How Experts Can Win More Clients Without Hard Selling with Bryan Mcdonald

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, our guest is Bryan McDonald, partner at On Purpose Growth, where he helps entrepreneurs, consultants, and fractional executives build sales systems that create predictable revenue growth through trust, positioning, and authentic relationships rather than scripts and hard closes. With more than two decades of business development experience, Bryan shares the story of leaving corporate sales, “burning the ships,” and building a business focused on helping technical experts and service professionals who are exceptional at their craft but uncomfortable with selling. We explore differentiation, client-centered sales conversations, pricing and self-worth, building confidence through action, why objections are often a symptom rather than the real problem, and how simplifying your business can accelerate growth. Bryan also shares practical lessons on focus, consistency, delegation, and creating a business that gives you more freedom to think strategically and serve at a higher level. Whether you’re a coach, consultant, founder, or expert transitioning out of corporate life, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you sell more naturally, charge with confidence, and build a business that grows with purpose.

You can find him on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcdonaldbryan/
https://paidwhatyouareworth.com
https://www.onpurposegrowth.com/
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ6dazIdykKP07VAe2lE9CwPGLe-adYWl&si=vn6ILmNTd9nEcVgC

Transcript

Bryan Mcdonald 0:00

You're more likely a prospect of mine if you've been in business for a year or longer versus somebody who's been less. Do the people that work in the business uh excuse me, do people working with me that are less than a year starting on a business? Yes, absolutely. But the the uh um the conversion rate of somebody who's been a year or greater goes through the roof, right?

Davis Nguyen 0:24

So I was able to change my business development, my the uh 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 Swin, 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 to scale 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 gonna learn lessons that took RS 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 gonna give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro Stein 1:13

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Brian McDonald, who is a partner at Unpurpose Growth, where he helps entrepreneurs, consultants, and fractional executives build sales systems to predictably scale revenue. With over 23 years in business development, he's known for a client-centric approach that swaps scripts and hard closes for understanding problems and building trust, especially with technical experts moving out of corporate roles. Welcome to the show, Brian.

Bryan Mcdonald 1:55

Hey, thanks for having me, Pedro. This will be fun. I'm looking forward to it.

Pedro Stein 1:58

Yeah, excited that you're here, man. Uh side note, I was a sales guy. Okay, so I love talking with another salesperson. Yes, 100%. Uh we can get into that down the road. But first of all, um, I'm kind of a comic book nerd myself, Brian. Gotta I gotta admit to you. And I loved the origin stories, you know, the first edition. So before we get into what you do now, I'm curious how this all actually started. You know, so what was going on in your life when selling became more than just an idea and you start building your business, you know?

Bryan Mcdonald 2:31

Well, actually, uh my uh where on purpose growth started, my business partner, uh Jeff, I was actually buying something from him when he brought the idea to me. So I was in a uh uh I had a sales position. I was selling B2B uh small and mid-market companies. So I was in a focus group of uh up to 12 people who were um referring each other business. We would meet half a day uh a month, uh, talk about other opportunities, talk about how we can get each other get each other into uh opportunities. We talked about sales, and uh and he's like, hey, I want to start a business consulting entrepreneurs how to grow sales. And I've seen you in the room, you're a great coach, and and you you seem natural. This we should we should start a business. And at the time, I think my my wife was pregnant with one of our kids, and I was like, ah, like, I don't know if this is great timing. Um, but ironically, at the same time, uh, somebody I knew in my network uh approached me and said, Hey, I'm leaving banking and I'm gonna go to uh financial services. I want to hit this out of the park, so I want you to teach me everything that you know. Uh, I want to hire you. And he basically paid me $50 a session. I met him once a week uh at his office, and I just told him everything that I knew when we talked about sales, and in about six months, he was top three in every metric that they kept and on his way to make a half a million bucks. So now that's correlation, not causation, right? Like he did the work. So as Jeff and I were talking about this, that was happening, and also like the the company I was working for, they the owner had changed my comp plan and in my favor, and it clearly wasn't my favorite he was doing a lot of weird things, he was talking about selling the business, switched paying me from one uh two times a month to one times a month and never told me. So that was an interesting conversation with my wife. So it's like all these things came together, and I just realized, you know, and I and I I also went on a kind of around or close to this time. I went on uh a men's weekend and I and I got encouraged and pushed to you know follow my passions and dreams. And I was like, hey, this stuff doesn't feel like work, I'm just gonna say screw it and do it. So I basically quit my job without a paycheck in the first six months I made, or for uh in the first year I made six figures, right? And uh it's been awesome from there, right? Uh so it was uh I didn't grow up thinking I was gonna do this, I didn't plan on doing this. It was an idea that just I was as a buddy Jason of mine says, omens happen. All these omens were happening. I'm like, hey, I should go in this direction, and uh luckily I did because um I talked to my wife and uh about this, and I'm like, hey, like this guy that I'm working for is lying to me, he's doing all this stuff. Like, I don't want to hitch our family's kind of future on this guy's wagon. And she's like, All right, just go for it. And luckily I did, because about three years later, that guy sold the business, and and uh the only people that were kept were him and the president of the company, so I would have been out of a job anyway.

Pedro Stein 5:58

So it sounds like it's risky, but it's the opposite. If you stayed there, that will be risk, right? Because then you would be at the hands, and then the decision making of that guy that was kind of wacky. So, okay, yeah, that's interesting.

Bryan Mcdonald 6:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pedro Stein 6:13

100%. It was crazy.

Bryan Mcdonald 6:16

It was scary, but the best thing that I ever did.

Pedro Stein 6:20

So let's let's talk about the scary part because the podcast is called Success Sleeves Clues. We talk with a lot of a lot of coaches, you know, entrepreneurs. And there is one point that I really love digging in, which is, you know, when you make the leap, right? That part, which is almost like an identity shift. One day you're like in a birthday party, and Mackie asks you, and you're like, hey, what do you do for a living? And you're in the middle of building this, right? And you're unsure because you're like, not sure if this is gonna really land or you're gonna back to the job market, whatever. So can you walk us through the importance of having Jeff? That is one question I would love to ask you, the partner, right? And how did that felt, you know, and the early days when you guys launched it? You like, did you have the the certainty that this would actually be a success?

Bryan Mcdonald 7:12

Well, I'll say this. I as uh the expression says, I burnt my ships. So there was no going back. That wasn't an option. I was just gonna figure it out, right? Like, so it was it was good having him as uh a support that that ultimately he was there, but it would have happened without him. That just helped out. We we we kind of looked at each other and said, hey, we we want to do this, we would just rather do this with other people. Like, even though it was he brought me the idea, once he brought me the idea, I was like, hey, that's kind of a direction I want to go, just my kind of personality. So it was good, it was good to have him there to bounce somebody off of. I would say, in the in the aspect of not just not having a partner, but having somebody early on to share ideas with, bounce things off of, check in with things, that was super helpful, kind of like having a coach, you know, myself, uh, because I needed that sounding board because I'm not bringing ideas and things home to my wife. Not that she is is bad. I get it. At the time she was a school teacher, right? She wasn't an entrepreneur, right? Like she's got a box. I don't think the box exists, right? Like this, right? So it's just it's just personality style. So I I I take risk, she minimizes risk, right? Like it's just it's a good yin and the yang. Um, so that was great. And we it allowed us also to focus on our lanes. Like he runs the consulting side of the business, I run the coaching side of the business, but really I'm the face of the business in the marketplace. And he's kind of the one in the background who is the mad scientist, you know, refines things, puts things together, say, hey, here's how we're gonna, here's what I want to teach people on positioning, here's what I want to teach people on sales process. Like I get it all, but he finds is the nuances um and it allowed me to stay in my lane, and I think that was important too is is being who I was, what I wanted to do, and staying focused in that lane, I think uh led us to success. And one thing he said, I'd say if he's here, he's I'm just very consistent and uh and reliable. And I think that's important when you're growing a business, is uh when you when consistency falls off, your results fall off, right? Consistency also leads you to what's the next change because it gives you the next the data point to tell you like, hey, this has been happening, here's a pattern in this consistency, let's change based on that pattern, right? Like I'll like as an example, I learned along the way you're my prospect. You're you're how do I say this? You're more likely a prospect of mine if you've been in business for a year or longer versus somebody who's been less. Do the people that work in the business uh excuse me, do people working with me that are less than a year starting a business? Yes, absolutely. But the the uh um the conversion rate of somebody who's been a year or greater goes through the roof, right? So I was able to change my business development, my the uh my approaches to things based on that. And that kind of goes back to something uh that I said earlier in your question is what I noticed about the people who are a year or less, many of them didn't burn their ships. That's a problem. That's a problem. You can't be a master to two things, it's almost like there's no plan B, right?

Pedro Stein 10:57

It's only plan A. Let's let's hit it, or else you're gonna in the first obstacle, you're gonna tend to go to comfort zone and you're gonna leave the plan A and you're like, oh, I always had this going on for me, right?

Bryan Mcdonald 11:10

I love that.

Pedro Stein 11:11

Yeah, right.

Bryan Mcdonald 11:12

I mean, it's people. If I if I learn that you're interviewing when you're in my sales process, if I learn that you're interviewing for jobs, I'm like, hey, we're not doing this anymore. You can't pay me money. I'm not gonna let you, right? Not let you, but you know what I mean, right? Like, hey, like somebody else can take your money. I'm not. Because this doesn't necessarily work well if you if you're got one foot in and one foot out, because it's gonna be hard.

Pedro Stein 11:39

Yeah. Now, one thing that uh made me smile is like you're married to a school teacher, right? And like myself, I am too, and I'm a business owner, so you're like telling me my story while I'm in Brazil, and you're like, I cannot go home and talk about stuff, and I'm like, oh, exactly how that looks like here in my household. Now, uh, I'm curious about one thing, right? Because you've been what 13 years in the game with your business, right? On purpose growth, and there is a journey by itself. Like in the early days, I'm not sure if that changed, but in the early days, uh, for a lot of consulting businesses, coaching businesses, and all that entails, we are trying to help everyone, right? But eventually we end up attracting a certain type of individual, right? We sharpen the blade, we we we learn from our mistakes. So, my question to you is first, the evolution of who you started serving, and who do you serve now?

Bryan Mcdonald 12:40

Yeah, that's a great question. I told you a little bit, I kind of alluded to it, but uh just in the the last answer. Early on, we were coaching salespeople and entrepreneurs, and I realized about six to twelve months into it, my people were the entrepreneurs, right? Somebody who was uh leading the business and had to sell and had to deliver, right? So founder-led sales organizations, then and the the maturation of that, I think if you want to call it, the refinement of that actually turned into people who were have some deep expertise in something, right? They typically uh found that expertise in corporate America and now they're utilizing that skill, love, or expertise of something uh uh out in the entrepreneurship world, helping small and medium-sized business owners. So they didn't want, they didn't just like have an idea and decide to go start a business. They actually really understood something and said, I'm gonna go give this to the world. So, like an example is a recent client who was in the the aviation, he was an engineer in the aviation industry. He left corporate America and one of the big US aviation companies and and started a uh or bought a um an engineered, highly engineered product that's sold into the aviation industry. So we really understood he could take his skill and use it in that business. And those are my people, right? They're really, really good at the thing that they do, but sales is kind of this foreign thing to them. They've never done it, they've uh they're very unfamiliar with it, they they they don't want to be salesy, they they don't want to be a salesperson, and they love ultimately my non-salesy sales approach. And uh, and then that turned actually into niches, right? That profile is a through line in a bunch of different areas. One of them is uh EOS entrepreneur operating system. I've worked with over 43, 44 EOS implementers here in the US um who are selling some specific expertise, but have a hard time positioning themselves, talking about their business, building relationships, and and that's just that's my cup of tea.

Pedro Stein 15:12

Okay. So let's do a quick game of pretend. Let's pretend I'm your avatar. Okay. I am the guy. Uh I have like I love the craft. Let's say I I really know I my stuff, right? I have deep expertise in something, as you put it, but I I am terrible at sales. I I get weird inside when I think about sales because I was burned in the past by bad sales wrapped, was pushed into stuff I didn't want to, and I blame them, right? Not me, but I'm blaming them. Okay. So I'm that guy. Um, so first of all, how would I be able to find you guys from you know on purpose growth marketing-wise?

Bryan Mcdonald 15:57

Oh, uh uh, I do something similar to this on uh on a weekly basis. Uh I've got a podcast slash uh live show on LinkedIn, and um I've got a marketing system around that. Uh uh, we've also got a sales community uh that that I promote and I do a ton of speaking. I I focus on getting in front of that profile as much as possible. I even partner with people that have uh have other communities. So there's a a uh a value growth community uh where there's a bunch of consultants selling uh mid-market uh how to grow the value of a mid-market business. I partner with them where they bring me in, I do some talks, I help them out at their conferences. Uh like I just embed myself wherever you are. Did I answer your question? Is that what you're doing?

Pedro Stein 16:53

Well, first of all, I'm feeling the pressure already of fellow podcast host, right? So take it easy on me, man. Okay, I I I can sense it. Uh no, I'm just kidding. Okay, so let's pretend we're still in the game of pretend. I listened to one of your podcasts or was one of your your speaking gigs, right? Or even was referred to work with you, right? They're like, hey, you gotta meet those guys, they're awesome. Anyhow, I reached out, okay? And we can speed up the sales process or not. You can add a side note. Um, but we could say there's alignment. You guys can see that you can help me. I see that you guys can help me, you know. So we're aligned. Um, my question to you is can you walk me through how does it look like to work with you guys? You know, a little peek behind a curtain, just so I can understand a little bit on the structure, I'm being on boarded. How does that look like?

Bryan Mcdonald 17:50

Oh, that's a great, that's a great question. So uh we go through the same framework with everybody. We believe that um the most important part to help anybody with any level of familiar familiarity with sales is how you position and differentiate yourself in the marketplace. Everybody goes through an exercise with us one-to-one, whether it's two, three, maybe four sessions, where we figure out how you position yourself to your ideal client profile in a way that matters to them, not what you sell, what matters to them, how you're different from your competition. So you can be in the room with full of your competition, and your prospect can tell the difference between you and them, and then help you develop what we call a mafia offer, an offer that is hard to refuse, right? Uh, and and and we get directionally right, right? It's not you you you kind of alluded to to something earlier. It's like, hey, uh, who you work with and what you do, how did that evolve over time? It evolves for everybody, right? We can get directionally right. So we get directionally right on that stuff, and then what we help people do is figure out uh a sales process, an action plan, and then we help you implement that action plan so that along the way, as you're working with us, you're going out there, taking action to sell, coming back, going, Hey, here's here's what I did to find referrals or referral partners. Here's the how I found what I did to find to put myself in some rooms, and then uh, you know, refining that so you get some throughput of of opportunities. And once you start getting opportunities, it's how do I help you take those people through the sales process so you can take somebody end-to-end. You go from strategy to sale, and I make sure that you can repeat it so you don't need me anymore. It's about momentum, not about and momentum and results, not about knowledge, right? As much as I love talking about myself and my philosophies, it does not matter if you can't sell something. Okay. And the kicker is our mafia offer is if you don't replace the investment in the in the coaching by the end of the time frame we agree, we'll coach you for free until we until you do. Because I know it works. You just got to take action.

Pedro Stein 20:24

So basically, what you're telling me is I should send a dead horse to someone else's bed, right? That's a mafia offer. I'm I'm getting it. Okay. I got the reference, chill. Okay. So I'm I have a couple questions for you. Okay. I have one because I was in sales, I'm a high, I was a high-ticket sales for a business coach, okay, for a couple weeks. So there's that. And um, but I'm still the ICP. I'm still you're an amateur here, okay, in this game of pretend. So I have a question for you. So I'm the amateur, I'm looking at those TikTokers, YouTubers, influencers, and they have this, you know, speed-up uh objection handling, then they say X and someone says Y, and they get the sale because they said something. It sounds to me it's more of a game of you know, uh having the right lines at the right moment than trusting, like the way it's presented to me, right? So, what would you say to me? Like, I'm the ICP, like, is this really what's happening? Because when I'm trying to use those tactics, it really doesn't land. What am I doing wrong here, Brian?

Bryan Mcdonald 21:34

Because it's not landing for a couple of reasons. One, it's not you. Prospects are picking up that you're repeating something that you possibly don't believe in, and it doesn't sound like you. I tell clients, like, hey, I'm gonna give you the script in the beginning, but we gotta make it your words and how you do this as fast as possible. Because we have a saying mindset trumps technique. 100% of the time. So you can screw up the technique or the objection handling. I'll get back to that in a second, and have the right mindset, and it'll work because intent matters more to a prospect. Communication is only seven, seven percent, something like seven percent words. The other, the rest is tonality, body language, and something I call mood. Um, so they're not picking up your the words, they're picking up your hesitation or your non-belief or your inauthenticity in repeating those words. You actually don't believe it. And when it comes to objections, if you're getting objections, you messed up way ahead of time. If you're with your ideal prospect, you should be bringing up objections before they do, so you don't have to handle one.

Pedro Stein 22:52

So the demo is more important, like the demo. When I mentioned the demo, I'm like, then talk it's more important than objection handling. It's like that is almost like a symptom when we're talking about objections.

Bryan Mcdonald 23:03

Did I got it right? Yeah, correct. That's a symptom. That's not the actual problem. Okay, interesting. Yep, because in our world, uh, what we believe is you have to get the prospect to say it. Like, hey, why would you even want to do this? Well, I want to do this because of this, this, and this. Like, okay. So if they bring up an objection that counteracts one of those things I I uh I said this, this, and this, at the end, you go, hey, but in earlier on you said this. Help me understand that. They gotta they gotta handle their own objection.

Pedro Stein 23:38

Right? Okay, got it. Interesting. Now I want to touch in a kind of a two-folded question here. First part of the question is for I would say the business owner, okay. The second one, it involves your clients, so it's two-folded. Um, hot topic, pricing, okay. Um, you know, in the coaching space, consulting space, this is it's a very self-worth path, right? Because you're at the end of the day, you're charging for your time. And there are a lot of lessons in the early days. Sometimes we're just trying to make it, we're like, we have bills knocking on the door, and we're like trying to wrap our heads around pricing. So that is like my first question to you is how do you approach that now? And what did you have to learn the hard way to get there? That's for the business owner. The second one is for your clients, right? When you see a client that his voice cracks when he talks about pricing, when the delivery, you know, how do you navigate that so they can feel comfortable with the pricing?

Bryan Mcdonald 24:44

So you you're there's actually those two questions are very related uh in this manner. And you said it. Pricing is a self-worth, self-identity challenge first, then a market condition later. Because it doesn't matter what the market will pay me, if I'm not, if I don't feel like I'm worth it, I'm never gonna get paid that. I'm I'm um and this is very, very common for people who are on the newer end, right? Newer into entrepreneurship. So your first question was shoot, uh, what was the first question again?

Pedro Stein 25:26

The sell-forth, like that you had to learn the hard way to land where you are right now for your pricing.

Bryan Mcdonald 25:32

Yeah, I would say for my pricing, uh what I had to do was test, right? Is uh uh and here's one thing that happened. I'm I'm I'm I'm constantly being more comfortable with raising prices, but also with looking for data. So uh I don't know, maybe five years ago, six years ago, something like that, we were trying to do more group coaching. And we said, okay, what we're gonna do, one thing we're gonna do is we're gonna raise the price of one-to-one coaching uh to push people to uh to the group stuff and really get the elite of the elite. And I was struggling, just changing the price, right? Like I had to get through my own mindset and because I was doubling it, I was doubling the one-to-one coaching pricing, and when I finally started saying out loud, the next six people said yes to the one-to-one coaching. So I realized one, my self-worth was uh flawed because people would pay a lot more because I asked. And the second thing is the market actually said, Hey, uh this pricing this high, we we will tolerate it. And that's really what uh in regards to pricing, is you have to see what the market will will tolerate. Uh, I bump up our uh our pricing probably uh uh $500 for each the group and the one-to-one a year. Each year I bump it up about $500. And what I'm looking for is if my ideal prospect um says yes more than 50% of the time, that means I can raise the price. When it stops dropping, I when it stops dropping, when it starts dropping, I know I've hit the mark. So that's what I tell people, right? Because I've got clients who sell the same exact thing to the same exact prospect. One person charges $3,000 a month, the other charges $10,000 a month. The only difference is self-worth. That's it, right? Um, and that boils down to like, you know, the hesitation, right? And here's also a also a mindset um that I've developed and I offer up to other people, is if I'm with my ideal prospect, like you said, it's like, hey, uh, I have all the problems you solve, I know you can solve them, I know you understand them. This gets me to where I want to go. And um, and I offer up you the price and you decline because of it. In my opinion, this is not a judgment, this is totally neutral, is because they haven't committed to themselves yet. Paying me is a commitment to themselves, not money generation for me per se. Am I making sense? Yeah, right. Well, it's um it's them committing to themselves because I thought about it. When I buy coaching, when I pay whatever, if it was a hundred dollars or I've paid ten thousand dollars a month for coaching, that money giving somebody was a commitment to myself. As much as it was or more, it was more than like I don't want to say the value, I don't know how to say this, is uh their worth to themselves, right? It was the worth to me.

Pedro Stein 29:11

Yeah, I I see where you're coming from. It's almost like it's like you said, it's a com it's it's balls to the walls, it's like committed to yourself, right? You're like, okay, I have no excuse. I want to create this transformation. We have the potential that is this one, and if I do the right way and they're doing what they're promised, I mean this price is not a gonna be a problem, right? No, so it's also like, and you also have to believe it, right? I get it, okay. Now I want to I apologize.

Bryan Mcdonald 29:42

The the one thing right in the background that I don't want to infer, and I am, is that you can create enough value for them based on that price, right? Like uh you have to create an ROI, right? I I see a lot of coaches or people out there selling courses that is just information and it's not driving outcomes, which isn't very much of an ROI to me, especially if you're charging a lot of money.

Pedro Stein 30:09

Well, brings me back to your first client, right? You're charging 50 bucks a session, and the guy hits six fingers. And it's like this is easy money, it's like laughing at how much he paid you, right? So it's about the transformation, it's about what you can deliver. Okay, awesome. Now, I would love for us to you know shift gears for a second because you've been what 13 years in the game with unpurpose growth, and um let's talk about future, man. I mean, where are you aiming this business towards? Are you thinking more about growth right now? Leverage, building a team, or refining what already works. So, what feels most exciting right now? All of it, right?

Bryan Mcdonald 30:51

Everything you said, right? Building a bigger team, refining it, but not uh not obsessed over refining it, um, because the entrepreneur can get uh stereotyping entrepreneur can get stuck in making something better that's already working, right? Like that's that's a flaw, right? You don't need to improve it's working. If you like I only change in in my coaching, I only change nuances that matter. I don't completely redesign something. It's it's a it's getting better at the same thing. It's like you have so many reps, you kind of see things faster. So it's it's it's more of refining. Uh, we want to build a uh a community uh we by have a sales community, we want to build a sales community to uh half a million people. I mean, I set an intention like two months ago, a month ago, to do more speaking and talking. And I started putting that request out there. And in that time frame, when I put that request out there, I got two introductions to go speak, but five other speaking opportunities showed up in front of me. Just like that, because I had an intention, I put it out there and I and I moved committed in that direction. So I'd love to uh get to being paid 50,000 bucks to to come talk somewhere. Like if if if I'm getting paid 50,000 to come in and do a talk or a small workshop, that means I'm probably making you know a half a million a month.

unknown 32:21

Okay.

Bryan Mcdonald 32:22

So and then I'm gonna need a bigger team. I mean, that's where we're going. We we want um my partner Jeff and I believe that on an entrepreneur level that uh there are a lot of people out there that are really, really good at what they do. And because um they're not great marketers or they're not good at sales, uh, people have a hard time owning their slice of market. And that's why we focus on differentiation and and strategy is if we can nail that, I can get somebody progress. And when you're getting progress, I can make the small tweaks in your sales practices to explode you, right? And and we believe that there's a lot of people out there that need to actually get that so they can actually serve the people that they are trying to impact.

Pedro Stein 33:09

A hundred percent. Not to mention one thing that I feel like a lot of coaches, consultants suffer from is like they're great at the craft, but they are not great at sales. Well, it's your business, uh, in summary. But the thing is they don't know how to evaluate a great closer or a great great salesperson, right? So that's the the problem I see also. It's like they're they were not in the trenches too far, too, you know, so long, and they try to evaluate and they trip because they did, and sometimes they're burning out people that because they don't know how the mechanism works, right? Good thing you're there, right? Now, um, I'm curious about another thing because even when things are going well, right, and you have those big plans, there's always something under construction. So, what's the main thing you're actively working on or trying to improve in the business right now?

Bryan Mcdonald 33:58

Me. Uh yeah, I mean, I I I uh I believe the business goes as uh as I grow, and it and it'll my my ceiling is the business's ceiling. I work on myself as much as you know I work on my business, or they're almost they're almost one and the same. It's like when I got my assistant Gio, who's uh from Brazil, uh I had to learn how to let go and delegate. That that was a different the version of me you're talking to now is a different version than the person that got and started working with Gio. So it's like, how do I um become a better entrepreneur? Uh how do I build better systems? How do I think about and build better systems? Uh, how do I start associating with people at the level that I want to be on, right? Because the uh like uh uh Bob Berg. You ever hear of Bob Berg, the go-keeper? Yeah, so uh uh I actually had him on my uh uh LinkedIn Live about three, four months ago, and I started reaching for these circles, and all I did was reach out to Bob and go, Hey Bob, I got this show. Would you want to be on? He goes, Yeah, right. So I had Bob on, and then I asked Bob, hey Bob, I'm trying to get in this world. Who else do you know on your level that I could uh interview? And how else do I get in this world? And he started pushing me into that world and those people. So it's like, hey, I I thought that those people were over there, but now they're here, right? Because I went into that world, right? So I'm just you know working on myself, right? Like, because everything else flows uh from there. And I also realized that with all that said, um building in autonomy what the what's the word I'm looking for? Autonomy and um sovereignty inside my business is what makes the business grow faster. Said another way the more time I have to think and strategize, the more money I'm gonna make. Uh, so I need more free time for myself. So I need to stop doing a bunch of other stuff and have those people do it because I'm either in front of prospects, I'm either in front of clients, or I'm I'm doing some marketing uh tactic. If I'm not doing one of those three things, I shouldn't be doing it. That's how I'm making money.

Pedro Stein 36:28

That makes sense. Okay. Now, I'm not sure if you remember where I mentioned uh at the start, I'm a comic book nerd fan, so I love sci-fi too. Okay, so let's pretend we have a time machine in front of us, Brian. Okay, and we're gonna have one stop. You can go back in time, okay, and you can give past Brian 13 years ago when he opened shop one piece of business advice you wish you knew back then that you know now, Brian. So what would that be?

Bryan Mcdonald 37:03

You're making it harder than it actually is.

Speaker 2 37:09

That's 100%.

Bryan Mcdonald 37:10

I believed it was gonna be more complexly hard, and when I just simplified it, uh I could be more consistent, and uh I tried to be everything to everybody, and that's the total opposite. I got I got more traction in the marketplace focusing um on a specific profile, and then people just brought other profiles to me, right? But with ease, it just kind of shows up. Uh and that that was all because uh I was I was complicating it. I was assuming it was gonna be harder than it actually was. I was overcomplicating it.

Pedro Stein 37:54

Got it, love that. Okay. Now, before we close this out, Brent, if someone resonates with you and what you share and wants to follow your work, and by the way, we're gonna have all the links in the description, okay? But where people should go to reach you best?

Bryan Mcdonald 38:11

To reach me best, I would go to our sales community. You can go to paidwhatyouareworth.com. That's paidwhatyouarworth.com. That's the best place. The second next second next best place is is uh is LinkedIn. Um I spend a lot of time there, and all my socials are my last name, first name, McDonald Bryan. Uh, only because some guy already had brianmcdonald.com, so I took mcdonald Bryan, right?

Pedro Stein 38:38

Right. Okay. You know, there were a there are some few moments from this chat today that really stay with me. I'm gonna highlight them real quick, okay? When we're talking about the origin story, and you're like, Jeff saw in me a great coach, right? I love that, man, because at the end of the day, he's not looking at your skills, he's looking at who you are, the integrity, authenticity, you want to help people, you know. So to me, that comes first, right? So there's that. Um, there's also the fact that you mentioned there there was no going back, right? You burned the what the boats? Is that whatever? The ships.

Bryan Mcdonald 39:16

Yeah, same thing.

Pedro Stein 39:16

Burn the ship. Yeah, same thing. Like um, there is no plan B, right? We gotta make it, we gotta make this work. So I love that because it puts you in a mindset of like pushing forward to this one big thing that you have going on for you. Oh, so when you were talking about like the omens happening, you know, you know, it's so interesting. Like in my business, in my life, and a lot of moments, it's like it's sometimes it feels like the universe, and you can call it whatever you want to call it, right? Whatever you want. Uh, is almost like building a case for something to happen, right? It gives you one clue, then another clue, and another one. So, uh, like you mentioned, the the the speaking, right? The speaking gates. And you want to put yourself out there and you do it, and then stuff starts to happen. You're getting this one and this one and the other one. So it's almost like a tell, right? You should be doing X, Y, and Z. Good to know that you were, you know, listening and were it were able to execute because that's also important. Now, uh, last but not least, I would say is um we have to make the prospects to say it, right? When we're talking about sales and all that, and that reminds me of a quote uh a while ago, a good friend of mine uh told me that's Grant. Um, if you say it, they doubt it. If they say it, they own it, right? So that always kept with me like people have to say they want to do X, Y, and Z or whatever they're looking to do. So, because that then it becomes a they problem they need to solve. I don't need to solve anything. It's like it's their goal, they want to reach it. It just so happens I'm here in front of them, I'm adding value. That's first. I'm serving, I'm not here to push people into stuff. Like you're not doing that as well, by the way you framed it. So that really stood out to me. So kudos to you. Now, this is just my long-winded way of saying that I really appreciate what you do, you know, and being open with this. It was great having you on, Brian. No, I appreciate it, man. This is great. I appreciate your time, Pedro.

Davis Nguyen 41:23

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 to six, seven, and eight figure 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 purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you and your business.