Breaking Old Money Rules with Chris Kenney

“I started to realize I have a choice to make here, I can actually be a person that succeeds in spite of his past rather than doesn’t succeed because of it. I really do believe that it’s a conscious decision, a conscious choice.” - Chris Kenney

Your beliefs around money are often formed at a young age and carried throughout your life, which is why it’s critical to be aware of them, particularly if you’re an entrepreneur. Today’s Brave By Design expert guest not only overcame hardship and challenges in his upbringing, but he smashed the limiting beliefs or “rules” he had around money, and he now helps others around the globe to do the same.  

Chris Kenney supports ambitious coaches and consultants to position, package and sell high-ticket packages and programs so they can increase their impact, have a freedom lifestyle, and leave their mark on the world.

If you’re ready to break your own money rules in order to live a life of freedom and choice, then you’ll get so much value from what Chris reveals in this episode! 

Connect with Chris: https://www.chriskenneycoaching.com/

Remember to hit SUBSCRIBE wherever you listen to podcasts!

Are you a service-based business who wants to build your brand and get booked solid? Learn how podcasting helped Laura do that over at: podcastbrandlab.com

What You’ll Hear In This Episode: 

• The pivotal moments in Chris’s past where money created feelings of shame for him [1:49]
  
  
• How and why he made the conscious choice to succeed in spite of his past [6:58]
  
  
• What Chris’s thoughts around selling previously looked like, versus what this looks like now for him [20:27]
  
  
• The significant mindset shifts that he had to make around money in order to get comfortable asking for the sale [21:58]
  
  
• How Chris built a business up to $300,000 in revenue without a website or the use of digital marketing [27:35]
  
  
• What happened during the pandemic to Chris and his business, and what he did to pivot and thrive [31:31]
  
  
• Tips for identifying the seen and unseen items in a sales conversation, and what will happen once you begin to do this [33:37] 

Additional Links & Resources:

His SALES MASTERY Inner Circle Facebook Group & Sales Mastery Academy

Chris’s  LinkedIn 

The Messaging Shift to get prospects to stop, drop and run to work with you --> Free Messaging Walkthrough and Guide

Transcript

Chris Kenney: 0:00

And that's when I started to realize, you know, I've got a choice to make here. I can actually be a person that succeeds in spite of his past rather than doesn't succeed because of it. And I really do believe that's a conscious decision. It's a conscious choice.

Laura Khalil: 0:16

Welcome to brave by design. I'm your host, Laura Khalil. I'm an entrepreneur, coach and speaker. I love thinking bait, exploring the power of personal development and sharing the best strategies from thought leaders and pioneers in business to empower ambitious women and allies to bravely rise and thrive. Let's get started. Everyone, welcome to this episode of brave by design. We have a very special guests. For the entrepreneurs in my audience today, Chris Kenny is here with us. He is a high ticket sales mastery mentor, I know you want to learn more about that he shows entrepreneurs how to break their money rules, so they can master high ticket sales rapidly accelerate their income, and live lives of uncommon freedom and choice, Chris, I love it. I want to learn more. I am so excited to have you on the show with us.

Chris Kenney: 1:17

It's great to be here, Laura. Thanks for having me.

Laura Khalil: 1:20

So let me start by asking you this. You kind of sound like a big deal, Chris. I'm gonna be honest with you. Like I'm a little intimidated, you know. And also for those who can't see Chris, he is like the best dressed man on the internet. Like impeccably dressed. Everyone knows that I love I love someone with a great sense of style. So Chris, were you like, were you just like born into a family that was super well off and taught you everything you needed to know. Like, tell us a little bit about your journey. Oh, man.

Chris Kenney: 1:50

So no, I it's interesting. That's what a lot of people think. When they look at me they think wow, you know, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. You know, we've done incredibly well I own a seven figure consulting company, live in a premier neighborhood, all that stuff. But you know, when I think about growing up, I grew up in a very well, I'm gonna just blonde I grew up in a drug house. Yeah, my mom, I was a cocaine dealer. So Wow. Yeah. So she was selling drugs. That's what was going on. We were on welfare models on welfare, there was a pivotal moment that I feel like I really remember as a child. And I'm just going to share that it was a day where we're at the grocery store, I was probably around six or seven, you know, is just tall enough to see the groceries coming down the conveyor belt, you know, where we were trying to check out. And I remember my mom getting into a fight with the cashier like a shouting match with the cashier because the cashier wouldn't accept our food stamps. And I was like, standing there. And I was, you know, I still get emotional, I tell the story, because I remember so palpably. The feeling that my mom was putting out, it was like, such complete desperation, like we didn't have food, then the only way to pay for the food was with the food stamps. And then for some reason, the food stamps were not being accepted. And I don't really know what was going on or as to why that was happening. And for me, I think the reason I remember that is because at that moment, I kind of made this decision where I decided something was wrong with us. And something was wrong with me. Because we couldn't pay with regular money. Wow, I started to attach shame, to lack of money. So guilt is I feel bad about something. Shame is I'm bad because of something. So it wasn't. It was shame. Like, we can't pay with regular money. We're broken. There's something wrong with us. Wow. And I remember carrying that I carried it all through childhood. I would always like when I had friends, I would get dropped off down the street. Like if I was hanging out with a friend. And you know, I wouldn't get dropped off at my house, I would get dropped off like seven 810 doors down. And then I would cut through the backyards because I didn't want anybody to see where we live because our house was complete squalor at one point. We have 13 cats. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And there was you know, cat pee all over the walls. And so Chris, you know,

Laura Khalil: 4:27

we're doing a lot of hiding.

Chris Kenney: 4:29

Oh, yeah, I was hiding all I could really and you know, I threw myself into different things in order to kind of kind of hide the pain of what was going on. Like when I was 14 years old. I was a professional juggler. Yeah, I was professionally juggling in the street. And so that was kind of my first entrepreneurial experience.

Laura Khalil: 4:49

Really? Yeah. So

Chris Kenney: 4:51

so that's where that's where I come from.

Laura Khalil: 4:53

Chris, I have more questions about where you came from. When did you realize that your mom's career was different than maybe the friends in the neighborhood or the people you went to school with?

Chris Kenney: 5:06

That's such a great question. Because when you're growing up in Laura, you don't you don't understand that it's different, right? You just don't. It's just what you know, you know, you think everybody's parent is doing something like that. That's, that's what you think I really didn't realize that until I was 17 years old. Because when I was 17, my mom moved. She went out to San Diego, and I moved in at that time with my father, who at that time, I was seeing my dad about once or twice a year. Wow, I didn't really know him that well. So I moved in with him. And then oh, my gosh, then I went into like this period of about a year of like, complete depression. Because it was the first time I actually saw how toxic the environment that I grew up in really, really was. And oh my gosh, there was there was so much like, I don't know, I just keep the same shame. I just felt so bad about what was going on around me there was there was constant parties at my house, there was constant, there was just always noise. Like I still have this like really bad negative association, to the band Pink Floyd, because of the amount of times I got woken up when I was trying to sleep and somebody was down in our house jamming Pink Floyd at two o'clock in the morning,

Unknown: 6:19

Toledo.

Chris Kenney: 6:20

So that happened, then, you know, so I think I was around 17 when I kind of woke up to that. And then it took me, like, into my early 20s, early to mid 20s, I started to realize, you know, I'm really blaming my past, because I wasn't really doing anything with myself. And I was like, blaming my mom and blaming my upbringing and all that stuff. And I just think we all have a choice. When it comes to, you know, a poor upbringing, we can stand on our story, or we can stand in it. And for me, I was standing in it, I was standing in it, it was my source of blame. It was my excuse, it was my like, you know, excuse can become like this little friend that we're constantly connected to. So I made the decision.

Laura Khalil: 7:05

Did someone help you make that decision? Like, did you read a book? Did you go to a lecture did you learn? Did someone like how did that light bulb switch on for you?

Chris Kenney: 7:14

Yeah, I decided I figured that out on my own. I don't, you know, I didn't have a lot of leadership, you know, handed to me when I you know, at a really young age, I got a job. Once I got a really a decent job. And I started to elevate I was I started working in the restaurant business. And I started getting little promotions inside of the restaurant business from like, dishwasher to prep cook, and you know, do it like that. And that's when I started to realize, you know, I've got a choice to make here. I can actually be a person that succeeds in spite of his past rather than doesn't succeed because of it. And I really do believe that's a conscious decision. It's a conscious choice. And the juggling was getting me like a lot of attention. A lot of accolades. I got into the newspaper, I had some. Yeah, had some things happen for me, through the juggling that were getting the attention and helping me feel a little bit better about myself. So

Laura Khalil: 8:09

you were juggling into your 20s?

Chris Kenney: 8:11

Yeah, into my 20s. Yeah, wow, there was this window, right, like, where the cooks were in the kitchen, and there was a window you can see into the kitchen. So when I was on breaks, what I would do is I would actually stand in the window. And this sounds really funny as I say it now. This is what I was doing. I was almost like so desperate for attention, that I would stand in the window, and I would juggle saute pans.

Unknown: 8:36

Oh my gosh, yeah. And then what happened was

Chris Kenney: 8:40

one of the customers came in, and he was a writer for the democrat and Chronicle, which was our local paper. And he saw me doing that. And he came in and he took pictures, and he wrote an article about me and he put it in the food section. Oh my gosh, and that was super cool. And I you know, I could juggle a saute pan, paring knife in an apple and a saute pan, a paring knife and an apple and I was eating the apple.

Laura Khalil: 9:04

No,

Chris Kenney: 9:05

yes, serious. I was doing this as I got as I reflect back I go, Wow, I could actually do that. This incredibly difficult because of the different weight or the objects. Yeah, you have to you need a certain amount of power to flip a saute pan and then if you don't have the same amount of power to flip the paring knife, you're going to cut your finger off. So you know you have to be super focused. And then obviously you have to take a bite of an apple you know, in between all of these things.

Laura Khalil: 9:30

And Chris, how about not stabbing yourself

Chris Kenney: 9:32

and not stabbing yourself? You know, the interesting thing about some of this stuff like what one of the things I learned was so when you juggle fire, right? When you juggle fire, it's actually incredibly difficult to burn yourself because you'd you'd really have to like really grab the torch and like squeeze it in order to actually burn yourself with any you know, any real damage, very difficult to hurt yourself. And then there was the guy who became really famous because he was too killing a chainsaw? I don't know if anybody remember that, right? It's a chainsaw but, and I thought, whoa, that's amazing. Like if he misses is gonna cut it. Whoa, right? Well with a chainsaw, the team that actually does the cutting doesn't spin, unless you press the trigger.

Laura Khalil: 10:18

Oh,

Chris Kenney: 10:20

there was no risk of him cutting anything off because he couldn't juggle and hold his hand on the trigger of the chain size. It's like, these are the types of things I learned as I was growing up. And I was in these circles of juggling and, you know, in that world, but it was it was the thing that kind of started to elevate my confidence and really helped me. So I went from there. And after the restaurant business, I spent seven years in the restaurant business, I still know how to cook. I still love cooking. My wife loves that I love cooking. I still cook quite a bit. So that being said, I then went to college. And then it was after college that I

Laura Khalil: 10:56

got Chris is this in your late 20s at this point or mid 20s that you went

Chris Kenney: 11:00

to? Let's see, I would have been I think I started college when I was 12. Like 2024 25 ish. Yeah, so 2425, went to college, graduated with honors did incredibly well. And then I wanted to be a school psychologist. That was my first like thing I wanted to do school psychology, finished my my degree I went on to try to do a Master's. And I applied into this college with this three out of 3.92 GPA. Right. So I thought there's no way I'm not going to get accepted. Well, long story cut short, I didn't get accepted into the college. And that was the best thing that happened to me was getting that letter in the mail that said, we're not letting you in because that at that point, I made the decision to get a job as a telemarketer. I know that sounds like crazy. So I went I went to this local company, a payroll company, and I got a job as a telemarketer. And that was my first sales job. Okay, and so I started the dialing the phone 150 dials a day, Laura $150 a day for three appointments. So 140 Yes, 147 nose a day. And let me just tell you how I mastered this. Here's the thing. I think we can make things incredibly difficult in our in our minds and in our lives. So I just played the numbers, Laura, I knew that if I dialed 150 times, and I knew I knew my closing percentage, right? So I was like, all right, 150 dials, I'm gonna get 147 knows, you know, one out of every three appointments I booked because that's what I was doing. I was booking appointments for salespeople, and one out of three would sell. They sold it, I'd get credit for the sale, I'd make a commission and I had a sales quota. So all I did was calculate if this is my closing percentage, and this is how many sales I need in order to lead this department or do incredibly well, right. This is just I got to be willing to dial this many times. That was basically what I do. So I dial the dial just over 200 times a day. And I started doing that I started dialing just over 200 times a day, got a few extra appointments because of it. And then in about a two year period, I got promoted out of there, and one into outside sales. Everybody said you'll never get into outside sales in my hometown because it was one of the hardest places to get in. I got in my first year I was so uncomfortable, Laura because people always ask, you know, did you always love it? No, I didn't always love selling I was horribly uncomfortable with it. You know, I was still somewhat introverted, and I was still somewhat lacking confidence. And then oh my gosh, part of my job was I had to call on the CPA community. And that

Laura Khalil: 13:43

was gonna be fun. Chris,

Unknown: 13:44

I was so intimidated. I was like,

Chris Kenney: 13:46

oh my god. So my first year I almost got fired, I almost got let go. And then I started to shift kind of how I was going about selling I started to focus on service, I started to kind of put my own authentic way of selling into the mix. I kind of ditched a lot of the corporate training that I had received and started to kind of tune into I basically found my own way of doing it. And when I shifted into that I started doing incredibly well that I went up and up and up and ended up being one of their top reps. That took me 10 years so that was a 10 year journey. Okay, and then So there I was in this you know, amazing what, what then was an amazing corporate job, but completely lacked any fulfillment at all. And what was happening to me was they kept raising my quota in shrinking my territory. Oh, Lord, so it was getting harder and harder and harder and harder and oh my gosh, so finally in 2008, I took the leap, and I left corporate I just completely laughed. I just quit your dad was one of the more liberating things I've ever done. I put on some Bahamas shorts because back then a Bahamas shorts were cool. I showed up to the Monday morning sales meeting and a pair of shorts and some flip flops.

Laura Khalil: 14:58

That is hilarious. You He

Chris Kenney: 15:00

walked into my boss's I had cleaned out my desk the over the weekend. Oh my gosh, I was completely out. And I walked into his office and he said, I'm not going to talk you out of the sunlight. And I walked out, and that was it. I left.

Laura Khalil: 15:14

Yeah, that's incredible. And boy, 2008, what a year to become an entrepreneur,

Chris Kenney: 15:18

we were in the middle of a huge recession. And everybody listened. Everybody told me, I was out of my mind. Everybody told me I was crazy. And, you know, I just feel that. One of the things that I've learned along the way is that I'm just going to share a universal law because it's coming to me. And I'm feeling called to share the universal laws of law of polarity. And what law of polarity says it says everything in the universe has an opposite. And it exists at the same time. Everything in the universe has an opposite and exists at the same time. So what that means is you can't have left without also having a right. You can't have up without down and without hot without cold. You know, nothing is hot without having cold to compare it to. Yep, everything just is right. So why does that matter? Well, if everything in the universe has an opposite, and it exists at the same time, then if you have a problem, there's a solution. The solution has to be present. Every problem in the universe brings with it the solution.

Unknown: 16:17

Boy, I love that.

Chris Kenney: 16:18

Yeah. So it's realizing that when a problem is present, the solution is also present, its present all the time it's present. Now, it's not present in six months, it's not present in three months, it's not present, when you feel worthy. It's not present. After your competence gets to a certain point, it's present now. And then what happens is the universe puts things in our experience. And those things, usually they are things that will make us extraordinarily uncomfortable, or really stretch us, they could be emotionally expensive, they could be financially expensive, these things will show up in our experience. And the key is having the willingness to move forward in faith. Having the willingness to move forward and faith. Because if you're trying to move forward, and this makes total sense, but thinking what got you here is not going to get you there, your brain does not have a frame of reference for where it's going. It doesn't have a data point to check into that says, hey, this is the way you get to Hey, seven figures as an entrepreneur, because I haven't done it, you haven't done it. So you don't have a you know, you don't have the formula, you have to be consistently willing to step in faith, because you haven't been there yet. So I believe this, I understand this, I live this and the opportunity to become an entrepreneur came into my experience. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I've got to be willing to step in, I've got to be willing to move forward. in faith, I always tell people, the bridge between the physical and the spiritual is faith. The physical is what you have. Now the spiritual is the thing that you want the bridge that takes you there is faith. And I've got example, after example, in my own life, of where tremendous forward movement, in my business, in my personal life, all different areas, my fitness, it all went up in increased from tremendous leaps of faith.

Laura Khalil: 18:19

Wow.

Chris Kenney: 18:20

Like if somebody said, Chris, like, what's the one thing you want people to actually get to people, for them to know and to understand and to leap forward? It's that whole concept of being willing to move forward in faith and understanding that solutions are being put in front of us, but we have to be willing to step in,

Laura Khalil: 18:37

and you have to know how to see them. Right? You know, Chris, one of my mentors would always give this really interesting analogy, which he reminding me of, and he would say, you know, it's like we all imagine we start off in the lobby of a high rise building. And, you know, so you can see the sidewalk, you can see the people walking outside, you can see the entrance to the building across the street, you can see the cabs and cars. But sometimes you need someone to help give you the key to get in the elevator, start to rise and begin to see a different perspective. And when you begin to rise, when you begin to sort of move up, you start to see things in an entirely different way. We're no longer looking at the street and the calves on the street, we're able to expand our vision and see beyond that, see the buildings in the distance, see the park, see, you know, sort of expand the vision as we rise as we grow as we expand and it often takes somebody to help us do that.

Chris Kenney: 19:40

Yeah, that's completely true. And it's you know, the other thing that's really cool about that analogy, is that the way to success actually, you don't have the way when you start it gets revealed in the journey.

Laura Khalil: 19:52

Yeah,

Chris Kenney: 19:52

like you can't see the you know, you hop in the elevator and you can't see you know, what's outside until you get up to like the Third floor, the second floor, you know, depending on, you know how the buildings laid out or whatever, and you see different things as you're traveling up and up and up and up and up. And that's kind of how it is, you know, I think you have to be willing to take imperfect action. So many people get tied up in getting ready to get ready, and then they keep getting ready to get ready, and they want everything to be perfect and

Laura Khalil: 20:20

preach.

Chris Kenney: 20:21

It's just not it's not going to be perfect. But you have to, you have to see the perfection in the imperfection.

Laura Khalil: 20:26

I love that. And I have to go back to when you were doing sales, because there's a question that sort of lingering for me. Yeah. You said you grew up and you had a lot of shame. And there was a lot of hiding involved, you know, in your self preservation, those things kept you alive. And I have to ask you, how if and how the shame around money became present, as you're trying to ask for sales? Or you're trying to book those calls? Did you just have a major block at the beginning? Yeah, I

Chris Kenney: 20:58

did. The thing that helped me get rid of it ultimately was realizing that, you know, I had somebody at a mentor asked me, he said, What does money represent for you? And I said, safety. And when you have that relationship with money, what then happens is, you'll be reluctant to ask other people for it, because you don't want to take away their safety.

Laura Khalil: 21:24

Oh, really?

Chris Kenney: 21:26

Or if they if you say money represents security? Well, you'll under charge, because you don't want to take away somebody else's security.

Laura Khalil: 21:34

Well, okay, Chris, when you said that the first thing I thought of was money represents freedom. Hmm. So would that mean for someone who thinks like me, would that mean, I have a fear of taking away other people's freedom,

Chris Kenney: 21:48

it would cause you likely would likely cause you to under charge, because you don't want to take their freedom. And if you charge them too much, that's what's going to happen.

Laura Khalil: 21:56

So how do we? What is a paradigm to think about money that's abundant for you? And for me?

Chris Kenney: 22:04

Yeah. And I think it's remembering that it's a tool. And it's remembering just what you just said, it's remembering that it is completely abundant. That there is no shortage of it. There's enough for everybody. The other thing that really helped me was, it's funny, I'm not I'm not a religious person, but I am a spiritual person. So when somebody would ask me, you know, where does money come from? I would say, Oh, well, money gets printed? Well, the answer really is money comes from God. And it happens to come through people. So money comes from God and through people. It doesn't come from people, it comes through people. And that that shift in my mind helped me a great deal. When somebody pays me like a significant amount of money. I don't go, you know, john, or Maria just paid me 25,000. I'm like, wow, from God from source I just received $25,000. Do you see what I'm saying? So that that's a completely different thing. And the reason that I that I believe that that money is coming to me is because God or spirit or source is seeing me as a trusted recipient of that money and that I will do good with that money. And then I'll create more impact on the world with that money. And anybody that knows me, knows that I'm incredibly generous with money. I don't eat a ton. I you know, last year before COVID head, I happened to be a season ticket holder for the I live near Buffalo, New York. So we're Buffalo Bills, fans. And you know, so I have season tickets. And last year, I made the decision I bought for extra season tickets on the 50 yard line inside of the Pepsi club, you know, for the best seats in the in the house. And I donated them to a local charity called Camp, good days and special times. And that is an organization that helps families that have children with cancer. So every home game, I got to show up to the gate and I got to meet a new family that had a child that was battling cancer. And I got to hand them four tickets for the 50 yard line so that they could go and have three and a half hours of joy. You know, in Washington, it was a $15,000 thing. It was not cheap to buy. Absolutely. But so the other thing that I realized that I think a lot of people worry about when they think about money, is they think about who they're going to become for what's going to happen to them when they acquire it or, you know, that whole thing and what I've learned is money makes you more of what you already are.

Unknown: 24:36

Wow,

Chris Kenney: 24:37

it doesn't turn you into something else. If you're a complete ass, you're gonna be a complete ass with your money. You know what I mean? You're already a complete ass.

Laura Khalil: 24:48

It's amplifying those

Chris Kenney: 24:50

terrifying but if you're generous, when you have money, you're going to be more generous. So it's not it's it's not what people think it is. We create this mass story in our mind that we're going to turn into this beast or this monster because we've acquired all of this money.

Laura Khalil: 25:06

Well, you know, this is really interesting. And I just want to get your perspective on this, because I'm sure there are people who are listening who are like, Okay, I'm following Chris. Alright. But I have this one question because I see people in the world who have tons of money, billions of dollars, who I have a perception are not doing good with it, who are not giving back. And I don't want to become like them. What do you think about those perceptions of you know, the world's wealthiest people?

Chris Kenney: 25:35

Well, I mean, I guess to me, you know, the, the thing that I'm just gonna be honest, the thing that came to my mind is, for in my head was like, why does that matter? Like, it's almost like control the controllables. I can't control whether another billionaire does with their money, I'll never be able to control what another billionaire does for their money. Is that a good space for me to be spending time and energy in my mind palace of well, you know, john, over there who has $10 million, isn't giving anything, there is all my energy or her my energy, I don't put focus there. And I control you know, the pieces in my life that I can control. And one of those things as well, I feel like I control how much I earn. And I also feel like I can control, you know, how much I give and where I give it and what I do with my money and who I am when I have money and who I'm becoming because of knowing how to make money and all those things. So I just I just don't spend time and energy there.

Laura Khalil: 26:28

I think that is a very valuable response. And I think that's a great question about, one of the things I always say is the quality of your life is based on the quality of the questions you're asking men, that may be a question that is not worth going down the rabbit hole, because to your point, that's out of your control,

Chris Kenney: 26:48

you're never going to win that battle. Right? You're just it's just going to create more struggle in your life and just kind of create a more negative story in your life around money, which is going to impact and here's the thing underneath all of this, Laura, it's, it's not even Money, money is a result of impact. You know, like, we're here to make an impact. That's the whole thing. I think we know, because, you know, for me, when I think about it, I'm impacting a lot of people, I have a large following. I have large groups that I'm serving, and so on and so forth. So therefore, there's a large sum of money that comes in so I don't want anybody to, to think that I'm getting up every day, and I'm totally driven on this whole idea of money. I'm driven by impact first. Yeah. And then money comes as a result, Money Follows

Laura Khalil: 27:34

Money Follows. Okay, so it's 2008, I want to go back to this. It's 2008. You're in the Bahamas shorts. Like waving goodbye to your boss. You build this seven figure business without a website, business cards or digital marketing?

Chris Kenney: 27:50

Yeah, we did our first 300 grand. Their first 300,000 was without a website, or any digital marketing

Laura Khalil: 27:58

is picking up the phone again.

Chris Kenney: 28:00

No, what I did was I knew that I wanted to go out I wanted to start coaching like my coach on a coach. So where I said to myself, well, where are people that are looking for a coach? You know, where can I find them? So I always go right back to the super simple thing. And that is, where are your people? Where are your potential clients? Go where they are? Sell your stuff? That's it. Where are they go where they are, show up? Sell your stuff? I mean, that's it. So I just simply, in 2008 said, Where are these people? And I said, Well, guess what they're at events, where there's a mentor running the event. So I basically went on this tour and just hopped, you know, just started hopping on airplanes, and going to all these events, with all the people from all these different mentors and getting in these rooms, because everybody in there was looking for self development. Everybody in there was wanting help man showed up, had conversations with people went to all the networking meetings, when we set up breakfast with different individuals, we connect, we talk and oh my god, guess what I got hired? Yeah. And I got hired again, and again and again. And then before I had a website, you know, I had started the process of the website, we got to the copy point, and I had all these things I was supposed to get to the designer, and so on and so forth. But I was so busy being out and about and going, I just never got to it. And then I started like leaning on it. I started telling people, you know, I've done 300k I don't have a website, and they go, Oh my God. They'd be like, What, are you insane? And they will, how do I find you? And I was like you just did, right? So standing in front of your face. And I remember going to one event, and the mentor was up on stage happens to also be a personal friend of mine. And she had seen me, you know, the day before the event because I got there the day before and it was kind of moseying around. I was like, Oh my god, hello. And she said, Oh my gosh, and I told her what I had done and she was like, holy crap. And then so here's what she did. She mentioned to me from the stage, she said, Did you know that there's a guy here who doesn't have a website doesn't have a business card. He sold over 300 grand. She's like Chris stand up. So I stood up. So like for the rest of the event, I was getting floods of people coming over with me, you know, I just totally rate in that room. Right. So it was that that's how I did it.

Laura Khalil: 30:15

You know, Chris, I love that you're talking about this, because I think that there are a lot of people who either they're getting into entrepreneurship, or they have been bitten by the internet marketing bug that says, You've got to have 50,000 funnels to drive people through to make a sale, you need to have the perfect automated website and automated this and that and the way I built a multi six figure business is the same as you. I did have a very simple website. But it was one on one talking to people, what are you trying to accomplish? What do you need? And so I love this because you don't necessarily, as you said, people are getting prepared to get prepared to, you know, to plan and all this stuff. And sometimes you just got to get out there. And you can make a big impact in those very different more traditional ways of selling.

Chris Kenney: 31:12

Yeah, there's, there's no question about it. And I just I feel, I think it's about keeping things super simple. And I do I want to if we can't I want to mention, like what happened for us during the pandemic, because everybody would now go, Well, hey, there was a pandemic, and you were out. And I was doing all this offline marketing, going and interacting and connecting, and I was speaking on stage as well. What did you do? Well, what we did for the pandemic was a good onstage, I love speaking, I have fun with it. It's a good skill set that I have. So I was like, Oh, my gosh, I gotta figure out how I can actually continue to be in front of people, but I can't do it live. So we picked one platform, which we chose Facebook, we basically started driving everything that we were doing into this private Facebook group. Right. So we built a Facebook community, I built the community to up over 300 people. And then I started doing weekly content. So I would basically go live inside of the Facebook group once a week, share content, then I added a laser coaching sessions on Tuesdays. So on Tuesdays from one to 130, I do 310 minute laser sessions inside of the Facebook group, and people can come and watch and, you know, be part of that whole experience. We did that for a short period of time. Then we did, we did a five day challenge. We ran a five day challenge. And after the five day challenge, we did what what we would call five days of selling, which is where you know, clients would pop into the Facebook group and share testimonials. I did interviews with clients, I did pop up trainings based on what was showing up in the group. You know, we did that our first launch we did 300 grand.

Unknown: 32:44

Awesome.

Chris Kenney: 32:45

Yeah, that's, that was. So I think what I want to share here is what we did was we did we just picked one platform. And we use one conversion method. So one platform, which was Facebook, one conversion method, which was a challenge. And then here we are now we're a year later in through that, that was a $1.6 million channel for us.

Laura Khalil: 33:05

Incredible.

Chris Kenney: 33:06

So we just basically took the same thing that we were doing, yeah, in the offline, and we moved it into the online space. But just with one platform, not like, I'm going to go over here, and then I'm going to marry this and then I'm going to be on Twitter, and then I'm going to be on LinkedIn. And then I'm going to be done in stories and all this stuff. We did one thing. So I keep coming back to focus concrete, focus.

Laura Khalil: 33:29

I love that Chris, I could very clearly talk to you all day. Because what you're doing is just so so interesting. So first of all, for people who are, you know, maybe struggling with entrepreneurship, maybe they've recently left their job, they're considering leaving, what are a couple pieces, a couple key takeaways you want to leave them with?

Chris Kenney: 33:51

Well, number one, be very specific on who you're communicating to, and like who you're for, like Who who are you marketing to, and try to get that as specific as you possibly can. Because if you can get that incredibly specific and incredibly honed in, it's a lot easier to go where those people are. So in other words, like for example, if you're a mindset coach, it might be more powerful if you were to niche being a mindset coach to a particular industry. So say you become the mindset coach for attorneys, or the mindset coach for physicians. And then you can start going into associations, you can start going into Facebook groups, you can start going into all of these different areas you can write for publications that cater to attorneys or so get as specific as you can. That would be number one and number two, in terms of selling. The key tip that I would give to people around selling especially if you have the idea of creating enrollments that are you know higher ticket or bigger programs is remembering this idea of seen and unseen. So this will take me about 60 seconds to explain. We have seen items and we have unseen items on sales conversation. A scene item is all the stuff above the service. It's the conversation, your questions, their questions, those are obvious. Then there's the unseen stuff, which is the stuff that's not so obvious your view of sales, their view of sales, your views around money, their views around money, your opinion about being asked for money, their opinion about being asked for money, all that stuff is present as well. Now, when you sit down in the conversation, all of those items are present. What I want to see is the person that's in front of you, they have a scene problem. That's why they're interacting with you. They have a problem they know they have, right. The problem, though that creates the sale is what I refer to as an unseen problem. It is a new problem, a problem that they don't realize they have yet it is a new problem that gets revealed in the sales conversation. That's the problem that's going to create the sale. The reason for that is that when we have a problem for a long period of time, right, we become ego attached to the problem. Our sense of self starts to attach to that problem. Right? So then when somebody shows up with a solution to that problem, we have ego attachment, right? That

Unknown: 36:11

let go,

Chris Kenney: 36:13

yeah, it's a threat to the ego. So you start to get things like I don't have the time, I don't have the money. Let me talk to my partner, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When you learn the skill set of revealing a new problem, and you build urgency around the new problem, because it's a new problem, there's no ego attachment to it. And they will be very willing to purchase the solution to that problem.

Laura Khalil: 36:37

Let me just make this sort of like groundless for the audience. So I talked to you and I say, Hey, Chris, I want to get more clients for my business. That's my ego problem. Okay, that's what I'm attached to, I want to get more clients for the business. And then you're telling me that in the sales call, you would reveal or there would be revealed a new problem that I'm not aware of?

Unknown: 36:59

Yeah, and To put

Chris Kenney: 37:00

it simply, you know, to keep it like short and sweet and keep it simple. Because there's, there's a whole other element we could go into here around thinking patterns that create objections, and so on and so forth. Typically, the the unseen problems that are really easy to uncover, are going to be attached to future pain.

Laura Khalil: 37:19

Okay?

Chris Kenney: 37:20

So it's things like what's at risk if this problem is not solved? Fast Forward six months? If this doesn't change, what will happen for you? Who else is impacted by this problem? Yeah, you see what i'm saying you start anything attached attached to a future pain or future problem is a really easy road to kind of like an easy, unseen problem to reveal.

Laura Khalil: 37:45

All right, who is listening to this? And is like, I need Chris's number, because I am listening to Chris right now. And I'm like, I need to get into this Facebook group. Chris, how do we learn more? Where do we go?

Chris Kenney: 37:56

Yeah, the best place to find me is inside of the private Facebook group that I referred to. It's called sales mastery inner circle. So hop over to Facebook sales mastery, inner circle, I think we have around three entry questions, you'll have to answer those questions. And then you'll be led into the group. And again, inside of that group, I do a weekly live show every Thursday. That's 1pm. Eastern. And then every Tuesday at 1pm. Eastern, I do three live laser coaching sessions. So hope to see you all over there.

Laura Khalil: 38:25

I love it. Chris Kenny, thank you so much for joining us.

Chris Kenney: 38:28

Such a pleasure.

Laura Khalil: 38:30

I want to thank you for joining me and remember to subscribe to your favorite app so you can stay up to date. And I would love your review. If you've enjoyed this episode. Please leave a review and comment on Apple podcasts. You can also keep in touch with me online. You can find me on LinkedIn and I'm also on Instagram at force of badassery. All that information will be available in the show notes. Until next time, stay brave