or not, you put space in between you and the social movement you are creating.

See, every successful business is a social movement. Every successful business creates a membership, creates a movement, creates a change in the world that only happens through the adoption of your products by your clients. And so, if anyone in your organization ever insults your movement you have to talk to them and make sure that it never happens again. If anyone in your organization talks badly about your movement you have to make sure that they know that, that just doesn't happen in your organization. Once you've talked about it enough, and shared it enough, and told people how important your market is, the clients you serve are, if somebody talks badly abour your organization you should just terminate them because true believers are how you grow an entrepreneurial organization and true believers believe in three things.

They believe in you, who you are and what you represent in the world. They believe in your company, what you're doing and the products you're creating, and they believe in the market you serve and the outcomes they are creating in the world. The service they are providing in the world, the results we're getting them in the world, and there is no exceptions. When you hire a true believer, you will never have to motivate them. If you hire someone who isn't a true believer, you will never be able to motivate them enough and the way to pick them off fast is if somebody's insulting your market, if they don't understand how important the people you serve are, if they don't come to work every day committed to making a change in their lives, then you should let them go somewhere else. Redeploy them somewhere else where they can feel that way.

And here's the big one. If you as the entrepreneur, don't come into work every day in love with your market, excited to serve them, ready to help them, let's remember, love is putting someone else's self interest above your own. When you're an entrepreneur serving the market, you will do that over and over again. And so, if you don't love your market, if you're not passionate about them, if they don't make you excited to go to work every day, then you have to make a change. I went through this.

In 2007, Cadey and I launched a massive real estate product called the Certified Distressed Property Expert. It was a course that allowed real estate agents to work with home owners and avoid foreclosure in many cases. The organizations I was working with to put that course out there were, initially it was just real estate brokerages and real estate agents, but then we partnered with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and the US Treasury and the FHFA, Fair Housing Finance Administration with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, all in Washington. Then we partnered with Bank of America and Citibank and Wells Fargo and Chase and then we partnered with all the major brokerages. First Re Max then Century 21 then Prudential then we partnered with [inaudible 00:12:37] Williams regionally, but not with their corporate office necessarily, but all the majors we were working with.

I loved it because as a consultant, whose worked on multi million dollar deals my whole career, that was a high enough level for me to work at where I loved growing The Certified Distressed Property Expert because I was serving this massive market and I was working with big organizations to collectively partner together and solve the foreclosure crisis.

In 2011 and 12, when we started transitioning to coaching business, it was really hard for us to just stay in real estate. In fact, we tried. We grew a pretty large real estate coaching business. We had hundreds of customers paying us $1,000 a month to help them grow their real estate businesses, but I just couldn't do it. I'm not saying I don't love real estate agents because I have clients today that are, but I didn't love the market. You know, the top real estate agent in the entire market does about $400,000,000 a year in sales of real estate. That means they're about a $12,000,000 a year gross business, best case, and it was just way too hard for me to get excited about businesses or a business market that capped out that early.

There were some brokerages that I worked with, like Fidelity National Title, a huge multi billion dollar organization, like that was fun for me. That was exciting for me, but to work with someone where if we helped them become number one, they only had a $12,000,000 business, I felt completely constrained and trapped by my market. I didn't insult them. I didn't talk badly about them, but we made the decision that we had to expand beyond it. We had to make a pivot and get out of real estate and start working with business owners.

And now, I'm back where I feel comfortable. I'm working with a company, Alex and Layla Hormozi who run Gym Launch, we just had an amazing half day with them this week. We started working with them in July, where they were doing a few million dollars a year in run rate, and this month, they will have eclipsed $10,000,000 a year in run rate business and their sales numbers are in the 20 and $30,000,000 a year. That gets me excited. They're going to have a $100,000,000 company or more and I can help them through that entire journey, so I had to shift to a market that I love to a market that I care about and to a market that gets me excited to serve them.

So, if you are the entrepreneur in charge and you find yourself insulting the market, that is a red flag that you're in the wrong place because you should love your market. If things go well, you're going to grow old together. And if you don't love your market, and sales go well, you're going to grow old a lot faster. You only have one shot at this, growing a market. Make sure that you choose the one that actually makes you want to get up every morning, want to serve, want to do everything you possibly can to move forward because growing a business as an entrepreneur is the most difficult thing you will ever do, but when done correctly, it is also the most spiritual thing we can do in our life times. It will grow you as a human being more than anything you've ever done.

So, when it comes to building your business, advocate for your market, defend against your market, do not ever insult your market, and don't let anyone around you do the same because that is how you attract the people who you want to serve, the movement who you will create and the change you will make in the world.

Thanks for being with me today. I appreciate you more than I can possibly explain and I absolutely love the entrepreneurial market, the people who are doing new and creating new outcomes in the world, and like Alex and Layla helping massive amounts of people grow businesses, change their lives and make the world a better place, and so thank you and I love you all and I appreciate you for being entrepreneurs and for taking the road less traveled and for committing to making your outcomes in the world, regardless of what stage your at right now, even if you're just thinking about it. Even if you're just listening to this because you think you might be an entrepreneurial personality type, let me confirm for you that you are because the question indicates that you should be here.

And if your mind asks the question, I want to confirm for you that the answer is yes, you are an entrepreneur. You can do this and you will move forward because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent positive human evolution and we always will be.

Thanks for being with me here today. If you haven yet, download my book The Entrepreneurial Personality Type. It may tell you more about yourself than anyone ever has. You can go to freemomentumbook.com, freemomentumbook.com, get a copy of The Entrepreneurial Personality Type and let us know what you think.