Mentorship | Why It Matters & How to Choose The Right Mentor FOR YOU!

What if we told you there is a "cheat code" that saves you time, prevents mistakes, and makes you money FASTER? In this episode, we break down how to find a real mentor (not a cheerleader), the red flags to run from, and the simple way to start the relationship without making it weird. We share the exact advice that changed our business (and lives), how to adapt guidance to your unique business, and why taking "every client" is terrible advice if you want profit, sleep, and longevity. You'll leave with a filter for choosing mentors, a first-reachout script, and a smarter path to the premium business you actually want to run.

Highlights

00:00 Why mentorship matters & what you have to gain from the RIGHT mentor.

02:00 What do you want to hear more of on the podcast?

04:30 How to approach a mentor without making it weird (first-coffee script.)

06:45 Red flags vs. green flags: who to trust, who to skip.

10:00 Story lesson: when the right move is to "pump the brakes" to avoid costly mistakes.

16:05 How to adapt advice to your model, stage of business, and market.

18:30 The sign you've found the right mentor (not a cheerleader.)

21:15 Decision discipline: how to know when to slow down or go all-in.

23:15 Prep questions to ask a mentor for max ROI.

27:30 The playbook for bigger orders, better clients.

32:20 How to shift the DNA of your business to attract high end clients.

37:10 Finding the right mentor for your business. 

Resources + Links

Apply for Luxury Clothier Collective Mastermind HERE

More resources for custom clothiers HERE

Watch on Youtube

Follow

Appointment Only in IG: @appointmentonlypod

Resources + Links
Apply for Luxury Clothier Collective Mastermind  HERE
More resources for custom clothiers HERE
Watch on Youtube

 Follow
Appointment Only in IG: @appointmentonlypod

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Why do you go into business? Why do you do anything you do? It's to it's to make money. And mentorship, a good one, will put you in a position where you're given resources and abilities to earn more money as a direct result of working with a mentor. This is Appointment Only, the podcast for entrepreneurs building profitable high-end businesses. If you want control, profit, and freedom from the endless hustle, this is for you. We're Kenny and Dami, twin brothers from day one and business partners for 15 years. We're sharing insights from our own experiences running a high-end small business, the highs, the lows, and what we've learned along the way that will help you build businesses you enjoy running that aren't running you. We're here to help you continue creating businesses that support the life you actually want to live. Your appointment starts now. Welcome back to Appointment Only. It is a big day. I have a table to my right, finally. So I'm not needing to reach behind me for my Lagonitas hobby refreshers. This podcast still unsponsored. We just had a meeting with our podcast producer. And after seeing the numbers, let me just cut to the chase, Lagonitas. Don't bother. Okay. Don't bother with the sponsors. No, I will say there are a lot of things. If you want a sure way, Lagonitas, to reach dozens of people. There are some regulars, though. We appreciate all of you regulars who are showing up week after week. We see the numbers. We we know we actually don't know who you are because we don't see the names. Right. But we do see the numbers, and we know that you're out there and we're really appreciative of you. And uh we also have some dabblers out there. There's a dabbler or two in the mix every once in a while. Testing the waters, thinking maybe I'll listen, and then deciding maybe I won't do this one. Some of the episodes were uh unsurprisingly more popular than others. Yeah, there was uh there's some some insight there. It's always great to have information that you can either choose to do something with or not. When every episode moving forward is going to be also about us losing 100 pounds and getting sober, you'll have a sense of which episode particularly did the best. I'm not surprised about that. The other one we were uh pleasantly surprised on was the competitors one. I think I can put two and two together and figure out why that one hit home. And I think it has to do with those of you out there who are following us on Instagram that are really liking that and really wanting that information. So we will definitely be doing more stuff about competition. But today's episode is about the antithesis of your competitor. Nice. I love the segue. Absolutely. He's trying to take over my spot as the top host, Mission Accomplice. Main host. You're gonna have to work harder than that if you want to take over the top spot. Today we're we are talking about mentorship. It's a very important thing in business, and I'm sure you've heard a lot about it. And you actually do not have to go far in your algorithm to find someone who claims that they can be your mentor, they can change your life, they can change your world, they can completely transform your life. And it'll also be cheap and easy. Right. Exactly. If it sounds too good to be true, not not it probably is, it is. There's no such thing as something that is cheap, easy, and life-changing. Let that be a lesson to you. So we will talk a bit about how to how to weed through the noise as you're looking for someone who potentially could be your mentor. And what we want to talk about today, though, is mentorship in general, why it's important, and the role it's played in our lives and in our business, because we most certainly would not be anywhere near where we're at today if it wasn't for the people in our life who've served and continue to serve as our mentors. And we have a unique perspective as well on some mentorship. We've had some different experiences ourselves being mentors, which we'll get into in a bit. But why is mentorship important? What would you say? Well, before before I want to answer that question, I do want to just sort of define what we're talking about with mentorship, because we're not talking about some really structured, like, oh, it's time for our mentorship meeting. And it's it's time to go through all of these bullet points that we have outlined with our mentor. It's I better get my monocle out. Yeah, let me let me be really serious. It's it's not that serious. It's our definition of mentorship is is surrounding ourselves with people intentionally who can speak into our lives, into our business, and who have a differing perspective, but ultimately have been where we want to go. That would be my sort of my definition of what mentorship has looked like for us. It hasn't been structured, it hasn't been formulaic necessarily. It's felt organic and it's and it's been enjoyable. I believe that mentorship is important because it it allows you to go in the direction you want and make fewer mistakes than someone who has gone before you. If you think of it in terms of a guide, like a tour guide, you want a tour guide who knows the way and who presumably can share with you the route that they would recommend you take, and also maybe a route that they don't recommend you take. The same is true of a mentor. You want someone who's familiar with the territory and they can help you decide which avenue works best. Because oftentimes the way that the mentor is going to share with you is not necessarily exactly what they did, but it's probably what they wish they would have done. When we first met our mentor, it was about uh six, 15, 16 years ago, long time ago. And by the way, he's still doing great. We still get together with him quite often. We share lunch regularly, and he's still a very, very close friend of ours. So when we're talking about Kingford, is his name, we mentioned him a lot in the second episode. It is very much an active thing. Now, the the questions we're asking Kingford and the relationship we've we've had now over the last 15, 16 years or so, it looks a lot different than it used to look, but it it changes over time as your relationship together changes. And our relationship with him has never been this super structured, super serious thing. It started as we just asked him to have coffee with us so we could pick his brain about a few things, and it organically grew into what it turned into and what it looks like today. That's one thing I think that's a misconception about mentorship is I think oftentimes people feel intimidated by the idea of having a mentor or mentoring someone else, where they're like, well, the people who would be in a position to mentor someone are like, I'm not equipped for that. And the people who really want one, they're like, Well, I don't really want to ask them because it feels like it's such a big commitment. And it can be a commitment, but it also can be just really enjoyable and really low-key and start at with something as small as getting a cup of coffee and seeing where it goes from there, like a date, you know? It's a relationship. You got to have a relationship. And there are there are a number of things I think that make a strong mentor. There's also a few things that I would recommend you run from if you're if you're thinking, oh, maybe this person's my mentor. But they that you know, that if you don't respect them, they're not gonna be a good one. There's a good starting. If they don't respect you, then they're not gonna be a good mentor. The relationship is a give and a take. You you want someone who is willing and able to pour into you, but also someone that you yourself know that you you look up to and respect, and someone who's who's been where you would like to go. And it does not have to be structured. In fact, the best relationships, the best mentorships, I think are are relatively unstructured. I would guess most of you listening have someone in your life that you would say, that's my mentor. We're saying mentorship is important and immediately somebody is coming to mind. If you don't have a relationship like that with anybody, it could be as simple as identifying somebody who you want to be more like and just being intentional with that person. Here's a mistake that I think a lot of people make that I would encourage you to think about yourself and find a little self-awareness. What a mentor is not for you is a cheerleader. That's right. Do not mistake a true mentor with someone who is going to just support every decision you make. Of course, if you're uh in a relationship with someone and you see them as a mentor, you want that person to be able to tell you positive things and negative things. Yeah, it's it's there is definitely a distinction. A cheerleader or an advocate, like those, those types of people are important to have in your life, but those types of people are not good mentors because they're not going to tell you things that you don't want to hear. And as business owners, there's a lot that sometimes we need to hear that we don't want to. The two of us, we have a tendency to go, go, go, go, go. We're very driven, we're very passionate, we like to try things out, we like to do things. And sometimes it's been really important looking back at certain pieces of advice that people in our lives gave us because if they were just rooting for us and cheering for us and acting like every idea we had was the best idea that anyone's ever had, we would have ended up in a much different and a much worse position. That was one of the first things I remember about our, I think it was our, it was our first solo meeting with Kingford was he shared with us a piece of criticism. It was constructed, but constructive, but it was uh something we didn't want to hear. He basically said, You're moving too fast, you need to take a step back. And I don't think you should make this decision quite yet. And that was absolutely not what we wanted to hear, but it was absolutely what we needed to hear. And at that point on, it was very clear to us like this guy, not only is he smart and he knows what he's talking about, but he he cares enough about what we're doing where he's willing to be honest with us. And it then was our job to receive that and to decide, are we gonna completely ignore him and not care about anything he has to say and do what, do it anyway? Or are we gonna listen and trust that maybe he knows a thing or two that we could learn from? As your business grows and as you yourself change personally and professionally, there does come a point in time too where as you're having conversations with your mentor and and you're you're trying to figure out your own path, there are times where we've adapted advice that we've gotten from our mentor and made it fit within kind of what our life looks like and what our business looks like. Because our mentor is quite a bit older than us. There are struggles that we've had in business that he never really had to go through. I mean, starting with the fact that the business model that he operates out of now operated his entire career out of, yes, we're in the same industry, but his business model was never even similar to our business model ever. So there are pieces of feedback that we were seeking, especially in those early days, that he just wasn't in a position to give us, you know, super tangible thoughts. He could spitball, but there were certain things that he wasn't able to speak to. And he would speak to that. He would say, I've never experienced that, guys. Like this is something to think about as you look to open up your first showroom, but I haven't really done that before in the early days, too. I remember a lot of the things we were asking his advice on was relational with with customers. Oh, yeah, with clients. And we were we were so young and we were we dealt with a lot of things in the early days. Basically, what it boils down to back then was we were dealing with a lot of lack of respect from from customers. And we didn't really know what to do about it or how to handle it. And he was, he would tell us, I don't know, guys, that I've never dealt with that. Yeah. And you he and he'd never really dealt with it because he carries himself really well. He was probably in in his career older than a lot of the people he was working with, or at least on that same level age-wise. And that was one of the things we dealt with when we first started our business, is we were young. Very young. And we looked it. I was just gonna say we looked even younger than we were. So we did. Every time I would walk anywhere, it would be like swish, swish, swish, swish. What's that smell? Did someone make a stink? So that was unhelpful as we tried to get some respect from our customers. Bottle time. Okay, enough. But those are types of things that our mentor never really dealt with to the same degree. So it took a little bit of awareness on our end to try to figure out, okay, like we've got this great mentor. He's in our corner, he supports us, he respects us, he advocates for us. He also is able to tell us things we don't want to hear and challenge us and do the things that a mentor is supposed to do. But at the end of the day, there are certain things that we're experiencing that he hasn't really experienced in the same way. So all we can do is use the information that he gives us and kind of still try to chart our own path. The impact we had from Kingford specifically, but mentorship in general, was there were many times where we were feeling challenged to change something, to tweak something, or a confirmation that we were doing something right. A good mentor is not going to withhold positive affirmation either. You want to make sure you're working with someone who can be honest with you about the good things and the bad things. We also felt very supported throughout uh, you know, our our career as we were building it, the changes we were making. Also, I don't want to undervalue this the fun factor. It is so much fun when you are able to be around people who you start by looking up to and then you, you know, you turn into friends. Like that is so enjoyable. It is so enjoyable. And the experiences that we've had with our mentor in, you know, locally and as we've gone different places together has been something that has been just so, so enjoyable. And it it is rare, unfortunately, I think to have such a tight bond with a mentor, but it's also one of those things that we were kind of completely in control of creating because we originally were the ones who sought it out. We were the ones originally who had asked him to have coffee. And there was a long period of time where I think he was almost hesitant to lean into the fact that he was our mentor. Yeah, we would be referring to him as our mentor and he would he'd, you know, get kind of uncomfortable because he's like, Well, I yeah, I don't think so, guys. And and it's just, you know, go with it. But it's, you know, he it came from a place of humility, right? Not out of a lack of understanding of the role he was playing. He was just, he was being humble. And he, even to this day, if you if you talk with him, he'll say, Well, they've taught me more than I've taught them, which is not true, and also not a competition. We're both allowed to have taught one another different things, but it's this role that happens organically and is just so much fun. And when you're in a good mentorship, it does feel natural. It does feel fun. It is difficult to find the the line between fun and business. Yeah, and and his business, since we've since we've, you know, been meeting with him and since we've been getting to know him. And I mean, we know him very, very well at this point. His business has changed a lot. And he wouldn't be doing what he's doing if it weren't for us. And Lord knows our lives and our business would look nowhere near where it looks today. I mean, if it weren't for him. Kingford was the first one I remember who ever said, get your wallet out of your client's pocket. That's a Kingford thing. Yeah, it is. We picked that up from him, and that is the first piece of advice I give anyone that ever asks. It's one of the first things we said on this podcast. It's, you know, that one of the main things that is puts you in a position where you can level your business up and where you can really grow. That came directly from Kingford. So did uh the idea of how can they buy something that they've never seen? Exactly. Which is in line with the get get your wallet out of your client's pocket. But it's these little types of things that he said off the cuff and he probably didn't even remember saying it. But this way, yeah, he probably thinks we made it up. But that we made it up, you know, at the stage that we were in business, this was like gold that we heard and it resonated and it stuck with us, and we changed our entire business around it. And that in turn has changed our entire lives. And those types of, you know, little insights, I was gonna say nuggets again, which I said in a previous episode, and I just, you know, said I would never say it again. And here I will, here I am. Maybe that's why we saw the huge spike down in uh downloads on our podcast. It could be. But those types of insights are actually, they're both a positive affirmation and they're a challenge, wrapped into one little phrase that is meaningless that he probably doesn't even remember saying, but it's this impactful thing that changed our lives. Why do you go into business? Why do you do anything you do? It's to it's to make money and mentorship, a good one, will put you in a position where you're given resources and abilities to earn more money as a direct result of working with a mentor. And it will also put you in a position where you are maybe operating in a place that you wouldn't naturally be operating in if it was just up to you. I'm thinking of another conversation we had with another one of our mentors named Jeff and G-E-O-F-F. Yes. For those of you picturing the name. And he was the one who told us that this was in relation to us going full-time in our business, which at the time was a side hustle. He was the one who told us, you are never gonna make it work unless you have to make it work. Again, it was just a casual conversation. It's both, that's both a challenge and a confirmation. Exactly. It's it's something that's challenging, it's something that he probably doesn't remember saying, but it's something that literally changed our lives. And I'm not gonna say had he not said that at that moment, we never would have gone full time because that's probably not true. But hearing that from him was the push we needed to think about what was next. And it was a driving force when we were in the place where we were trying to make a decision. I hear his voice in the back of my head. And it isn't the reason we did it, but it is definitely a major factor. And when somebody has different experience than you and is saying things that sound challenging to you, you recognize that they've come out on the other side, they've been okay, and this is the advice they're choosing to give me in the stage of life they know that I'm in, in the position of my business that you know they know that I'm in. They know all of these things about me, and they're still choosing to say this. So if that's the case, you are able to have this confidence as you maybe do things that feel uncomfortable to you, or as you in in the case with Kingford, you know, pump the brakes, take a step back, stop moving so quickly. In the case of Jeff, as you change your life and quit your job and go full time into your side hustle. Like you're able to operate with confidence, knowing that somebody who you trust and somebody that you respect and somebody that you look up to knows you well and is choosing to give you this type of advice and has your best interest in mind and respects you and wants to do right by you. Absolutely. I hope as we're talking, you you may be, maybe you already have a mentor. You probably may, you probably do. I hope you do. If you don't, I hope you're thinking of someone specific right now that maybe it might be worth reaching out to, it might be worth worth reconnecting with or inviting them out to coffee. Maybe they're in a networking group and you're familiar with them in that way. I don't know how you'll find them. And, you know, some some would say it could be up to fate or chance. But if there's someone that's popping into your head, I think you should pay attention to that. Our relationship with mentorship is uh it's complex because we, of course, have mentors appreciate them, you know, continue to be in a close relationship with them. But we've also over the last number of years become mentors ourselves. We're gonna talk a little bit about that transition and just spoiler alert, we are gonna talk about our mentorship business arm. We've never talked about it on the podcast before. We're gonna talk a little bit about it. And this would be for specifically custom clothiers. So if you are a custom clothier, this is something that will very, very much relate to you. If you're not, feel free to continue to listen. But you, you know, you we're not gonna have an opportunity to work with us in a direct mentorship capacity yet. So you can either skip forward for the next couple of minutes or you can keep listening. But just a little heads up, I just want to give you that uh little spoiler alert that we are gonna be a little salesy as we're talking about this. Sorry. We're talking about mentorship at the end of the day. Day. So it just like us with Kingford, as we were sharing with him life and as as we were, as he was becoming our mentor, he was sort of, like we said, you know, kind of like, oh, I got really me? You know, he he was he was so humble about it. And it kind of happened organically. The same thing happened to us as we'd been doing our businesses. Obviously, you know you're never done learning, nobody is, but we were being asked to do things, to speak for things, to present webinars. We were being hit up all the time by people who wanted to pick our brains and wanted to get our two cents on stuff or wanted to hop on a call. And we recognized that we were being tapped as mentors, just like we had tapped Kingford to be our mentor. People were looking to us for this. And we realized in our industry, which is custom suits, for those of you who uh are new to the podcast, we sell custom suits you wear, not soups that you eat. I think we can stop making that distinction. Well, just when you think you're safe. That's true. You would be surprised. So we recognize there was this overall need for good mentorship from people who were sort of more current in the industry and understood the industry as it currently exists. And one of the one of the things that we experienced as our experience with mentorship has shape-shifted and evolved is, and you were talking about, you know, we've become mentors, is we also experienced becoming mentors for people who were kind of just starting their business and kind of seeing them through the evolution of theirs to the point where now we just have some really awesome friends who are absolutely killing it. But the relationship started very much as a we're giving advice, we're helping you with this, we're helping you with that, we're being intentional about teaching you. And now, fast forward however many years, they're just close friends at this point. And that's exactly what you know, what happened with Kingford, where it was at when we when we started with him and and learning from him, it was, I feel like it was 100% take. We were just taking, taking, taking, taking. And he would, he would disagree because he's great and that's who he is. But it just felt like it's every time we get together with him, what do you think about this? What would you do here? What about this situation? Have you ever done this? And over time, as our business changed, as his business changed, it's just a friendship now. But like you were saying, as we were growing our business and as we were being intentional with Kingford, we started getting asked to be in a mentorship role in in our trade organization and through, you know, Instagram DMs, just people who wanted to hop on the phone and pick our brain. And that led us to understand that there is in our specific industry uniquely a real lack of sort of this idea of sharing secrets. Because that's really what mentorship is is people telling you what they experienced and how you can experience the same thing or how you can avoid the pitfalls. And certain businesses, ours is no different, are just very kind of secretive. A lot of industries are really secretive. And you ask people certain things and you realize, oh, they're giving me only the information that they want me to have. They're not really an open book. They're not really communicating to me how I can do things because they see me as competition, because they have a poverty mentality. They aren't operating with abundance. They don't want, they don't want the industry as a whole or the business as a whole to be elevated by me. They are threatened by me. And so they only are giving me really specific information. And that's not unique to our business. I know that there are businesses all over the place, industries everywhere that have this kind of like secrecy. Who's going to give me a peek behind the curtain? Oh, nobody. But that was one of the things that we were finding in our in our industry is that when we were giving these presentations, we were very open, very honest, very straightforward about, hey, here's a type of client to avoid, here's a type of client to lean into. And we were getting, we were kind of serving this mentorship role for other people who were just getting started in the business. And we were getting inundated by people who had, you know, more and more questions. And we were making a very conscious effort to be honest and to share specifics about numbers and also not to exaggerate. We made a very conscious effort as we were doing those different uh presentations and what have you to just tell the the truth and just kind of to to approach it with integrity. Because I think in in business, integrity is one of those things that often is lacking. And we were we were kind of thinking, you know, if we're gonna exaggerate or or skew or the world does not need more people out there talking about business and exaggerating their experiences. No, absolutely not. And we just uh uh when we were kind of given that position of of being looked at as experts in what we do, we were like, it as soon as we start to exaggerate, we lose the credibility. Yeah. So let's just tell people honestly what we've experienced, honestly what goes on. And if people want that, then they can continue to listen. So then there were a couple of shifts that we made as we were then recognizing that we're we were serving the role of mentors for lots of different people in our industry. We decided to create a couple of years ago, we did something called clothier coaching, which those of you following us on Instagram are probably familiar with. You probably started following clothier coaching before it became appointment only pod. Uh, and maybe you didn't even realize that it happened, but now you're now you now you know why you're following the podcast. But we started clothier coaching, and it was only for custom clothier, and it was a mentorship, but also just a resource guide. And we did a number of different things through clothier coaching. A lot of what we were doing was just free tips and tricks on Instagram. People loved that. The people loved the free stuff. Um we had a lot of regulars when we were dishing it out for we sure did. We also came out with a series of uh products, online uh courses, and one of which was for upselling, one of them was for wedding customers. And then the big one, the the sort of creme de la creme of the online courses we did through clothier coaching was something called Million Dollar Manual. It's still available. You can still use it. Really, what it was was it was not only our story on how we transitioned from a very, very low, low six figure custom clothier to transitioning to becoming a million plus dollar high-end luxury custom clothier. It was our story, but also it was like five different headings of the different things that you do. It's like the building blocks, the foundational elements. As we were doing Million Dollar Manual, we we had a group that was going on live because we were coming out with this week by week. This group was going through it live as it was coming out, and we were hearing real stories from people about the impact Million Dollar Manual was having on their business. We're hearing from people who are making for the first time ever sales that exceeded, you know, 10, 15, $20,000. They'd never had a sale like that. And now all of a sudden, based on a couple of easy tweaks that they implemented for Million Dollar Manual, they're seeing it. We were watching people in real time completely transform their businesses. I remember one guy, he had three consecutive record-breaking best sales ever. Ironically, it was a guy that we'd we've known for almost 10 years. We've had phone conversations with, we've sat down, we've had lunch together. We know the guy pretty well, but it kind of took him entering into a quote unquote traditional mentorship program to actually take the advice and put it into practice to see the results. Because it's easy to hear something and hear advice from somebody when you're hanging out. But for him, it felt different, like having paid for something and with the plan of I'm going to approach this differently. And that's what got him the results. We were seeing as a result of the million dollar manual. I remember hearing from people who were for the first time ever starting to take their time seriously in the way that they were working with people. And even that, just in and of itself, them taking their time seriously, understanding that their time was valuable, translated into bigger and better sales too. As we were really early on in Clothier Coaching, we knew that the trajectory we wanted to go was not to just put out a bunch of online courses. Although they're, like I said, they're still out there and they're super valuable. And if you're looking for a place to start in your custom clothing business, I would highly recommend specifically the million dollar manual. But our goal was we wanted to really be more mentors. We wanted to be the mentors and the coaches. And so the trajectory we focused on was what we launched this past summer. It's called Luxury Clothier Collective. It is a small group of custom clothiers who are hyper focused on running high-end luxury custom clothing businesses. And one thing we learned during clothier coaching, most custom clothiers aren't. Most custom clothiers are satisfied, or so they think, selling a bunch of cheap suits forever. They think that's the only path toward making any money, and they're wrong. They just don't know the way out. And we set our sights on training people to. I mean, I'm thinking basically we've created the thing we wish we would have had when we were trying to make that transition. And that's what Luxury Clothier Collective is. So that's the mentorship bent that we take now. We're not doing, we're not coming out with more clothier coaching courses or free content on Instagram anymore. Our focus as it relates to mentorship is this podcast, first of all, but also Luxury Clothier Collective. It's a small group of custom clothier. And the other thing that makes that unique is it's capped at one per market. And it's gonna stay small forever. Because we wanna be able to have the time to dedicate to the people who are committed to this thing. And every time we did anything in clothier coaching, the the stuff that did the best was like the funny stuff or the here's how you can easily make $250 in every single meeting you have from now for forever. That type of stuff was for everyone. And then when we did uh, you know, this type of course, it was, you know, really only attractive to a certain type of person, a certain person who resonated with that message. With uh, you know, the upsell course, it was really geared towards people who had consistent meetings, who were just looking for a way to make those move the needle even more for them. That was the person who resonated with that type of course. Million Dollar Manual was for people who they were kind of capped at growth or they wanted to take their business at the next level. It really only spoke to them. Luxury Clothier Collective only speaks to a small group of custom clothier, too. It's shifting the DNA of your business to reach that high-level client that you can build your business on. It's completely transforming custom clothier's businesses, one per market. The reason I'm bringing it up is because we are opening enrollment again. Uh a few, uh I'd be willing to take on three more. Uh oh, enrollment is is open, and we're gonna take three more, or we're gonna close it the day before Thanksgiving. So we can feast. So we can focus on our feast. Exactly. But three more clothiers or the day before Thanksgiving, whichever comes first, is when we're gonna close it down. But we started it this summer and you know, we did enrollment for like a week, closed it, and we've been working uh every single week with our custom clothiers in LCC. And it's it's so fun. We do a weekly call and uh we have an ongoing Telegram group as well, like a live chat, basically, a live text thread. And it's been so cool to see the impacts that we've been able to watch these clothiers walk through, the changes they've made, most of which, by the way, are not huge. No, they're not just enormous changes, but they're little things that make a huge difference. One of the guys in the group, it was like the second week of LCC. In that week, he made the entire amount of money it cost him to join for the whole year. Yeah, he took a quote unquote risk and paid for the whole year up front. And then his first week in it, he made it all back. Yeah. So he was thinking, okay, well, that was smart. So then we would then we double charged him. Yeah, we're like, you can keep paying. How about that? But it's it's it's those types of things that are that are really fun to hear the the successes. There's another guy who's going through uh some tough stuff in his business. He's an entrepreneur who's in the course of really changing everything. And we're kind of taking off bite-sized chunks with his business. And every single week that we connect, he's made so much progress. And he's also, you know, really focused now on profitability. It historically, his business never was. So there are some things that he's been overcoming and some some bad habits that he's currently breaking. But it's it's really rewarding to be in a group of people who kind of all want the same thing. And that's one of the reasons why I mentioned we've taken integrity really seriously in our business and really and really seriously in our coaching, is because this type of group is for people who want to run businesses like our businesses. And how are they gonna know what type of business we actually run unless we're being honest? I don't want people in a mentorship group who think we're something that we're not. Right. You know, we're very straightforward about, you know, in that type of a relationship, the money that we make, the clients that we work with, the spends that we're dealing with, the problems we have. The problems that we have. And for people who don't want that, this is not for them. You know, luxury clothier collective is for the custom clothiers who look at us and our business and are like, I want that. And that's why we're very honest and very, very transparent and very, you know, just very forthright in the things that we say and in the way in the way that we communicate. Just like we looked and saw Kingford and said, I want to have that business, I want to run a business like you, you know, it is possible to find mentors that have been there who are running the type of business you know you want to run. So if you think maybe 2026 is gonna be your year, or you are sick of feeling like you're working way harder than you should, or you just feel like you're not running the business you deserve to have, or you want to be seen as the highest level custom clothier in your market. Well, we may have a spot for you in Luxury Clothier Collective if you act fast, three more spots, or we're closing, uh closing enrollment again uh right before Thanksgiving, the day before Thanksgiving, whichever comes first. We don't know if or when we're gonna open it again. When we started Luxury Clothier Collective, uh, we were very straightforward about that. It's not always open. So you you have to act fast if you want it, and it's one per market. So we would love to help you get there. If if this is seeming like something that might be right for you, you might be right. And we would love to help you uh reach whatever goals you you may have. So let's talk about getting through the noise because uh I think that's a good place to end as we talk about mentorship here. If Luxury Clothier Collective isn't for you, or if you're not a custom clothier and you just found the podcast, how can you maybe identify someone who might be right for you when there's so much out there and a lot of it is total BS? Yeah. I do think when you're sort of evaluating a potential mentorship opportunity or even just a potential person to seek that type of relationship out with, pay attention to your gut. As business owners, that is something that we have to remind ourselves of constantly. Like trust our gut. If we're getting weird vibes from somebody or a for some from some company, chances are it's because there's something weird going on. It's not as complicated as it may feel. Trust your gut because your instincts, you have good instincts, and you should listen to those instincts. There are so many times when something happens, and I think to myself, man, I wish I wouldn't have silenced my own mind. I wish I would have just listened to myself because you're in the business long enough, you understand different things. You kind of get a sense for where things are headed. And if you are a pretty good judge of character, that's worth listening to. The thing that I will share though, as we leave you here, and actually, this isn't the very end because I have a surprise for you. Oh boy. I can't wait for my surprise. So that's what we call a tease. But the last thing as it relates to kind of weeding through the noise, we mentioned it right at the beginning when we were setting the scene for mentorship. Why would you ask somebody directions who's never been there? Why would you seek someone's help if they don't know how to help you? Ask someone who's been there. Make sure that this person knows the way. You want a captain of the ship who knows the route. So as you're seeking out mentorship, find someone who understands where you're headed and seek that person out. That's my encouragement to you. All right, are you ready for your surprise? Yeah, let's uh did I go viral? No. Keep dreaming. So we're gonna end this podcast and the foreseeable future with a segment I call uh bad business advice. Okay. These are generally talking about the things you'll find on Instagram from different business quote unquote gurus. This is the type of thing you've heard before. And I want to hear your thoughts on this advice. Okay. Maybe it's free mentorship for you. There we go. It's a little free mentorship for you. Today's bad business advice. Take every client you can get. Who gave that advice? Is this just just advice that is out there? This is advice that's out there. So, what do you think about that? I I absolutely hate it. I tell us why. I I disagree with take every client you can get, because at my core, I believe that everybody's money is green, but not everybody's money is worth it. And one of the things that is really important as you're running your business is a good night's sleep. It's important for everybody, like at a physical level. Your sleep is one of the things that we have to take seriously. Now he's a sleep coach, everyone. I am. If you need a sleep mentor, I'm gonna be your sleep mentor. I can he can he can lolly to sleep the more he talks, as you know. Just put on appointment only and catch those Zs. But take every every client you can get is so far removed from what good business advice is. I would say good business advice as it relates to getting clients and and selling products is work with people who value you and want what you uniquely have to offer. Don't just work with anybody with a pulse or anybody with a wallet. I was gonna say billfold. Whoa. I know what I know, and I billfold? I was picturing it in my mind. When is the last time the word billfold came to mind? And then I had to pause and say wallet. I couldn't even tell you the last time I thought about the word bill fold. Has anybody seen my bill fold around? But bad business advice. Take every client you can get. I I will just my advice is everybody's money is green, but not everybody's money is worth it. Jinx. Okay, I won't talk the whole next episode. Finally, right? Oh, it's finally just gonna be you and me. All right, thanks so much for coming to this appointment. Your appointment's over. We'll see you at the next one. And that's that. Today's appointment is over. This has been an appointment only. Your time is valuable, and we're very appreciative of you spending some of it with us. Thanks for showing up. Thanks for being on time. Thanks for being receptive to what we have to say. And if you have a question you'd like us to answer here on appointment only, please shoot us a DM. We would love to hear from you. We would also appreciate a five star review. We'd love if you'd follow along. Follow us here however you're hearing this, and follow us on Instagram at appointment only pod.