Gene Hammett on Scaling Yourself to Scale Your Business

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, host Pedro welcomes Gene Hammett, founder of Core Elevation and an expert in helping visionary CEOs build companies that thrive beyond their founders.

Gene shares his remarkable journey from losing a $3 million business and rebuilding his life through coaching to becoming a trusted advisor for CEOs of high-growth companies. Together, they explore the critical transition from founder to true CEO, uncovering the leadership blind spots, people challenges, and operational bottlenecks that often limit growth.

The conversation dives into scaling teams, creating leadership accountability, conducting tough conversations, charging what you're worth, and developing the mindset required to lead companies from $5 million to $20 million and beyond. Gene also reveals his unique paid assessment process, the lessons he's learned from coaching Inc. 5000 leaders, and why personal growth is inseparable from business growth.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/genehammett/overlay
Website: https://genehammett.com/leaders-in-the-trenches/

Transcript

Gene Hammett 0:00

It wasn't scary to me because I've seen it work in other industries. To if I go way back in time, I was the VP of sales for a digital agency when I before I became a coach, or before I became a full-time coach. And I brought that strategy to the agency. I did a $1,500 assessment and that changed everything about how we how the pro the sales process went. And we had a hundred percent conversion rate from assessment to retainer, long-term retainers. And my boss at the time was like, holy crap, this is really interesting. I've never seen it like this before.

Davis Nguyen 0:28

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swain, and I'm a business coach and a founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been a consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars each. In every episode of the podcast, you're going to learn lessons that took our guests years to learn, and you'll be able to learn that in minutes. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is going to give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro 1:12

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Gene Hammett, founder of Core Elevation, whose mission to help visionary CEOs building 100-year companies is rooted in a single, simple but powerful belief. Organizations built on leadership, resilience, and legacy outlast any single source dependency. Gene has coached 200 plus CEOs and founders from over 5,000 companies. Trained 500 plus managers in oh, just a second. The camera shifted here. Do you want to keep this camera? I was moving the microphone, so Okay. It just changed. I'll restart even. It's not 5,000 companies. It's the Inc. 5000. Okay. So from over no over from Inc. 5000. From Inc. 5000 companies. Got that right? Okay. Redoing. All right, let's get started again. Editor, start recording here. Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Gene Hammett, founder of Core Elevation, whose mission to help visionary CEOs build 100 year companies is rooted in a simple but powerful belief. Organizations built on leadership, resilience, and legacy outlast any single source dependency. Gene has coached 200 plus CEOs and founders from Inc. 5000 companies, trained 500 plus managers in leadership development, and hosted over 1,000 podcast episodes featuring 800 plus CEOs. Gene specializes in helping 5 to 10 million CEOs make the critical shift from founder to true CEO, empowering executive teams to lead independently while building strong teams, optimizing systems, and addressing people challenges that create friction during scaling. His feature talks, the big lie about tough conversations, and you can't scale your business without scaling yourself. Capture the core of his philosophy that business growth and personal leadership evolution are inseparable. Welcome to the show, Gene. Pedros, exciting to be here. Excited to have you. Okay. And I am, Gene, kind of a comic book nerd myself. Okay. So I loved Yorgen Story, the first edition, you know. So would love for us to rewind a bit because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you, Gene?

Gene Hammett 3:46

2010 was the year that I decided to commit to a new way of seeing the world and myself as well.

Pedro 3:53

And what drove you to make that decision? I'm curious.

Gene Hammett 3:56

You know, I think everyone has big moments that shift their lives. This was my biggest moment, probably ever, probably even bigger than getting married and having kids and all the things that we do to transform us. But I was running a very successful business that I started in 2001. And in 2010, everything hit a brick wall. And in one phone call, I lost the business. I lost $3 million. And it lost my sense of confidence and even who my identity of where I was and who I was where I was going. And that's what kind of thrust me into considering coaching and and following that path.

Pedro 4:31

Okay. Now let me ask you this. There's a shift that happens from at the st at the early days of coaching, right? I'm helping people and giving some advice here and there to I'm building a real business around this, you know? So can you walk me through what made you realize, okay, this is actually a business? Was it the first invoice, the first paying client, you know? How did that look like for you?

Gene Hammett 4:53

It was none of those things, to be honest with you. Losing everything, I had to really reinvent myself. So I I got certified, which most coaches probably don't. I needed it because I was broken and I needed to get beyond my engineering, my process logic brain to connect to the human side of coaching. And so I went through the certification process and I had a job. So I was I was a part-time coach, you know, kind of on the side, making a little bit of money. And that was not, it didn't really hit me until 2012 when it was my solo income. I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life. I'm gonna do this as my business, my sole income. Um, I mean, I have other businesses, so there's there's other streams of revenue coming in, but this is my purpose and this is what I do. And the reality of that hitting me in 2012, I'll be honest with you, it wasn't easy. I had to figure out how to sell, I had to figure out who I was selling to, I had to figure out how I would make a living from this. And it took me quite a few years to to put all that together. Okay.

Pedro 5:56

So can you also, because there's a lot of coaches out there listening to us, and sometimes they're in the part-time basis, right? And they're trying to make that leap of faith, trying to do the jump and all that. Can you walk us through how did that fell for you? Was it scary, right? And what made you actually, you know, realize, okay, I'm going full on in this coaching stuff. And I know you're trying to replace an income and all that, that happens, but whenever you make that decision, something shifts, right?

Gene Hammett 6:25

Yeah, I I will say I got pushed. So in my job, I helped them navigate through a merger. My my the company I was at was bought by another company and they said I was safe. Those are those are kind of interesting words, right? And about six weeks later, I went from VP of sales to basically a meeting setter. And they didn't need me to be a VP of sales, they didn't need me to be a sales rep. They wanted me to just set meetings. And then one day they decided to to lay me off. And that push was exactly what I needed. I was not financially free. I was not, I was, you know, I was behind. And my wife had actually quit her job too. So it was a very interesting time for both of us. And the commitment that I made, though, from that point there, I it that's what I needed. I needed the push. I I don't, it would have taken me a lot longer to make it without that. I don't know. Maybe things would have come out differently, but this is the this is what I had, Pedro. I got pushed and then I had to figure out how to make a living from this. And here's what I did I hired a coach to help me figure out how to build a coaching business. And I remember that first, you know, kind of working with her and getting clarity on my ideal clients and how I was gonna price things. And I I can't remember, I think I five times my pricing from you know working, coaching on the side and having income to it's got to be my sole business. And my first plan, I think, pay me 500 bucks a month. And so that was a very big shift for me. I I knew I was worth it. And I probably should have charged even more looking back because of the value I bring. But that was that was the real early days of those coaching years.

Pedro 7:53

I want to do a deep dive in the early days as well. And you mentioned clients, right? So after you got rolling, Jean, who are the people that kept showing up? You know, the ones you realize, okay, this is my tribe. Because in the early days of coaching, we're trying to help anyone, everyone, you know, just trying to make it work. But eventually you realize, okay, this is the people I can really help. You know, who are they?

Gene Hammett 8:16

What they end up being were marketing companies, web design firms, marketing agencies. And just to put this in context, you know, it was 2012. There were lots of marketing companies out there. And I kind of described them as to today's starving artist because they didn't know how to run businesses. They were creative, but they didn't know how to price, they didn't know how to sell, they didn't know how to actually run a business. They knew how to do work. And I will tell you how I found them was kind of interesting, I think. In the previous business, when I, before I lost everything, I was in sports tours. To give you context, my biggest event ever was the Beijing Olympics. And we took 8,500 people to the Beijing Olympics. And so over the course of the nine, 10 years of running that business, I had hired many marketing companies. And those marketing companies were very good at doing project work, but very bad at giving me an ROI. And I had probably spent half a million dollars on marketing over the course of about 10 years, which, you know, break up over years is, you know, it's not like a lot. And I'm not blaming any of them, but they didn't know how to get value. So my first set of clients were marketing companies to help them raise their prices, help them sell more effectively, and how to position themselves as the choice, not a choice in their their world of clients. Okay.

Pedro 9:32

Now let's pretend I'm one of those marketing companies. Okay. I'm your ideal client profile in this scenario. So, first of all, how would I be able to find you, Gene? So I can, you know, work with you. Back then? Right now, right now, marketing-wise, right? Uh let's talk. Uh, I'm the marketing company, uh, I'm I'm looking for help, the help you can provide. How would I be able to find you?

Gene Hammett 9:53

So, Pedro, we're going backwards. Uh, this is not my target market now, but for the sake of playing, I will do that, answer that question for you if you want me to. Do you want me to?

Pedro 10:03

No, we can we can run with uh so it started. Let's back let's back let's backtrack a little. We it started with marketing companies, okay? I got that. That was the early days. So who do you serve now?

Gene Hammett 10:13

We have continued to serve marketing companies, but we've broadened that a bit. About, let's say seven years ago, I gotta I gotta look up the exact time frame. I was working with two marketing companies and they made the Inc. 5000 list. And for those of those that are not familiar with the Inc. 5000, Inc. magazine puts out a list. It's kind of a marketing thing, but they have you apply and your growth rate, your revenue growth rate over a three-year period is captured. There's some rules behind it. You have to have at least two million in revenue. And there's some other rules, but in pri be privately held, all that stuff. But they track them from the fastest growing all the way through the top 5,000. And I had two clients make it, I don't remember their exact numbers, but they were in the top 1,000. Same year, been working with them, doing the same thing, helping them be the choice in the market, not a choice. And they were both pretty small businesses when I started, about a million or maybe even less. And so I was helping them do that. Now, my as I grew through serving those clients, they kept getting bigger. And I got fired a couple of times. Not for doing a bad job, not for for for actually being too good at my job, because they were like, we're overwhelmed with business. We can't catch up. So we need to pause the coaching. Or in some cases, they're like, we're overwhelmed. I went and hired some leadership coach to help me run my business. Now that was very disheartening to me to be let go of these, you know, people I considered friends and clients that were making a huge impact from the work that we were doing, and they were pushing me to the side. And maybe that's not their thought, but that's the way it felt. So I began to look at other Inc. 5000 companies, and it took me a while to make the real jump, but I got fascinated with growth. I had group driven a created of a fast growth company. We were too busy to even know to apply back in 2001, 2003, 2004, but we would have been in the top 500 based on my revenue. That being said, I started coaching companies, founders, CEOs that were in the growth mode, and they were doing 2 million, sometimes 4 million, sometimes more. And we helped them grow their business through the right leadership, through the right structures. And now my business, the perfect ideal client for me, is probably got about 15 or 20 employees, probably doing about 5 million, and they want to be at 10 million or even 20 million. We've helped about 30 companies get through the 20 million, and there's lots of ups and downs to get to that 20 million place in revenue. And that's what we're really best at.

Pedro 12:46

Okay. So in this scenario, today, I could be like a CEO of that is in a growth mode company between five to 10 million. Can we can we settle on that?

Gene Hammett 12:57

I I want to be a little playful here with you. We put CEO in quotes in that case, because most people call them CEOs, and I've done this before too, before they're even really have companies, right? Because they're the founder and because you know it's the top person in the company. They may have one other employee, four other employees, and they're the CEO. But here's the reality: they're operating like an operator. They show up to do work along with their team, and they continue to do that until they start to feel the heaviness of it. They they they work hard, they get up early, they work weekends, they work nights. All of those things are signals that what you're doing is actually becoming the bottleneck of your business. And that phrase comes up quite a bit. What that really means is you're the one limiting the growth of your business. Does that make sense?

Pedro 13:46

Perfect sense. It was a high-ticket sales closer for a business coach. And sometimes I could see a mile away the divorce coming because they were working 60, 70 hours. They were like deep in the weeds, right? Trying to be a perfectionist, not accepting others' people's work and trying to be on the upside. So completely makes sense from my perspective. Now, let's pretend I'm that guy. I'm the air quotes CEO, right? But I'm in the weeds. I'm in like working my butt off, grinding mode. And but I am in the uh kind of a growth mode, and I do want to step out of it. Now, how would I be able to find you? Let's back to my question, marketing-wise.

Gene Hammett 14:25

So the current way that we actually get clients now is through meta-ads. I didn't think it would work. And last year, about this time, is when we really started to try this channel. I can tell you what I did before that, and it was pretty simple, it was my podcast. Audience listeners would become clients, we'd get a few referrals, sometimes the guests would become clients. All of those things were steady streams of business, but it wasn't really predictable and it wasn't something we could just turn it on and turn off. And so moving into meta ads, Instagram and Facebook, we were able to put a message in front of not just hundreds of people, but thousands and thousands of people. I won't say it was cheap, but I will say it was able to filter through to find people that were that CEO, that were in the weeds, that that our message could resonate with. And then they would go, that's me. And that's what your messaging should do for someone. They should be able to listen to, you know, a minute or two minutes of something, not a big long, you know, they're not going to read a book of you yet, but get some snippet or idea that you understand them. And that's what we try to do with our clients. We understand the work that they put in, the hustle. We understand the stress that that causes. We understand the the heaviness that they have in leadership. We understand the people problems they have. All of those things we put into these videos that the audience would find. Facebook would help us find them. And we put them on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn never drew drew the clients that we needed. But Facebook actually was able to put it in front of a lot of people, and a few would raise their hands, and then that's kind of the where it starts. Okay.

Pedro 16:04

So let's say I'm still that guy in this scenario, okay? And I was browsing through Facebook and an ad popped out, and it was from Jean's company, right? And I like this seems cool. That resonated with me. I reach out, okay. We can speed up the sales process a bit. Let's say there's alignment, okay? And I understand you may have different offers. If you want to go with the main one, it's totally fine too. So my question to you is how does it look like work with your business, right? Yeah. And what are the potential outcomes I can expect?

Gene Hammett 16:35

So, you know, this is always refining as we grow our businesses. And the way it it happened in the early days was very different than it is today. But today, we have found something that I feel like really changes the game. And most coaches aren't willing to do this, or they don't know how, or maybe they're scared, they're scared, or for whatever reason, this is what it works for us. So those ads lead to a workshop. Some people might call a webinar, but that gives us a deeper sense of connection. I'm actually the one that delivers the workshop at this point. Would I like to hire someone? Yes. But right now, I initially enjoy doing it. And I'm I'm talking with them, I'm engaging with them, but we're putting it in the context of our content, our frameworks that we use to guide them through the challenges, the mistakes, and all that stuff. So that's deepening trust and whatnot. But the call to action, the first very initial thing is what probably most coaches would never do. We actually ask for a paid first meeting. We ask them to pay $497. We call it the clarity and courage call. It's 90 minutes with me. And usually I'll invite another coach from my team. There's a reason for that, and we can explore that if you want to. But that's the very first way to do it. The reason why we do this, and I learned this from my days of helping marketing companies, they were sending out proposals, and those proposals would go on to deaf ears. They would get ghosted, whatever, whatever you want to do. And so we actually came up with a paid assessment for many of those initial marketing companies. And I was looking for it for coaching and I didn't find it till about a year ago. And that paid assessment, my frame for it is I want to make it the most valuable meeting you have all month. If you think about this, it could be the most valuable meeting all year. Talking about your business, talking about your people, talking about what's getting in the way. You paid for it, so you're showing up differently. There's a phrase I used to use with my clients. When money exchanges, the relationship changes. They're no longer guarded about you're gonna sell me something. There's gonna be a discovery call that's worthless. It's real value. And so we do that in that 90-minute session, and then we're filtering to see if they're a good fit for what for our first real program, which we would call phase one, the CEO foundation. And then there's a phase two and beyond.

Pedro 18:43

Super interesting. A lot of questions. Okay. First one, I'm still that guy. Okay. I'm I'm sitting down in that workshop and you're like, okay, so let's have a discovery call and all that, whatever the paid assessment. And I'm like, huh, paid assessment. What's in it for me? I mean, I wonder what we can solve there, you know, in that meeting. Can you can you walk me through like a common problem or issue I may have that you you can kind of say, yeah, this we could potentially solve in that meeting, just so I can wrap my head around it.

Gene Hammett 19:14

Pedro, you said that you have worked in a situation like this. We don't need to name names, but you can you you were a part of this situation. And I know you're playing as the CEO today, but many times they come to that call because they're like, my team isn't getting the job done. They're not stepping up, they're not aligned, they're not going fast enough, whatever it is. They're blaming someone else. My job is to listen to it. My job is also to challenge it. It's not the team, it's you. And so in that call, I'm here to not cast stones at your team about them not stepping up or being talented or whatever it is. I'm here to go, how did you contribute to where you are? And most of the time, it comes down to a couple of key questions that I've asked and over the years. And I learned this in my coach certification. Who are you being that's getting in the way of what you want? And I do lots of varieties of that question. Who are you being that gets in the way of being the leader you want? Who are you being that keeps you from making $10 million? Who are you being that keeps you from whatever? And that question gives them a chance to they've never been asked it for at first, but gives them a chance to think about how they are showing up, how they are truly being that is got a grip on them. What we find most of the time that it's some version of I'm reactive and that's not good, like I'm a firefighter all the time, that's all we do, and I can't get to the real valuable projects. Or I am trying to control things, they're trying to micromanage, they don't realize it, it's a blind spot. Those two things show up so much inside of the work. There's a few others that show up regularly, but those are the two most dominating ways of being that people don't even realize. And when we share the insight around what has got a grip on them, and we discuss it, and we ask them to think about what they need to do to make that transformation, they're looking for answers about them, not blaming others. And that's the key. Okay.

Pedro 21:04

Now I'm gonna stop being the CEO. I'm I'm not that guy anymore. I'm curious more about the the coaching aspect to it right now. Okay. So, first question: a lot of coaches out there, they're hustling and they're having a hard time booking calls and getting people to even show up, right? And there's a lot of scarcity mindset around it, and you're charging for the discovery call. What would you say to those coaches that are like, I'm not sure if I should do that, right? My number is gonna drop, or even if they are, right? And was it scary when you you you actually started doing this way of charging for the discovery call? I'm curious about that.

Gene Hammett 21:40

It wasn't scary to me because I've seen it work in other industries. If I go way back in time, I was the VP of sales for a digital agency when I before I became a coach, or before I became a full time coach. And I brought that strategy to the agency. I did a $1,500 assessment, and that changed everything about how we how the pro the sales process. And we had a hundred percent conversion rate from assessment to retainer, long-term retainers. And my boss at the time was like, holy crap, this is really interesting. I've never seen it like this before. Fast forward to today, he's a coach to digital agencies and he uses that play over and over and over, and it works miraculously. So 16 years later, 15 years later, let's go back a year, when I was thinking about this strategy, I was like, okay, a paid assessment does a couple of different things. It only allows people in that are ready to make a change, right? You're not showing up to a free call. You're showing up to a call that actually we're working. And I make that frame very clear. I'm not here to sell you anything. And actually, I really hold that true. There is no sales offer in that 90-minute session. It is 100% of a working session. It is coaching. It is strategy. It is deep work. And that is why I think it's so valuable. I will tell you what's scary is what does it cost for me to put people in that call? And I've never really shared this with anyone. And I'll be honest with you guys, other coaches listening in, it costs me two and three times as much with Facebook ads as I charge for the client. And actually, if I think about the numbers, it's actually more than three times sometimes because it's not very predictable. And so you might be asked, why would you do that? Well, the 497 is a filter for commitment. It's also changes the way they show up. They're not there to be sold to. They're changed, there's they're having a conversation about what's really going on. They're not holding back. They're gonna go, all right, let me just tell you right now, Bob, which I'm making up, right? Fictional company, Bob is not getting it done. And they talk about Bob and they talk about whatever. And I go, okay, well, how are you leading Bob? How do you make sure how do you lead a turnaround this? And they don't know. They can tell me what they've tried and didn't work. But was I scared? No. Would you be scared to do this for the first time if you're a coach? Probably. But I just know the value I bring. And I know that I'll give this just a little bit of context. I love Rolex as a brand. I like the watches, I like what they stand for. And you can't walk in and get a Rolex. Did you know that, Pedro? You can't walk into the store and can't get a Rolex?

Pedro 24:04

Yeah, kinda.

Gene Hammett 24:05

So, how does that relate to coaching? Well, my frame for this is if you are selling a service that the client selects whether they want to buy from you or not, that's a frame at which we are typically operating from a coaching standpoint. And I've done this for years and years and years. I'm trying to sell them and convince them to work with me to get some value, to get some output, to get to make, you know, some promise. But what if I'm having a conversation and say, this is what we've worked with, and I do this call to filter to see if people are ready and committed. And if you are right, I'll invite you to work with me. So you're not choosing to work with me. I'm choosing to work with you. Just like Rolex chooses to work to who to sell to. If you want to go a little step further, Porsche does the same thing. You can't get a fancy Porsche, one of the top tier Porsche's, by walking in and saying, I'll write a check. You can't even offer to pay more to get it. They go, We have a waiting list, we'll call you, don't call us. And coaches, when they think about their business, they're running it like a Walmart. They just want people to walk in and select them. I didn't want to be at Walmart. I wanted to be more like Rolex and Porsche.

Pedro 25:08

People, more often than not, they want what they can't get, right? There's also that Facebook the start of Facebook, right? It was only by invitation. You cannot join Facebook unless you were in the Harvard uh type of club and people invited you in. And yeah, that's the human psychology. I see that. That's super interesting the way you framed it. Okay. Never seen someone doing it as such in the coaching industry. So really like it. Now I'm curious about another thing. You mentioned the marketing companies in the early days, they sucked at the ROI, right? Whenever you asked them, they were like, fumbling. Now, the coaching space also kind of abstract, right? So I see a lot of coaches out there also fumbling with that. So how do you navigate the ROI for your own coaching business if I eventually ask you about that?

Gene Hammett 25:59

I wanted to bring this up earlier, but I felt like I was being long-winded. So, Pedro, thank you for asking this question because this hits to the heart of it. And it's the same question I use with the marketing companies that I use with myself today. I don't, I don't work, I'm not a coach that coaches coaches that coaches coaches. That's just not my thing. I work with founders and CEOs that have real businesses. And that's that's my sweet spot. But the question that really unlocks this is who would you work with if you only got paid for performance? Let me repeat that question. Who would you work with if you only got paid for performance? Let's look at this in the context of marketing. I had a client of mine who had, you know, 20 different types of clients, lawyers, dentists, product-based companies, like e-commerce businesses and whatnot. And I said, Who would you work with? And he said, I would work with the e-commerce companies. And I said, Why? And he gave me some examples of the impact he made and how easy it was for him to deliver real value. And I go, why don't we get three more of those clients? And after that, the value was very clear and it was very quick, and he loved the work. And so he was able to replicate that over and over and over again. He ended up growing his business to 15 million. He ended up selling for 23 million. This is Ron Dodd, the co-founder of Visiture, for the details behind that. But it all started with that one question. Who would you work with if you only got paid for performance? I don't ask any of my clients to change their business model to get paid for performance, but I ask them to use that as a filter for who they would select. As it relates for coaching, for me, when I'm looking at someone, I'm looking at could they be an excellent case study for me? Would they be someone that I feel like is coachable, who wants to make this change and is committed to the work behind it? That is why I do the filtering process and the paid call because I want to make sure I only invite people that can and want to grow to that next level and be better leaders. And that's not everyone.

Pedro 27:50

I love the question, the the the performance because it puts you in check. It's like ask yourself if you if you can actually deliver, right? And then you start from you do it backwards, and you're like, not um will I? It's like more like into you. Can you actually deliver? And then you ask that yourself, and then you realize, okay, do I have a decent ROI or not? Right? Puts you in a mirror. I love that. Nice frame. Okay. Okay, appreciate that. I'm sorry, I'm getting to a deep rabbit hole here. I'll hold my myself back. Now I'm curious about one thing, and I want to shift gears for a second, which is future, right? So, where are you taking all this, Gene? Looking ahead, where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring even more people? Is there a next step you're excited about?

Gene Hammett 28:35

There is. And and I will give you just a little bit of context around this. I saw the business taking off years ago, 2020 to be exact. We created a leadership development program that we were really excited about and clients were loving, and they were, you know, a lot of companies go, yeah, we love to invest in employees, but most of them don't really invest. But we found something that they wanted to, their managers to get real coaching. And so I brought on some other coaches, delivered this because I delivered it at first, built the model, and then I had some other coaches deliver it for me. And that was a way to scale the business. Here's the truth. We did that for three or four years when the markets were good. The last couple of years, we haven't sold that many times. People say they will they believe in investing in employees, but they've got so many other problems and fires and challenges and economic concerns and fears that they haven't been investing in employees or themselves, really. They've just been on lockdown with when it comes to investment in themselves and the business. That being said, with this new strategy, it's been working. We've still got a long way to go. But the most recent client that has come on board has been a CEO that I have invited someone else on my team to coach, not me. This is the first time I've actually done this. It's my wife. So very close to home. I trust her, and I'm giving her the support she needs, but she's got her first CEO client. I've got other people on my team that can do that as well. And so the scaling part of this, getting marketing right is a very key part of that, but getting the ability, because I don't want to do a group program yet. I don't want to be a mini-to-one solution. I want to, I want one-on-one deep transformation because I want those deep case studies. I know most one-on-one, most group programs, not all, but most, don't care about the individuals and aren't holding them accountable. They show up or not show up. They just collect the money and they move on. And that's their game. My game for years and years and years has been transformation of those leaders. That is my purpose. Losing everything, deciding to be a coach, all come back to that decision in 2010. I want to make a difference in this world. And I do that before I worry about the money, the flow, the scale of my business. So fast forward to today, we keep in improving things in marketing and I see the future of building a business where I can have three or four, maybe five or 10 other coaches using our models and our frameworks. We will hand them the clients and they will do the work. And so we are looking for more coaches right now that actually have experience with CEOs, want to coach under some new approaches using our tools, combining with their experience and their tools, their intuition. And that's the next phase of the business is to do that and scale it up beyond where we are today. Interesting.

Pedro 31:13

Okay. Now let's pretend one for a second here. A little bit of a sci-fi. Okay. Let's pretend we have a time machine in front of us. You can step in into that time machine and you can go back when you started your business, right? Let's say you have the opportunity to give one business advice for yourself when you started your coaching business. What would that be?

Gene Hammett 31:34

Probably lots of things I would say, but this is the easiest. Charge more. Have the confidence to actually ask for what you're worth. And what you're worth is not dependent on how you spend your money. We've heard these different cliches around it. Don't make decisions for your clients because of the way you think about money. And as coaches, we should understand the limiting beliefs we have. But if you ask someone to double their prices, they might be like, oh, okay, I could do that. But what if they doubled it again or doubled it again? There'd you eventually reach some point of fear. And I know that some clients will not pay that. But when you select the right clients, when you know that you're getting an ROI, then go back to that question of who would you work with if you only got paid for performance, where you're selecting people that are primed, ready, committed to that growth. Hopefully those people actually have the money to invest in what you're doing, because that's a that's the other part of the formula. But I would say charge more. And if I had done that earlier, I don't know where I'd be now, but I know that I wouldn't have stressed as much when I was growing my business and had those first initial clients, because it's really good. Like, you know, you may think $10,000 a month is is like you make it. Man, I'd be I'd be stressed if I only had a $10,000 month. I'd be stressed at $20,000. I'd be stressed at $30,000 because it takes money to get clients, it takes money to run a business, it takes money. And so if I had one thing to go back, I'd say charge more sooner.

Pedro 33:01

I love that. Okay. Now, if someone listening wants to connect with your folder work team, and we're gonna have all the links in the description. Okay. Sure. But what's the best way for people to find you and connect with you?

Gene Hammett 33:12

I mean, there's a lot of things online. I've been doing this for so many years. I've got a podcast called Growth Think Tank. If that's what you're into, you can find the podcast Growth Think Tank. If you're into reading, I've got a bunch of books out there. One's called The Trap of Success, one's called How to Have Tough Conversations, and our latest book is Get Founder Freedom. And if you happen to be 20 plus employees, call it 15, and you really want freedom in your business, I'll give it to you for free. And all you have to do is go to getfounderfreedom.com. And this is the latest book that we've put out. But for coaches, if you're listening in, you probably want the how to have tough conversations. It is a playbook to solve people problems inside of businesses and organizations. And we're happy to give that away as well. So just reach out and we'll we'll help you find the tools inside that. So I know that's a lot of links if uh hopefully you find something in there that that that works for you. Okay.

Pedro 34:04

You know? Uh there were a few things you shared today that I I feel the urge to highlight. Okay. Let's start with the I had to figure out sales, pricing, and et cetera. When you start your coaching business, you hire yourself a a coach, right? So it's a powerful reminder back to your origin story in the coaching. Because I see a lot of coaches out there, they're passionate about the practice, but they kind of forget that they're using also a CEO hat, right? And there's business development, there's a billable hours, and sometimes they forget about that. So great reminder, point to you on that. Also, I love the fact that you kind of mentioned you the commitment bit, right? About money and how money changed the dynamics and almost everything, having skin in the game. That brings me back to my college days when we were playing Texas Hodom with my buddies and uh no stakes. And everyone's so courageous, Gene. You know, all ends here and there. And then you got a dollar in the pot and the game changed entirely. They're like, oh, wait a minute, I'm gonna lose money here, you know. So the the the keyword for money for myself at least is commitment, right? And I think you nailed that. Last but not least, I really like the frame about who you work with if you only got paid by per for performance, right? Which brings the question to yourself because a lot of clients are or potential clients, honestly, are thinking, can you can he deliver? You know? So ask yourself, can I deliver, right? And who would I like to deliver to also? Now, this is just my long-winded way of saying, Gene, that I appreciate what you do. I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today. Okay, it was great having you on.

Gene Hammett 35:45

Thanks for having me, uh, Pedro. Love to share this insights and love to help anybody that that feels like that our work would make a difference in their world.

Davis Nguyen 35:54

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business through six, seven, and eight figured years all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business, as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplesircle.com and see what we can do to help you and your business.